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I'm definitely skeptical about crypto, but to counter some of the points: - Presumably more people will be online, and more ways to use crypto will be released

I'm definitely skeptical about crypto, but to counter some of the points: - Presumably more people will be online, and more ways to use crypto will be released. - One big benefit of crypto is that it crosses borders and is relatively anonymous. The USA might have stable money and relative safe banks, but that isn't true everywhere. - Non reversibility is a rough one, but I think we'll see software managing keys to make scams less likely. For example you can't get your coinbase private key afaik, which helps stop scams. Volatility will go down a steady state - it's still very early days for crypto, and I think we'll end up in a steady state after a while.

MuffinFlavored 6y ago
> - One big benefit of crypto is that it crosses borders and is relatively anonymous I could be wrong but this feels temporarily true, but illegal in the long term. Is the US government working on adding regulations to cryptocurrency to make it "just another form of currency"? aka, have it regulated to the point where cross-border and anonymous would become synonymous with the likes of "tax evasion"?
- mindvirus 6y ago
  I don't think regulations will make it illegal. Tax evasion obviously is. I'm thinking more on the high corruption country side, it'll make it easier to get, store and use money.
Jasper_ 6y ago
> - Presumably more people will be online, and more ways to use crypto will be released. Bitcoin launched in 2007. Facebook opened to the public in 2006. One of those has 3 billion users, the other can't get out of the basement. Why haven't we seen more of those ways yet? > It's still very early days for crypto Facebook is one year older, and it's now basically a nation state in power and scale. When will it stop being "very early days for crypto"?
- mindvirus 6y ago
  I don't think that's a fair comparison. Before Facebook was Myspace, and before that forums and BBSes. The concepts Facebook was built on are much older than it. When does it stop being the early days? I don't know - it'll take decades I would guess for it to be widely used and the general population to be comfortable with it.
  - Jasper_ 6y ago
    And Bitcoin was based on Hashcash and countless other distributed ledger systems before it. > I don't know - it'll take decades I would guess for it to be widely used Well we're already down one and a half decades. What if it never sees widespread use. Defining "very early days" as "there's no users yet" means you can always claim it's "very early days". There's another issue here, which is that people point out hard problems and say "don't worry, smart people are working on solutions". This has been happening as far back as 2013, when I was poking my head into the Bitcoin-sphere. But it never accounts for: what if there is no solution that meets all requirements? That's politically appropriate, safe, secure, and efficient? Maybe we can't claim magic future solutions will solve us when they still haven't been solved yet -- 1.5 decades in.
    - mindvirus 6y ago
      Like I said, I'm skeptical too. There is a lot of growth though - cash app and coinbase make it easy to buy, bitpay makes it easy to spend. So when I say it's early days, I mean that if crypto takes off I think it has room to be significantly bigger than today.
- programmarchy 6y ago
  Crypto total market cap is over $1 trillion, and Bitcoin represents 60% of that. It’s much more valuable than Facebook.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I'm skeptical that market cap is a useful metric here. Owning a cryptocurrency doesn't entitle you to a share of the value generated by that currency, so it's not clear why multiplying the price of 1 BTC by 21 million should produce a meaningful estimate of how much Bitcoin as a whole is worth.

MuffinFlavored 6y ago

> - One big benefit of crypto is that it crosses borders and is relatively anonymous I could be wrong but this feels temporarily true, but illegal in the long term. Is the US government working on adding regulations to cryptocurrency to make it "just another form of currency"? aka, have it regulated to the point where cross-border and anonymous would become synonymous with the likes of "tax evasion"?

mindvirus 6y ago
I don't think regulations will make it illegal. Tax evasion obviously is. I'm thinking more on the high corruption country side, it'll make it easier to get, store and use money.

Jasper_ 6y ago

> - Presumably more people will be online, and more ways to use crypto will be released. Bitcoin launched in 2007. Facebook opened to the public in 2006. One of those has 3 billion users, the other can't get out of the basement. Why haven't we seen more of those ways yet? > It's still very early days for crypto Facebook is one year older, and it's now basically a nation state in power and scale. When will it stop being "very early days for crypto"?

mindvirus 6y ago
I don't think that's a fair comparison. Before Facebook was Myspace, and before that forums and BBSes. The concepts Facebook was built on are much older than it. When does it stop being the early days? I don't know - it'll take decades I would guess for it to be widely used and the general population to be comfortable with it.
- Jasper_ 6y ago
  And Bitcoin was based on Hashcash and countless other distributed ledger systems before it. > I don't know - it'll take decades I would guess for it to be widely used Well we're already down one and a half decades. What if it never sees widespread use. Defining "very early days" as "there's no users yet" means you can always claim it's "very early days". There's another issue here, which is that people point out hard problems and say "don't worry, smart people are working on solutions". This has been happening as far back as 2013, when I was poking my head into the Bitcoin-sphere. But it never accounts for: what if there is no solution that meets all requirements? That's politically appropriate, safe, secure, and efficient? Maybe we can't claim magic future solutions will solve us when they still haven't been solved yet -- 1.5 decades in.
  - mindvirus 6y ago
    Like I said, I'm skeptical too. There is a lot of growth though - cash app and coinbase make it easy to buy, bitpay makes it easy to spend. So when I say it's early days, I mean that if crypto takes off I think it has room to be significantly bigger than today.
programmarchy 6y ago
Crypto total market cap is over $1 trillion, and Bitcoin represents 60% of that. It’s much more valuable than Facebook.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I'm skeptical that market cap is a useful metric here. Owning a cryptocurrency doesn't entitle you to a share of the value generated by that currency, so it's not clear why multiplying the price of 1 BTC by 21 million should produce a meaningful estimate of how much Bitcoin as a whole is worth.