7 ms·
When can we call Bitcoin a failed experiment? And don't tell me it was "always about storing value", that's not in the original paper.
by jonny_eh 8y ago
When can we call Bitcoin a failed experiment? And don't tell me it was "always about storing value", that's not in the original paper.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- err4nt 8y agoA failed experiment to me would be one that wasn't able to run its full course, or from which no information can be gleaned. Bitcoin has run for a long time, we have gleaned a ton of useful information - as far as experiments are concerned this seems like it went bigger and better than expected, so it should be a very GOOD experiment!
- DoofusOfDeath 8y agoRather than questioning if the experiment failed, perhaps we should question if recent participants considered it an experiment in the first place. I.e., I don't think most bitcoin miners / companies / investors saw this as a knowledge-gathering exercise.
- redisman 8y agoI think it's really unfair to call Bitcoin "failed". It has unarguably changed the world. There was way too much hype about it changing everything.
- fstanis 8y ago> It has unarguably changed the world. How so? I see nothing in my day-to-day life that's different because of Bitcoin.
- tboyd47 8y agoAsk again after the next major financial crisis.
- adiusmus 8y agoSo 18 months then. Ok.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Meekro 8y agoIf Bitcoin is a failure, I wish some of my projects would fail like that.
- jonny_eh 8y agoI hope my projects never hurt the environment as much as Bitcoin has.
- JustMatthew 8y agoThe energy consumed from bitcoin PoW is used as a frequent rebuttal against the legitimacy of bitcoin, and it is an incontrovertible fact that the energy demands of bitcoin are non-trivial. According to annualized energy forecasts extrapolated out from bitcoin PoW energy demands back in December 2017 (i.e. at the height of the recent crypto bubble frenzy) BTC miners are expected to use 8.27 terawatt-hours this year. That's more energy than 116 countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo. On the other hand, the amount of energy bitcoin is forecast to consume in a year would only last the U.S. 19 hours. Additional the production of the global cash and coin supply will consume an estimated 11 terawatt-hours this year while gold mining will burn the equivalent of 132 terawatt-hours over the same period - and that doesn't include armored trucks, bank bank vaults, security systems etc... I'm not saying it's worth it to burn all that energy to keep bitcoin (arguably) decentralized. I just want to provide some (now probably outdated) perspective to temper arguments, and stimulate others (on both sides) to advance their arguments beyond headline quotes. Sources Pessimistic take: http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-is-ruining-the-planet-2017-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-is-ruining-the-planet... Optimistic takes: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-07/bitcoin-is-greener-than-its-critics-think https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-07/bitcoin-i... & https://blog.bitcoin.org.hk/bitcoin-mining-and-energy-consumption-4526d4b56186 https://blog.bitcoin.org.hk/bitcoin-mining-and-energy-consum...
- keymone 8y agoYou want to join the growing list of Proclaimers that Bitcoin is dead? It’s growing ever since 2011. Edit: typo
- fwip 8y agoWild how consensus forms over time, huh?
- HeadsUpHigh 8y agoI see what you did there.
- jchw 8y agoNot really. Was the goal of Bitcoin ever to be the successor to paper money? We're here today and Bitcoin is a functional payment network. Not only that, it's a fairly large one, and it has become a household name. I don't really use Bitcoin but I think it's hyperbole to consider it a unilateral failure just because it didn't supercede traditional currency.
- acdha 8y agoIt’s a household name because of speculation, however, and statistically almost nobody uses it for the kind of decentralized transactions for which it was originally pitched. The number of vendors accepting it has gone down over time (e.g. Steam, Microsoft) due to the endemic problems and many of the people who claim to use it (even here) are actually using the credit card network with government currencies for the actual transactions so there’d be very little disruption if it disappeared tomorrow.
- jchw 8y agoI can use Bitcoin today, right now, right here. I actually do occasionally, it's how I pay for VPN service. So is it a failure? No. It's a successful payment network. It didn't cause a libertarian Utopia or whatever, but that's a pretty lofty goal for a conceptual currency based on cryptographic hashing. I have nothing else to say here.
- acdha 8y agoThat nicely demonstrates my point: you’re a supporter and you use it infrequently with apparently one company. That does not sound like the revolution in personal finance we were breathlessly promised.
- jchw 8y agoI'm a supporter? By what definition of supporter? This may very well be the first time I've ever discussed Bitcoin in a forum. I don't support Bitcoin the same way I don't support Hanes clothing. It's just a thing I causally use. It works. Why are you trying to pigeon hole me personally? Who promised you this revolution, did Satoshi personally?
- beaner 8y agoWe're a pretty long way off, I'm sorry. Bitcoin is more popular than ever. The payments network (Lightning) being built on top of the financial sovereignty base layer is just getting started.
- adiusmus 8y agoAnother fork of bitcoin. So not actually bitcoin but still bitcoin at the same time. This appears to be an issue with cryptos. Nothing stops another fork later. It’s like people find a problem with a currency and start printing money in another one. I can see blockchain currency being useful when it is backed by something solid. But right now it’s still just wasted electricity. Eg MasterCard and friends could easily create a currency and use it for exchange. If I can’t actually use a currency to buy/sell or store value then what is it for? Or am I wrong?
- sgeisler 8y ago> Another fork of bitcoin. That's factually wrong. Lightning is a protocol on top of Bitcoin (like HTTP is built on TCP) and not a fork. It has a different set of trade offs: transactions on it are instant, but one should only store small amounts on it (like what you would carry in your purse) since your money on it can be stolen if you are offline for too long (and you did not pay someone to monitor the network for you). But as long as you are online often enough your funds are secure. If someone is curious how it works: https://lightning.network/ https://lightning.network/
- dj43nq 8y agoWhat is backing bitcoin? Gold? Cpu cycles?
- scotty79 8y agoAlgorithm thay decides how many bitcoins exist. Bitcoin is backed by same thing art and collectibles are backed by. Scarcity.
- dj43nq 8y agoI don’t buy burgers with art or collectibles. And holding bitcoin doesn’t help me in long or short term. Right now I’m hoping more people will buy bitcoin so I can dump the remainder of mine.
- grubles 8y agoBarring a catastrophic vulnerability in SHA256 or ECDSA, Bitcoin is going nowhere. Bitcoin has been a wild success. At this point, the goal is simply educating newcomers on its advantages (immutability, trustlessness, sound money).
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- yborg 8y agoFailed in what sense, and for whom? Some people made and are making a lot of (real) money from it (especially the thieves that have executed the numerous heists from exchanges, wallets, etc.) There is a definite ecosystem here that has players profiting from it that would want it to continue.
- jonny_eh 8y agoIn the original sense, a faster/cheaper alternative to wire transfers.
- nicky0 8y ago> When can we call Bitcoin a failed experiment? When nobody is mining blocks any more?
- DINKDINK 8y ago>that's not in the original paper. Bitcoin the protocol != bitcoin the paper. The main point of the paper was show that you can solve the byzantine generals problem in a completely untrusted. This contribution built on prior distributed-system designs such as Paxos. >don't tell me it was "always about storing value" Bitcoin was always about a fixed-scarcity asset/currency given that the controlled supply algorithm was in the very first version. Bitcoin doesn't need people's interpretations of bitcoin to be positive to come to trustless consensus. >When can we call Bitcoin a failed experiment? If you think that Bitcoin's value is $0 long term, why not go short and make reams of money? After 10 years the market has shown that owning 100 btc has preserved more purchasing power than owning 100 USD, What's your call for the next 10 years?
- dman 8y agoHow does one short Bitcoin?
- singularity2001 8y agoI'd call it a successful experiment that is soon over.
- lawn 8y agoEveryone should differ between Bitcoin the idea and Bitcoin the coin, only one of many cryptocurrencies. I don't think cryptocurrencies are ever going away. It's simply too good to be able to accept digital money anywhere from anyone quickly and with low fees. Dark markets for example will always use cryptocurrencies.