7 ms·

Cyprus citizens who had their deposits confiscated in 2013 by their banks emphatically disagree with you. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-10/new-laws-allo

by mrb 9y ago

Cyprus citizens who had their deposits confiscated in 2013 by their banks emphatically disagree with you. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-10/new-laws-allow-government-seize-savings-deposits-during-crisis http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-10/new-laws-allow-gove... A man who was moving across states carrying his savings in cash and who had everything confiscated by police under civil forfeiture law emphatically disagree with you. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/07/dea-asset-forfeiture-joseph-rivers_n_7231744.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/07/dea-asset-forfeitur... Venezuelans who see the value of their currency evaporate and inflate 4000% yearly because of incompetence from their central bank emphatically disagree with you. http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/22/news/economy/venezuela-currency-crash/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/22/news/economy/venezuela-curre... You see, despite being volatile, Bitcoin still solves important issues. Fundamentally it gives people the ability to carry "digital cash" and encrypt it, protect it, back it up, in a way infinitely more robust than a banknote in your pocket, or digital numbers in a computerized bank account.

ballenarosada 9y ago
see, it's the "infinitely more robust" part which is still lacking here.
arkh 9y ago
> You see, despite being volatile, Bitcoin still solves important issues. Which ones? Can you use bitcoin to pay for some food? Or to get your roof fixed?
- ihsw2 9y ago
  There is a difference between currencies and stores of value -- its viability as the former is weak at best but it is formidable in the latter. Now, that said, its worth as a speculative investment vehicle is proven. Low cost to acquire, low cost to sell, abundant, minimally appreciates in value over an 18-month period (much less a quarter-century), resistant to tampering (setting aside external price manipulation), high popularity -- few other speculative investment vehicles outside of the finance industry have had such success. Granted, its staying power is an unknown and whether it will be around when it reaches its 25-year age is something else to consider.
  - Jtsummers 9y ago
    A store of value is the function of an asset that can be saved, retrieved and exchanged at a later time, and be predictably useful when retrieved. Bitcoin is crappy as a store of value, you cannot predictably sell your position in BTC to any other currency for the same or greater amount that you put in before. Actual stores of value include real estate, bonds, currency (real currency, not crypto"currency" that can't be used as a currency), and collectibles. Stocks are not stores of value. Their prices are too volatile. Cryptocurrencies, presently, are not stores of value. Their prices are too volatile.
- stickydink 9y ago
  Yes and, yes http://spendbitcoins.com/places/c/food/serving/All http://spendbitcoins.com/places/c/food/serving/All http://spendbitcoins.com/places/c/contractors/ http://spendbitcoins.com/places/c/contractors/
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    460 restaurants and 22 contractors. In the entire world. You're proving the point you're attempting to debunk.
    - Klathmon 9y ago
      That's like pointing out that there were only a few "highways" a decade after the car was invented...
      - soVeryTired 9y ago
        Or like pointing out there were only a few zeppelin routes when the Hindenburg launched.
      - ceejayoz 9y ago
        There were plenty of roads in the late 1800s.
  - georgeecollins 9y ago
    That's hilarious. I can use bitcoin to buy a sandwich in Jacksonville Florida. Who knew?
    - thousandautumns 9y ago
      Venezuela is saved!
      - dang 9y ago
        Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
- throwaway1X2 9y ago
  > Can you use bitcoin to pay for some food? Or to get your roof fixed? This is a bit of false argument. One of the most universally recognized value stores is gold. Yet, can you use gold to pay for some food? Try marching into Tesco, grab some groceries, drop the gold bar on the counter and expect change... Yes, if you overpay it 50-times (a 1 oz gold bar for 20 EUR groceries), someone (cashier, other customer, anybody) will accept it on their personal risk (maybe it is fake? who in sane mind would pay with gold at grocery store?), pay for you, take your gold and give you the groceries. But by definition: no, you cannot pay for food with gold/Bitcoin/diamonds/stocks/land/weapons/tobacco/alcohol/other food... At most, you can barter it. One of the most ridiculous cases I have seen lately is comparing Bitcoin fees with paying for coffee. Do you pay for coffee with gold bars? Do you pay for coffee with international non-SEPA bank transfers (expect 30 EUR fee, more than BTC, and weeks-long fulfillment)? Yes, Bitcoin was originally intended as "pay-for-coffee" currency. No, it isn't that anymore, it shifted more towards value store, settlement money between large entities, alternative to global bank transfers. My favorite counterexample is: Can you run from war conflict with money or gold under your shirt? You will be searched, stripped from cash and possibly detained. Or learn 20 English words, run naked and input those 20 words into the computer on the other end of the world. Do you think this is a overinflated example applied only to the worst parts of the world, where nobody have the money with them anyway? We, in the civilized world don't have any of such oppressions, right? Try leaving European Union with more than 10 000 EUR... During my business flights (especially to Arabic countries, where people were returning from shopping trips in Vienna etc.), I have seen quite a few folks detained just because of the cash they had on person.
  - arkh 9y ago
    So the important problem fixed by Bitcoin is getting some value which can be electronicaly moved. I guess banks never thought of offering this kind of service. Thanks Satoshi!
    - mrb 9y ago
      ...which can be electronicaly moved without giving away control of your funds to a company/government who can easily seize, devalue, or prevent you from accessing your funds. That's the important issue that bitcoin solves. Do you understand what being decentralized & permissionless mean? And the power shift it implies on a social level?
krrrh 9y ago
> in a way infinitely more robust You make some good points but please don’t abuse the English language like this.
nxsynonym 9y ago
The pros and use cases are all theoretical though. With nothing to stabilize the price it will continue to fluctuate wildly. From the examples you provided: if that man deposited his savings into Bitcoin last week, and had to withdraw today, he would be at an enormous loss. Not everyone is in a position to 'hodl'. If Venezuelans deposit their weekly paycheck into Bitcoin, but have no way of spending it on tangible goods - they still need to convert back into their domestic currency. The only thing that changes is now they pay transaction fees. Yes - the technology can solve some issues. But not how it is currently implemented.
akhatri_aus 9y ago
You can still seize Bitcoins with a court order.
- wonderwonder 9y ago
  Only if you have the private key or wallet password
  - exelius 9y ago
    Which you can be thrown in jail for refusing to disclose. No need to crack a password when they can deprive you of life or liberty.
  - code_duck 9y ago
    They could seize the physical items that have your wallet or keys stored on them. Anyhow, it’s not as if they would just give up if you refused to produce the password. In the US one can be jailed indefinitely for contempt of court. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/feds-say-suspect-should-rot-in-prison-for-refusing-to-decrypt-drives/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/feds-say-suspect...
    - wonderwonder 9y ago
      Of course they could. But its an extra step compared to just having the bank seize all of your accounts. At the end of the day the government can do whatever it wants, crypto currencies just add a little extra layer of personal security. However cursory it may be.
    - mrb 9y ago
      You can have a warpwallet or a seed memorized. No digital trace. No physical device to seize. Plausible deniability.
  - FireBeyond 9y ago
    Not necessarily. You could destroy all copies of the wallet. The value would be lost. Certainly, knowing that those were 'all copies' would be a challenge, but you could then monitor that wallet and hold a person in contempt if there were later transactions from that wallet.
ceejayoz 9y ago
> Cyprus citizens who had their deposits confiscated in 2013 by their banks emphatically disagree with you. The same could happen to Coinbase etc. Sure, you can store it yourself in a wallet, just as Cyprus citizens could put money under their mattresses. > A man who was moving across states carrying his savings in cash and who had everything confiscated by police under civil forfeiture law emphatically disagree with you. If he'd had the same amount in Bitcoin on a hardware wallet, there's a decent chance they'd have taken that as well. Hell, they managed to get DPR's coins and sell them for nearly $50M. > Venezuelans who see the value of their currency evaporate and inflate 4000% yearly because of incompetence from their central bank emphatically disagree with you. Bitcoin lost half its value this month...
- dwg 9y ago
  > The same could happen to Coinbase etc. Sure, you can store it yourself in a wallet, just as Cyprus citizens could put money under their mattresses. Assuming eventual widespread adoption of bitcoin or a competing coin, storing your own funds in your own wallet has basically the same advantages as storing money in a bank, but without the same risks (of the bank or the mattress). > If he'd had the same amount in Bitcoin on a hardware wallet, there's a decent chance they'd have taken that as well. Hell, they managed to get DPR's coins and sell them for nearly $50M. Cash out of your hands is cash you no longer control. Hardware wallets can have pin codes and other measures to prevent the funds from being used and help you recover them later. > Bitcoin lost half its value this month... Was the drop in the Venezuelans currency preceded by a huge run-up in value as was Bitcoins? Who has lost more value?—people holding bitcoin over the last few years or people holding Bolivars over the same period?
  - tzakrajs 9y ago
    My what a low bar you have set for Bitcoin.
    - dwg 9y ago
      How so?
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> Cyprus citizens who had their deposits confiscated in 2013 by their banks emphatically disagree with you Insured deposits were un-affected--anyone with less than €100,000 lost nothing [1]. 47.5% of un-insured deposits converted to equity [2]. That was in the depths of a national financial crisis. Meanwhile, today is Wednesday and everyone in Bitcoin lost 50% of their purchasing power from peak mark. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyprus-parliament/cyprus-banks-remain-closed-to-avert-run-on-deposits-idUSBRE92G03I20130325 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyprus-parliament/cyprus-... [2] https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21598649-bail-out-working-bail-isnt-injured-island https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/2159864...
- adventured 9y ago
  To that point, the FDIC is at $250,000. Which covers ~99% of all bank accounts in the US.
- Cyberdog 9y ago
  It's not the number that was stolen that's important. It's the principle that a government would be able to do such a thing in the first place.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > It's the principle that a government would be able to do such a thing in the first place What makes you think your government couldn't seize Bitcoins from Coinbase or knock down a door and seize a hardware wallet?
    - Brockenstein 9y ago
      Considering the U.S. Government has already seized millions of dollars worth of bitcoin I can't believe anyone would try to float "safety from gubberment theft" as a feature. People in bitcoin who are government proof are about as common as people running console emulators and not violating any copyright laws in the process.
    - 9y ago
wickawic 9y ago
I am empathetic to your point, and the constant state of 'surveillance' of my monetary actions is something that I always take issue with. On the other hand, I don't think these are compelling points: 1. If we were using cryptocurrencies as real currencies, bet your bottom dollar that your local government will have a way to control the use of it. A government is defined by its ability to use (possibly deadly) force to achieve its goals; if your local government legislates (or dictator dictates) that bitcoin is tantamount to money laundering, how useful is your BTC in a jail cell? 2. The same could have happened if they confiscated his laptop with his wallet info on it. What the police did was horrible and not justified; I am only claiming that btc would not have helped any more than a savings account. In fact, the savings account is insured! 3. Instead they invest in a cryptocurrency that is subject to the incompetence of people who do not have a single thought about the plight of the Venezuelans. Bitcoin does not permanently solve any issue that is created by malevolent governance. It is the same issue with saying that people can circumvent laws by using VPCs; it might be working for now, and it might work in the future, but it mostly depends on the ignorance/incompetence of government to regulate or enforce. If your government feels helpless in enforcing laws, it will resort to physical force. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
thousandautumns 9y ago
> Cyprus citizens who had their deposits confiscated in 2013 by their banks emphatically disagree with you. Yes, and plenty of people have also lost their bitcoin to their exchanges/online wallets/hackers. And yes, with adequate security and personal cold storage, some of this can be avoided, but if you want to actually transact with Bitcoin these days, you have to convert to fiat since using Bitcoin as an actual currency right now is a train wreck, which means you have to interact with an exchange. And if you do use personal storage, and were to lose your keys or passwords, there is no recovering your money. Its gone forever. > A man who was moving across states carrying his savings in cash and who had everything confiscated by police under civil forfeiture law emphatically disagree with you. I'm sorry, how is this related to a bank? The entire problem is that the man had his savings in cash and not in a bank. If your issue is with the government seizing his money, the government has seized Bitcoins as well. > Venezuelans who see the value of their currency evaporate and inflate 4000% yearly because of incompetence from their central bank emphatically disagree with you. I fail to see how this is worse than a currency that is as volatile as Bitcoin is, which is also subject to manipulation by anonymous institutions, investors, and governments, if not directly then indirectly.
Brockenstein 9y ago
A few flaws in your arguments. 1. So what about all the other central banks that have been fairly stable for generations and have done fairly well in their stated goals? 2. Civil asset forfeiture isn't a banking issue. And you're naive if you think police can't seize a bitcoin wallet. The government has already done that http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/12/15/bitcoin_seized_by_the_u_s_government_during_an_arrest_can_be_sold_a_judge.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/12/15/bitcoin_s... Most users aren't going to practice the ideal security to prevent their crypto-currency for being seized. We know this because we have decades of experience knowing how careless and cavalier users are towards digital security. The currency isn't going to do it for them, so it's not a feature. Period. 3. When Bitcoin is shockingly volatile, so much so that you have to compare it with one of the worst failing economies in the world to make it seem less bad, well, that's a compelling argument. Call me up when there's a serious challenge to something like the USD or EUR. 4. Bitcoin is an interesting experiment. And under ideal conditions could address some issues you've mentioned. But conditions aren't ideal, it appears to be a mess really. Governments can still seize bitcoin. Governments can still regulate it. Half the things you tout have fallen flat on it's face and the other half certainly don't outweigh the glaringly obvious faults. But hey, if you get in at the right moment, cha-ching. Which begs the question, you now hold $10 million USD in bitcoin, how many millions do you convert into banknotes or digital numbers in a computerized bank account to protect your wealth from the volatility?
FireBeyond 9y ago
> Venezuelans who see the value of their currency evaporate and inflate 4000% yearly because of incompetence from their central bank emphatically disagree with you. Customers of Mt Gox are likely to emphatically agree with him.

by mrb 9y ago

ballenarosada 9y ago

see, it's the "infinitely more robust" part which is still lacking here.

arkh 9y ago

> You see, despite being volatile, Bitcoin still solves important issues. Which ones? Can you use bitcoin to pay for some food? Or to get your roof fixed?

ihsw2 9y ago
There is a difference between currencies and stores of value -- its viability as the former is weak at best but it is formidable in the latter. Now, that said, its worth as a speculative investment vehicle is proven. Low cost to acquire, low cost to sell, abundant, minimally appreciates in value over an 18-month period (much less a quarter-century), resistant to tampering (setting aside external price manipulation), high popularity -- few other speculative investment vehicles outside of the finance industry have had such success. Granted, its staying power is an unknown and whether it will be around when it reaches its 25-year age is something else to consider.
- Jtsummers 9y ago
  A store of value is the function of an asset that can be saved, retrieved and exchanged at a later time, and be predictably useful when retrieved. Bitcoin is crappy as a store of value, you cannot predictably sell your position in BTC to any other currency for the same or greater amount that you put in before. Actual stores of value include real estate, bonds, currency (real currency, not crypto"currency" that can't be used as a currency), and collectibles. Stocks are not stores of value. Their prices are too volatile. Cryptocurrencies, presently, are not stores of value. Their prices are too volatile.
stickydink 9y ago
Yes and, yes http://spendbitcoins.com/places/c/food/serving/All http://spendbitcoins.com/places/c/food/serving/All http://spendbitcoins.com/places/c/contractors/ http://spendbitcoins.com/places/c/contractors/
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  460 restaurants and 22 contractors. In the entire world. You're proving the point you're attempting to debunk.
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    That's like pointing out that there were only a few "highways" a decade after the car was invented...
    - soVeryTired 9y ago
      Or like pointing out there were only a few zeppelin routes when the Hindenburg launched.
    - ceejayoz 9y ago
      There were plenty of roads in the late 1800s.
- georgeecollins 9y ago
  That's hilarious. I can use bitcoin to buy a sandwich in Jacksonville Florida. Who knew?
  - thousandautumns 9y ago
    Venezuela is saved!
    - dang 9y ago
      Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
throwaway1X2 9y ago
> Can you use bitcoin to pay for some food? Or to get your roof fixed? This is a bit of false argument. One of the most universally recognized value stores is gold. Yet, can you use gold to pay for some food? Try marching into Tesco, grab some groceries, drop the gold bar on the counter and expect change... Yes, if you overpay it 50-times (a 1 oz gold bar for 20 EUR groceries), someone (cashier, other customer, anybody) will accept it on their personal risk (maybe it is fake? who in sane mind would pay with gold at grocery store?), pay for you, take your gold and give you the groceries. But by definition: no, you cannot pay for food with gold/Bitcoin/diamonds/stocks/land/weapons/tobacco/alcohol/other food... At most, you can barter it. One of the most ridiculous cases I have seen lately is comparing Bitcoin fees with paying for coffee. Do you pay for coffee with gold bars? Do you pay for coffee with international non-SEPA bank transfers (expect 30 EUR fee, more than BTC, and weeks-long fulfillment)? Yes, Bitcoin was originally intended as "pay-for-coffee" currency. No, it isn't that anymore, it shifted more towards value store, settlement money between large entities, alternative to global bank transfers. My favorite counterexample is: Can you run from war conflict with money or gold under your shirt? You will be searched, stripped from cash and possibly detained. Or learn 20 English words, run naked and input those 20 words into the computer on the other end of the world. Do you think this is a overinflated example applied only to the worst parts of the world, where nobody have the money with them anyway? We, in the civilized world don't have any of such oppressions, right? Try leaving European Union with more than 10 000 EUR... During my business flights (especially to Arabic countries, where people were returning from shopping trips in Vienna etc.), I have seen quite a few folks detained just because of the cash they had on person.
- arkh 9y ago
  So the important problem fixed by Bitcoin is getting some value which can be electronicaly moved. I guess banks never thought of offering this kind of service. Thanks Satoshi!
  - mrb 9y ago
    ...which can be electronicaly moved without giving away control of your funds to a company/government who can easily seize, devalue, or prevent you from accessing your funds. That's the important issue that bitcoin solves. Do you understand what being decentralized & permissionless mean? And the power shift it implies on a social level?

krrrh 9y ago

> in a way infinitely more robust You make some good points but please don’t abuse the English language like this.

nxsynonym 9y ago

The pros and use cases are all theoretical though. With nothing to stabilize the price it will continue to fluctuate wildly. From the examples you provided: if that man deposited his savings into Bitcoin last week, and had to withdraw today, he would be at an enormous loss. Not everyone is in a position to 'hodl'. If Venezuelans deposit their weekly paycheck into Bitcoin, but have no way of spending it on tangible goods - they still need to convert back into their domestic currency. The only thing that changes is now they pay transaction fees. Yes - the technology can solve some issues. But not how it is currently implemented.

akhatri_aus 9y ago

You can still seize Bitcoins with a court order.

wonderwonder 9y ago
Only if you have the private key or wallet password
- exelius 9y ago
  Which you can be thrown in jail for refusing to disclose. No need to crack a password when they can deprive you of life or liberty.
- code_duck 9y ago
  They could seize the physical items that have your wallet or keys stored on them. Anyhow, it’s not as if they would just give up if you refused to produce the password. In the US one can be jailed indefinitely for contempt of court. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/feds-say-suspect-should-rot-in-prison-for-refusing-to-decrypt-drives/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/feds-say-suspect...
  - wonderwonder 9y ago
    Of course they could. But its an extra step compared to just having the bank seize all of your accounts. At the end of the day the government can do whatever it wants, crypto currencies just add a little extra layer of personal security. However cursory it may be.
  - mrb 9y ago
    You can have a warpwallet or a seed memorized. No digital trace. No physical device to seize. Plausible deniability.
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  Not necessarily. You could destroy all copies of the wallet. The value would be lost. Certainly, knowing that those were 'all copies' would be a challenge, but you could then monitor that wallet and hold a person in contempt if there were later transactions from that wallet.

ceejayoz 9y ago

> Cyprus citizens who had their deposits confiscated in 2013 by their banks emphatically disagree with you. The same could happen to Coinbase etc. Sure, you can store it yourself in a wallet, just as Cyprus citizens could put money under their mattresses. > A man who was moving across states carrying his savings in cash and who had everything confiscated by police under civil forfeiture law emphatically disagree with you. If he'd had the same amount in Bitcoin on a hardware wallet, there's a decent chance they'd have taken that as well. Hell, they managed to get DPR's coins and sell them for nearly $50M. > Venezuelans who see the value of their currency evaporate and inflate 4000% yearly because of incompetence from their central bank emphatically disagree with you. Bitcoin lost half its value this month...

dwg 9y ago
> The same could happen to Coinbase etc. Sure, you can store it yourself in a wallet, just as Cyprus citizens could put money under their mattresses. Assuming eventual widespread adoption of bitcoin or a competing coin, storing your own funds in your own wallet has basically the same advantages as storing money in a bank, but without the same risks (of the bank or the mattress). > If he'd had the same amount in Bitcoin on a hardware wallet, there's a decent chance they'd have taken that as well. Hell, they managed to get DPR's coins and sell them for nearly $50M. Cash out of your hands is cash you no longer control. Hardware wallets can have pin codes and other measures to prevent the funds from being used and help you recover them later. > Bitcoin lost half its value this month... Was the drop in the Venezuelans currency preceded by a huge run-up in value as was Bitcoins? Who has lost more value?—people holding bitcoin over the last few years or people holding Bolivars over the same period?
- tzakrajs 9y ago
  My what a low bar you have set for Bitcoin.
  - dwg 9y ago
    How so?

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> Cyprus citizens who had their deposits confiscated in 2013 by their banks emphatically disagree with you Insured deposits were un-affected--anyone with less than €100,000 lost nothing [1]. 47.5% of un-insured deposits converted to equity [2]. That was in the depths of a national financial crisis. Meanwhile, today is Wednesday and everyone in Bitcoin lost 50% of their purchasing power from peak mark. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyprus-parliament/cyprus-banks-remain-closed-to-avert-run-on-deposits-idUSBRE92G03I20130325 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyprus-parliament/cyprus-... [2] https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21598649-bail-out-working-bail-isnt-injured-island https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/2159864...

adventured 9y ago
To that point, the FDIC is at $250,000. Which covers ~99% of all bank accounts in the US.
Cyberdog 9y ago
It's not the number that was stolen that's important. It's the principle that a government would be able to do such a thing in the first place.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > It's the principle that a government would be able to do such a thing in the first place What makes you think your government couldn't seize Bitcoins from Coinbase or knock down a door and seize a hardware wallet?
  - Brockenstein 9y ago
    Considering the U.S. Government has already seized millions of dollars worth of bitcoin I can't believe anyone would try to float "safety from gubberment theft" as a feature. People in bitcoin who are government proof are about as common as people running console emulators and not violating any copyright laws in the process.
  - 9y ago

wickawic 9y ago

I am empathetic to your point, and the constant state of 'surveillance' of my monetary actions is something that I always take issue with. On the other hand, I don't think these are compelling points: 1. If we were using cryptocurrencies as real currencies, bet your bottom dollar that your local government will have a way to control the use of it. A government is defined by its ability to use (possibly deadly) force to achieve its goals; if your local government legislates (or dictator dictates) that bitcoin is tantamount to money laundering, how useful is your BTC in a jail cell? 2. The same could have happened if they confiscated his laptop with his wallet info on it. What the police did was horrible and not justified; I am only claiming that btc would not have helped any more than a savings account. In fact, the savings account is insured! 3. Instead they invest in a cryptocurrency that is subject to the incompetence of people who do not have a single thought about the plight of the Venezuelans. Bitcoin does not permanently solve any issue that is created by malevolent governance. It is the same issue with saying that people can circumvent laws by using VPCs; it might be working for now, and it might work in the future, but it mostly depends on the ignorance/incompetence of government to regulate or enforce. If your government feels helpless in enforcing laws, it will resort to physical force. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/

thousandautumns 9y ago

> Cyprus citizens who had their deposits confiscated in 2013 by their banks emphatically disagree with you. Yes, and plenty of people have also lost their bitcoin to their exchanges/online wallets/hackers. And yes, with adequate security and personal cold storage, some of this can be avoided, but if you want to actually transact with Bitcoin these days, you have to convert to fiat since using Bitcoin as an actual currency right now is a train wreck, which means you have to interact with an exchange. And if you do use personal storage, and were to lose your keys or passwords, there is no recovering your money. Its gone forever. > A man who was moving across states carrying his savings in cash and who had everything confiscated by police under civil forfeiture law emphatically disagree with you. I'm sorry, how is this related to a bank? The entire problem is that the man had his savings in cash and not in a bank. If your issue is with the government seizing his money, the government has seized Bitcoins as well. > Venezuelans who see the value of their currency evaporate and inflate 4000% yearly because of incompetence from their central bank emphatically disagree with you. I fail to see how this is worse than a currency that is as volatile as Bitcoin is, which is also subject to manipulation by anonymous institutions, investors, and governments, if not directly then indirectly.

Brockenstein 9y ago

A few flaws in your arguments. 1. So what about all the other central banks that have been fairly stable for generations and have done fairly well in their stated goals? 2. Civil asset forfeiture isn't a banking issue. And you're naive if you think police can't seize a bitcoin wallet. The government has already done that http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/12/15/bitcoin_seized_by_the_u_s_government_during_an_arrest_can_be_sold_a_judge.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/12/15/bitcoin_s... Most users aren't going to practice the ideal security to prevent their crypto-currency for being seized. We know this because we have decades of experience knowing how careless and cavalier users are towards digital security. The currency isn't going to do it for them, so it's not a feature. Period. 3. When Bitcoin is shockingly volatile, so much so that you have to compare it with one of the worst failing economies in the world to make it seem less bad, well, that's a compelling argument. Call me up when there's a serious challenge to something like the USD or EUR. 4. Bitcoin is an interesting experiment. And under ideal conditions could address some issues you've mentioned. But conditions aren't ideal, it appears to be a mess really. Governments can still seize bitcoin. Governments can still regulate it. Half the things you tout have fallen flat on it's face and the other half certainly don't outweigh the glaringly obvious faults. But hey, if you get in at the right moment, cha-ching. Which begs the question, you now hold $10 million USD in bitcoin, how many millions do you convert into banknotes or digital numbers in a computerized bank account to protect your wealth from the volatility?

FireBeyond 9y ago

> Venezuelans who see the value of their currency evaporate and inflate 4000% yearly because of incompetence from their central bank emphatically disagree with you. Customers of Mt Gox are likely to emphatically agree with him.