22 ms·

EFF no longer accepts donations in Bitcoins

148 points by mike_esspe 15y ago

hugh3 15y ago
They're still accepting pinecones, confederate dollars and unicorn horns though, right?
tptacek 15y ago
I'm torn between liking stories that shine a skeptical light on the bitcoin fad and being appalled at how much coverage bitcoin gets on HN. The "hiring" thread for June was pushed off the front page in less than a day, but we've had, what, 5 bitcoin stories hit the front page in the same time period? I think it's time for some REPL intervention.
- mattmanser 15y ago
  I'm not really voting up the bitcoin stories, but I'm reading them, for me it's like watching a car crash in slow motion. You can't help but sit there enthralled!
  - narrator 15y ago
    I think we shouldn't overlook that Bitcoin has some interesting aspects to it that make this a very different and peculiar kind of car crash.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      I don't think we should overlook that bitcoin has a built-in feedback mechanism that acts to keep bitcoin stories on the front page.
      - hugh3 15y ago
        As a compromise I'd be willing to accept a moratorium on all bitcoin-related articles up to "Bitcoin Post Mortem", whenever that may be. I have to admit, however, I can't resist commenting on the bitcoin articles when they show up. It's the classic "Someone is wrong on the internet!" reaction. Maybe those of us who aren't zany bitcoin-boosters need to make a pact to stop commenting on these articles and hopefully once robbed of controversy they'll go away.
    - jellicle 15y ago
      Not really. It's the same as any Ponzi scheme. A promise to early adopters that they'll get rich; initial returns seem to prove out the promise; a giant wave of hype drives a steady stream of suckers into the deal; the existence of the hype is sufficient justification for further hyping stories, providing secondary waves of publicity; the creators quietly cash out their positions and retire to small Caribbean islands; eventually others start trying to cash out; this creates a reverse hype wave ("sell your bitcoins now before they are worthless!"); and wooosh, in a week bitcoins will indeed be worthless. If it were a real currency the creator might face jail time but in this case the creator may well get away with it. The creator can plausibly (notice I did not say truthfully) disclaim any knowledge of how the scheme would unfold. It is interesting from a technical perspective but from a societal/historical point of view, not at all. This same cycle has played out infinite times in human history and will play out infinite times in the future. People always manage to convince themselves that "this time it's different".
      - narrator 15y ago
        The limited inflation and eventual deflation aspects make it more interesting then tradictional alternate currencies. The world is not going to get flooded with an unlimited supply of bitcoins just because there's more demand. How is gold not a ponzi scheme BTW? Ponzi schemes don't run for 3000 years.
      - swaits 15y ago
        I don't think you exactly understand the definition of a Ponzi scheme. It might well be a bubble. But Ponzi? No.
        hugh3 15y ago
        Not quite ponzi. Somewhere between a Ponzi and a bubble -- economically it's a bubble, practically it's a Ponzi. Most bubbles start by accident -- this one was carefully engineered. How do you engineer a bubble? First you invent an asset. But if it's an asset that only you own then nobody will want to believe it's valuable. So you make it possible for the first round of early adopters to get it for free, by "mining. The first adopters talk the second adopters into trying it too (they can still get significant amounts by mining) and... well, you know the story. You also wrap it in some political anti-fiat-currency anti-bank anti-Fed anti-government anti-whatever pro-cryptography political wrapping to make it appealing to a certain constituency. But the key thing is to give out the "asset" for free at first, and to a lesser extent as time goes on, to incentivise early adopters without requiring 'em to actually put their hands in their own pockets. It's quite brilliant, the best memetically-engineered scam since Scientology. And now I'm really getting tired of discussing bitcoin. I think I'll write a big long blog post in the form of a FAQ, submit it, and never mention bitcoin ever again.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- Luyt 15y ago
  Bitcoins might turn out to be the modern digital equivalent of the Tulip Mania [1], a short span of intense speculation with tulip bulbs in 1636, complete with short selling and outrageous profits to be made, which suddenly collapsed in February 1637. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
  - rnemo 15y ago
    Bitcoins are a bubble commodity just like anything else that rapidly rises almost entirely because of speculation. In a sense the Bitcoin market is a lot like the current gold market, both are enjoying a massive boom fueled by demand for the product without any commercial reason to back up that demand, and the inevitable result of this is that values will at some point begin to plummet. The difference between Bitcoin and gold though is that even after gold plummets it will still retain highly respectable value, whereas when Bitcoin falls it's entirely possible for it to be completely devalued as a product.
    - lsparrish 15y ago
      The value of bitcoin is that it can be traded, easily, and can't be easily faked. Gold can't be easily faked, but it can't be traded so easily. For a bitcoin to be completely worthless rather stretches the imagination. At a minimum they are a sort of geeky collector's item and inherently limited in supply. They also cost next to nothing to store.
- daeken 15y ago
  While I don't think Bitcoin will achieve anything of substance (aside from adding to my bank account due to forex trading while the hype is going), I think it's quite interesting in and of itself. That said, I don't think the problem is that there are Bitcoin stories on here, but that the stories on here have been really, really uninteresting. Why aren't we covering real issues, rather than "someone misunderstood how Bitcoin worked and lost $X"?
- il 15y ago
  I have no evidence for this whatsoever, but my hunch is that there is a significant amount of gaming and astroturfing on HN by people who have a vested interest in more bitcoin coverage. The current volatility of the bitcoin economy means that every single story on HN increases the value of their bitcoin "investment".
  - tlrobinson 15y ago
    Quite possible, but there's been a number of negative articles on Bitcoin as well, including this one.
  - 3pt14159 15y ago
    Naw, the voting anti-spam algos on HN are pretty good. I have a slight vested interest, but I don't really want bitcoins to go up any more for a while, I'd rather it stabled out and people started building real apps with them. With the growth rate of the currency as it is, it is hard to justify building a BTC app when I could just contract out at $100/hr and then convert that into bitcoins.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      Numerous other trend stories have been manually suppressed by HN's operators this year. The argument that a story is probably valid because HN's "anti-spam algos" didn't catch it probably doesn't hold water.
      - 3pt14159 15y ago
        Well that just means their vote ring detection system needs improving. If there really is 100 people that have a vested interest in Bitcoin all collaborating on IRC or whatever and they are the majority of the ones pumping up the story then this seems trivial to catch.
        tptacek 15y ago
        Yes, it needs improving by attaching a strong negative weight to any story about bitcoin, perhaps until the next HN reboot.
- SandB0x 15y ago
  It's so tedious. I would have literally no idea that Bitcoins existed if it weren't for the flood of articles on HN. I don't understand - who are all the people who find this interesting or relevant?
  - ry0ohki 15y ago
    It's at the intersection of a lot of things that people here find interesting. It's potentially a way to make money (some say ponzi scheme), it has a tech component, there's a anti-government component, etc... so I do believe a lot of people here do care about it. I mean I keep reading the damn articles too...
    - tptacek 15y ago
      I think the kernel of contributors with a good-faith interest in bitcoin is smaller than you think it is, but either way: if bitcoin is getting multiples of the attention that the hiring thread is, I think most reasonable HN people can agree that it's being overrepresented. Lawyering over the site guidelines here isn't productive, since nobody (that I've seen) is arguing that bitcoin contravenes them directly.
      - talaketu 15y ago
        Do you think the "reasonable HN people" who can agree bitcoin is overrepresented are the same ones giving it all the attention? I for one find bitcoin far more "intellectually gratifying" than the hiring thread, which, with great respect to our host, has no interest for me.
      - phamilton 15y ago
        I wonder what percentage of HN readers are like me and just skim through the RSS feed every day. The top of the front page and the worthless submission make it into my Google Reader, and I read what I find interesting. Which is great, but at the same time I don't participate in upvoting articles. I would guess the more passive users would be more interested in the hiring thread rather than extremely trendy topics like bitcoin. But that's the tradeoff. I mostly consume rather than contribute, and therefore just take what I get.
- DontBanMeBro 15y ago
  Money is the most important thing in the world. You've just fallen prey to the mass media propaganda, that finance is boring and ppl should not pay attention.
- michael_dorfman 15y ago
  I agree. What's even worse, in my opinion, is that the discussions end up repeating the same points over and over again. It seems to me to be an analog of the well-known phenomenon of "bike-shedding."
- ghshephard 15y ago
  Bitcoin, to me, is one of the ten most interesting technologies that I've seen in the last decade - I've been discussing and waiting for a viable crypto currency for over 15 years, and it's finally arrived! I think for a lot of people, though, Bitcoins are what twitter was to me a year ago. I just didn't get what the big deal was, and couldn't understand why I kept seeing so many topics on the story.
- jcapote 15y ago
  I'd support the ban on bitcoins just to stop hearing about it on HN every 5 seconds.
- mcantelon 15y ago
  Maybe having it so when you submit a story you can apply to have it "pinned" would make sense for stuff like job postings. Don't need to demote Bitcoin, or other subjects people want to hear about, just need to promote special features.
- sethg 15y ago
  While I think the whole bitcoin thing is profoundly silly, I don’t think the comparison with the hiring thread is fair. Bitcoins provoke discussion between people who think bitcoins are sticking it to The Man and people who think, well, that they’re profoundly silly. On the other hand, if I post “startup XYZ in Boston is hiring”, what is there to say in response? “No, they aren’t”?
anigbrowl 15y ago
Well that didn't take long.
wccrawford 15y ago
I'm not a big fan of bitcoins, but if there's anything I would want to buy with them, it'd be a donation to the EFF. Somehow, that just seems to fit together in my mind. I hope they review what they need to and decide to put the donation link back.
StavrosK 15y ago
There's a website that shows you how much money you've received, from whom, and how much you have now? Wow, the public nature of bitcoin had never sunk in until I saw that. It's like my wallet is open to everyone!
- stordoff 15y ago
  You can create a new Bitcoin address for every single transaction you make if you wish.
  - StavrosK 15y ago
    Sure, but you have to transfer your money somehow, and it will be easier to track, let alone a huge hassle for you...
    - burke 15y ago
      Not quite. Your wallet can have an arbitrary number of addresses. You can receive at one address, then send that balance out to a dozen different people using a dozen different sending addresses.
      - caf 15y ago
        To do that, you still have to perform a transaction to transfer the amount from your recieving address to your sending address.
        burke 15y ago
        ...no. That's not how it works. Your wallet has a pool of private keys. Addresses are the corresponding public keys. You can send or receive from any address you have the private key for (minor simplification, but doesn't affect my point). There is no transaction necessary to send money from a completely new address, other than the transaction itself. All of your addresses point to the same wallet.
fecklessyouth 15y ago
"The U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling which allows anonymous spending in the campaign finance environment and its impact on elections may be one of the issues triggering this review by the EFF." Sorry, but what does that have to do with it? The ruling is a 1A issue.
armored 15y ago
I love this comment: "UPDATE: The EFF is still unofficially accepting Bitcoins, but their address has changed to: 16g5mes4kW1gpX9Vp1F5VG7HXqN8ySar9EI've just donated a few BTCs to help them protect the freedom of the Internet - please help them too!" Nice one "Rebecca S. Reagan"!
tobylane 15y ago
Two negative parts of BC, 1 - A group of nerdy/freedom-chasing (that's a complement) say no to it without any reason (such as legal advice on it), 2 - Read the first comment of the blog post.
lsparrish 15y ago
It's kind of funny to watch people trying to justify not having bought in earlier, with the logic that it's going to crash. Good old sunk costs fallacy. Yeah maybe it'll crash one day. Maybe it'll go from $1000 clean down to $100, destroying much of the world economy (i.e. that part that was backed by speculation rather than real stuff to begin with) in the process.
- antiscam 15y ago
  The entire value now is backed by speculation rather than "real stuff." The widely repeated "market capitalization" figure vastly overestimates the actual value given and obtainable for Bitcoins, and the price does not even closely reflect that value. The price is simply the result of what game-theorists call a "beauty-contest" game: it's based on baseless estimates of the value that others will assign to it in the future. Alone, that's just speculation. Backed by a massive marketing push that doesn't convey the right message to the public, it's functionally indistinguishable from a pyramid scheme.
anon123098 15y ago
all those who naysay - why not yasay or say nothing at all? i get a big impression that all(most) would at least agree what we have in place now is more flawed than bitcoin. corruption is but a moral decision away (to those in the right positions). politics are slimy, and rub off on current currency models. violence has strong leverage over societies current credit symbol (crack-head in dark alley - good luck punching your way into my SSH box on the other side of the world. and if you do, ill just make a transaction, rendering my wallet you stole useless). whats holding you back from going all in? hmm, IF ONLY everyone would put some faith behind a new system, and accept it as the new standard. that system could grow, and overtake the current shady one in place (or at least parallel it). it could become as common as visa, accepted everywhere. ahhh, but not everyone will adopt this overnight - it will be a long slow road. don't look for the overnight solution. if i told you bitcoin would overtake the worlds currencies in 100 years, would it be worth taking a slight risk now? what have we got to lose? a shitty status quo? FULL DISCLOSURE honestly, i don't have any bitcoin ...yet. and i say all this by ignoring the fact there seems to be at least a slight whiff of scam afoot... perhaps a few admins with access to a few petaflops are laughing away printing these bits like water... as long as that's not the case, wellll, GO BITCOIN! but even GIVEN that scenario, it would be just as easy (if not easier) for many more people to print counterfeit paper. but at least there is a maximum amount that can be scammed in bitcoin, and then that's that - bitcoin could live on and fulfill its purpose.

148 points by mike_esspe 15y ago

hugh3 15y ago

They're still accepting pinecones, confederate dollars and unicorn horns though, right?

I'm torn between liking stories that shine a skeptical light on the bitcoin fad and being appalled at how much coverage bitcoin gets on HN. The "hiring" thread for June was pushed off the front page in less than a day, but we've had, what, 5 bitcoin stories hit the front page in the same time period? I think it's time for some REPL intervention.

mattmanser 15y ago
I'm not really voting up the bitcoin stories, but I'm reading them, for me it's like watching a car crash in slow motion. You can't help but sit there enthralled!
- narrator 15y ago
  I think we shouldn't overlook that Bitcoin has some interesting aspects to it that make this a very different and peculiar kind of car crash.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    I don't think we should overlook that bitcoin has a built-in feedback mechanism that acts to keep bitcoin stories on the front page.
    - hugh3 15y ago
      As a compromise I'd be willing to accept a moratorium on all bitcoin-related articles up to "Bitcoin Post Mortem", whenever that may be. I have to admit, however, I can't resist commenting on the bitcoin articles when they show up. It's the classic "Someone is wrong on the internet!" reaction. Maybe those of us who aren't zany bitcoin-boosters need to make a pact to stop commenting on these articles and hopefully once robbed of controversy they'll go away.
  - jellicle 15y ago
    Not really. It's the same as any Ponzi scheme. A promise to early adopters that they'll get rich; initial returns seem to prove out the promise; a giant wave of hype drives a steady stream of suckers into the deal; the existence of the hype is sufficient justification for further hyping stories, providing secondary waves of publicity; the creators quietly cash out their positions and retire to small Caribbean islands; eventually others start trying to cash out; this creates a reverse hype wave ("sell your bitcoins now before they are worthless!"); and wooosh, in a week bitcoins will indeed be worthless. If it were a real currency the creator might face jail time but in this case the creator may well get away with it. The creator can plausibly (notice I did not say truthfully) disclaim any knowledge of how the scheme would unfold. It is interesting from a technical perspective but from a societal/historical point of view, not at all. This same cycle has played out infinite times in human history and will play out infinite times in the future. People always manage to convince themselves that "this time it's different".
    - narrator 15y ago
      The limited inflation and eventual deflation aspects make it more interesting then tradictional alternate currencies. The world is not going to get flooded with an unlimited supply of bitcoins just because there's more demand. How is gold not a ponzi scheme BTW? Ponzi schemes don't run for 3000 years.
    - swaits 15y ago
      I don't think you exactly understand the definition of a Ponzi scheme. It might well be a bubble. But Ponzi? No.
      - hugh3 15y ago
        Not quite ponzi. Somewhere between a Ponzi and a bubble -- economically it's a bubble, practically it's a Ponzi. Most bubbles start by accident -- this one was carefully engineered. How do you engineer a bubble? First you invent an asset. But if it's an asset that only you own then nobody will want to believe it's valuable. So you make it possible for the first round of early adopters to get it for free, by "mining. The first adopters talk the second adopters into trying it too (they can still get significant amounts by mining) and... well, you know the story. You also wrap it in some political anti-fiat-currency anti-bank anti-Fed anti-government anti-whatever pro-cryptography political wrapping to make it appealing to a certain constituency. But the key thing is to give out the "asset" for free at first, and to a lesser extent as time goes on, to incentivise early adopters without requiring 'em to actually put their hands in their own pockets. It's quite brilliant, the best memetically-engineered scam since Scientology. And now I'm really getting tired of discussing bitcoin. I think I'll write a big long blog post in the form of a FAQ, submit it, and never mention bitcoin ever again.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Luyt 15y ago
Bitcoins might turn out to be the modern digital equivalent of the Tulip Mania [1], a short span of intense speculation with tulip bulbs in 1636, complete with short selling and outrageous profits to be made, which suddenly collapsed in February 1637. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
- rnemo 15y ago
  Bitcoins are a bubble commodity just like anything else that rapidly rises almost entirely because of speculation. In a sense the Bitcoin market is a lot like the current gold market, both are enjoying a massive boom fueled by demand for the product without any commercial reason to back up that demand, and the inevitable result of this is that values will at some point begin to plummet. The difference between Bitcoin and gold though is that even after gold plummets it will still retain highly respectable value, whereas when Bitcoin falls it's entirely possible for it to be completely devalued as a product.
  - lsparrish 15y ago
    The value of bitcoin is that it can be traded, easily, and can't be easily faked. Gold can't be easily faked, but it can't be traded so easily. For a bitcoin to be completely worthless rather stretches the imagination. At a minimum they are a sort of geeky collector's item and inherently limited in supply. They also cost next to nothing to store.
daeken 15y ago
While I don't think Bitcoin will achieve anything of substance (aside from adding to my bank account due to forex trading while the hype is going), I think it's quite interesting in and of itself. That said, I don't think the problem is that there are Bitcoin stories on here, but that the stories on here have been really, really uninteresting. Why aren't we covering real issues, rather than "someone misunderstood how Bitcoin worked and lost $X"?
il 15y ago
I have no evidence for this whatsoever, but my hunch is that there is a significant amount of gaming and astroturfing on HN by people who have a vested interest in more bitcoin coverage. The current volatility of the bitcoin economy means that every single story on HN increases the value of their bitcoin "investment".
- tlrobinson 15y ago
  Quite possible, but there's been a number of negative articles on Bitcoin as well, including this one.
- 3pt14159 15y ago
  Naw, the voting anti-spam algos on HN are pretty good. I have a slight vested interest, but I don't really want bitcoins to go up any more for a while, I'd rather it stabled out and people started building real apps with them. With the growth rate of the currency as it is, it is hard to justify building a BTC app when I could just contract out at $100/hr and then convert that into bitcoins.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    Numerous other trend stories have been manually suppressed by HN's operators this year. The argument that a story is probably valid because HN's "anti-spam algos" didn't catch it probably doesn't hold water.
    - 3pt14159 15y ago
      Well that just means their vote ring detection system needs improving. If there really is 100 people that have a vested interest in Bitcoin all collaborating on IRC or whatever and they are the majority of the ones pumping up the story then this seems trivial to catch.
      - tptacek 15y ago
        Yes, it needs improving by attaching a strong negative weight to any story about bitcoin, perhaps until the next HN reboot.
SandB0x 15y ago
It's so tedious. I would have literally no idea that Bitcoins existed if it weren't for the flood of articles on HN. I don't understand - who are all the people who find this interesting or relevant?
- ry0ohki 15y ago
  It's at the intersection of a lot of things that people here find interesting. It's potentially a way to make money (some say ponzi scheme), it has a tech component, there's a anti-government component, etc... so I do believe a lot of people here do care about it. I mean I keep reading the damn articles too...
  - tptacek 15y ago
    I think the kernel of contributors with a good-faith interest in bitcoin is smaller than you think it is, but either way: if bitcoin is getting multiples of the attention that the hiring thread is, I think most reasonable HN people can agree that it's being overrepresented. Lawyering over the site guidelines here isn't productive, since nobody (that I've seen) is arguing that bitcoin contravenes them directly.
    - talaketu 15y ago
      Do you think the "reasonable HN people" who can agree bitcoin is overrepresented are the same ones giving it all the attention? I for one find bitcoin far more "intellectually gratifying" than the hiring thread, which, with great respect to our host, has no interest for me.
    - phamilton 15y ago
      I wonder what percentage of HN readers are like me and just skim through the RSS feed every day. The top of the front page and the worthless submission make it into my Google Reader, and I read what I find interesting. Which is great, but at the same time I don't participate in upvoting articles. I would guess the more passive users would be more interested in the hiring thread rather than extremely trendy topics like bitcoin. But that's the tradeoff. I mostly consume rather than contribute, and therefore just take what I get.
DontBanMeBro 15y ago
Money is the most important thing in the world. You've just fallen prey to the mass media propaganda, that finance is boring and ppl should not pay attention.
michael_dorfman 15y ago
I agree. What's even worse, in my opinion, is that the discussions end up repeating the same points over and over again. It seems to me to be an analog of the well-known phenomenon of "bike-shedding."
ghshephard 15y ago
Bitcoin, to me, is one of the ten most interesting technologies that I've seen in the last decade - I've been discussing and waiting for a viable crypto currency for over 15 years, and it's finally arrived! I think for a lot of people, though, Bitcoins are what twitter was to me a year ago. I just didn't get what the big deal was, and couldn't understand why I kept seeing so many topics on the story.
jcapote 15y ago
I'd support the ban on bitcoins just to stop hearing about it on HN every 5 seconds.
mcantelon 15y ago
Maybe having it so when you submit a story you can apply to have it "pinned" would make sense for stuff like job postings. Don't need to demote Bitcoin, or other subjects people want to hear about, just need to promote special features.
sethg 15y ago
While I think the whole bitcoin thing is profoundly silly, I don’t think the comparison with the hiring thread is fair. Bitcoins provoke discussion between people who think bitcoins are sticking it to The Man and people who think, well, that they’re profoundly silly. On the other hand, if I post “startup XYZ in Boston is hiring”, what is there to say in response? “No, they aren’t”?

anigbrowl 15y ago

Well that didn't take long.

wccrawford 15y ago

I'm not a big fan of bitcoins, but if there's anything I would want to buy with them, it'd be a donation to the EFF. Somehow, that just seems to fit together in my mind. I hope they review what they need to and decide to put the donation link back.

StavrosK 15y ago

There's a website that shows you how much money you've received, from whom, and how much you have now? Wow, the public nature of bitcoin had never sunk in until I saw that. It's like my wallet is open to everyone!

stordoff 15y ago
You can create a new Bitcoin address for every single transaction you make if you wish.
- StavrosK 15y ago
  Sure, but you have to transfer your money somehow, and it will be easier to track, let alone a huge hassle for you...
  - burke 15y ago
    Not quite. Your wallet can have an arbitrary number of addresses. You can receive at one address, then send that balance out to a dozen different people using a dozen different sending addresses.
    - caf 15y ago
      To do that, you still have to perform a transaction to transfer the amount from your recieving address to your sending address.
      - burke 15y ago
        ...no. That's not how it works. Your wallet has a pool of private keys. Addresses are the corresponding public keys. You can send or receive from any address you have the private key for (minor simplification, but doesn't affect my point). There is no transaction necessary to send money from a completely new address, other than the transaction itself. All of your addresses point to the same wallet.

fecklessyouth 15y ago

"The U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling which allows anonymous spending in the campaign finance environment and its impact on elections may be one of the issues triggering this review by the EFF." Sorry, but what does that have to do with it? The ruling is a 1A issue.

armored 15y ago

I love this comment: "UPDATE: The EFF is still unofficially accepting Bitcoins, but their address has changed to: 16g5mes4kW1gpX9Vp1F5VG7HXqN8ySar9EI've just donated a few BTCs to help them protect the freedom of the Internet - please help them too!" Nice one "Rebecca S. Reagan"!

tobylane 15y ago

Two negative parts of BC, 1 - A group of nerdy/freedom-chasing (that's a complement) say no to it without any reason (such as legal advice on it), 2 - Read the first comment of the blog post.

lsparrish 15y ago

It's kind of funny to watch people trying to justify not having bought in earlier, with the logic that it's going to crash. Good old sunk costs fallacy. Yeah maybe it'll crash one day. Maybe it'll go from $1000 clean down to $100, destroying much of the world economy (i.e. that part that was backed by speculation rather than real stuff to begin with) in the process.

antiscam 15y ago
The entire value now is backed by speculation rather than "real stuff." The widely repeated "market capitalization" figure vastly overestimates the actual value given and obtainable for Bitcoins, and the price does not even closely reflect that value. The price is simply the result of what game-theorists call a "beauty-contest" game: it's based on baseless estimates of the value that others will assign to it in the future. Alone, that's just speculation. Backed by a massive marketing push that doesn't convey the right message to the public, it's functionally indistinguishable from a pyramid scheme.

anon123098 15y ago

all those who naysay - why not yasay or say nothing at all? i get a big impression that all(most) would at least agree what we have in place now is more flawed than bitcoin. corruption is but a moral decision away (to those in the right positions). politics are slimy, and rub off on current currency models. violence has strong leverage over societies current credit symbol (crack-head in dark alley - good luck punching your way into my SSH box on the other side of the world. and if you do, ill just make a transaction, rendering my wallet you stole useless). whats holding you back from going all in? hmm, IF ONLY everyone would put some faith behind a new system, and accept it as the new standard. that system could grow, and overtake the current shady one in place (or at least parallel it). it could become as common as visa, accepted everywhere. ahhh, but not everyone will adopt this overnight - it will be a long slow road. don't look for the overnight solution. if i told you bitcoin would overtake the worlds currencies in 100 years, would it be worth taking a slight risk now? what have we got to lose? a shitty status quo? FULL DISCLOSURE honestly, i don't have any bitcoin ...yet. and i say all this by ignoring the fact there seems to be at least a slight whiff of scam afoot... perhaps a few admins with access to a few petaflops are laughing away printing these bits like water... as long as that's not the case, wellll, GO BITCOIN! but even GIVEN that scenario, it would be just as easy (if not easier) for many more people to print counterfeit paper. but at least there is a maximum amount that can be scammed in bitcoin, and then that's that - bitcoin could live on and fulfill its purpose.