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Someone created Bitcoin. It was a neat idea and people played with it. When the first pizza was bought with Bitcoin, I wonder how the creator felt? "Oh cool, re

Someone created Bitcoin. It was a neat idea and people played with it. When the first pizza was bought with Bitcoin, I wonder how the creator felt? "Oh cool, real world use!" Then Bitcoin bubbled. People panicked and jumped on board without researching, Bitcoin went up a bazillion %. I wonder how the creator felt? "Oh wow... Lots of people want this!" Then the bubble burst, price went down, people got mad, but, most importantly, Bitcoin inspired others. I wonder how the creator felt? "Oh huh... This is really changing the world..." Now, the problems are rearing their heads. Energy consumption, 51% attacks, scalability issues, etc. I wonder how the creator feels? "Oh dear..." [ this is, of course, assuming the creator is still alive ] It just boggles my mind that this weird internet currency exposed something so powerful in society: The intense desire for personal wealth that one truly owns.

ubersync 7y ago
The Bitcoin "bubble" has "burst" at least 6 times now. Which one were you refering to? Every time it recovers and reaches another all time high in a couple of years. Being the nascent but potentially world changing technology, it might take a few years to realize its true market cap. And along the way, we will see a few pumps and dumps. Its just normal.
- googlemike 7y ago
  I've yet to see a single legal use case for bitcoin.
  - ubersync 7y ago
    Well then you need to start looking more. You are just sore that you didn't buy in at $10 or $100, aren't you?
    - fbernier 7y ago
      I see you choose on completely ignoring the Tether fraud and those that came before that makes Bitcoin's price entirely artificial and way higher than it should.
  - michaelscott 7y ago
    An alternative form of payment in countries with hyperinflated currencies, a means to make fast international payments (far faster than Swift), an investment (debatable) vehicle that exists outside the control of the finance sector, certainly an upward social mobility tool for many miners in developing countries, and a general store of wealth vehicle (in no way different to gold in this regard).
    - kspp 7y ago
      How is all of this possible when the network is barely able to support half dozen transactions a second? It's not even enough to cover one shopping mall, let alone some "countries" or the whole planet.
      - michaelscott 7y ago
        I didn't say it could run a country's currency supply. I said it was an alternative to a country's hyperinflated currency, and it would be one of many. What normally happens on the ground in such a situation is that the average person will use an array of different currencies that are accepted in their environment in order to make up for the country's standard (so in Zimbabwe for example, people will use a mix of the USD, ZAR and a number of other currencies in their day-to-day lives). Bitcoin is just another alternative. Yes you're not buying a loaf of bread at the corner store with it, but it's definitely useable (and is used) for other types of payments.
    - aidanlister 7y ago
      FYI Swift v4 is in trial and has realtime payments.
  - mikekchar 7y ago
    Bic Camera in Japan at one point used it as their "point" system. Unfortunately you had to have one of their wallets, but essentially if you bought stuff with them and you had registered for the bitcoin rewards, they would give you some bitcoins. You could also transfer your own bitcoins into the wallet. You could then buy stuff at the store with it at some nominal rate. I thought about buying a computer with bitcoins because when you could still mine with CPUs, I heated my apartment mining bitcoins (then I lost interest ;-) ). Honestly, this is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping bitcoin would turn into. When Japan outlawed crypto currencies, the Bic Camera thing disappeared (or it's possible it disappeared earlier... I wasn't paying much attention).
- stuffbyspencer 7y ago
  I'm referring to the most recent one that I believe most are familiar with: when Bitcoin reached ATH of $20,000 and then plummeted to $4,000 [ I think that was the lowest... ] I'm not against BTC, and I'm not saying it's dead, I'm just pointing out the obvious crash that recently happened :^)
lumberjack 7y ago
> The intense desire for personal wealth that one truly owns. Not at all. It's the desire to get rich quick without lifting a finger. Also philosophically speaking, "wealth that one truly owns" as in "wealth that is not dependent on others" is not a thing. If your wealth is in Bitcoin, you are trusting in fellow Bitcoin users and your wealth is entirely dependent on their feelings about the cryptomarket. That is hardly a better safer store for your wealth.
- lone_haxx0r 7y ago
  I prefer depending on the market instead of the state dictating how much my money is worth.
  - aidanlister 7y ago
    Why? The market is dumb (in a technical sense). The state is constantly monitoring and adjusting. It’s like saying you trust a car with a brick on the accelerator over a self drive Tesla. Sure the Tesla makes mistakes and kills someone every now and then, but I’d take that over the brick.
    - kantos2 7y ago
      >The market is dumb (in a technical sense). An unfounded objection, the market is the sum of the deeds of all market participants, dumb does not make sense here. > The state is constantly monitoring and adjusting It does not regulate but only interferes, and should only supervise that the contracts be respected. >It’s like saying you trust a car with a brick on the accelerator over a self drive Tesla. This analogy does not make sense.
    - lone_haxx0r 7y ago
      > Why? The market is dumb (in a technical sense). The state is constantly monitoring and adjusting. The market is relatively 'dumb', but its decisions are based on human expectation and applied peacefully through voluntary transactions. The state is relatively 'dumb' too, but it's also evil most of the time, and its decisions use violence to be committed. Also, when the market is wrong, some people may lose money (specially those that were the most wrong), but the system corrects itself. When the state is wrong, the error accumulates because the system can't self-correct. >It’s like saying you trust a car with a brick on the accelerator over a self drive Tesla. The market is much like a machine learning algorithm. I say the market is the Tesla AI and the state is a drunk driver.
arisAlexis 7y ago
wow what a hate comment really. you totally miss all of the pain points that Bitcoin addressses
- stuffbyspencer 7y ago
  lol, I think you need to re-read what I wrote and not have that "hate" implication going through your mind. I'm not against BTC, I love blockchain & decentralization, I toy around with many cryptocurrencies myself. I'm not ragging on anything with my comment, just making an observation about events and attaching how I would feel if I were the creator / catalyst for said events :^)
jdijdhud 7y ago
The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks[

ubersync 7y ago

The Bitcoin "bubble" has "burst" at least 6 times now. Which one were you refering to? Every time it recovers and reaches another all time high in a couple of years. Being the nascent but potentially world changing technology, it might take a few years to realize its true market cap. And along the way, we will see a few pumps and dumps. Its just normal.

googlemike 7y ago
I've yet to see a single legal use case for bitcoin.
- ubersync 7y ago
  Well then you need to start looking more. You are just sore that you didn't buy in at $10 or $100, aren't you?
  - fbernier 7y ago
    I see you choose on completely ignoring the Tether fraud and those that came before that makes Bitcoin's price entirely artificial and way higher than it should.
- michaelscott 7y ago
  An alternative form of payment in countries with hyperinflated currencies, a means to make fast international payments (far faster than Swift), an investment (debatable) vehicle that exists outside the control of the finance sector, certainly an upward social mobility tool for many miners in developing countries, and a general store of wealth vehicle (in no way different to gold in this regard).
  - kspp 7y ago
    How is all of this possible when the network is barely able to support half dozen transactions a second? It's not even enough to cover one shopping mall, let alone some "countries" or the whole planet.
    - michaelscott 7y ago
      I didn't say it could run a country's currency supply. I said it was an alternative to a country's hyperinflated currency, and it would be one of many. What normally happens on the ground in such a situation is that the average person will use an array of different currencies that are accepted in their environment in order to make up for the country's standard (so in Zimbabwe for example, people will use a mix of the USD, ZAR and a number of other currencies in their day-to-day lives). Bitcoin is just another alternative. Yes you're not buying a loaf of bread at the corner store with it, but it's definitely useable (and is used) for other types of payments.
  - aidanlister 7y ago
    FYI Swift v4 is in trial and has realtime payments.
- mikekchar 7y ago
  Bic Camera in Japan at one point used it as their "point" system. Unfortunately you had to have one of their wallets, but essentially if you bought stuff with them and you had registered for the bitcoin rewards, they would give you some bitcoins. You could also transfer your own bitcoins into the wallet. You could then buy stuff at the store with it at some nominal rate. I thought about buying a computer with bitcoins because when you could still mine with CPUs, I heated my apartment mining bitcoins (then I lost interest ;-) ). Honestly, this is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping bitcoin would turn into. When Japan outlawed crypto currencies, the Bic Camera thing disappeared (or it's possible it disappeared earlier... I wasn't paying much attention).
stuffbyspencer 7y ago
I'm referring to the most recent one that I believe most are familiar with: when Bitcoin reached ATH of $20,000 and then plummeted to $4,000 [ I think that was the lowest... ] I'm not against BTC, and I'm not saying it's dead, I'm just pointing out the obvious crash that recently happened :^)

lumberjack 7y ago

> The intense desire for personal wealth that one truly owns. Not at all. It's the desire to get rich quick without lifting a finger. Also philosophically speaking, "wealth that one truly owns" as in "wealth that is not dependent on others" is not a thing. If your wealth is in Bitcoin, you are trusting in fellow Bitcoin users and your wealth is entirely dependent on their feelings about the cryptomarket. That is hardly a better safer store for your wealth.

lone_haxx0r 7y ago
I prefer depending on the market instead of the state dictating how much my money is worth.
- aidanlister 7y ago
  Why? The market is dumb (in a technical sense). The state is constantly monitoring and adjusting. It’s like saying you trust a car with a brick on the accelerator over a self drive Tesla. Sure the Tesla makes mistakes and kills someone every now and then, but I’d take that over the brick.
  - kantos2 7y ago
    >The market is dumb (in a technical sense). An unfounded objection, the market is the sum of the deeds of all market participants, dumb does not make sense here. > The state is constantly monitoring and adjusting It does not regulate but only interferes, and should only supervise that the contracts be respected. >It’s like saying you trust a car with a brick on the accelerator over a self drive Tesla. This analogy does not make sense.
  - lone_haxx0r 7y ago
    > Why? The market is dumb (in a technical sense). The state is constantly monitoring and adjusting. The market is relatively 'dumb', but its decisions are based on human expectation and applied peacefully through voluntary transactions. The state is relatively 'dumb' too, but it's also evil most of the time, and its decisions use violence to be committed. Also, when the market is wrong, some people may lose money (specially those that were the most wrong), but the system corrects itself. When the state is wrong, the error accumulates because the system can't self-correct. >It’s like saying you trust a car with a brick on the accelerator over a self drive Tesla. The market is much like a machine learning algorithm. I say the market is the Tesla AI and the state is a drunk driver.

arisAlexis 7y ago

wow what a hate comment really. you totally miss all of the pain points that Bitcoin addressses

stuffbyspencer 7y ago
lol, I think you need to re-read what I wrote and not have that "hate" implication going through your mind. I'm not against BTC, I love blockchain & decentralization, I toy around with many cryptocurrencies myself. I'm not ragging on anything with my comment, just making an observation about events and attaching how I would feel if I were the creator / catalyst for said events :^)

jdijdhud 7y ago

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks[