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" it's possible to solve without using a country's-worth of energy to support a pathetic ~10 transactions per second." I think it's more accurate to talk about

" it's possible to solve without using a country's-worth of energy to support a pathetic ~10 transactions per second." I think it's more accurate to talk about the amount of value the Bitcoin network is storing than the transactions per second. Bitcoin currently has a market cap of $68B. I'm not aware of any other distributed system that's worth that much money. It's definitely interesting that a fully distributed system has been able to achieve that valuation without any centralization or governing authority (debates over developer and miner power aside).

ForHackernews 8y ago
If bitcoin users went to make withdrawals en masse, I suspect they'd quickly find it's not "storing" anything like USD 68 billion of value. Market cap is a farcical number to look at for a thinly-traded asset on unregulated markets. If I make my own new cryptocurrency, print 100 million tokens, and then talk my friend into buying one for $10, does that mean my token has $1 billion market cap?
- malvosenior 8y ago
  While I agree that the valuation can rapidly fluctuate. Bitcoin is successfully storing a large amount of value in a distributed manner. More than any other system that exists. There is a huge incentive to create transaction fraud with that much money on the line and Bitcoin is working and intended and acting as a distributed, transaction fraud free public ledger with a trade-able currency.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    > "Bitcoin is successfully storing a large amount of value in a distributed manner. More than any other system that exists." No it isn't. The market cap of bitcoin, which is a bullshit number anyway as already explained, is dwarfed by other forms of distributed wealth storage such as (but certainly not limited to) old fashioned pieces of gold. Gold is distributed. If you revise your assertion to be distributed and digital then perhaps you're correct. But the more qualifications you tack on, the less impressive your claims to fame become. Don't bother mistaking me for some sort of gold bug either. Real Estate is another form of distributed wealth storage that blows bitcoin's pathetic market cap out of the water.
    - malvosenior 8y ago
      Both gold and real estate require massive amount of physical force to secure. Nation state level force and law and order. Bitcoin just needs electricity.
    - comboy 8y ago
      Real estate is likely the best storage of value there is. It's only distributed across governments though. When you own a piece of land you actually trust your government to protect your right to it. Gold is fantastic. Apart from its physical properties, we all agreed to assign value to it and it's been working for thousands of years. But wouldn't it be great to have gold in a digital form? Something easily divisible and transferable, yet as gold is, not dependent for its value on some 3rd party? Something that is truly yours not just IOU. Which can keep value. Forget about Bitcoin, how would you envision something like this? Apart from technological problems, we have a problem of initial trust and distribution. Please stop here and think for a moment, this is a hard and interesting problem. I'm not saying you can solve it with a few minutes of thinking but just after a few moments some things clarify. Now imagine we do have it. We did it. Because it would be a cool future where we do have this digital gold. Is it a safe storage of value? What if some better digital gold 2.0 comes along? If people would prefer to move their wealth to it then the 1.0 would become less desirable, so its value should drop. But if it does, then it's not a good storage of value after all. You can devise a system in which 1.0 tokens can be exchanged to 2.0 but then you cannot change the initial distribution. If all that thinking is not enough, it is interesting to ponder impact of an actual perfect storage of value system on society. Wealth can be leveraged to generate more of it. Not that it's something completely new, we had a few close enough matches throughout the history. That's what most wars are about. Although it's easier to go get something if you know where it is.
      - darkpuma 8y ago
        I sympathize with the dream, but the dream is very far from the reality bitcoin has realized.
      - 0db532a0 8y ago
        You may be interested to learn about the commodity derivatives market.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

ForHackernews 8y ago

If bitcoin users went to make withdrawals en masse, I suspect they'd quickly find it's not "storing" anything like USD 68 billion of value. Market cap is a farcical number to look at for a thinly-traded asset on unregulated markets. If I make my own new cryptocurrency, print 100 million tokens, and then talk my friend into buying one for $10, does that mean my token has $1 billion market cap?

malvosenior 8y ago
While I agree that the valuation can rapidly fluctuate. Bitcoin is successfully storing a large amount of value in a distributed manner. More than any other system that exists. There is a huge incentive to create transaction fraud with that much money on the line and Bitcoin is working and intended and acting as a distributed, transaction fraud free public ledger with a trade-able currency.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  > "Bitcoin is successfully storing a large amount of value in a distributed manner. More than any other system that exists." No it isn't. The market cap of bitcoin, which is a bullshit number anyway as already explained, is dwarfed by other forms of distributed wealth storage such as (but certainly not limited to) old fashioned pieces of gold. Gold is distributed. If you revise your assertion to be distributed and digital then perhaps you're correct. But the more qualifications you tack on, the less impressive your claims to fame become. Don't bother mistaking me for some sort of gold bug either. Real Estate is another form of distributed wealth storage that blows bitcoin's pathetic market cap out of the water.
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    Both gold and real estate require massive amount of physical force to secure. Nation state level force and law and order. Bitcoin just needs electricity.
  - comboy 8y ago
    Real estate is likely the best storage of value there is. It's only distributed across governments though. When you own a piece of land you actually trust your government to protect your right to it. Gold is fantastic. Apart from its physical properties, we all agreed to assign value to it and it's been working for thousands of years. But wouldn't it be great to have gold in a digital form? Something easily divisible and transferable, yet as gold is, not dependent for its value on some 3rd party? Something that is truly yours not just IOU. Which can keep value. Forget about Bitcoin, how would you envision something like this? Apart from technological problems, we have a problem of initial trust and distribution. Please stop here and think for a moment, this is a hard and interesting problem. I'm not saying you can solve it with a few minutes of thinking but just after a few moments some things clarify. Now imagine we do have it. We did it. Because it would be a cool future where we do have this digital gold. Is it a safe storage of value? What if some better digital gold 2.0 comes along? If people would prefer to move their wealth to it then the 1.0 would become less desirable, so its value should drop. But if it does, then it's not a good storage of value after all. You can devise a system in which 1.0 tokens can be exchanged to 2.0 but then you cannot change the initial distribution. If all that thinking is not enough, it is interesting to ponder impact of an actual perfect storage of value system on society. Wealth can be leveraged to generate more of it. Not that it's something completely new, we had a few close enough matches throughout the history. That's what most wars are about. Although it's easier to go get something if you know where it is.
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      I sympathize with the dream, but the dream is very far from the reality bitcoin has realized.
    - 0db532a0 8y ago
      You may be interested to learn about the commodity derivatives market.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]