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I’d argue that “valuable for humans” is brushing over something: is Bitcoin valuable for humans as a collective or is it valuable for a small minority who stand

I’d argue that “valuable for humans” is brushing over something: is Bitcoin valuable for humans as a collective or is it valuable for a small minority who stand to gain from it? From my view, and despite the initial promises of Bitcoin, it’s being used by people of means to get even more money than they already have.

formalsystem 6y ago
Sure value is subjective - I find it valuable because it's gold I can transmit through space quickly
- ben_w 6y ago
  Which county are you in? I’ve never had a lack of convenience from normal banking.
  - formalsystem 6y ago
    I'm a dual citizen - my family lost their savings in Lebanon because of banking capital controls. That story is not unique to our generation or history more generally.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      > That story is not unique to our generation or history more generally. Indeed, though I don’t see how BTC could help — it’ll just be one more currency you’re not able to convert local money into, surely?
      - formalsystem 6y ago
        For transactions yes you need local money for long term savings would rather hold Bitcoin or Lebanese Lira?
        ben_w 6y ago
        Depends on what you count as long term, but based on the 10-year graphs on WolframAlpha? I’d prefer Lira. It’s not that I don’t regret not putting £10,000 into BTC when it was worth $250/coin (I absolutely do!) it’s just that I expect that degree of variability to work in both directions.
  - alwillis 6y ago
    Everything’s fine until you want to pay an entity your bank or government has decided you can’t pay. In the US, people who wanted to donate to Wikileaks were forbidden to do so.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      Even if I wished to pay an entity that I was banned from paying by my government or my bank, the very fact that it was banned would make me worry about being defrauded.
- brettermeier 6y ago
  It's no gold :D Just bits.
nmlnn 6y ago
If you're in Venezuela, Argentina, Lebanon, Turkey, Nigeria, etc. where your government is stealing your savings via massive inflation it's pretty useful. It would definitely be better if the learning curve was shallower and the UI's easier, so that more people could be saved.
- amelius 6y ago
  Couldn't the same be achieved without a currency that encourages mining?
  - nmlnn 6y ago
    If someone figures out a way to do it, then sure. Mining ensures that no one in the system is able to get a new monetary unit below the market price as well as making tampering with past transactions uneconomical. Ultimately it's a very elegant solution to what was a long-standing problem. The system pays for itself via transaction fees, which are used to "lock" the transaction history in a completely decentralised way.
    - amelius 6y ago
      But do people in Venezuela etc. really need all the requirements of Bitcoin? E.g. having to deal with a central authority other than their own government could still be an option.
      - nmlnn 6y ago
        Maybe they do maybe they don't, it's impossible to tell other people what they need. The best you can do is educate them on the options you think could help, people will ultimately make their own decisions.
      - madacol 6y ago
        The most popular method in Venezuela right now is cash-dollars and then zelle transfers, and zelle is only available to those who have overseas bank accounts, everybody else is mostly screwed. Bitcoin is very useful to those who understand it, but if it weren't so hard to understand to common people it would be an even greater success, it would be a practical option to those who have internet and smartphones, that's still a minority in the country, but not as much as zelle. Despite that almost everyone have heard of bitcoin in venezuela, another big reason for the undeveloped potential of it is the black-mailing from local authorities to anyone they knew had bitcoins, mostly when price went up fast. There's fear in letting know authorities you have cryptocurrencies. I'm not in Venezuela anymore, but I still use bitcoin on a monthly basis to send money across borders to my family. And the security of it gives me a guarantee not offered by anything else, by far!!!. I won't get my money blocked, like it happened to me with a US bank account, for trying to spend all of my money at once (~2k$). So theoretically a central authority should be able to offer all of that, but in practice, they're all made of human being's decisions, which rules change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and susceptible to whims. In other words, unstable and not trustworthy. We have also lived what those central authorities can become Once you've understand how truly secure money can be, it's hard to go back.

formalsystem 6y ago

Sure value is subjective - I find it valuable because it's gold I can transmit through space quickly

ben_w 6y ago
Which county are you in? I’ve never had a lack of convenience from normal banking.
- formalsystem 6y ago
  I'm a dual citizen - my family lost their savings in Lebanon because of banking capital controls. That story is not unique to our generation or history more generally.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    > That story is not unique to our generation or history more generally. Indeed, though I don’t see how BTC could help — it’ll just be one more currency you’re not able to convert local money into, surely?
    - formalsystem 6y ago
      For transactions yes you need local money for long term savings would rather hold Bitcoin or Lebanese Lira?
      - ben_w 6y ago
        Depends on what you count as long term, but based on the 10-year graphs on WolframAlpha? I’d prefer Lira. It’s not that I don’t regret not putting £10,000 into BTC when it was worth $250/coin (I absolutely do!) it’s just that I expect that degree of variability to work in both directions.
- alwillis 6y ago
  Everything’s fine until you want to pay an entity your bank or government has decided you can’t pay. In the US, people who wanted to donate to Wikileaks were forbidden to do so.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    Even if I wished to pay an entity that I was banned from paying by my government or my bank, the very fact that it was banned would make me worry about being defrauded.
brettermeier 6y ago
It's no gold :D Just bits.

nmlnn 6y ago

If you're in Venezuela, Argentina, Lebanon, Turkey, Nigeria, etc. where your government is stealing your savings via massive inflation it's pretty useful. It would definitely be better if the learning curve was shallower and the UI's easier, so that more people could be saved.

amelius 6y ago
Couldn't the same be achieved without a currency that encourages mining?
- nmlnn 6y ago
  If someone figures out a way to do it, then sure. Mining ensures that no one in the system is able to get a new monetary unit below the market price as well as making tampering with past transactions uneconomical. Ultimately it's a very elegant solution to what was a long-standing problem. The system pays for itself via transaction fees, which are used to "lock" the transaction history in a completely decentralised way.
  - amelius 6y ago
    But do people in Venezuela etc. really need all the requirements of Bitcoin? E.g. having to deal with a central authority other than their own government could still be an option.
    - nmlnn 6y ago
      Maybe they do maybe they don't, it's impossible to tell other people what they need. The best you can do is educate them on the options you think could help, people will ultimately make their own decisions.
    - madacol 6y ago
      The most popular method in Venezuela right now is cash-dollars and then zelle transfers, and zelle is only available to those who have overseas bank accounts, everybody else is mostly screwed. Bitcoin is very useful to those who understand it, but if it weren't so hard to understand to common people it would be an even greater success, it would be a practical option to those who have internet and smartphones, that's still a minority in the country, but not as much as zelle. Despite that almost everyone have heard of bitcoin in venezuela, another big reason for the undeveloped potential of it is the black-mailing from local authorities to anyone they knew had bitcoins, mostly when price went up fast. There's fear in letting know authorities you have cryptocurrencies. I'm not in Venezuela anymore, but I still use bitcoin on a monthly basis to send money across borders to my family. And the security of it gives me a guarantee not offered by anything else, by far!!!. I won't get my money blocked, like it happened to me with a US bank account, for trying to spend all of my money at once (~2k$). So theoretically a central authority should be able to offer all of that, but in practice, they're all made of human being's decisions, which rules change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and susceptible to whims. In other words, unstable and not trustworthy. We have also lived what those central authorities can become Once you've understand how truly secure money can be, it's hard to go back.