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Bitcoin: The Idea That Eats Smart People

• trident5000 6y ago
  How many more anti-btc articles will we get from salty HN nocoiners who missed a massive move this week? The anti-btc attention is never on HN until the price goes up.
  • Jasper_ 6y ago
    I don't like Bitcoin, but I am more worried about the environment than FOMO.
    • trident5000 6y ago
      Youll be glad to know most btc mining comes from renewable energy and the existing financial infrastructure uses more energy. Also replacing gold would be a net win for the environment. So really there is no need to fake virtue signal.
      • endisneigh 6y ago
        I'm curious - how do you know most BTC mining comes from renewable energy? I'm also curious to see some research that shows the existing financial infrastructure uses more energy.
        • trident5000 6y ago
          Quick google search will help you out. Ill do one for you: https://cointelegraph.com/news/study-over-74-of-bitcoin-mining-is-powered-by-renewable-energy https://cointelegraph.com/news/study-over-74-of-bitcoin-mini...
          • sodality2 6y ago
            >Cryptocurrency investment products and research firm CoinShares estimates Forgive my skepticism, but this seems biased. Would they not benefit from a positive outlook on BTC?
          • endisneigh 6y ago
            The report is pretty weak (https://coinshares.co.uk/assets/resources/Research/bitcoin-mining-network-june-2019-fidelity-foreword.pdf https://coinshares.co.uk/assets/resources/Research/bitcoin-m...) Basically they say mining is reported in areas that have certain levels of renewable energy therefore the bitcoin was mined using the renewable energy. Finally, the report says they made no attempt to verify any of the numbers they claim so the entire thing is worthless IMHO. I won't even bother pointing out the conflict of interest of the entire report to begin with... > It is necessary at this point to caveat that while we do our utmost to accurately pinpoint the location of global mining centres, the Bitcoin mining industry remains a highly private and secretive industry. As a result, our estimates may be subject to significant potential uncertainty. While we have made no attempt to formally quantify these uncertainly levels, we intuitively guesstimate that, e.g. our renewables penetration figures should be taken to include a tentative uncertainty of around ±10%. Even if that's true, it's still a waste of energy
            • trident5000 6y ago
              Ok, make your own report if you're going to reject whats presented to you. Ill wait. Otherwise dont make the counter argument if you have nothing other than your opinion with no merit behind it.
        • omegaworks 6y ago
          It takes several orders of magnitude less energy to clear a transaction on the VISA network. It's a totally bogus claim. https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/#:~:text=Average%20energy%20consumption%20per%20transaction%20for%20Bitcoin%20and%20VISA%202020&text=The%20average%20energy%20consumption%20for,consumption%20of%20149%20kilowatt%2Dhours https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-co....
      • izacus 6y ago
        > Youll be glad to know most btc mining comes from renewable energy and the existing financial infrastructure uses more energy Can you substantiate this claim somehow? And perhaps also normalize per volume?
      • tomdell 6y ago
        “Replacing” gold? Do you expect that gold will disappear or become worthless?
        • trident5000 6y ago
          I do think btc will suck the oxygen out of golds value (and arguably is right now). If the value is less, mining is less. If mining is less, land destruction and fossil fuel energy usage goes down.
          • 1ris 6y ago
            >I do think btc will suck the oxygen out of golds value (and arguably is right now). There is no other way to put it, your are delusional. And no, you are not a unrecognised visionary. This is so wrong you can't even disprove it. Like you can't argue against the hobo next door who arguing sincerely he has been to Jupiter. As above: Disclosure, very early bitcoin adopter, made money, so i have a skin in the game.
            • trident5000 6y ago
              You seem very emotional about this topic. Dont strain your neanderthal back hoarding rocks under your bed. JMP predicts btc will replace gold so my opinion is in better company that your nonpoint with zero explanation but a lot of temper tantrum.
              • flyingcircus3 6y ago
                Does this tactic actually ever work for you?
                • trident5000 6y ago
                  Whats the tactic?
                  • 6y ago
      • omegaworks 6y ago
        If we take your claim at face value: the renewable energy consumed by Bitcoin is renewable energy not available to the wider market for doing work with actual value.
        • trident5000 6y ago
          The future requires more energy. That will never change with or without bitcoin. The answer is to switch all or most energy to renewable instead of pointing fingers at what is using it. Do we need all this video rendering? That uses a lot of energy.
          • PascLeRasc 6y ago
            Most pieces of technology tend to become more energy-efficient as time goes on. See electric cars or even gradual improvements to the internal combustion engine like VTEC. Same with computer CPUs. Bitcoin is pretty unique in that it gets more wasteful over time. Disclaimer: I have some Bitcoin so “you’re just jealous” isn’t a valid retort.
          • omegaworks 6y ago
            We get videos out of video rendering. What do we get out of the wasted heat of a Bitcoin transaction?
            • drdeca 6y ago
              I could be wrong, but I don’t think it is the transactions that substantially contribute to the energy use of Bitcoin.
              • omegaworks 6y ago
                Of course it depends on your understanding of what a "transaction" is. I'm referring specifically to the generally accepted understanding, which considers a transaction cleared once six miners mine the block containing that transaction. 500 transactions are bundled together in a block. Mining a block is a brute force mathematical operation. The rate of mining is kept at a constant rate by the protocol, to do that the protocol must increase the complexity of mining blocks to meet the arms race of miners competing for the block reward. This means the energy required to mine those blocks is not bounded.
      • Jasper_ 6y ago
        > Youll be glad to know most btc mining comes from renewable energy Any sources? Any time I've tried to investigate this, I've found this to very much not be the case. A majority of mining pools are in places where energy is cheap, but not necessarily renewable. > and the existing financial infrastructure uses more energy. And you expect that's just going to... disappear once Bitcoin wins? JP Morgan & Chase are going to go "oh, guess we've been beat" and pack their bags? The existing financial infrastructure costs a lot, but Bitcoin isn't too far behind, and Bitcoin can only do a ~3 transactions per second [0]. Visa's data center they built back in 2012 is completely renewable, and can do 2,500 transactions per second. [1] [0] https://www.blockchain.com/charts/transactions-per-second https://www.blockchain.com/charts/transactions-per-second [1] https://www.cnbc.com/id/46867832 https://www.cnbc.com/id/46867832
        • trident5000 6y ago
          I posted a link below. 3tps is just flat out incorrect through simple math dividing the transactions per day by seconds in a day so you're just lying. Also the chain is a settlement layer not meant for paying for coffee. If it was faster it would bloat ahead of memory advancement and become centralized. If gold value collapses yes the mining would significantly go down.
      • rspeele 6y ago
        How much of that existing financial infrastructure will Bitcoin replace if universally adopted?
      • tunesmith 6y ago
        I've seen this point so many times. First, the word "most" is doing a lot of work here. And the point about existing financial infrastructure is completely irrelevant, because bitcoin doesn't replace that infrastructure. The energy use of bitcoin is on top of that other energy use.
      • arghwhat 6y ago
        Even if it 75% is renewable, it's not enough - the numbers to run the Bitcoin block chain vary from "a few big nuclear power plants" to "a small to medium-sized country", but regardless, the hit is massive. If we have to burn our resources and cause the resulting pollution, at least let it be as a result of something productive.
        • trident5000 6y ago
          Ill never stop laughing at the virtue signaling. Stop rendering videos if you want to save the planet.
          • PascLeRasc 6y ago
            Many of us are already taking steps to reduce our energy use like driving as little as possible, eating less meat, consuming less. It’s not a joke.
            • trident5000 6y ago
              Sounds pretty dumb. The answer is make a lot more energy through sustainable methods rather than band aid solutions. The global population is declining aside from a few undeveloped countries. You can calm down.
              • arghwhat 6y ago
                Your attitude, specifically, is a huge reason of why we're as screwed as we are. You can waste energy after we have renewable energy. That we will have renewable energy later doesn't change that we don't have it now. There's a difference between putting on a bandaid and actively pouring acid in the wound. This is the latter.
        • rektide 6y ago
          Also, building & maintaining power generation is not free. Building solar panels, dams, wind has environmental impact, sizable material & energy inputs. And these generation systems only have a finite lifetime. Renewables are not free power. Further, building a bunch of mining/blockchain machines has environmental impact. Things aren't quite as bad as they were - I hope - but Silicon Valley's contaminated groundwater, Google being built atop a superfund site - strong, close-to-home for many evidence that the processes are materially & energy intensive[1] and quite toxic. Building data-centers of mining machines has impact. And like the energy use question, we must ask: what else could we being doing with this capacity? The 'it's mostly renewables' thing keeps getting raised & it's really frustrating/exhausting. It feels like a dismissal or denial. Ultimately that is potential that could be allocated elsewhere, and even with renewables, there is an impact to this planet. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21045573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21045573
      • lukifer 6y ago
        Do you have any data on the renewable energy claim? Considering that mining goes on 24/7, I would find that highly dubious (even if true, "most" could mean 51%, or 90%; 10% of the annual usage of Argentina is still a non-trivial carbon footprint). It would matter far less if the externality of carbon were taxed properly [0], but I think it's appropriate to be horrified at PoW when other low-energy mechanisms exist (PoS, memory/storage-based). The fact that existing financial infrastructure is also inefficient and untaxed is no excuse to double-down on passing ecological debt to our grandchildren (at a usurious interest rate). [0] https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/
      • 1ris 6y ago
        Bullshit. Energy wasted is energy wasted. It could have done something usefull, but instead it got sunk into a pow. Given miners run 24/7 and have no load following makes things worse. The existing financial infrastructure is also usable, at scale, in sharp contrast to bitcoin. See, I like the idea of a "amazon for drugs", but bitcoins cost is just not worth it. Disclosure: Adopted bitcoin 0.2, make money with it.
        • trident5000 6y ago
          We should make you the energy czar that decides whats an important use of energy and give you a little hat and jacket. Ill take my transactional and monetary freedom.
          • 1ris 6y ago
            Moving goalpost.
      • Nomentatus 6y ago
        But one paper suggests almost half of the world’s Bitcoin mining capacity is situated in southwest China, where power is cheap, less taxed and supplied by coal-fired plants as well as hydroelectricity. The Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance estimates coal accounts for 38% of miner power. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-26/is-bitcoin-mining-worth-the-environmental-cost https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-26/is-bit...
    • washedup 6y ago
      Bitcoin can be carbon neutral but it has a long way to go. Energy usage itself is not a bad thing, it’s the energy source that can be environmentally problematic. Currently 39% of mining power is driven by renewables [1]. It’s not much but a good start. The simplest solution to speed this up would be to create a law requiring that all mining must use renewable sources (or at least tax those that don’t). It would drive innovation, jobs, and make locations with renewable sources competitive places to live. [1] https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/alternative-finance/publications/3rd-global-cryptoasset-benchmarking-study https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/alternati...
  • sixQuarks 6y ago
    I agree. I can't believe how a supposedly "tech" crowd can be so against what looks to be one of the biggest tech disruptions we will see this decade.
    • EliRivers 6y ago
      Has it actually disrupted anything yet? I'm seeing a lot of people trade it amongst themselves, but it's like a market in fungible antiques. You don't use it for anything, some people just like having it.
    • birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago
      >what looks to be one If it quacks like a duck, is it already a duck? What is bitcoin's value anchor? What happens if all the people who are afraid of regular currency collapses have spent their money on bitcoin? Who will provide the liquidity to drive the demand that keeps the value high? When the covid crisis is over and people want to invest their bitcoins into new opportunities, won't we see a huge crash because there is no money available for all the bitcoins that are supposed to be liquidated?
    • pwdisswordfish0 6y ago
      "This decade"? Bitcoin isn't even from last decade. It showed up in 2008.
    • lottin 6y ago
      Please explain how a make-believe currency that only exists on the internet is a "tech disruption".
    • sanderjd 6y ago
      I thought it seemed really cool when I first heard of it, but that was over a decade ago and nothing has come of it.
  • adflux 6y ago
    Disclaimer: you own bitcoin?
  • ionwake 6y ago
    Ive been thinking about this. A good engineer doesn't necessarily make a good seer. Until there is ample evidence of institutions relying on it as a hedge, most won't accept the reality.
  • safog 6y ago
    They never even say anything new, just rehashing the same old - People don't transact with btc - Uses electricity - QPS is not enough - Too volatile - blah blah blah At this point I think you can train a GPT-3 model to write these articles every day and they'll still get upvoted.
    • BitwiseFool 6y ago
      You missed Tulip-Mania and questioning what gives something value in the first place.
    • sodality2 6y ago
      >At this point I think you can train a GPT-3 model to write these articles every day and they'll still get upvoted. Only because GPT-3 could write nearly anything... Have you seen Tom Scott's most recent video? It wrote an entire, coherent video script based off of a single sentence.
    • ausbah 6y ago
      you can probably say the same thing about pro-coiners who keep saying mass adoption of cryptos and blockchain in everyday life is right around the corner
    • distribot 6y ago
      Are these not good points?
  • swiley 6y ago
    That's an odd thing to say considering the price went down this week.
  • xtracto 6y ago
    What has to happen will happen. Remember the quote (wrongly attributed to Gandhi): "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win". Cryptocurrencies are now between the "then they laugh at you" and the "then they fight you" stage. In the next 2 or 3 years there will be more and more noise about cryptos. And yes, a lot of the disadvantages of Bitcoin itself are going to be shown, and other Cryptocurrencies are going to displace it. There will always be people naysaying Cryptocurrencies, but at the end, they will be massively adopted.
    • rspeele 6y ago
      "They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
    • sanderjd 6y ago
      They have been in that stage for like a decade now, with essentially no progress toward "then you win". It is useful and fun for speculators, but there's not much more to it.
    • castlecrasher2 6y ago
      > "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" There are untold cases where this was false. Surely you can think of some.
  • sanderjd 6y ago
    The problem with bitcoin is implicit in your criticism; the only thing that is interesting about it is its price for use by speculators, and that's ... not interesting.
• morphicpro 6y ago
  Hello BTC, let me introduce you to Eth.
  • dawson 6y ago
    Hello ETH, let me introduce you to Cardano.
• Choudhary89 6y ago
  hello
• Hermel 6y ago
  When articles get basic, easily verifiable facts wrong, I immediately start to doubt the quality of the whole article. Here it says: > " By comparison, there are just under 50 billion Swiss Francs in circulation today, which are worth around $56bn USD." There are about 90 billion Swiss Francs in circularion in cash alone. If you add to that all the Swiss Francs in accounts with the Swiss National Bank, we are at 722 billion, which is in the same ballpark as the Bitcoin market cap with about 800 billion Swiss Francs. Source: https://data.snb.ch/de/topics/snb#!/chart/snbmobalech https://data.snb.ch/de/topics/snb#!/chart/snbmobalech
  • blondie9x 6y ago
    Um no, he isn't wrong. Yes he could word it better but circulating currency is correct. Source - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_franc#Circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_franc#Circulation I think you have a misunderstanding about circulation.
    • gvhst 6y ago
      "As of March 2010, the total value of released Swiss coins and banknotes was 49.6640 billion Swiss francs" Last I checked coins and banknotes don't exclusively make up the money supply. EDIT: Crux of the issue here is that circulation is the wrong metric to use (money supply would be far more accurate).
      • blondie9x 6y ago
        Again. Circulation. -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_in_circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_in_circulation I believe article is focusing on using Bitcoin as currency and how it consumes more energy than driving a Tesla 2500 miles per transaction. Offsetting sustainability gains against climate change. Source-> https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-co...
        • Robotbeat 6y ago
• endisneigh 6y ago
  One thing I've noticed with bitcoin related threads is that people who have bitcoin tend to be much more defensive when there's any anti-coin criticism, which is kind of amusing. Another thing I wonder with bitcoin in particular is if everyone had bitcoin and no other currency, and something like COVID happened, what entity would provide liquidity in order to help those affected by a disaster? disclaimer: I do not hold any crypto.
  • wongarsu 6y ago
    > what entity would provide liquidity in order to help those affected by a disaster? For most of history, countries couldn't make money appear out of thin air (outside of mining more silver or later gold, which has practical limits). In good times countries made a tax surplus that they could spend in bad times. Or they borrow money from financiers and pay it back later.
    • omegaworks 6y ago
      And we saw how a blind obedience to those principles prolonged the Great Depression[1]. FDR's economic reforms, including getting the world economy off the Gold Standard, propelled the recovery and allowed the US to meet the needs of the war effort. 1. https://www.history.com/news/how-did-the-gold-standard-contribute-to-the-great-depression#:~:text=The%20government%20raised%20the%20price,depths%20of%20the%20Great%20Depression https://www.history.com/news/how-did-the-gold-standard-contr....
      • wongarsu 6y ago
        It certainly has disadvantages. Great Britain lost their US colonies in large part because they needed to raise taxes to pay for their debts. But the power to just print money has to be used responsibly, there's no shortage of examples of countries damaging their economy by triggering hyperinflation. And if you want a global currency there is no institution that would be trusted with that kind of responsibilty by enough countries.
        • 6y ago
• butmuh 6y ago
  Could make some pretty good money mining all the salt from establishment and nocoiners this week. H
• joshuakelly 6y ago
  YC's best investment to date will likely be Coinbase when the IPO lands, if the price ranges are correct. The very first Hacker News comment on Bitcoin was jdoliner's "while this is exceptionally cute, no one is ever going to take it seriously" - perhaps it's time to admit that yes, maybe, there is something going on here.
  • gretch 6y ago
    I don’t like Bitcoin at all but I like coinbase. Coinbase gives people what they want, quickly and conveniently, with a price ppl are okay with. A great business Bitcoin is not a thing ppl should want (IMO) It’s like going in a 7-11 and buying cigarettes or scratchoffs. I still like 7-11
    • rriepe 6y ago
      Everything 7-11 sells is addictive. They're literally drug dealers set up on corners. But I really enjoyed this analogy.
      • moistbar 6y ago
        Technically you're correct in that food withdrawal will kill you, but that doesn't make the observation any less obtuse.
        • rriepe 6y ago
          Is junk food addictive?
          • moistbar 6y ago
            No, but I'll bet you're about to insist that it is.
            • rriepe 6y ago
              Hah! What assumptions do you think I'm making here about you?
• anm89 6y ago
  Ahhh, the old "i was there when it started but was above it and happy I didn't buy in and make 100000% gains" argument. Yes, I'm sure he's really savoring that one.
  • nappy-doo 6y ago
    I watched bitcoin. I remember people spending 50BTC for pizzas, or whatever. I mined a couple dozen and threw that laptop away. I don't feel like I missed out. I invest because I want value. I want to own a part of something that generates value to the world. I invest to meet my goals (which I've already done without BTC). I invest to sleep well knowing that my money is making me money. BTC offers none of this. I challenge you to name any value BTC provides beyond moving money from one jurisdiction to another. (Which is still value, but not one I need, nor feel the need to speculate in.) Am I bitter others got rich? Nope. Do I wish I was richer? Not really, I'm doing fine, I don't spend what I have anyway. Do I worry about BTC mania infecting others and possibly causing harm where it's not needed? Yes. That is why BTC is a bad idea. It's pure speculation. There is no value beyond what someone else will pay you for it.
    • Sodman 6y ago
      > I mined a couple dozen and threw that laptop away. I don't feel like I missed out. > I invest because I want value. So you want value, but you don't feel that you missed out by throwing out over a million dollars worth of assets? (couple dozen at ~50k/BTC valuation). Sure it has no value beyond what someone else will pay you for it, but today somebody else would literally be willing to give you over a million dollars for it.
      • nappy-doo 6y ago
        That's like counting angels on a head of a pin. Would I have sold it before 50k? yes, yes I would. Can I accurately predict what someone would pay me for it tomorrow? No. Can I estimate the amount it will return to me in 10 years through dividends, or earnings growth, or repurchases (or in BTC's case, lost wallets)? No. Is there regulation protecting my investment? Not really. It is a purely speculative investment. If you want to go find my laptop, it's in a landfill in Massachusetts somewhere. Have at it! It was an early macbook. It has a Daft Punk sticker I bought at Newbury Comics. Value is NOT price. BTC objectively has no little to no value. Price, sure, it's all over the place. What is the par value of a BTC? What's the earnings yield on it? ROIC? ROE? How is it providing jobs to people (beyond speculators)? It is (objectively) a drag on society and progress. No thank you.
• washedup 6y ago
  I wonder if we will ever see a pro-Bitcoin article on HN
  • sanderjd 6y ago
    There were lots of them a decade ago when it seemed possible that it might be an interesting and useful technology.
    • washedup 6y ago
      Seemed possible? It is... based on it's 100 million users. But, probably not used as expected ten years ago. Things change?
      • sanderjd 6y ago
        It isn't "used" by ~100 million "users", it is speculated on by ~100 million speculators. You could literally create a derivative contract unlinked to any asset, and "use" it in the same way, if you could market it. So yes, it has been a marketing success, but not a technological one.
        • washedup 6y ago
          It's speculated on by everyone, yourself included. How can you not define people who hold or spend or trade bitcoin as users?
          • sanderjd 6y ago
            That's a silly way to think about speculation. I'm not speculating on where the ball is going to land on some arbitrary roulette table at an arbitrary casino in Vegas; I'm just not playing the game. The people who spend it are users, but the people who hold and trade it are just speculators. I'm not a user of the target retirement fund in my 401k, I'm just speculating that it's a well balanced way to grow retirement funds.
  • 6y ago
• Robotbeat 6y ago
  Regardless of where you stand as far as the ideological/financial/economic/technological goals of Bitcoin as described in Satoshi’s original paper, it’s definitely a real nerd-snipe, and before you know it, you are intellectually and financially invested in it. And then there’s no avoiding the natural human tendency to rationalize that decision. :) Of course, rationalizing works both ways with sour grapes! But I still think greed is a stronger motivator than envy. :)
  • Robotbeat 6y ago
    Related to this, I actually think one of the best critiques of Bitcoin is by Elon Musk. He’s rich enough to not care as much about not having bought in early and has significant experience with financial systems. Also, it’s funny because a large part of the Chattering class (which includes me because I’m on Twitter and the author of this article) seem to think he’s somehow a Bitcoin champion. He makes solid arguments as to why Dogecoin, a joke alt-coin, has some technical features that legitimately make it an improvement on Bitcoin. I don’t agree with him on hating fiat currency, but it’s a good critique. Regarding fiat with Fed-like policies, it’s actually a feature that those who would hoard fiat cash sort of low level hate it because they know it’s somewhat inflationary and so they look for better places to put it... The idea being that they should put it to productive use by hiring people and/or investing in efficiency-improving/labor-saving capital equipment or whatever. (Of course, plowing it into Bitcoin doesn’t really help that goal, so in some ways, Bitcoin is crowding out productive investments...)
• HashBasher 6y ago
  Gold has a market cap 10X+ bigger than Bitcoin, why can't I buy beer with my gold coins?
• majkinetor 6y ago
  Not sure I understand hype complaint - isn't any value of goods in economy based on what people think they are worth and not their "objective" value ?
  • sanderjd 6y ago
    Not really. People don't drive up the price of milk because they think it's a cool thing to have, they just want to drink it and pay what they think is a reasonable price to do so.
• IshKebab 6y ago
  > What GME demonstrated was the power of the meme in the stock market, and that an asset price could increase its value by over 20x for no fundamental reason. He has never heard of bubbles before GME? > People point to the rising price of bitcoin as evidence of the truth in their narratives, but the reality is that bitcoin could be rising for no reason at all. Could be? It's blindingly obvious to everyone (except the author?) that it's all speculation. Also he failed to mention the most plausible ways that Bitcoin loses value. Governments ban it, or some other cryptocurrency comes along that solves the technical issues with Bitcoin.
  • washedup 6y ago
    Blindingly obvious to everyone (except to today's 100 million users).
• krupan 6y ago
  Bitcoin has two incredible properties. Most critics downplay the first, and never even mention the second. One is that amounts, tiny or astronomical can be safely transferred and settled without trusted 3rd parties, in a matter of minutes. I think people know this. The other property is that it is completely impossible to counterfeit it. There is no possible way to fake bitcoin. You can try claiming you own bitcoin that doesn't exist, but if someone wants proof, there is no way for you to fake it. There is no way to counterfeit it with clever artistic skill, specialized machinery, nothing that can do this. This also means that if you own bitcoin (meaning you control the keys), you really own it. You don't own some promise of future bitcoin payment, an entry in a volatile database at your bank or brokerage, an IOU, or some faked certificate. You own real, trivially verifiable, bitcoin. Also, no trusted 3rd party is needed to ensure this. That is the value of bitcoin.
  • Robotbeat 6y ago
    Tiny amounts literally cannot be settled in minutes. To get a transaction in an hour requires a much higher transaction fee ($11 as of my writing now) than an equivalent Visa purchase (which clears faster). I can buy a $1 (fee-inclusive) candy bar with a Visa from a vending machine and the transaction costs literally pennies and is approved in seconds with no prior relationship with the owner of the vending machine. You can argue $10-100 is “tiny,” if you like, but as Bitcoin is today, it is only really useful for large transfers. Or perhaps medium sized transfers if you live in a place like Venezuela. This is less true even for other blockchain-based cryptocurrencies for two reasons: 1) they’re less popular so less demand for transactions 2) they use a larger blocksize and/or shorter time between blocks (both of which have drawbacks and limits). Regardless of what the Satoshi white paper said, base blockchain simply doesn’t scale well globally for small transactions. Currently still doable for medium and large transactions, but if 7 billion people used Bitcoin as it is now (limited to 7 transactions per second), they could only settle to the blockchain once every billion seconds on average (a billion seconds is over thirty years).
    • spmurrayzzz 6y ago
      I do think there's a use case for zero-confirmation transactions which, although are not settled fully, have to pass a long list of acceptance rules to be fully propagated to the mempool across the network. While this doesn't have the full double spend protection that you get after 6+ confirmations— its arguably reasonable enough to use network mempool quorum for buying a cup of coffee. Beyond that though, there are a number of solutions at layer 2 that can be used here as well, lightning network being the most widely used at this point.
• flyingcircus3 6y ago
  Why do cryptocurrency discussions go from 0 to foaming at the mouth so fast? I've never seen more unconditional confidence.