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Interestingly, past performance of the last 9 years did not change much in terms of perception: 1. People who believe that Bitcoin can eat the world, do not ca

Interestingly, past performance of the last 9 years did not change much in terms of perception: 1. People who believe that Bitcoin can eat the world, do not care when it goes up and down. Periodic rallies are unsurprising and upper limit is still to be reached (at very least, the entire mass of gold - about $8 trillion). It's still early and cheap at current $200 bln capitalization. 2. People who do not buy the premise ("displace fiat and physical moneys"), or don't think that Bitcoin is going to deliver ("something better will come along"), do not care about the price either - it's just a giant bubble waiting to pop. 3. Plus a crowd of short-term speculators who are no different than Forex people, just with higher volatility at hand.

sparkie 6y ago
One thing that has changed is that the number of people who've gone from 2 to 1 has increased, and the number of people who've gone from 1 to 2 has decreased.
- paulgb 6y ago
  From my point of view, it seems like the net movement has been in the opposite direction. - I used to see brick-and-mortar and online businesses accept Bitcoin, and ATMs; these have all but dried up. - As the mining difficulty has increased, more people are genuinely concerned about the carbon footprint. - I've seen more pessimism about scalability, as off-chain solutions have failed to meaningfully materialize. - Post the big bubble of 2018, the public Bitcoin "brand" is basically tied to get-rich-quick scams and ransomware. Even if insiders believe that it's more than that, the public perception is important if it is to be adopted beyond current insiders.
  - sparkie 6y ago
    > I used to see brick-and-mortar and online businesses accept Bitcoin, and ATMs; these have all but dried up. People were accepting bitcoin for payments under a flawed assumption that a zero-confirmation transaction was in some way "secure," despite this not being enforced in any way by bitcoin's consensus rules. The introduction of RBF made it clearer to people who had made this bad assumption, and they revised their policies about accepting unconfirmed payments. ATMs are still around, and growing in number, but they seem to be getting more expensive to use. See coinatmradar.com. There are magnitudes more now in 2020 than there were in 2015. > As the mining difficulty has increased, more people are genuinely concerned about the carbon footprint. People who think this need to ask themselves: "what can I do about it?" The answer to this is absolutely nothing. People are going to mine bitcoin, and you're going to have to get over it, because you can't change their decision. If it is inevitable that people are going to mine bitcoin, then rejecting bitcoin because you don't agree with that is simply self-harm. You are foregoing potential benefits (of price appreciation, technological improvement, etc) because of a religious-like belief that humanity would be better off using less electricity. (Ironically while spending half the day in front of a computer, having a TV in every room, carrying a smartphone around 24 hours a day and cooling down with the aircon.) > I've seen more pessimism about scalability, as off-chain solutions have failed to meaningfully materialize. They are materializing. The Lightning Network is running now, and improving frequently. I suspect people who are pessimistic about this have not actually attempted to run their own node yet and are waiting for adoption to grow first. Kind of reminds me of people who were waiting for Bitcoin adoption to rise in 2011, and failed to capitalize on an enormous opportunity. > Post the big bubble of 2018, the public Bitcoin "brand" is basically tied to get-rich-quick scams and ransomware. It was associated with this way before 2018. When I first heard of it in 2011 it was being branded as a ponzi scheme. It was tied with the silk-road for buying drugs. WannaCry was just the case that brought it to more people's attention. Bitcoin is still doing as it always was, and in many ways it being distinguished from other get-rich-schemes (known as shitcoins), by focusing on the fundamentals of its finite supply and network effects. The shitcoiners are doing bitcoin a favour by dissociating themselves with it and trying to promote their scams.
    - paulgb 6y ago
      > rejecting bitcoin because you don't agree with that is simply self-harm This is only as true as saying that any personal attempt to minimize your carbon footprint is self-harm. But here, it has other implications as well: society needs to "agree" that Bitcoin has value. If Bitcoin starts (rightfully, IMHO) being seen as a "dirty" good, it becomes less desirable on the market even if I, personally, were indifferent to the carbon footprint. > The Lightning Network is running now What volume of transactions is it doing? (This isn't rhetorical, I genuinely haven't been able to find this out and I'm curious) > When I first heard of it in 2011 it was being branded as a ponzi scheme Yep, I remember those days. The difference was, that perception was mostly wrong at the time. The community was filled with people who genuinely wanted to make Bitcoin happen. Sure it would make them rich in the process, but at least they were willing to put in the work. Once Bitcoin became relatively mainstream, grifters moved in and it was tragedy of the commons; all the goodwill was capitalized by scammers and ICO promoters. People who were involved in the early days became either disillusioned or displaced and lost control of the brand. It's hard to recover from that sort of public image problem without a central authority to control the brand.
      - tossAfterUsing 6y ago
        > This is only as true as saying that any personal attempt to minimize your carbon footprint is self-harm. I sometimes wonder, when the mining energy question is raised, about the carbon footprint of all the servers and buildings and air conditioning in all the banks in all the world.
      - sparkie 6y ago
        > This is only as true as saying that any personal attempt to minimize your carbon footprint is self-harm. But here, it has other implications as well: society needs to "agree" that Bitcoin has value. If Bitcoin starts (rightfully, IMHO) being seen as a "dirty" good, it becomes less desirable on the market even if I, personally, were indifferent to the carbon footprint. "Society" is a mythical entity. Not everyone needs to agree. It only needs the people who use it to agree, and the rest will follow. Even if you don't agree about the carbon footprint, there is nothing you can do to stop it. It's pointless worrying yourself over something that is absolutely out of your control, and will never be under your control, no matter how much as you crave the power to control other people's behavior. > What volume of transactions is it doing? (This isn't rhetorical, I genuinely haven't been able to find this out and I'm curious) Nobody knows because it is not known. Transactions are private, and individual nodes in the network are dumb routers who know naught of the transactions they forward. No nodes know about the volume because they have incomplete information. This is by design. > Yep, I remember those days. The difference was, that perception was mostly wrong at the time. The community was filled with people who genuinely wanted to make Bitcoin happen. Sure it would make them rich in the process, but at least they were willing to put in the work. Not sure about your version of events here. Early on there were plenty of people discussing their gains and selling off bitcoin, which is what caused a lot of the early publicity in 2010 and 2011. If it had merely been a cryptographer's toy then it would probably never have left the mailing lists. The finance guys were some of the first people in Bitcoin and were not at all concerned with the fundamentals, only making a quick profit. Those same people sidelined Bitcoin to focus on shitcoins and ICOs because they were no longer able to make a quick killing from Bitcoin. Bitcoin became expensive, and the profit margins for trading it were shrinking. ICOs and other scams were just the continuation for these guys, who don't care about economics or technology, or have any second thoughts about literally scamming people out of hard earned money.

sparkie 6y ago

One thing that has changed is that the number of people who've gone from 2 to 1 has increased, and the number of people who've gone from 1 to 2 has decreased.

paulgb 6y ago
From my point of view, it seems like the net movement has been in the opposite direction. - I used to see brick-and-mortar and online businesses accept Bitcoin, and ATMs; these have all but dried up. - As the mining difficulty has increased, more people are genuinely concerned about the carbon footprint. - I've seen more pessimism about scalability, as off-chain solutions have failed to meaningfully materialize. - Post the big bubble of 2018, the public Bitcoin "brand" is basically tied to get-rich-quick scams and ransomware. Even if insiders believe that it's more than that, the public perception is important if it is to be adopted beyond current insiders.
- sparkie 6y ago
  > I used to see brick-and-mortar and online businesses accept Bitcoin, and ATMs; these have all but dried up. People were accepting bitcoin for payments under a flawed assumption that a zero-confirmation transaction was in some way "secure," despite this not being enforced in any way by bitcoin's consensus rules. The introduction of RBF made it clearer to people who had made this bad assumption, and they revised their policies about accepting unconfirmed payments. ATMs are still around, and growing in number, but they seem to be getting more expensive to use. See coinatmradar.com. There are magnitudes more now in 2020 than there were in 2015. > As the mining difficulty has increased, more people are genuinely concerned about the carbon footprint. People who think this need to ask themselves: "what can I do about it?" The answer to this is absolutely nothing. People are going to mine bitcoin, and you're going to have to get over it, because you can't change their decision. If it is inevitable that people are going to mine bitcoin, then rejecting bitcoin because you don't agree with that is simply self-harm. You are foregoing potential benefits (of price appreciation, technological improvement, etc) because of a religious-like belief that humanity would be better off using less electricity. (Ironically while spending half the day in front of a computer, having a TV in every room, carrying a smartphone around 24 hours a day and cooling down with the aircon.) > I've seen more pessimism about scalability, as off-chain solutions have failed to meaningfully materialize. They are materializing. The Lightning Network is running now, and improving frequently. I suspect people who are pessimistic about this have not actually attempted to run their own node yet and are waiting for adoption to grow first. Kind of reminds me of people who were waiting for Bitcoin adoption to rise in 2011, and failed to capitalize on an enormous opportunity. > Post the big bubble of 2018, the public Bitcoin "brand" is basically tied to get-rich-quick scams and ransomware. It was associated with this way before 2018. When I first heard of it in 2011 it was being branded as a ponzi scheme. It was tied with the silk-road for buying drugs. WannaCry was just the case that brought it to more people's attention. Bitcoin is still doing as it always was, and in many ways it being distinguished from other get-rich-schemes (known as shitcoins), by focusing on the fundamentals of its finite supply and network effects. The shitcoiners are doing bitcoin a favour by dissociating themselves with it and trying to promote their scams.
  - paulgb 6y ago
    > rejecting bitcoin because you don't agree with that is simply self-harm This is only as true as saying that any personal attempt to minimize your carbon footprint is self-harm. But here, it has other implications as well: society needs to "agree" that Bitcoin has value. If Bitcoin starts (rightfully, IMHO) being seen as a "dirty" good, it becomes less desirable on the market even if I, personally, were indifferent to the carbon footprint. > The Lightning Network is running now What volume of transactions is it doing? (This isn't rhetorical, I genuinely haven't been able to find this out and I'm curious) > When I first heard of it in 2011 it was being branded as a ponzi scheme Yep, I remember those days. The difference was, that perception was mostly wrong at the time. The community was filled with people who genuinely wanted to make Bitcoin happen. Sure it would make them rich in the process, but at least they were willing to put in the work. Once Bitcoin became relatively mainstream, grifters moved in and it was tragedy of the commons; all the goodwill was capitalized by scammers and ICO promoters. People who were involved in the early days became either disillusioned or displaced and lost control of the brand. It's hard to recover from that sort of public image problem without a central authority to control the brand.
    - tossAfterUsing 6y ago
      > This is only as true as saying that any personal attempt to minimize your carbon footprint is self-harm. I sometimes wonder, when the mining energy question is raised, about the carbon footprint of all the servers and buildings and air conditioning in all the banks in all the world.
    - sparkie 6y ago
      > This is only as true as saying that any personal attempt to minimize your carbon footprint is self-harm. But here, it has other implications as well: society needs to "agree" that Bitcoin has value. If Bitcoin starts (rightfully, IMHO) being seen as a "dirty" good, it becomes less desirable on the market even if I, personally, were indifferent to the carbon footprint. "Society" is a mythical entity. Not everyone needs to agree. It only needs the people who use it to agree, and the rest will follow. Even if you don't agree about the carbon footprint, there is nothing you can do to stop it. It's pointless worrying yourself over something that is absolutely out of your control, and will never be under your control, no matter how much as you crave the power to control other people's behavior. > What volume of transactions is it doing? (This isn't rhetorical, I genuinely haven't been able to find this out and I'm curious) Nobody knows because it is not known. Transactions are private, and individual nodes in the network are dumb routers who know naught of the transactions they forward. No nodes know about the volume because they have incomplete information. This is by design. > Yep, I remember those days. The difference was, that perception was mostly wrong at the time. The community was filled with people who genuinely wanted to make Bitcoin happen. Sure it would make them rich in the process, but at least they were willing to put in the work. Not sure about your version of events here. Early on there were plenty of people discussing their gains and selling off bitcoin, which is what caused a lot of the early publicity in 2010 and 2011. If it had merely been a cryptographer's toy then it would probably never have left the mailing lists. The finance guys were some of the first people in Bitcoin and were not at all concerned with the fundamentals, only making a quick profit. Those same people sidelined Bitcoin to focus on shitcoins and ICOs because they were no longer able to make a quick killing from Bitcoin. Bitcoin became expensive, and the profit margins for trading it were shrinking. ICOs and other scams were just the continuation for these guys, who don't care about economics or technology, or have any second thoughts about literally scamming people out of hard earned money.