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People just want an asset that can't be manipulated away. If it takes tons of energy, or if it totally changes power dynamics, or if we need to transact in dif
by briefcomment 6y ago
People just want an asset that can't be manipulated away. If it takes tons of energy, or if it totally changes power dynamics, or if we need to transact in different ways, then so be it. No one is going to give up the opportunity to own something like this for any reason. Regardless of whether people like it or not, they will have to adapt, since there is probably no viable way to stop something like this when people decide they want it.
- 0-_-0 6y agoCountries could make it illegal to own due to its energy consumption
- throwamon 6y ago> then so be it yeah, and fuck living in an inhabitable planet
- briefcomment 6y agoI feel like you're coming from a place of ignorance.
- neither_color 6y agoYeah imagine air so toxic you can't go out in public without a mask on...
- newnamenewface 6y agoWell, there's one very real way that complex financial instruments disappear in a huff. Bitcoin has only existed for less than 15 years. There's no indication that it's invincible to, say, a bubble burst and rapid permanent devaluation besides it having not happened yet. If in 86 years this is still the case, you could maybe convince me I won't see it in my lifetime, but just barely.
- briefcomment 6y agoI mean, it's going to do its thing whether you are convinced or not.
- newnamenewface 6y agoNo, a swarm of autonomous actors in a decentralized system will continue to support it so long as it's profitable and legal (or at the very least, easy enough to get away with). Those are two huge assumptions for e.g. Bitcoin which has very little inherent value as a tool and is a relatively fragile as a value store. Should the internet be fragmented along national/political lines, I imagine BTC will lose most of its value over night.
- briefcomment 6y agoBlack swan events like that would effect everything. I imagine bitcoin succeeding is no less likely than any other culturally dependent phenomenon, seeing how much utility and incentive for adoption it provides.
- pavlov 6y agoMany people would choose to dump toxic waste into a river if they can make some money off it. They want it, but that doesn’t mean we have no way to stop them.
- briefcomment 6y agoThe point is a critical mass of people want this to happen. In fact, probably everyone wants this, and they just don't know it yet.
- EarthLaunch 6y agoPeople want such an asset, but it absolutely can viably be stopped. Governments outlawing it will lower the price and utility. Governments doing a 50% attack or similar will end it. What's interesting to me is that Proof of Work competes with government's Proof of Force. I wonder, is this a choice between running the world on math (or profit) versus running the world on democracy (or force)?
- briefcomment 6y agoGovernments are people too.
- BobbyJo 6y agoBlockchains would be easy to stop if governments wanted. The power footprint of miners is easy to find, and wallets and transactions are easy to trace. The reality is, if a blockchain ever got large enough and widespread enough to impact a host government's currency, it could be shut down probably overnight.
- briefcomment 6y agoThe people who don't want it won't be able to effectively collude because so many people do want it. Many people will people will change their mind as well. Governments are just people after all.
- frankenst1 6y ago> The power footprint of miners is easy to find. it could be shut down probably overnight. This only works for single large-scale miners after you raided all factories/households with above average energy consumption. Many small miners would continue to mine from home (with average energy consumption levels) while collaborating in a global mining pool.
- BobbyJo 6y agoSure, but then you've dramatically reduced the scale at which it can operate, which makes it way less viable than now.
- frankenst1 6y agoThere is no reduction, you can't even distinguish a large-scale single miner from a mining pool with thousands of at home miners.
- BobbyJo 6y agoMost of the hash power is currently contributed by large scale miners. Shutting just them down would cripple thing considerably. Then they could go after the methods of organizing pools, but I suspect that wouldn't be necessary. For large economies, just saying it's illegal without enforcing anything at all would be massive blow, since blockchains' only current use case is speculation. If the the US government said tomorrow 'bitcoin is illegal' the price would crash to the point that mining no longer even made financial sense.
- dale_glass 6y agoBitcoin is extremely manipulable. Just look at the fact that the modern BTC no longer complies with its original ideals. Remember the pizza? Buying games on Steam? All that ended, because the core group controlling bitcoin decided a tiny block size limit suited their interests. This makes perfect sense for people sitting on a hoard of coins and who want to keep on increasing the contention and driving up the value, but has nothing to do whatsoever with the original vision of "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System". It's an interesting thing, really. Bitcoin had some successes, but failed at stopping it from being controlled by a central cabal.
- briefcomment 6y agoIt could be bitcoin, it could be something with a bigger block, but it will be the hardest thing to manipulate away.
- frankenst1 6y agoHow ironic that the forks of Bitcoin with bigger block sizes appear to be the coins more likely to be manipulated by "influential leaders" - resulting in numerous and continuous coin splits.
- frankenst1 6y ago> the core group controlling bitcoin decided a tiny block size limit suited their interests Even if there was some conspiracy going on, this happened in what 2017? The price of Bitcoin rose from ~2K to ~60K up to today. So whatever 'the group behind bitcoin' did, the market seems to agree with 'them'. All the Bitcoin forks who misleadingly claim to be "the real Bitcoin" are either dead now or the market values them at <1/100 of BTC. Conspiracy theories tend to grow over time so maybe this is now just 'the group behind Bitcoin' manipulating the global markets as well?
- briefcomment 6y agoI do have questions about the Digital Currency Group, Blockstream, MasterCard, and the former head of the Bilderburg group, but I'll need to read up on that in depth to come to any conclusions.