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Bitcoin may be optimally positioned to become preferred currency for world trade
- epx 6y agoYeah, with 7tps
- diegocerdan 6y agoEnough to be the first settlement layer of the whole finacial system. On top of that layer, you can have country fiat coins, centralized exchanges and others.
- Robotbeat 6y ago...a first settlement layer that the normal person simply cannot use. 7 billion peopl and 7 transactions per second is 1 billion seconds between transactions. Over 30 years. Going completely to only larger players and being inaccessible to most people at the first layer is completely missing the major purposes of Bitcoin as laid out by Satoshi.
- diegocerdan 6y agoMost people in 1900 would not transact in Gold although it was the first settlement. The world was fine till governments decided to operate without hard money as first settlement layer. We are going to revert back. It _has_ to be fixed.
- asah 6y agomeh, bundled, off-chain transactions. Examples: https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-rolls-out-bitcoin-transaction-batching-5f6d09b8b045 https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-rolls-out-bitcoin-transac... https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Off-Chain_Transactions https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Off-Chain_Transactions
- woeirua 6y agoGreat, so let's use a... separate system... with none of the advantages associated with a cryptocurrency to do actual transactions.
- djschnei 6y agohttps://lightning.network/ https://lightning.network/
- woeirua 6y agoMy criticism was in direct response to the lightning network.
- djschnei 6y agoSurely you understand how "with none of the advantages associated with a cryptocurrency" could make it seem like you were referring to Coinbase batching (since that's centralized). How exactly does Lightning negate any of bitcoins advantages?
- CyberDildonics 6y agoWhy would anyone use a complex disaster that people are avoiding like the plague when they could just use other cryptocurrencies that didn't intentionally cripple their throughput to sell that hacky second layer? Ethereum dwarfs everything else in transaction volume and bitcoin cash has already consistently passed bitcoin in transactions per day. https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactions-btc-eth-bch.html#6m https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactions-btc-eth-bc...
- dmichulke 6y agoReminds me of the transaction speed of gold back in the days they called it a gold standard.
- nullserver 6y agoDuring gold rush a Mug of beer was a pinch of gold. Bartenders would favor employees with big hands. Government came in and printed gold coins to solve the currency problem. However it turns out that a 50 dollar gold coin is not useful in any but the largest transactions.
- waynecochran 6y agoHow can a currency that is so volatile be used for actually buying and selling stuff? If you were going to put your car up for sale today and you had to set a price in bitcoin how could you possibly choose a number? Will bitcoin ever settle down to a stable currency?
- agumonkey 6y agoMaybe (maybe) volatility will die after this cycle. It's one theory thrown on the web. Other than that news regarding cryptos these days should be avoided.
- JoshTko 6y agoBTC's main purpose is as a store of value not as a currency. Volatility will eventually go down, think 30+ years.
- Robotbeat 6y ago> BTC's main purpose is as a store of value not as a currency. Not if you read Satoshi’s original paper on the topic!
- washedup 6y agoThat was over ten years ago. Things change. And it can still be a currency, just not a good one today.
- DamnYuppie 6y agoI think what many people are missing is that it may not be a good currency for small purchases but for moving very large sums of money it can be very convenient. There are no instruments in the world today that would allow you to move from $1,000,000 up and up by fitting it easily and discretely into your pocket. Could be a smartphone, USB drive, or a san disk. People in the west forget that like 85% of the world live in very corrupt countries where confiscation of property/wealth is real. If you want to get your money out of said countries this is the best way to do it hands down!
- jm4rc05 6y agoA few large holders commonly referred to as whales continue to own most Bitcoin. About 2% of the anonymous ownership accounts that can be tracked on the cryptocurrency’s blockchain control 95% of the digital asset, according to researcher Flipside Crypto.
- glitchc 6y agoFlipside Crypto is a co-author in this report.
- paxys 6y agoIs that number substantially different for any other currency?
- rplnt 6y agoMost currency would be publicly owned and regulated.
- thendrill 6y agoNo but there is a problem with Btc that is not comparable to other currencies. Satoshi own 1 million btc. That is 49 billion usd. When he made that 1 million 11 years ago nobody knew what btc was... Do you see the problem.
- thendrill 6y agoAlso another thing that has to be remembered is that a large amount of crypto in circulation is actually stolen crypto. Anyone that has been in crypto pre 2016 has lots of it being stole or lost. MtGox, Cryptsy, Poloniex, DarkWeb. Most of these coins just went to other wallets. Also alot of whales just have a ton of wallets, so we will never know.... I just know that a 1000 btc at the moment is enough to move the market billions. And alot of people have bigger wallets
- asah 6y agohttps://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses....
- lobo_tuerto 6y agoShould specify that this is a PDF file.
- tzfld 6y agoCan a deflational currency really be the preferred method for trade? Not only limited amount for a theoretically increasing demand, but existing amounts being locked in inaccessible wallets. I have doubts. As long as bitcoin can't be a currency (and it certainly can't), it's fate is doomed. A more suited criptocurrency still yet to come.
- Robotbeat 6y agoIndeed. Gresham’s Law.
- m_eiman 6y agoNo.
- cageface 6y agohitting $1 trillion in market capitalization in February 2021 Multiplying the price of 1 BTC by the number of BTC to get a "market cap" is pretty wishful thinking. Significant selling would tank the price.
- jetpackjoe 6y agoIsn't that how you calculate a company's market cap? That will also tank with significant selling. A bigger issue to me, would be we don't know how much BTC is lost due to wallets being inaccessible.
- dooglius 6y agoThat's how market cap is defined, and that criticism that selling would tank it applies to everything...
- secondbreakfast 6y agoTrue for all securities.
- mtnGoat 6y agoIt also doesn’t account for all the locked btc due to theft, fraud or just the owner losing the key. I’d put it at half that, most btc never moves.
- rplnt 6y agoBut that's how market cap is calculated. It doesn't mean BTC has that value.
- bearjaws 6y agoMultiplying the price of 1 share by the number of shares to get a "market cap" is pretty wishful thinking. Significant selling would tank the price. "Market capitalization refers to the total dollar market value of a company's outstanding shares of stock. Commonly referred to as "market cap," it is calculated by multiplying the total number of a company's outstanding shares by the current market price of one share. " Sure the definition mentions shares, but the concept can theoretically be applied to anything.
- mtnGoat 6y agoExcept it can’t handle the transaction volume. Who writes these things?
- brink 6y agoSomeone who just put their life savings into it and is looking to make a buck.
- justaman 6y agoSimple. People trying to pump the price up. Bitcoin went from a way to buy drugs to a hype-fueled pump and dump scheme.
- tgv 6y agoPeople without a conscience.
- ethbr0 6y ago... just don't @_#&ing dance. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7eYcWpgCb7o&t=18s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7eYcWpgCb7o&t=18s
- 3np 6y agoLayer 2 solutions. Apart from Lightning and Liquid, I think we should also count the tokenizations on Ethereum (tBTC, renBTC and others). It’s still early days. Give it another 10 years. Oh and hey, who knows, maybe the block size will increase one day. Of course companies like Citi and MasterCard aim to capture the majority of transactions inside their own private networks (hence stripping all the benefits and limitations of bitcoin for “the user”)
- djschnei 6y agoBut of course you understand Bitcoin can be transacted in off-chain, yes?
- nullserver 6y agoIn other news there has been an unusual spike of unlicensed micro nuclear plants found in peoples back yards.
- bitcharmer 6y agoBitcoin is terrible as a currency. It's OK as commodity but these are two separate things.
- dariusj18 6y agoWell, international trade is generally a higher stakes lower frequency operation. So bitcoin as a commodity should work fine for it if it stabilizes.
- lovedswain 6y agoOptimally positioned, as most mining happens in China and the only other candidate is the Yuan? :) I wonder if the Citi analysts knew of the mining farms installed in Iran by Chinese businesses in order to access cheap electricity. If Bitcoin's value is derived solely from narrative, it's going to be great to see how the world reacts to that story finally turning up in the mainstream press.
- buzzdenver 6y agoObviously I didn't read the whole thing since it's over a hundred pages, but the paper says that BTC will used to do the mechanics of the trade, but settlement will be in fiat currencies.
- rdudek 6y agoAren't BTC's biggest issues volatility and transaction speed? I can understand volatility eventually settling once all the BTC are mined but the transaction will take longer and longer, not to mention a huge power consumption to do so?
- shams93 6y agoExcept that in another 2 years it will take more energy than 10 suns to mine one coin.
- fs2 6y agoBitcoin was the first famous crypto currency. But it has been surpassed by many other digital coins with lower fees, more transactions per second, better technical design and all these things combined. Bitcoin also suffers from whales routinely mass selling and buying to make profits at the cost of traders, resulting in volatility. I'm sure it will rise again a few more times but there are better alternatives available.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y agoBitcoin is still vulnerable to nation state manipulation. I would guess that greater than 50% of the mining capacity is in China. If the Chinese government decides they want to screw with Bitcoin, they can.
- sprash 6y agoThis is not true. Network consensus is not reached by miners but by the nodes in the network that recieve/transmit transactions and blocks. If you want to protect Bitcoin from "chinese nation state manipulation" simply run a full node.
- exabrial 6y agoPlease no. It's an environmental disaster, transaction time is stupid long, fees are too high, and it's vulnerable to attack by state-level actors.
- ldbooth 6y agoHow is it an environmental disaster? I hear you on energy use but that if we get to 99% renewables the excess generation/load capability could turn this statememt on its head. The US gov will sacrifice their place in the world order by undermining US dollar sanction power tho!
- frankbreetz 6y agowhen will that happen? how much damage will be done before then? there is not a lot of excess CO2 budget remaining.
- ldbooth 6y agoThe majority of all electricity and auto power we use is an environmental disaster. My gore tex jacket, anything producing forever chemicals as biproducts is an environmental disaster (Dupont). Your car tires and mine apparently have biproducts affecting salmon health. But you're just calling out the hot topic -that's my point. bitcoin's energy useage - yes it's completely wasteful by design. But one day in the future Bitcoin may not be in comparison to our gore-tex problem, our cow-methane problem. Keepin' it real. I'm saying 2050 it could be solar powered completely. Then batteries can be an enviromental disaster ... it's a never ending cycle Call a spade a spade: it's the financial sanction power that will stop bitcoin. Why would the US give that up? Decline only.
- exabrial 6y agoIs there just a bot crew that goes around boards looking to deny the obvious evidence? It's powered by coal. Look at who runs the major mining operations.
- endisneigh 6y agoI'm curious to see how Bitcoin does vs. a 10 year period of decline worldwide. If you consider that Bitcoin was created basically just before the worlds longest and greater bull run you can see that it's lacking experience in surviving a greater decline.
- danielEM 6y agoDoes Citi still have a good reputation in US? And anyway, bitcoin became too big to fall easily, but making money in your basement was and always will be spiting into a faces of hard working people.
- sprash 6y agoThe only thing that is "spitting into faces of hard working people" is the relentless printing of money by central banks that incentivize speculation over productive work and make bubbles like Bitcoin or GameStop possible in the first place.
- xirbeosbwo1234 6y agoI think Bitcoin is a good litmus test. It is so fantastically awful at everything it is intended to do that I feel justified in immediately writing off anyone who is enthusiastic about it.
- esja 6y agoAmusing to read the conclusion then flip to the next page listing their other reports. Top of that list: "Financing a Greener Planet".
- cageface 6y agoUS has too much to lose if this happens and the dollar is displaced. SEC will knock the legs out from under crypto first.
- thendrill 6y agoIt's all fun and dandy until someone hacks satoshis wallets.
- cs702 6y agoA common criticism of Bitcoin that I've seen on HN and elsewhere is that Bitcoin is far too volatile with respect to established currencies like the US dollar and the Euro. Just look at any historical USD-per-BTC chart and judge for yourself: https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=XBT&to=USD https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=XBT&to=USD Until recently, this criticism has made sense to me... But as Bitcoin adoption has increased worldwide, I've come to think this criticism isn't as valid, because from the perspective of a growing number of Bitcoin owners, ALL established currencies are incredibly volatile. For example, the US dollar's exchange rate has bounced from a low of ~5000 Satoshis in 2017, to a high of ~30,000 Satoshis in 2018, to a low of ~8,000 Satoshis in 2019, to a high of ~20,000 Satoshis in 2020, to a low ~2,000 Satoshis at present.[a] From the perspective of holders of Bitcoin, the US Dollar is insanely volatile. Just look at any historical BTC-per-USD (or Satoshi-per-USD) chart and judge yourself: https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=XBT https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=XBT If and as more people start using Bitcoin (or Satoshis) as their frame of reference, their perception of volatility will change accordingly. -- [a] 100,000,000 Satoshis = 1 Bitcoin.
- crossroadsguy 6y agoLooks like bags are arriving. Empty ones. People will be holding those eventually.
- Shadonototro 6y agowhat's the value of bitcoin? optimally positioned = few people bought it cheaper and now enjoy an excess of it and wants to start to spend it? if its value is USD, then i'm afraid to tell you that it's worthless the future is a world without currency, without money, a world where people freely create things, people freely use things, and people freely do things if it becomes chaos, then be it, no need to fake things with "money" c'mon people, we can do better as a virus imagine if molecules needed money to do things, we wouldn't even exists! haha
- stunt 6y agoHow can a currency that is so tied to two brands become mainstream? Those two brands are Satoshi Nakamoto and Elon Musk. What happens to Bitcoin if Elon Musk for any reason decides to sell Tesla's coins and announce it on Twitter?
- CyberDildonics 6y agoThis sounds like what a bot would say after reading only the last three months of headlines and nothing else.
- f430 6y agois that why you keep downvoting people for disagreeing with you?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 01100011 6y agoFinancial Times: Hey Citi, your bitcoin report is embarrassingly bad. https://www.ft.com/content/8553aba7-8beb-4b48-9287-be6a08065444 https://www.ft.com/content/8553aba7-8beb-4b48-9287-be6a08065...
- ykevinator 6y agoJust like 10 years ago