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You would call it an investment, if the USD-YEN prices are so volatile and give you 1000X profit in 6 months. Again, this all goes back to whether Bitcoin is a

You would call it an investment, if the USD-YEN prices are so volatile and give you 1000X profit in 6 months. Again, this all goes back to whether Bitcoin is a store of value or a medium of exchange. By now it's very clear, it can't be medium of exchange.

josephg 9y ago
People keep saying that, but the lightning network is in testing at the moment and when it gets widely deployed we should start seeing near zero transaction fees on the bitcoin network. You can say what you want about the philosophy of that - the lightning network will add yet another group of people who collectively have an outsized control over the network. But if the scaling issues get addressed I don't see any reason why it couldn't work as a currency. And it looks like they are being (slowly) addressed.
- slindz 9y ago
  Any successful Lightning Network (at scale) would require a dramatic block size increase. The last (Lightning Network tech) I saw suggested it would need a 133MB blocksize. Blockstream struck down a modest increase to 2MB in November. They have devs who want to reduce the blocksize. I'm not sure where you're finding hope in LN. Bitcoin Cash forked off to get back to scaling, and it's doing great. Check out how well the mempool stress test went this past week.
  - notsrg 9y ago
    And Bitcoin Cash will need GB or even TB sized blocks to scale to the size of Visa. If scaling the network was as easy as changing 1 variable it wouldn't be that hard to get consensus on a scaling solution.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - slindz 9y ago
      GB blocks are basically ready with today's hardware though the need is years out. It won't be long before TB blocks can say the same, testing is underway. Current prevailing theory in BCH land is the block size is an unnecessary hinderance, and will likely be gone in the next 18 months. Exciting times!
      - jstanley 9y ago
        > GB blocks are basically ready with today's hardware What are you smoking? Even 1GB blocks would be 144GB per day of blockchain growth. You can't expect people to tolerate that kind of disk usage, let alone bandwidth.
        slindz 9y ago
        It is possible today, thankfully not necessary. By the time they're necessary, it'll be a lot less demanding, relatively speaking....
        dang 9y ago
        This breaks the HN guidelines. Commenters here aren't allowed to attack others no matter how wrong someone is. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again.
        imtringued 9y ago
        7000 transactions per second is a lot of of data. If you're keeping history then you cannot store 4200000 transactions per 10 minutes in less than a 1GB block. The problem isn't the blocksize. The problem is that traditional blockchains grow indefinitively and keep onchain data forever.
Robotbeat 9y ago
And what good is a store of value if it's not a medium of exchange and its value is incredibly volatile (and doesn't have some sort of intrinsic industrial value like a metal might)?
- mvkel 9y ago
  Like... stock in any company?
  - Robotbeat 9y ago
    Companies usually have assets, like buildings, real estate, etc.
ezzaf 9y ago
I disagree that short term returns make it an investment. Speculation is term that much better fits the action of buying a currency with intent to return a profit. "A speculator is a person who trades derivatives, commodities, bonds, equities or currencies with a higher than average risk in return for a higher-than-average profit potential" https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/speculator.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/speculator.asp
bandrami 9y ago
Arbitrage is not investment

josephg 9y ago

People keep saying that, but the lightning network is in testing at the moment and when it gets widely deployed we should start seeing near zero transaction fees on the bitcoin network. You can say what you want about the philosophy of that - the lightning network will add yet another group of people who collectively have an outsized control over the network. But if the scaling issues get addressed I don't see any reason why it couldn't work as a currency. And it looks like they are being (slowly) addressed.

slindz 9y ago
Any successful Lightning Network (at scale) would require a dramatic block size increase. The last (Lightning Network tech) I saw suggested it would need a 133MB blocksize. Blockstream struck down a modest increase to 2MB in November. They have devs who want to reduce the blocksize. I'm not sure where you're finding hope in LN. Bitcoin Cash forked off to get back to scaling, and it's doing great. Check out how well the mempool stress test went this past week.
- notsrg 9y ago
  And Bitcoin Cash will need GB or even TB sized blocks to scale to the size of Visa. If scaling the network was as easy as changing 1 variable it wouldn't be that hard to get consensus on a scaling solution.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - slindz 9y ago
    GB blocks are basically ready with today's hardware though the need is years out. It won't be long before TB blocks can say the same, testing is underway. Current prevailing theory in BCH land is the block size is an unnecessary hinderance, and will likely be gone in the next 18 months. Exciting times!
    - jstanley 9y ago
      > GB blocks are basically ready with today's hardware What are you smoking? Even 1GB blocks would be 144GB per day of blockchain growth. You can't expect people to tolerate that kind of disk usage, let alone bandwidth.
      - slindz 9y ago
        It is possible today, thankfully not necessary. By the time they're necessary, it'll be a lot less demanding, relatively speaking....
      - dang 9y ago
        This breaks the HN guidelines. Commenters here aren't allowed to attack others no matter how wrong someone is. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again.
      - imtringued 9y ago
        7000 transactions per second is a lot of of data. If you're keeping history then you cannot store 4200000 transactions per 10 minutes in less than a 1GB block. The problem isn't the blocksize. The problem is that traditional blockchains grow indefinitively and keep onchain data forever.

Robotbeat 9y ago

And what good is a store of value if it's not a medium of exchange and its value is incredibly volatile (and doesn't have some sort of intrinsic industrial value like a metal might)?

mvkel 9y ago
Like... stock in any company?
- Robotbeat 9y ago
  Companies usually have assets, like buildings, real estate, etc.

ezzaf 9y ago

I disagree that short term returns make it an investment. Speculation is term that much better fits the action of buying a currency with intent to return a profit. "A speculator is a person who trades derivatives, commodities, bonds, equities or currencies with a higher than average risk in return for a higher-than-average profit potential" https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/speculator.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/speculator.asp

bandrami 9y ago

Arbitrage is not investment