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Bitcoin is fundamentally not a cash alternative. Which means definitionally the alternative to holding onto $100 BTC is NOT holding onto $100 cash. In fact cash

Bitcoin is fundamentally not a cash alternative. Which means definitionally the alternative to holding onto $100 BTC is NOT holding onto $100 cash. In fact cash is intentionally inflationary and BTC is intentionally deflationary (over long enough time scales) so yeah, you'd win your silly bet if there's no major crash. Doesn't mean you'll come out ahead of other strategies.

Melting_Harps 7y ago
> Bitcoin is fundamentally not a cash alternative Funny, I built a fintech startup on helping the cannabis Industry from their supposed 'cash' problem(s): predominately having too much of it and not having banking, or having thier cash taken indefinitely by the bank/paypal upon closure of their account(s). While also doing B2B transactions where banks/CC companies failed to lend them services, despite having Local/State laws permitting so. None of which Cash seemed to prove as useful as you think it is. I think you're looking at this the wrong way: rather than looking at it as a paradigm shift in what programmable money can do, you are measuring Bitcoin by how it fails to function (or dysfunction) as your local Fiat currency does. That's a very poor measure/metric, as for being able to use it day-to-day, provided you're willing to operate within a KYC/AML system, you can have Visa Credit Cards that draw from your source of BTC in real time/previously loaded, depending on what service you use. Merchants who accept Bitcoin is a constraint, mainly a tech related one, but just like how many restaurants now take UberEats/Doordash/GrubHub that amount to a growing/large(r) percent of their revenue (moreso when States are limiting restaurant hours or outright operation to online orders only [1]) you will see new use cases appear which Bitcoin's layer 1/2 can utilize natively as a private p2p system. I think its very telling that despite guy's like Jack Dorsey backing Bitcoin, who I think understands the fintech landscape, and has been orientating Square to be integrated and compatible with it many of you still refuse to see the shift has already happened. Price drops happen in Bitcoin, I've been in this long enough that it doesn't phase me anymore; and is the only real antidote to the supposed 'what about the early adopter whales' issue people bring up, personally I'm using some of my discretionary budget to buy more. I'm not here to convince you to use Bitcoin, or why it would work for you/your business: I'm just pointing out why what you said is skewed and not framed correctly. Otherwise you'll have to do what IBM did: offer a good salary for consultant fees to do so. :) [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/15/coronavirus-bars-restaurants-closed-states/5055634002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/15/corona...
- Nursie 7y ago
  I tend to measure bitcoin by how its proponents sell it. It has failed at all of these things - Being a fast/cheap payments network Being a decentralised cash equivalent Being a store of value The shift hasn't already happened - large businesses that have accepted bitcoin in the past have almost all stepped back from it citing a variety of problems, but mainly boiling down to it not being worth the effort, and nobody using it. And why would they? It's inflationary in theory and speculative in actuality, anyone that actually thinks BTC is the way of the future would be a fool to part with it.
  - Melting_Harps 7y ago
    > ...anyone that actually thinks BTC is the way of the future would be a fool to part with it. Namely these mainly Silicon Valley based Billionaires: Jack Dorsey, Peter Theil, Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz, Tim Draper. Add Mark Cuban in there, too if you want, but he's not SV based. Seriously, if you want to put your money where your mouth is I can essentially prove your 1st/2nd points right now. The 3rd will take longer as a store of value is relative to the period you bought, so by default needs time to accrue value. I'm game if you are, here is my address if you want to make it happen: 3FeN7m31dksxmGhXTMRM9ggxbEcPnfUDHy
    - Nursie 7y ago
      I have no bitcoin and would never give one red cent to the shabby, frequently fraudulent outfits that call themselves exchanges in order to obtain any. You have fun now with all that name dropping. The track record of cryptocurrencies so far has quite thoroughly shown me and most of the world AFAICT that those points are a bust. It's worse than the systems we already have, in pretty much every way. I note you don't actually address the points made either.
      - ChainOfFools 7y ago
        cryptocurrency is what alchemy would look like if it appeared in 2008 instead of the 13th century. Both are the work of people who work up ever more complex technical arguments from fundamentally invalid premises, who try to reify these prwmises by endlessly tweaking their implementation apparatus instead of rethinking their assumptions from first principles. both phenomena even ascribe these first principles to color coded documents purportedly authored by mythical, pseudonymous departed sages, the emerald tablet of Hermes trismegistus and the white paper of Satoshi nakamoto.
raiyu 7y ago
The problem with bitcoin is specifically that it is deflationary. In over simplified macro economic terms when you have deflation it is in the consumers interest to not spend money, because the cost of a service or good will be lower in the future. So the longer you wait the more you save. You have the same issue with Bitcoin, because it is deflationary it is in the holder's interest to not spend it, because it's future buying power will be increased. So if you look at how bitcoin was distributed you have early holders that have a tremendous amount and have been rewarded for it. Add to that speculation and you have this whole cycle ramped up on steroids, with huge swings up, and then down, and all the while the value continues to increase because it is designed to do so. The problem was that bitcoin tried to solve two problems, but should have only solved one. The first problem was how to transfer value in an untrusted network which was a great success. The second, was unneeded, which is to make it deflationary as some sort of perhaps response to the inflationary world we live in. But the reality is that the inflationary world was designed by economists so that wealth continues to circulate. Yes, there are still issues. Yes we have imbalance. But inflation does case wealth to circulate, though not as quickly as some would hope for. In bitcoin, you have the exact opposite, wealth gets accrued to early backers and just sits there.
- tromp 7y ago
  Bitcoin's supply is disinflationary, with the yearly supply inflation rate going toward 0 (and reaching it in 2140). But so is a constant emission, the major difference being that the latter goes toward 0 a lot slower, e.g. taking 50 instead of 12 years to get below 2%. More importantly, it accrues wealth to late adopters as much as to early backers, combining a fairer distribution with reduced spending aversion.
  - iamaelephant 7y ago
    This assumes that every bitcoin ever mined stays in circulation. We know this isn't true. We know that millions of dollars of bitcoin have gone missing, never to be recovered. And if Bitcoin is the real deal (it probably isn't) then we've only just started. If this thing hangs around for decades or even centuries we will see trillions more go missing.

Melting_Harps 7y ago

> Bitcoin is fundamentally not a cash alternative Funny, I built a fintech startup on helping the cannabis Industry from their supposed 'cash' problem(s): predominately having too much of it and not having banking, or having thier cash taken indefinitely by the bank/paypal upon closure of their account(s). While also doing B2B transactions where banks/CC companies failed to lend them services, despite having Local/State laws permitting so. None of which Cash seemed to prove as useful as you think it is. I think you're looking at this the wrong way: rather than looking at it as a paradigm shift in what programmable money can do, you are measuring Bitcoin by how it fails to function (or dysfunction) as your local Fiat currency does. That's a very poor measure/metric, as for being able to use it day-to-day, provided you're willing to operate within a KYC/AML system, you can have Visa Credit Cards that draw from your source of BTC in real time/previously loaded, depending on what service you use. Merchants who accept Bitcoin is a constraint, mainly a tech related one, but just like how many restaurants now take UberEats/Doordash/GrubHub that amount to a growing/large(r) percent of their revenue (moreso when States are limiting restaurant hours or outright operation to online orders only [1]) you will see new use cases appear which Bitcoin's layer 1/2 can utilize natively as a private p2p system. I think its very telling that despite guy's like Jack Dorsey backing Bitcoin, who I think understands the fintech landscape, and has been orientating Square to be integrated and compatible with it many of you still refuse to see the shift has already happened. Price drops happen in Bitcoin, I've been in this long enough that it doesn't phase me anymore; and is the only real antidote to the supposed 'what about the early adopter whales' issue people bring up, personally I'm using some of my discretionary budget to buy more. I'm not here to convince you to use Bitcoin, or why it would work for you/your business: I'm just pointing out why what you said is skewed and not framed correctly. Otherwise you'll have to do what IBM did: offer a good salary for consultant fees to do so. :) [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/15/coronavirus-bars-restaurants-closed-states/5055634002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/15/corona...

Nursie 7y ago
I tend to measure bitcoin by how its proponents sell it. It has failed at all of these things - Being a fast/cheap payments network Being a decentralised cash equivalent Being a store of value The shift hasn't already happened - large businesses that have accepted bitcoin in the past have almost all stepped back from it citing a variety of problems, but mainly boiling down to it not being worth the effort, and nobody using it. And why would they? It's inflationary in theory and speculative in actuality, anyone that actually thinks BTC is the way of the future would be a fool to part with it.
- Melting_Harps 7y ago
  > ...anyone that actually thinks BTC is the way of the future would be a fool to part with it. Namely these mainly Silicon Valley based Billionaires: Jack Dorsey, Peter Theil, Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz, Tim Draper. Add Mark Cuban in there, too if you want, but he's not SV based. Seriously, if you want to put your money where your mouth is I can essentially prove your 1st/2nd points right now. The 3rd will take longer as a store of value is relative to the period you bought, so by default needs time to accrue value. I'm game if you are, here is my address if you want to make it happen: 3FeN7m31dksxmGhXTMRM9ggxbEcPnfUDHy
  - Nursie 7y ago
    I have no bitcoin and would never give one red cent to the shabby, frequently fraudulent outfits that call themselves exchanges in order to obtain any. You have fun now with all that name dropping. The track record of cryptocurrencies so far has quite thoroughly shown me and most of the world AFAICT that those points are a bust. It's worse than the systems we already have, in pretty much every way. I note you don't actually address the points made either.
    - ChainOfFools 7y ago
      cryptocurrency is what alchemy would look like if it appeared in 2008 instead of the 13th century. Both are the work of people who work up ever more complex technical arguments from fundamentally invalid premises, who try to reify these prwmises by endlessly tweaking their implementation apparatus instead of rethinking their assumptions from first principles. both phenomena even ascribe these first principles to color coded documents purportedly authored by mythical, pseudonymous departed sages, the emerald tablet of Hermes trismegistus and the white paper of Satoshi nakamoto.

raiyu 7y ago

The problem with bitcoin is specifically that it is deflationary. In over simplified macro economic terms when you have deflation it is in the consumers interest to not spend money, because the cost of a service or good will be lower in the future. So the longer you wait the more you save. You have the same issue with Bitcoin, because it is deflationary it is in the holder's interest to not spend it, because it's future buying power will be increased. So if you look at how bitcoin was distributed you have early holders that have a tremendous amount and have been rewarded for it. Add to that speculation and you have this whole cycle ramped up on steroids, with huge swings up, and then down, and all the while the value continues to increase because it is designed to do so. The problem was that bitcoin tried to solve two problems, but should have only solved one. The first problem was how to transfer value in an untrusted network which was a great success. The second, was unneeded, which is to make it deflationary as some sort of perhaps response to the inflationary world we live in. But the reality is that the inflationary world was designed by economists so that wealth continues to circulate. Yes, there are still issues. Yes we have imbalance. But inflation does case wealth to circulate, though not as quickly as some would hope for. In bitcoin, you have the exact opposite, wealth gets accrued to early backers and just sits there.

tromp 7y ago
Bitcoin's supply is disinflationary, with the yearly supply inflation rate going toward 0 (and reaching it in 2140). But so is a constant emission, the major difference being that the latter goes toward 0 a lot slower, e.g. taking 50 instead of 12 years to get below 2%. More importantly, it accrues wealth to late adopters as much as to early backers, combining a fairer distribution with reduced spending aversion.
- iamaelephant 7y ago
  This assumes that every bitcoin ever mined stays in circulation. We know this isn't true. We know that millions of dollars of bitcoin have gone missing, never to be recovered. And if Bitcoin is the real deal (it probably isn't) then we've only just started. If this thing hangs around for decades or even centuries we will see trillions more go missing.