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Some of the worse points of this article: 1) "Bitcoin turns out to be a clunky, slow, costly means of payment". This is missing the phrase "right now". There

by sf_rob 9y ago

Some of the worse points of this article: 1) "Bitcoin turns out to be a clunky, slow, costly means of payment". This is missing the phrase "right now". There is nothing inherent/unfixable in Bitcoin or competing cryptocurrencies that make them bad for payments in a technical sense (maybe in a exchange rate risk sense but that's not the claim being made). Yes Scaling, Speed, Security, and UX are issues, no those aren't insurmountable. One could easily say "dial up internet is a clunky way to watch videos"; yes and the technology will evolve. 2) No intrinsic values. I'm not sure that you need intrinsic value in a currency, only buy-in, and there are a lot of compelling reasons to buy-in. 3) It's a bubble. Provide your valuation model. I don't claim to know what the correct valuation is, but I'm not making a hard claim of bubble vs no bubble. 4) North Korea is potentially manipulating the market. Time to break out the boogymen! I don't doubt that NK is trying all measures of cyberscams / hacking / etc, but I really doubt that they have the capital or skill to meaningfully effect these high volume markets. Don't get me wrong. There are massive problems and criticisms that can be leveled against Bitcoin et al, but this reads more as an "old man yells at clouds" kind of story.

epistasis 9y ago
>There is nothing inherent/unfixable in Bitcoin ... bad for payments in a technical sense I would agree, but the point seems to be more about the current state of Bitcoin. Without technical changes that incorporate lessons from other currencies, Bitcoin is indeed terrible for transactional payments. I only follow this stuff casually (never had any Bitcoin), but it seems that Bitcoin maintainers have heavily resisted changes that would allow Bitcoin to become transactional. And discussions about implementing technical changes leads to some of the more political fighting I've seen on HN. Therefore, Bitcoin may not have technical limitations, but there are political limitations on what is technically possible with Bitcoin.
- sf_rob 9y ago
  I entirely agree with you, other than your interpretation of what Krugman was getting at. He never brings up this as a political/leadership problem, and the great discussions that this would bring. He also is making a general argument against cryptocurrencies elsewhere, which makes it appear that he thinks that this is a property not a state. If I were to write an article criticizing the cryptocurrency space, I'd talk about politics, regulations/lack there-of, currency risks/lack of cheap risk mitigating instruments, and how bearer instruments are crazy risky. He addresses the issues that I'd expect someone who hasn't observed the space enough to address.
acdha 9y ago
> This is missing the phrase "right now". There is nothing inherent/unfixable in Bitcoin or competing cryptocurrencies that make them bad for payments in a technical sense It’s been a decade and Bitcoin has never delivered on that promise despite heavy marketing pushes and huge amounts of capital. At some point it’s not reasonable to give the benefit of the doubt until something ships.
- andirk 9y ago
  With less traffic on the network circa a year ago and before, it was plenty fast and cheap. I think it's in need of an upgrade so it can make bitcoin great again.
philipwhiuk 9y ago
Having to verify 'n' times is a core part of why Bitcoin is time consuming to process transactions and also why it's hard to fix. It's not also sufficient for a technology to say 'maybe something awesome will be invented to make this useful' in order for us to consider the base tech useful. Maybe in the future we will discover a fantastic use for mud that allows us to travel faster than the speed of light. Until then, telling people how awesome mud is and that everyone should mine some mud, is just absurd. Bitcoin is modern day mud. Maybe in the future Lightning or some tech will solve the problems it has. But right now it's useless.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  It's not useless at all. It serves as a store of value, that's all it needs. It doesn't need to be a currency.

by sf_rob 9y ago

epistasis 9y ago

>There is nothing inherent/unfixable in Bitcoin ... bad for payments in a technical sense I would agree, but the point seems to be more about the current state of Bitcoin. Without technical changes that incorporate lessons from other currencies, Bitcoin is indeed terrible for transactional payments. I only follow this stuff casually (never had any Bitcoin), but it seems that Bitcoin maintainers have heavily resisted changes that would allow Bitcoin to become transactional. And discussions about implementing technical changes leads to some of the more political fighting I've seen on HN. Therefore, Bitcoin may not have technical limitations, but there are political limitations on what is technically possible with Bitcoin.

sf_rob 9y ago
I entirely agree with you, other than your interpretation of what Krugman was getting at. He never brings up this as a political/leadership problem, and the great discussions that this would bring. He also is making a general argument against cryptocurrencies elsewhere, which makes it appear that he thinks that this is a property not a state. If I were to write an article criticizing the cryptocurrency space, I'd talk about politics, regulations/lack there-of, currency risks/lack of cheap risk mitigating instruments, and how bearer instruments are crazy risky. He addresses the issues that I'd expect someone who hasn't observed the space enough to address.

acdha 9y ago

> This is missing the phrase "right now". There is nothing inherent/unfixable in Bitcoin or competing cryptocurrencies that make them bad for payments in a technical sense It’s been a decade and Bitcoin has never delivered on that promise despite heavy marketing pushes and huge amounts of capital. At some point it’s not reasonable to give the benefit of the doubt until something ships.

andirk 9y ago
With less traffic on the network circa a year ago and before, it was plenty fast and cheap. I think it's in need of an upgrade so it can make bitcoin great again.

philipwhiuk 9y ago

Having to verify 'n' times is a core part of why Bitcoin is time consuming to process transactions and also why it's hard to fix. It's not also sufficient for a technology to say 'maybe something awesome will be invented to make this useful' in order for us to consider the base tech useful. Maybe in the future we will discover a fantastic use for mud that allows us to travel faster than the speed of light. Until then, telling people how awesome mud is and that everyone should mine some mud, is just absurd. Bitcoin is modern day mud. Maybe in the future Lightning or some tech will solve the problems it has. But right now it's useless.

ThomPete 9y ago
It's not useless at all. It serves as a store of value, that's all it needs. It doesn't need to be a currency.