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But why arbitrarily limit its potential in this way? If we could run the economy on blockchain, why not? Like you say, blockchain as a concept has many desira

But why arbitrarily limit its potential in this way? If we could run the economy on blockchain, why not? Like you say, blockchain as a concept has many desirable traits that make it superior to a fiat currency. But if Bitcoin in particular were designed in a way that allowed it to avoid rapid fluctuation, I could see it slowly rising in use, until after many years it's powering a lot of commerce instead of the US dollar. As it is, it's going to reach a ceiling of usefulness that a differently architected blockchain wouldn't have.

psyc 9y ago
There are more than 1000 cryptocurrencies. One of them must have the properties you're looking for.
- nrhk 9y ago
  Not a single one of them has the ability to scale. At least nothing close to production ready. You have the PoS folks, IOTA's got an interesting strategy and some other paradigms but for now its still conjecture. Decentralized distributed technologies will likely always be slower than centralized monoliths.
  - revmoo 9y ago
    > Not a single one of them has the ability to scale. Cryptos don't have to scale. Cash doesn't scale. Visa is the answer to cash's scaling problems. I'm always baffled when people argue about the scaling issue as if it couldn't be easily circumvented by placing a settlement layer on top of it. The correct way to attack cryptocurrencies is to draw attention to potential issues like fatal wealth-destroying software bugs or possible economy-ruining monetary policies, not trifling tech growing pains. "Cryptos can't scale" is the "nobody needs more than 640k" of the 2000s.
  - mrgordon 9y ago
    Its on the 2018 roadmap for pretty much every (non-ICO-pump-and-dump) coin.
- Retra 9y ago
  Just because 1000 of something exists doesn't mean they have every property among them.
- mvindahl 9y ago
  Really? 1000+? That's crazy. There is a great irony in the fact that cryptocurrencies are designed to be finite in size to ensure their value, yet the number of potential cryptocurrencies in the world is pretty much infinite.
baby 9y ago
It’s never going to be useful if it doesn’t get adopted/get traction. The raise has attracted a LOT of people. We’re at a point where even my grand mother is starting to hear/read about it in the news. We’re at a point where my parents are thinking of investing in bitcoin. At some point. When this hype and unstability will have allowed for tools and bridges to be built, it will be not be welcome anymore.
- mediaman 9y ago
  I think you are saying that the publicity of Bitcoin will have created awareness of blockchain concepts, and from the ashes of Bitcoin will rise a blockchain that could be a good currency, and that new blockchain couldn't get awareness without BC's headline-grabbing hype that clears the way. That makes sense. Maybe BC is just the sacrificial starter we needed to ultimately result in adoption of a blockchain that works better. And some people will make a lot of money from BC, some people will lose a lot, and in the end we'll get something better.
  - baby 9y ago
    I'm not saying that this will happen for a different blockchain since the tools are mainly buing built for bitcoin.
deepGem 9y ago
If we could run the economy on blockchain, why not? One potential obstruction to this is probably the speed of transaction confirmation. I believe it takes about an hour for a transaction to be confirmed. If we equate that to a current fiat currency based transaction confirmation which takes just a fraction of a second, we are way off. I may be wrong in this comparison. What I do understand is that, you can't have the blockchain and also the speed of a fiat currency based transaction confirmation. What I don't understand is - Is this confirmation so crucial. I see blockchain as more amenable to existing workflows that takes eons to complete, such as an approval in an organization.
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  Digital currency isn't competing with credit card networks, it's competing with ACH. ACH transfers take days; wire transfers take minutes to hours and cost tens of dollars. There's ever possibility of running a digital currency that can clear transactions on the order of minutes with minimal cost. Bitcoin isn't well suited to that, partially because it hasn't been managed well. A credit card would still pre-authorize against a balance at an institution, but it would settle between the customer and merchant bank on the same schedule (when the merchant cleared their transactions for the week) or faster (eg, on the order of minutes). That makes credit cards considerably closer to cash (fast) than what they are now, like checks (slow). And for people who wanted it to settle immediately or treat it like cash, they could make a direct transfer, and have it clear on the order of minutes. (Not great for coffee, but something like buying a car.) Digital currencies can be those things, they're just not.
  - deepGem 9y ago
    And for people who wanted it to settle immediately or treat it like cash, they could make a direct transfer, , and have it clear on the order of minutes. Can you please elaborate on this a bit more. What is direct transfer and how is it different from bitcoin /ethereum payments. From what I understand, they are the same.
    - SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
perseusprime11 9y ago
Limiting makes sense to me. Just like you cannot mine infinite gold on this planet, you are not allowed to mine infinite amounts of bitcoin or else it would lose value. Will gold be as values as what it is now if it available in abundance.
candiodari 9y ago
> If we could run the economy on blockchain, why not? Because we can't. Given that there are trade imbalances between countries (and assuming we want the economy to actually continue to run, as opposed to transfer all the wealth in the world to first one country, then one person, and then stop alltogether) That means trade imbalances must be forgiven. Our current system does that through credit creation and crashes (bankruptcies). Bitcoin simply ignores the problem. Therefore bitcoin economic model is designed to transfer all the wealth to the rich and stop.
- ric2b 9y ago
  As opposed to the current model where newly printed money is given straight to the rich (banks)? I don't see how Bitcoin is in any way worse than that.

psyc 9y ago

There are more than 1000 cryptocurrencies. One of them must have the properties you're looking for.

nrhk 9y ago
Not a single one of them has the ability to scale. At least nothing close to production ready. You have the PoS folks, IOTA's got an interesting strategy and some other paradigms but for now its still conjecture. Decentralized distributed technologies will likely always be slower than centralized monoliths.
- revmoo 9y ago
  > Not a single one of them has the ability to scale. Cryptos don't have to scale. Cash doesn't scale. Visa is the answer to cash's scaling problems. I'm always baffled when people argue about the scaling issue as if it couldn't be easily circumvented by placing a settlement layer on top of it. The correct way to attack cryptocurrencies is to draw attention to potential issues like fatal wealth-destroying software bugs or possible economy-ruining monetary policies, not trifling tech growing pains. "Cryptos can't scale" is the "nobody needs more than 640k" of the 2000s.
- mrgordon 9y ago
  Its on the 2018 roadmap for pretty much every (non-ICO-pump-and-dump) coin.
Retra 9y ago
Just because 1000 of something exists doesn't mean they have every property among them.
mvindahl 9y ago
Really? 1000+? That's crazy. There is a great irony in the fact that cryptocurrencies are designed to be finite in size to ensure their value, yet the number of potential cryptocurrencies in the world is pretty much infinite.

baby 9y ago

It’s never going to be useful if it doesn’t get adopted/get traction. The raise has attracted a LOT of people. We’re at a point where even my grand mother is starting to hear/read about it in the news. We’re at a point where my parents are thinking of investing in bitcoin. At some point. When this hype and unstability will have allowed for tools and bridges to be built, it will be not be welcome anymore.

mediaman 9y ago
I think you are saying that the publicity of Bitcoin will have created awareness of blockchain concepts, and from the ashes of Bitcoin will rise a blockchain that could be a good currency, and that new blockchain couldn't get awareness without BC's headline-grabbing hype that clears the way. That makes sense. Maybe BC is just the sacrificial starter we needed to ultimately result in adoption of a blockchain that works better. And some people will make a lot of money from BC, some people will lose a lot, and in the end we'll get something better.
- baby 9y ago
  I'm not saying that this will happen for a different blockchain since the tools are mainly buing built for bitcoin.

deepGem 9y ago

If we could run the economy on blockchain, why not? One potential obstruction to this is probably the speed of transaction confirmation. I believe it takes about an hour for a transaction to be confirmed. If we equate that to a current fiat currency based transaction confirmation which takes just a fraction of a second, we are way off. I may be wrong in this comparison. What I do understand is that, you can't have the blockchain and also the speed of a fiat currency based transaction confirmation. What I don't understand is - Is this confirmation so crucial. I see blockchain as more amenable to existing workflows that takes eons to complete, such as an approval in an organization.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
Digital currency isn't competing with credit card networks, it's competing with ACH. ACH transfers take days; wire transfers take minutes to hours and cost tens of dollars. There's ever possibility of running a digital currency that can clear transactions on the order of minutes with minimal cost. Bitcoin isn't well suited to that, partially because it hasn't been managed well. A credit card would still pre-authorize against a balance at an institution, but it would settle between the customer and merchant bank on the same schedule (when the merchant cleared their transactions for the week) or faster (eg, on the order of minutes). That makes credit cards considerably closer to cash (fast) than what they are now, like checks (slow). And for people who wanted it to settle immediately or treat it like cash, they could make a direct transfer, and have it clear on the order of minutes. (Not great for coffee, but something like buying a car.) Digital currencies can be those things, they're just not.
- deepGem 9y ago
  And for people who wanted it to settle immediately or treat it like cash, they could make a direct transfer, , and have it clear on the order of minutes. Can you please elaborate on this a bit more. What is direct transfer and how is it different from bitcoin /ethereum payments. From what I understand, they are the same.
  - SomeStupidPoint 9y ago

perseusprime11 9y ago

Limiting makes sense to me. Just like you cannot mine infinite gold on this planet, you are not allowed to mine infinite amounts of bitcoin or else it would lose value. Will gold be as values as what it is now if it available in abundance.

candiodari 9y ago

> If we could run the economy on blockchain, why not? Because we can't. Given that there are trade imbalances between countries (and assuming we want the economy to actually continue to run, as opposed to transfer all the wealth in the world to first one country, then one person, and then stop alltogether) That means trade imbalances must be forgiven. Our current system does that through credit creation and crashes (bankruptcies). Bitcoin simply ignores the problem. Therefore bitcoin economic model is designed to transfer all the wealth to the rich and stop.

ric2b 9y ago
As opposed to the current model where newly printed money is given straight to the rich (banks)? I don't see how Bitcoin is in any way worse than that.