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> 10 years into Bitcoin there's still no reason for someone to buy in other than speculation If you're comparing with the Internet, I'd say 10 years is still q

by asenna 8y ago

> 10 years into Bitcoin there's still no reason for someone to buy in other than speculation If you're comparing with the Internet, I'd say 10 years is still quite early into the Bitcoin and Blockchain space. You could say the Internet of 1999 was almost 15-20 years of development from the time TCP/IP was introduced on the ARPANET. With the attention that Blockchain has received in the past year and the sheer number of smart people working in this field (yes there are plenty of scammers as well but you can't deny smart people are flocking to it right now), I'm pretty sure you'll be surprised of what it looks like in just another 3 years or so.

acdha 8y ago
I don't think that does anything other than make the comparison worse for Bitcoin: while it's technically true that the Internet started well before 1989, what was popular in 1999 was the web and that really wasn't mainstream before 1993 or so when e.g. Mosaic was released but by 1995-6 it was having significant impacts around the world in most fields. More interestingly, however, is that Internet was difficult to get and expensive throughout most of that period, not to mention the slow and expensive connection speeds of that era, all of which limited adoption substantially. Even with those barriers to adoption, however, there was plenty of demand because it was immediately useful to have email, Usenet (at least in technical fields), FTP, etc. even before the explosion of activity around the web. When the web boomed, millions of people paid (often by the minute) to surf it at 56K or less. In contrast, Bitcoin has been available to almost anyone on the Internet for many years without anything like those barriers to adoption but most people haven't had a reason to care.
tigershark 8y ago
The smart people are the ones choosing an inherently unsafe language not that different from JavaScript on which to build “smart” contract for which the code is law just until the point a bug is found and they hard fork to avoid losing hundred of millions of dollars? I’m honestly not very impressed by what I’ve seen. They may be much smarter than me and I may be a complete idiot, but I never fucked up in a such majestic way honestly.
- Fjolsvith 8y ago
  Oh, and so cryptocurrency programmers are the only people who "fucked up in a majestic way"? Seems to me like there are times past where automobile makers had some spectacular recalls where they had to correct unforeseen situations.

by asenna 8y ago

acdha 8y ago

I don't think that does anything other than make the comparison worse for Bitcoin: while it's technically true that the Internet started well before 1989, what was popular in 1999 was the web and that really wasn't mainstream before 1993 or so when e.g. Mosaic was released but by 1995-6 it was having significant impacts around the world in most fields. More interestingly, however, is that Internet was difficult to get and expensive throughout most of that period, not to mention the slow and expensive connection speeds of that era, all of which limited adoption substantially. Even with those barriers to adoption, however, there was plenty of demand because it was immediately useful to have email, Usenet (at least in technical fields), FTP, etc. even before the explosion of activity around the web. When the web boomed, millions of people paid (often by the minute) to surf it at 56K or less. In contrast, Bitcoin has been available to almost anyone on the Internet for many years without anything like those barriers to adoption but most people haven't had a reason to care.

tigershark 8y ago

The smart people are the ones choosing an inherently unsafe language not that different from JavaScript on which to build “smart” contract for which the code is law just until the point a bug is found and they hard fork to avoid losing hundred of millions of dollars? I’m honestly not very impressed by what I’ve seen. They may be much smarter than me and I may be a complete idiot, but I never fucked up in a such majestic way honestly.

Fjolsvith 8y ago
Oh, and so cryptocurrency programmers are the only people who "fucked up in a majestic way"? Seems to me like there are times past where automobile makers had some spectacular recalls where they had to correct unforeseen situations.