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I know this is just a matter of opinion, but I feel it would be hard to over-estimate the value in getting humanity off centrally planned currencies that are ma

I know this is just a matter of opinion, but I feel it would be hard to over-estimate the value in getting humanity off centrally planned currencies that are manipulated to cyclically transition massive amounts of wealth from the poor to the wealthy. Of course there's no guarantee that bitcoin or any of the other cryptos will resolve this issue for us, but they are our best chance at the moment.

tomxor 6y ago
> I feel it would be hard to over-estimate the value in getting humanity off centrally planned currencies That's not what this is about, Bitcoin has utterly failed at that mission, and nothing about cryptocurrencies necessitates computationally wasteful proof of work. The only reason Bitcoin is still popular is because of people using it for speculating, it's not a viable currency.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  Bitcoin continues to grow at an enormous rate. It hasn't failed at anything. Soon BTC will surpass the value of gold. We are actually on our way to getting off fiat.
  - tomxor 6y ago
    > It hasn't failed at anything. It has failed at being a usable currency, and not merely for socioeconomic reasons. A currency is more than just intrinsic value.
    - briefcomment 6y ago
      We need an uninflatable store of value more than anything, which Bitcoin is. Think of how much unnecessary transacting and consumption is going on right now to escape a constantly inflating dollar. "Investments" and consumptions will tank with a deflationary store of value.
      - SantalBlush 6y ago
        >We need an uninflatable store of value more than anything People keep repeating this as if it's a well known truth, and I'm wondering where they came up with the idea. Why are we to believe that inflation is the source of our current economic woes?
        briefcomment 6y ago
        Do you feel like you're getting the appropriate share of money printing needed to maintain your purchasing power? Don't the really desirable assets, like the best land and houses, and the best education, get increasingly more expensive, relative to your purchasing power? Certainly someone is gobbling up those dollars. I don't think it's most people though.
        SantalBlush 6y ago
        That isn't really how it works. Banks do not "print money," they expand the money supply through loans. When interest rates are low, savers move their existing money away from assets like bonds toward higher yielding assets like stock and real estate. If the money supply were to suddenly shrink, the average person would not become richer; that added value would be concentrated in fewer hands. That's basically what is happening with bitcoin.
    - trident5000 6y ago
      Sure, just as Visa, Mastercard, Circle, Paypal and several of the largest major banks just accepted its use and facilitation. And while companies such as Tesla, PornHub, etc accept it as payment. Its totally not going anywhere and will never make that transition.
  - Hiopl 6y ago
    But that high value (and the volatile prices) is entirely the problem (coupled with other issues like the extremely low potential number of transactions per second). As it stands, Bitcoin will never be anything other than an investment vehicle. Maybe another cryptocurrency will be a suitable replacement for fiat, but right now and for the foreseeable future, crypto is still too niche, too complex and volatile. At most we're seeing banks extend their offerings with cryptocurrency, but none of it points to widespread replacement of fiat outright. There are too many institutional, technical and social barriers.
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      Bitcoin plays a role in the crypto ecosystem. It's like gold. Ethereum is like the finance industry and things like DOGE are like currency. The value will be pegged to BTC, making it the foundation for the ecosystem.
      - charcircuit 6y ago
        >and things like DOGE are like currency. The value will be pegged to BTC, making it the foundation for the ecosystem. I disagree. It is more realistic for existing currency based stable coins to become the currencies. For example countries like the US will create a cryptocurrency pegged to the dollar, China with the Yuan, and Europe with the Euro. Currently USD pegged stable coins are the most popular.
  - mockingbirdy 6y ago
    This. I've realized years ago that the current fiat system can be unsustainable because it's very hard for regulators to avoid the temptation of applying QE and other monstrosities. But I realized way too late that BTC is the vehicle to flee from that (in a simple way compared to moving physical assets across borders). It already succeeded in helping rich people in China to bring their wealth out of control. This has maximum utility for a lot of people. I'm not sure what will come after the current financial system (and it most probably won't go anywhere and will co-exist for some years before crypto will be banned everywhere), but this new type of wealth transfer mechanism already gets used a lot. Everyone who distrusts the current financial system or is oppressed by their regime is interested in it. I don't know how the world will look like (it'll probably be very hard to continue the current path because capital has found a new way to move across borders and avoid taxes, again) and I don't know if it's generally good for global society, but Pandora's box is open. I agree with the energy discussion and that it's wasteful, but the utility of it (transacting without governmental permission) seems to be higher for the participants. And they don't care about its socioeconomic impact, they care about its utility for them (money for miners and speculators who keep BTC's value high and the network functional, permissionless transaction for the actual target audience / users of BTC). BTC was built for permissionless money transactions, the speculation is just a byproduct and everyone is focusing on it instead of looking at its actual value for its users. edit for the sibling comments: You need BTC only to move your assets from one country/wallet to another. You can then move it to a stable coin like USDC and slowly and safely get it out of the crypto system without having to deal with the volatility. This takes you half an hour and you're done. It's currently an investment vehicle, but its utility comes from being able to get money from A to B regardless of government intervention. Even if BTC drops to $3k, it still has this value. Looking at the price of BTC is missing the point: it's more than $0 and you can do a transaction in 10 minutes and that is all that matters to move assets.
  - rnestler 6y ago
    > Soon BTC will surpass the value of gold How would one measure that? The price of one bitcoin compared to the price of a kilogram of gold? That seems arbitrary. Total market value? Transaction volume?
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      Total market value.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  The computationally wasteful bit is a temporary problem for which solutions are already being created. The Lightning Network is one such effort. Governments are already taking efforts to fight against crypto. The fact that bitcoin is classified as an "asset" is the government adding friction to using it. Every time you transact in bitcoin you have to put that on your taxes because there's some capital gains/loss. Of course, they don't talk about it as if that is an attack, but it is. And they wouldn't be attacking it if they weren't scared. It's surely not guaranteed, maybe not even likely, but it's still possible that we will win.
  - dTal 6y ago
    The computationally wasteful bit is the proof-of-work, which is an inherent part of bitcoin. The Lightning Network is just about scaling transactions. Your government rant is a non-sequitor - bitcoin doesn't become any more efficient just because The Man doesn't like it.
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      The computationally wasteful bit will go away with things like the visa network where they will only have to persist back to the blockchain when you transact with a wallet that isn't on their network. Otherwise it'll just be records in a database not unlike regular currency.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  Bitcoin is deflationary, isn’t it? How could it ever replace fiat if just by merely holding it you are guaranteed in the long run to increase value? You need mild inflation to get people to actually spend and not hoard. Bitcoin’s supply is fix so there is no point in ever spending it unless you want to cash out.
  - trident5000 6y ago
    Yeah because Ill never buy food and housing until I die because my currency is deflationary. That logic is so tired. Also the fact that you can convert US dollars to investments instantly instead of consuming basically extends the same situation, yet we still spend when we need to.
    - IgorPartola 6y ago
      You see a lot of people buying groceries with BTC currently? What I see most people do is buy BTC and hold it, living off their regular paychecks, waiting for the BTC portfolio to hit some goal. They then trade it to the next investor who does the same. It’s not a currency so much as a store of value. It’s a stock, not money.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - trident5000 6y ago
        Obviously thats going to be the case through rampant price discovery. Youre not saying anything original. Are you smarter than Visa and Mastercard and Paypal? Maybe they know something about future consumers that you dont.
        IgorPartola 6y ago
        You clearly have some kind of chip on your shoulder either about me or about this subject. Acting like a snob won’t get you many conversation partners. Take care.
undersuit 6y ago
The first government to move their money onto a crypto us going to have massive control over their economy. Roll their own crypto, keep the keys that allow more money to be printed, have the ability to lock people out of their wallets on a whim? They could even extract taxation by running all the nodes and taking the transaction fees.

tomxor 6y ago

> I feel it would be hard to over-estimate the value in getting humanity off centrally planned currencies That's not what this is about, Bitcoin has utterly failed at that mission, and nothing about cryptocurrencies necessitates computationally wasteful proof of work. The only reason Bitcoin is still popular is because of people using it for speculating, it's not a viable currency.

solosoyokaze 6y ago
Bitcoin continues to grow at an enormous rate. It hasn't failed at anything. Soon BTC will surpass the value of gold. We are actually on our way to getting off fiat.
- tomxor 6y ago
  > It hasn't failed at anything. It has failed at being a usable currency, and not merely for socioeconomic reasons. A currency is more than just intrinsic value.
  - briefcomment 6y ago
    We need an uninflatable store of value more than anything, which Bitcoin is. Think of how much unnecessary transacting and consumption is going on right now to escape a constantly inflating dollar. "Investments" and consumptions will tank with a deflationary store of value.
    - SantalBlush 6y ago
      >We need an uninflatable store of value more than anything People keep repeating this as if it's a well known truth, and I'm wondering where they came up with the idea. Why are we to believe that inflation is the source of our current economic woes?
      - briefcomment 6y ago
        Do you feel like you're getting the appropriate share of money printing needed to maintain your purchasing power? Don't the really desirable assets, like the best land and houses, and the best education, get increasingly more expensive, relative to your purchasing power? Certainly someone is gobbling up those dollars. I don't think it's most people though.
        SantalBlush 6y ago
        That isn't really how it works. Banks do not "print money," they expand the money supply through loans. When interest rates are low, savers move their existing money away from assets like bonds toward higher yielding assets like stock and real estate. If the money supply were to suddenly shrink, the average person would not become richer; that added value would be concentrated in fewer hands. That's basically what is happening with bitcoin.
  - trident5000 6y ago
    Sure, just as Visa, Mastercard, Circle, Paypal and several of the largest major banks just accepted its use and facilitation. And while companies such as Tesla, PornHub, etc accept it as payment. Its totally not going anywhere and will never make that transition.
- Hiopl 6y ago
  But that high value (and the volatile prices) is entirely the problem (coupled with other issues like the extremely low potential number of transactions per second). As it stands, Bitcoin will never be anything other than an investment vehicle. Maybe another cryptocurrency will be a suitable replacement for fiat, but right now and for the foreseeable future, crypto is still too niche, too complex and volatile. At most we're seeing banks extend their offerings with cryptocurrency, but none of it points to widespread replacement of fiat outright. There are too many institutional, technical and social barriers.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    Bitcoin plays a role in the crypto ecosystem. It's like gold. Ethereum is like the finance industry and things like DOGE are like currency. The value will be pegged to BTC, making it the foundation for the ecosystem.
    - charcircuit 6y ago
      >and things like DOGE are like currency. The value will be pegged to BTC, making it the foundation for the ecosystem. I disagree. It is more realistic for existing currency based stable coins to become the currencies. For example countries like the US will create a cryptocurrency pegged to the dollar, China with the Yuan, and Europe with the Euro. Currently USD pegged stable coins are the most popular.
- mockingbirdy 6y ago
  This. I've realized years ago that the current fiat system can be unsustainable because it's very hard for regulators to avoid the temptation of applying QE and other monstrosities. But I realized way too late that BTC is the vehicle to flee from that (in a simple way compared to moving physical assets across borders). It already succeeded in helping rich people in China to bring their wealth out of control. This has maximum utility for a lot of people. I'm not sure what will come after the current financial system (and it most probably won't go anywhere and will co-exist for some years before crypto will be banned everywhere), but this new type of wealth transfer mechanism already gets used a lot. Everyone who distrusts the current financial system or is oppressed by their regime is interested in it. I don't know how the world will look like (it'll probably be very hard to continue the current path because capital has found a new way to move across borders and avoid taxes, again) and I don't know if it's generally good for global society, but Pandora's box is open. I agree with the energy discussion and that it's wasteful, but the utility of it (transacting without governmental permission) seems to be higher for the participants. And they don't care about its socioeconomic impact, they care about its utility for them (money for miners and speculators who keep BTC's value high and the network functional, permissionless transaction for the actual target audience / users of BTC). BTC was built for permissionless money transactions, the speculation is just a byproduct and everyone is focusing on it instead of looking at its actual value for its users. edit for the sibling comments: You need BTC only to move your assets from one country/wallet to another. You can then move it to a stable coin like USDC and slowly and safely get it out of the crypto system without having to deal with the volatility. This takes you half an hour and you're done. It's currently an investment vehicle, but its utility comes from being able to get money from A to B regardless of government intervention. Even if BTC drops to $3k, it still has this value. Looking at the price of BTC is missing the point: it's more than $0 and you can do a transaction in 10 minutes and that is all that matters to move assets.
- rnestler 6y ago
  > Soon BTC will surpass the value of gold How would one measure that? The price of one bitcoin compared to the price of a kilogram of gold? That seems arbitrary. Total market value? Transaction volume?
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    Total market value.
Consultant32452 6y ago
The computationally wasteful bit is a temporary problem for which solutions are already being created. The Lightning Network is one such effort. Governments are already taking efforts to fight against crypto. The fact that bitcoin is classified as an "asset" is the government adding friction to using it. Every time you transact in bitcoin you have to put that on your taxes because there's some capital gains/loss. Of course, they don't talk about it as if that is an attack, but it is. And they wouldn't be attacking it if they weren't scared. It's surely not guaranteed, maybe not even likely, but it's still possible that we will win.
- dTal 6y ago
  The computationally wasteful bit is the proof-of-work, which is an inherent part of bitcoin. The Lightning Network is just about scaling transactions. Your government rant is a non-sequitor - bitcoin doesn't become any more efficient just because The Man doesn't like it.
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    The computationally wasteful bit will go away with things like the visa network where they will only have to persist back to the blockchain when you transact with a wallet that isn't on their network. Otherwise it'll just be records in a database not unlike regular currency.
IgorPartola 6y ago
Bitcoin is deflationary, isn’t it? How could it ever replace fiat if just by merely holding it you are guaranteed in the long run to increase value? You need mild inflation to get people to actually spend and not hoard. Bitcoin’s supply is fix so there is no point in ever spending it unless you want to cash out.
- trident5000 6y ago
  Yeah because Ill never buy food and housing until I die because my currency is deflationary. That logic is so tired. Also the fact that you can convert US dollars to investments instantly instead of consuming basically extends the same situation, yet we still spend when we need to.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    You see a lot of people buying groceries with BTC currently? What I see most people do is buy BTC and hold it, living off their regular paychecks, waiting for the BTC portfolio to hit some goal. They then trade it to the next investor who does the same. It’s not a currency so much as a store of value. It’s a stock, not money.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - trident5000 6y ago
      Obviously thats going to be the case through rampant price discovery. Youre not saying anything original. Are you smarter than Visa and Mastercard and Paypal? Maybe they know something about future consumers that you dont.
      - IgorPartola 6y ago
        You clearly have some kind of chip on your shoulder either about me or about this subject. Acting like a snob won’t get you many conversation partners. Take care.

undersuit 6y ago

The first government to move their money onto a crypto us going to have massive control over their economy. Roll their own crypto, keep the keys that allow more money to be printed, have the ability to lock people out of their wallets on a whim? They could even extract taxation by running all the nodes and taking the transaction fees.