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https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/935900326007328768 https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/935900326007328768 Well John McAfee thinks bitcoin will

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/935900326007328768 https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/935900326007328768 Well John McAfee thinks bitcoin will hit 1 million by 2020.

lern_too_spel 9y ago
Pump and dumpers gonna pump and dump. https://medium.com/@DEFCON_2015/why-mgt-was-delisted-from-nyse-amex-b919093f1e59 https://medium.com/@DEFCON_2015/why-mgt-was-delisted-from-ny...
- KasianFranks 9y ago
  Or, large investment banking houses will step in and create naked shorting opportunities to inflate sell pressure creating 'death spirals' to drive prices down and scoop them up and extreme discounts. This happens in the traditional public markets everyday.
  - zenlikethat 9y ago
    There’s decent chance big money of some form is behind this recent increase anyway.
  - westurner 9y ago
    > Or, large investment banking houses will step in and create naked shorting opportunities to inflate sell pressure creating 'death spirals' to drive prices down and scoop them up and extreme discounts. This happens in the traditional public markets everyday. Is there a term for this?
    - KasianFranks 9y ago
      Yes, this can happen in a few different ways and is the reason why Ycombinator created SAFEs. When you have a public company you will get offers for what are called "credit lines", "debt financing" or "convertible notes". They are traditionally used to create death spirals https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/deathspiralbond.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/deathspiralbond.... as the size of your float increases by you, executive director (CEO/CFO), as a public company "issuing" more stock to cover the loan. The more you issue, the less you're worth until somebody comes along scoops you up and re-engineers the cap table which is a restructuring. However, manipulation can occur within institutions as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=KasianFranks&next=14592122 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=KasianFranks&next=14...
  - lern_too_spel 9y ago
    There is no such thing as an extreme discount for Bitcoin. I have yet to see anybody try to do a proper valuation for a Bitcoin to set a price target. If there were, institutional investors would buy in and its price in USD would stabilize nearly instantly. No Bitcoin pumpers can give a proper value analysis because its actual value is something approaching 0. It has no use for which it is better than alternatives, even among cryptocurrencies. It is a classic bubble where people buy assuming that a greater fool will come along and buy at a higher price.
    - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
      I get it. You don't understand the application of decentralization and consensus in bitcoin, and how its application separates it from all other alts. Bitcoin is the only real crypto-currency, because it is the only one to have achieved actual decentralization, and therefore is a working implementation of the previously thought unsolvable solution to the Byzantine Generals Problem. Doesn't mean other people don't understand this though, and that number increases every day.
      - lern_too_spel 9y ago
        You don't get it. I understand how consensus works in Bitcoin. I argue that it doesn't provide any advantage over other systems in anything and has overwhelming downsides in all of its current applications. Notably, you have failed to mention any counterexample. Also, the Byzantine Generals Problem was solved multiple times in the paper that introduced it. You were somebody's greater fool. You believe that there will be more greater fools to come. Eventually, you will run out of fools.
        Frogolocalypse 9y ago
        > You don't get it. No you don't, which is why you're still talking about it the way you are. > you have failed to mention any counterexample. What we have now. Inflation debasing your money. This is actually a game theory problem. There are three groups in bitcoin. The users, the holders, and the miners. To understand the way that relationship works, you have to understand what keeps everyone separated and honest. That requires an understanding of the incentives of bitcoin, and that requires understanding what proof-of-work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-work_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-work_system) is. Proof-of-work aligns consensus with the users, because it is the users that are paying the miners through transaction fees. Even holders require users, and more importantly, node owners. Therefore, it is users that are incentivizing the miners. Proof-of-stake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake) aligns consensus with the holders, who are paying the miners. That is an incentive structure that reflects our current financial system. But bitcoin changes this through incentive structures and cryptography. In bitcoin, it is the incentive of the payers, not the paid, that imo is the wild invention of satoshi, and enacted through cryptography. PoS fails because there is only one outcome given that incentive structure. Holders being miners, and then controlling the users. PoW overcomes this because the outcome is the constant tension between all three. At the heart of the solution is what was previously thought to be the unsolvable byzantine generals problem. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance) It is a variation on the two generals problem. The problem is "if you are a number of generals surrounding a castle, how do you coordinate an attack date and ensure that the message to attack is correctly received, when you know that the message may be altered along the way?". There's game theory around what is possible, but that's the gist of it. In the problem, a bad actor can game the system so that everyone loses. I have reduced it to three. Given you know one is a traitor, how do you deliver the message to attack? The way that this is managed is that miners order the transactions, and race to hash them to an algorithm (the work in proof-of-work), which is in bitcoin, SHA-256, until they get an answer that will be accepted by the nodes (proof). They are incentivized to become more and more efficient, and spend more resources as the price increases. The nodes provide the proof in proof-of-work. They say "this block is valid", and all nodes that follow consensus will come to the same agreement. For that work, the nodes award miners bitcoin. The nodes can prove which miner spent more work, but it sometimes takes a few blocks to get it right, which is why you have to wait for a few confirmations. The only real thing that miners can threaten to do is stop users (the people paying them) from receiving blocks. Users and holders, after all, control their own cryptographic proofs to the tokens. But the current miners are only miners of SHA-256 pow algorithm blocks. In an adversarial condition, the miners will have just stopped coming to the party, so the users say 'fuck this' and change the pow. They get a new set of miners, mining a new algorithm, and the holders go 'holy shit, do I wanna spend my cash with a bunch of numpties that couldn't behave themselves?'. And they start spending their cash on the chain that the users say is the real one, and everyone just goes about their business again. Old miners get crushed. New miners think happy days. If the nodes change their software, that's the end of the story. Because the nodes define the consensus, they can. The remaining node owners get to decide whether they want to be owned by the miners, or whether they actually want to still remain users. The holders decide whether they are more likely to be able to realize their money with the miners that now control a drastically centralized subset of nodes, or to continue on in the system that led to them being holders in the first place. Users can't attack the system, because then they would become holders, and users would no longer trust them for the reasons already stated, and they don't hold the cryptographic proofs of the holders. If the holders do that, they lose all of their users, so the only thing they game-theory-wise would do, would be to instate a pow. Why would anyone prefer a system in which the people with the money have all of the power? Otherwise known as the world financial system. Whoever attacks loses, and there's no real way to cheat the system. That's the brilliant solution to the byzantine generals problem. It is a self-sustaining financial system that rewards everyone for participating in it, where incentives are perfectly aligned for its longevity, with an ever reducing supply of tokens that are effectively infinitely divisible, increasing their value per-capita. And no, there isn't any other system in the world that shares these properties. Without these properties, the byzantine generals problem can't be solved, and decentralization can't be achieved. It is a fiendishly clever system, akin to an anti-body to debt-fueled inflation. Like I said, SN was/is/will be a genius. > Eventually, you will run out of fools. That is what is happening to the fixed-asset debt bubble. Bitcoin is its reckoning.

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/935900326007328768 https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/935900326007328768 Well John McAfee thinks bitcoin will hit 1 million by 2020.

lern_too_spel 9y ago

Pump and dumpers gonna pump and dump. https://medium.com/@DEFCON_2015/why-mgt-was-delisted-from-nyse-amex-b919093f1e59 https://medium.com/@DEFCON_2015/why-mgt-was-delisted-from-ny...

KasianFranks 9y ago
Or, large investment banking houses will step in and create naked shorting opportunities to inflate sell pressure creating 'death spirals' to drive prices down and scoop them up and extreme discounts. This happens in the traditional public markets everyday.
- zenlikethat 9y ago
  There’s decent chance big money of some form is behind this recent increase anyway.
- westurner 9y ago
  > Or, large investment banking houses will step in and create naked shorting opportunities to inflate sell pressure creating 'death spirals' to drive prices down and scoop them up and extreme discounts. This happens in the traditional public markets everyday. Is there a term for this?
  - KasianFranks 9y ago
    Yes, this can happen in a few different ways and is the reason why Ycombinator created SAFEs. When you have a public company you will get offers for what are called "credit lines", "debt financing" or "convertible notes". They are traditionally used to create death spirals https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/deathspiralbond.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/deathspiralbond.... as the size of your float increases by you, executive director (CEO/CFO), as a public company "issuing" more stock to cover the loan. The more you issue, the less you're worth until somebody comes along scoops you up and re-engineers the cap table which is a restructuring. However, manipulation can occur within institutions as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=KasianFranks&next=14592122 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=KasianFranks&next=14...
- lern_too_spel 9y ago
  There is no such thing as an extreme discount for Bitcoin. I have yet to see anybody try to do a proper valuation for a Bitcoin to set a price target. If there were, institutional investors would buy in and its price in USD would stabilize nearly instantly. No Bitcoin pumpers can give a proper value analysis because its actual value is something approaching 0. It has no use for which it is better than alternatives, even among cryptocurrencies. It is a classic bubble where people buy assuming that a greater fool will come along and buy at a higher price.
  - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
    I get it. You don't understand the application of decentralization and consensus in bitcoin, and how its application separates it from all other alts. Bitcoin is the only real crypto-currency, because it is the only one to have achieved actual decentralization, and therefore is a working implementation of the previously thought unsolvable solution to the Byzantine Generals Problem. Doesn't mean other people don't understand this though, and that number increases every day.
    - lern_too_spel 9y ago
      You don't get it. I understand how consensus works in Bitcoin. I argue that it doesn't provide any advantage over other systems in anything and has overwhelming downsides in all of its current applications. Notably, you have failed to mention any counterexample. Also, the Byzantine Generals Problem was solved multiple times in the paper that introduced it. You were somebody's greater fool. You believe that there will be more greater fools to come. Eventually, you will run out of fools.
      - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
        > You don't get it. No you don't, which is why you're still talking about it the way you are. > you have failed to mention any counterexample. What we have now. Inflation debasing your money. This is actually a game theory problem. There are three groups in bitcoin. The users, the holders, and the miners. To understand the way that relationship works, you have to understand what keeps everyone separated and honest. That requires an understanding of the incentives of bitcoin, and that requires understanding what proof-of-work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-work_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-work_system) is. Proof-of-work aligns consensus with the users, because it is the users that are paying the miners through transaction fees. Even holders require users, and more importantly, node owners. Therefore, it is users that are incentivizing the miners. Proof-of-stake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake) aligns consensus with the holders, who are paying the miners. That is an incentive structure that reflects our current financial system. But bitcoin changes this through incentive structures and cryptography. In bitcoin, it is the incentive of the payers, not the paid, that imo is the wild invention of satoshi, and enacted through cryptography. PoS fails because there is only one outcome given that incentive structure. Holders being miners, and then controlling the users. PoW overcomes this because the outcome is the constant tension between all three. At the heart of the solution is what was previously thought to be the unsolvable byzantine generals problem. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance) It is a variation on the two generals problem. The problem is "if you are a number of generals surrounding a castle, how do you coordinate an attack date and ensure that the message to attack is correctly received, when you know that the message may be altered along the way?". There's game theory around what is possible, but that's the gist of it. In the problem, a bad actor can game the system so that everyone loses. I have reduced it to three. Given you know one is a traitor, how do you deliver the message to attack? The way that this is managed is that miners order the transactions, and race to hash them to an algorithm (the work in proof-of-work), which is in bitcoin, SHA-256, until they get an answer that will be accepted by the nodes (proof). They are incentivized to become more and more efficient, and spend more resources as the price increases. The nodes provide the proof in proof-of-work. They say "this block is valid", and all nodes that follow consensus will come to the same agreement. For that work, the nodes award miners bitcoin. The nodes can prove which miner spent more work, but it sometimes takes a few blocks to get it right, which is why you have to wait for a few confirmations. The only real thing that miners can threaten to do is stop users (the people paying them) from receiving blocks. Users and holders, after all, control their own cryptographic proofs to the tokens. But the current miners are only miners of SHA-256 pow algorithm blocks. In an adversarial condition, the miners will have just stopped coming to the party, so the users say 'fuck this' and change the pow. They get a new set of miners, mining a new algorithm, and the holders go 'holy shit, do I wanna spend my cash with a bunch of numpties that couldn't behave themselves?'. And they start spending their cash on the chain that the users say is the real one, and everyone just goes about their business again. Old miners get crushed. New miners think happy days. If the nodes change their software, that's the end of the story. Because the nodes define the consensus, they can. The remaining node owners get to decide whether they want to be owned by the miners, or whether they actually want to still remain users. The holders decide whether they are more likely to be able to realize their money with the miners that now control a drastically centralized subset of nodes, or to continue on in the system that led to them being holders in the first place. Users can't attack the system, because then they would become holders, and users would no longer trust them for the reasons already stated, and they don't hold the cryptographic proofs of the holders. If the holders do that, they lose all of their users, so the only thing they game-theory-wise would do, would be to instate a pow. Why would anyone prefer a system in which the people with the money have all of the power? Otherwise known as the world financial system. Whoever attacks loses, and there's no real way to cheat the system. That's the brilliant solution to the byzantine generals problem. It is a self-sustaining financial system that rewards everyone for participating in it, where incentives are perfectly aligned for its longevity, with an ever reducing supply of tokens that are effectively infinitely divisible, increasing their value per-capita. And no, there isn't any other system in the world that shares these properties. Without these properties, the byzantine generals problem can't be solved, and decentralization can't be achieved. It is a fiendishly clever system, akin to an anti-body to debt-fueled inflation. Like I said, SN was/is/will be a genius. > Eventually, you will run out of fools. That is what is happening to the fixed-asset debt bubble. Bitcoin is its reckoning.