4 ms·

The number of times such an activity would be useful to me is zero. However calling my bank and having cash recalled from fraudulent (or even just bankrupt) me

by Nursie 6y ago

The number of times such an activity would be useful to me is zero. However calling my bank and having cash recalled from fraudulent (or even just bankrupt) merchants, that's happened. Who do I call at Bitcoin?

viklove 6y ago
Bitcoin isn't a bank, it's a currency. You can't do that with the USD either, and you could build a banking platform on top of bitcoin to allow for chargebacks and credit lines. The benefit of BTC is that when your bank mismanages their assets a la 2008, resulting in a bank run, you know your assets are safe instead of having to rely on the Fed to bail out your bank. Your money is in your control, not in the control of someone else. If you don't want that, it's easy -- just don't buy bitcoin. But don't discredit it by comparing it to a credit card which it is not trying to be. The strawman is disingenuous and shows how little you understand the topic.
- Nursie 6y ago
  > Bitcoin isn't a bank, it's a currency. You can't do that with the USD either, and you could build a banking platform on top of bitcoin to allow for chargebacks and credit lines. The point is when we're looking at comparative energy use, you can't just point at the whole banking system and compare it to Bitcoin, as if it's an apples to apples comparison, because the banking system provides an embarassment of services that Bitcoin does not. > The strawman is disingenuous and shows how little you understand the topic. There's no strawman here and if anything this shows how little you understood the thread you're replying to. (Edit: fixed a copy/paste screwup)
  - viklove 6y ago
    > Escrow accounts and merchant layers are in development. Sorry, this does not make BTC a bank. As they continue to add more features, we will see what BTC will become and how it may be useful. But comparing it to a bank is silly.
    - Nursie 6y ago
      Ergh, sorry, that's a mis-paste from another thread I was talking on, not an assertion of mine. I agree, Bitcoin is not a bank, that makes comparing its energy footprint to the banking system totally pointless.
      - viklove 6y ago
        For the record, I'm not trying to defend BTC's energy footprint. It's a black-eye on the tech and a problem that needs to be solved. Proof-of-stake over proof-of-work is an interesting solution, and part of the reason I hold a lot more ETH than BTC. That's why I'm so interested by cryptos though -- BTC just opened the door and the derivatives are where the real innovation will happen in my opinion.
  - shanusmagnus 6y ago
    People often critique btc by saying that it is slowly re-creating the existing banking system. That's largely true, but what makes it interesting is what this re-creation is built on top of. Or perhaps: what it's _not_ built on top of. Nic Carter does a nice job of discussing this [1]. [1] https://www.coindesk.com/what-bloomberg-gets-wrong-about-bitcoins-climate-footprint https://www.coindesk.com/what-bloomberg-gets-wrong-about-bit...
  - tor11 6y ago
    > The point is when we're looking at comparative energy use, you can't just point at the whole banking system and compare it to Bitcoin, as if it's an apples to apples comparison, because the banking system provides an embarassment of services that Bitcoin does not. this is true. bitcoin should be compared with everything required to run or "back" USD. which is a lot more energy use than most states on this planet
    - Nursie 6y ago
      Even if that were the case, the US dollar serves orders of magnitudes more people.
- leshow 6y ago
  > The benefit of BTC is that when your bank mismanages their assets a la 2008, resulting in a bank run, you know your assets are safe instead of having to rely on the Fed to bail out your bank. Your money is in your control, not in the control of someone else. I don't think that's true. Most companies providing services on top of bitcoin control the private keys, so they could do the same thing. You give up absolute control of your money to get access to a service, except now creating the money is terrible for the environment and consumes as much power as a small European nation.
solosoyokaze 6y ago
> The number of times such an activity would be useful to me is zero. You say that now, but it's the kind of innovation that will require some time to develop use-cases. I use it as an example of where crypto is just a lot more powerful than traditional banking. There's the ability to scale without "permission". Think a 12 year old opening an "account". > However calling my bank and having cash recalled from fraudulent (or even just bankrupt) merchants, that's happened. Who do I call at Bitcoin? Escrow accounts and merchant layers are in development. There's a lot of interesting DeFi (decentralized finance) services being developed on Ethereum.
- Nursie 6y ago
  >Escrow accounts and merchant layers are in development Right, so that means that Bitcoin is not providing many of the services the financial system provides now, so comparing its energy footprint to the existing financial system is pointless. That's the point I was making. You can't say "Bitcoin uses X electricity and Finance uses Y, which is bigger, and so is worse" when Bitcoin doesn't provide the same services or service the same size of audience as existing financial systems do.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    I actually agree with you that they're apples and oranges. But I also think it doesn't make any sense to complain about Bitcoin's energy usage as I see it as well worth the investment.
    - Nursie 6y ago
      Needless to say, I think that in a world where we are trying to become (as a general rule) more power-efficient in order to combat CO2 emissions, that's not the case. Adding whole new countries-worth of power use just for some new financial geekery really doesn't seem worth it. But I'm glad we agree the comparison with the existing system is a silly one.
      - solosoyokaze 6y ago
tor11 6y ago
> The number of times such an activity would be useful to me is zero. what about sending money to someone far away? ever tried? or just living in a bubble using a single fiat to buy coffee your limited use argument is tiresome. you can not send money to anyone you want with fiat. most can not send money to you. you are not free
- africanboy 6y ago
  do you really believe that people never sent money abroad before bitcoins? my grandgranparent sent money back home to Italy from the US in 1912...
  - tor12 6y ago
    do you really believe that bitcoin or similar is not superior in this use case than whatever they did back then?
    - africanboy 6y ago
      yes, I do. my grandgrandmother had no electricity, no running water, could not read, but could use that money. now do the same with bitcoins. anyway this sentence > you can not send money to anyone you want with fiat is not true. I don't know what bubble you live in, but the opposite is true: you can't send bitcoins to anyone you want.
      - tor12 6y ago
        it is easy to test this you know. send yourself something when abroad or from foreign bank. at the same time send some bitcoin. see what arrives first or at all. > I don't know what bubble you live in, but the opposite is true: you can't send bitcoins to anyone you want. the opposite to "you can not send money to anyone you want with fiat" is "you can send money to anyone you want with fiat". which is false. hence initial statement is true. there is no bubble here. friendly advice. read more.
        6y ago

by Nursie 6y ago

viklove 6y ago

Bitcoin isn't a bank, it's a currency. You can't do that with the USD either, and you could build a banking platform on top of bitcoin to allow for chargebacks and credit lines. The benefit of BTC is that when your bank mismanages their assets a la 2008, resulting in a bank run, you know your assets are safe instead of having to rely on the Fed to bail out your bank. Your money is in your control, not in the control of someone else. If you don't want that, it's easy -- just don't buy bitcoin. But don't discredit it by comparing it to a credit card which it is not trying to be. The strawman is disingenuous and shows how little you understand the topic.

Nursie 6y ago
> Bitcoin isn't a bank, it's a currency. You can't do that with the USD either, and you could build a banking platform on top of bitcoin to allow for chargebacks and credit lines. The point is when we're looking at comparative energy use, you can't just point at the whole banking system and compare it to Bitcoin, as if it's an apples to apples comparison, because the banking system provides an embarassment of services that Bitcoin does not. > The strawman is disingenuous and shows how little you understand the topic. There's no strawman here and if anything this shows how little you understood the thread you're replying to. (Edit: fixed a copy/paste screwup)
- viklove 6y ago
  > Escrow accounts and merchant layers are in development. Sorry, this does not make BTC a bank. As they continue to add more features, we will see what BTC will become and how it may be useful. But comparing it to a bank is silly.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    Ergh, sorry, that's a mis-paste from another thread I was talking on, not an assertion of mine. I agree, Bitcoin is not a bank, that makes comparing its energy footprint to the banking system totally pointless.
    - viklove 6y ago
      For the record, I'm not trying to defend BTC's energy footprint. It's a black-eye on the tech and a problem that needs to be solved. Proof-of-stake over proof-of-work is an interesting solution, and part of the reason I hold a lot more ETH than BTC. That's why I'm so interested by cryptos though -- BTC just opened the door and the derivatives are where the real innovation will happen in my opinion.
- shanusmagnus 6y ago
  People often critique btc by saying that it is slowly re-creating the existing banking system. That's largely true, but what makes it interesting is what this re-creation is built on top of. Or perhaps: what it's _not_ built on top of. Nic Carter does a nice job of discussing this [1]. [1] https://www.coindesk.com/what-bloomberg-gets-wrong-about-bitcoins-climate-footprint https://www.coindesk.com/what-bloomberg-gets-wrong-about-bit...
- tor11 6y ago
  > The point is when we're looking at comparative energy use, you can't just point at the whole banking system and compare it to Bitcoin, as if it's an apples to apples comparison, because the banking system provides an embarassment of services that Bitcoin does not. this is true. bitcoin should be compared with everything required to run or "back" USD. which is a lot more energy use than most states on this planet
  - Nursie 6y ago
    Even if that were the case, the US dollar serves orders of magnitudes more people.
leshow 6y ago
> The benefit of BTC is that when your bank mismanages their assets a la 2008, resulting in a bank run, you know your assets are safe instead of having to rely on the Fed to bail out your bank. Your money is in your control, not in the control of someone else. I don't think that's true. Most companies providing services on top of bitcoin control the private keys, so they could do the same thing. You give up absolute control of your money to get access to a service, except now creating the money is terrible for the environment and consumes as much power as a small European nation.

solosoyokaze 6y ago

> The number of times such an activity would be useful to me is zero. You say that now, but it's the kind of innovation that will require some time to develop use-cases. I use it as an example of where crypto is just a lot more powerful than traditional banking. There's the ability to scale without "permission". Think a 12 year old opening an "account". > However calling my bank and having cash recalled from fraudulent (or even just bankrupt) merchants, that's happened. Who do I call at Bitcoin? Escrow accounts and merchant layers are in development. There's a lot of interesting DeFi (decentralized finance) services being developed on Ethereum.

Nursie 6y ago
>Escrow accounts and merchant layers are in development Right, so that means that Bitcoin is not providing many of the services the financial system provides now, so comparing its energy footprint to the existing financial system is pointless. That's the point I was making. You can't say "Bitcoin uses X electricity and Finance uses Y, which is bigger, and so is worse" when Bitcoin doesn't provide the same services or service the same size of audience as existing financial systems do.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  I actually agree with you that they're apples and oranges. But I also think it doesn't make any sense to complain about Bitcoin's energy usage as I see it as well worth the investment.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    Needless to say, I think that in a world where we are trying to become (as a general rule) more power-efficient in order to combat CO2 emissions, that's not the case. Adding whole new countries-worth of power use just for some new financial geekery really doesn't seem worth it. But I'm glad we agree the comparison with the existing system is a silly one.
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago

tor11 6y ago

> The number of times such an activity would be useful to me is zero. what about sending money to someone far away? ever tried? or just living in a bubble using a single fiat to buy coffee your limited use argument is tiresome. you can not send money to anyone you want with fiat. most can not send money to you. you are not free

africanboy 6y ago
do you really believe that people never sent money abroad before bitcoins? my grandgranparent sent money back home to Italy from the US in 1912...
- tor12 6y ago
  do you really believe that bitcoin or similar is not superior in this use case than whatever they did back then?
  - africanboy 6y ago
    yes, I do. my grandgrandmother had no electricity, no running water, could not read, but could use that money. now do the same with bitcoins. anyway this sentence > you can not send money to anyone you want with fiat is not true. I don't know what bubble you live in, but the opposite is true: you can't send bitcoins to anyone you want.
    - tor12 6y ago
      it is easy to test this you know. send yourself something when abroad or from foreign bank. at the same time send some bitcoin. see what arrives first or at all. > I don't know what bubble you live in, but the opposite is true: you can't send bitcoins to anyone you want. the opposite to "you can not send money to anyone you want with fiat" is "you can send money to anyone you want with fiat". which is false. hence initial statement is true. there is no bubble here. friendly advice. read more.
      - 6y ago