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Ah, a soft fork focused on SegWit transactions. Every time I try and follow along with the latest in Bitcoin I just don't get that excited. I think that's part

Ah, a soft fork focused on SegWit transactions. Every time I try and follow along with the latest in Bitcoin I just don't get that excited. I think that's part of the point, though. "Hard money" and all.

arcticbull 5y ago
Hard money doesn't exhibit 15000% annualized inflation in a one-month period. That Weimar Republic behavior. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad about that - it's made me tons of money on the short side. I'm just saying, it's bad money.
- vmception 5y ago
  I'm looking forward to third party assets being tradable on the Bitcoin network again. My contribution to the gradient of behaviors on that network was one where the Bitcoin asset was only used to cover transaction fees for the actual money being traded. The whole "merchant adoption" thing was always a squirrel to me. When merchants will accept stable value assets more readily, or use those stable value assets for settlement, just like the US regulator greenlighted a few months ago.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Genuine curiosity: why would you trade third-party assets on the Bitcoin network when you could do it infinitely more efficiently on any of the competing chains? It's by far the least efficient blockchain ergo the least efficient way to trade third-party assets. [edit] Direct fees are lower than they used to be, and the energy cost is about now up to about $100-120 per transaction. While that's being socialized across block reward for now, when that ends, it will have to be born directly by customers or see the network become less secure.
    - thebean11 5y ago
      > While that's being socialized across block reward for now, when that ends, it will have to be born directly by customers That's true, total transaction revenue will need to go up. That doesn't mean per-transaction revenue needs to go up though. Put another way, transaction volume needs to scale before inflation gets too low.
      - wmf 5y ago
        transaction volume needs to scale before inflation gets too low Good thing they decided to never scale transaction volume.
        thebean11 5y ago
        That's simply not true. They are ultra conservative with block size. That doesn't mean transaction volume won't scale. It doesn't even mean block size won't go up.
    - vmception 5y ago
      I'd like the option as thats where they were traded before the transaction space was limited. Counterparty, OMNI... doing that stuff over Lightning Network. Other Layer 2s. The growth of this stuff is limited by bitcoin's current state. It just makes interoperability with the broader Defi space more practical. Regarding energy, if thats your battle then work on that aspect, there are some influencers aiming to convince miners to create a more energy efficient version of transaction propagation, settled on the Bitcoin network.
  - gruez 5y ago
    > I'm looking forward to third party assets being tradable on the Bitcoin network again. Again? Did some sort of protocol fork break colored coins or the omni network?
    - vmception 5y ago
      How do you want me to answer that? Older things are still compatible on bitcoin network in the older address format. But that mostly means choosing between meta-assets or multisig, or choosing a meta asset or segwit. They also are not transmittable over lightning network reliably yet, this is mostly a factor of no protocol and gui being finished but two people can make their own protocol. I’m looking forward to this all being standardized and wallets surfacing it after they agree on the protocols.
- guiomie 5y ago
  I'm not sure to follow "15000% annualized inflation in a one-month period"... Could you expand?
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    A ~50% drop in purchasing power over a one-month period (from 65K to 29K) is an annualized inflation rate of ~15000%.
    - ulzeraj 5y ago
      That’s not inflation. Inflation as the name suggests is the expansion of monetary supply.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        That definition of inflation is old and discredited. Austrian economics is roughly speaking tinfoil hat economics. The modern definition is a change in purchasing power of a unit of currency, not solely of its supply. The reason is simple: if you have the treasury mint a $1T coin and give it to me, then I throw it in a vault, and do not spend it then prices do not change. As such, the Austrian model is obviously incomplete as it does not take into account what happens to that supply. You can see this play out in the macro. Since 1980 the M2 supply has increased 12X but prices are about 3X higher.
        rogueSkib 5y ago
        Your thought experiment is assuming that $1T is permanently locked "in a vault", therefore it is not actually part of the monetary supply, since it can't be spent without violating your assumption.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        throwaway2048 5y ago
- dcolkitt 5y ago
  I mean, you're being a little silly by comparing a short-term market gyration to "annualized inflation". The Yen is down 38 basis points against the dollar today. Nobody would describe that as "exhibiting 135% annualized inflation".
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    True, but there's a big difference between dropping 38 basis points and losing 57% of its purchasing power. [edit] more importantly, the yen may have dropped 38 basis points against the dollar, however that doesn't necessarily represent a drop in domestic purchasing power at all. Just foreign purchasing power. This change makes imports into Japan more expensive and exports of Japanese products denominated in dollars more affordable to foreign buyers. You're measuring apples vs oranges in that comparison.
    - HighlandSpring 5y ago
      Doesn't get more apples and oranges than comparing fiat currencies with hard money
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        Well that just sounds like a religious argument, no? Is there some basis on which you are making this assertion?
    - dcolkitt 5y ago
      Peak-to-trough, the Pound Sterling lost about 25% of its value against the Deutsche Mark during Black Wednesday. It lost about 30% over Brexit. The Aussie dollar fell about 35% against USD during the 2008 financial crisis. The Euro fell approximately 40% against the Swiss franc over the 2011 sovereign debt crisis. So yes, "real currencies" can and do fluctuate significantly in terms of exchange rates. It simply makes no sense to contextualize exchange rate fluctuations as "annualized inflation".
      - 5y ago
- gruez 5y ago
  >Hard money doesn't exhibit 15000% annualized inflation in a one-month period I'm curious, what's your definition of "hard money"? It's clear that your idea of "hard money" is very different than the parent's.
- samatman 5y ago
  No one has ever tried to take a ledger from the unit of account representing no value to representing value on a global scale. Every historical money has come from a cultural context where the token was valuable, beautiful, or frequently both. When people point out Bitcoin's volatility, I wonder how else this could be accomplished on a decentralized and voluntary basis. Which isn't to say that BTC will achieve that, of course. But unless it does, how could it possibly have a stable value in between? It's either worth $0 or ~$1-10mm per Bitcoin, and the market is having a vigorous argument about which.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Some market participants are. Certainly the wildcat banks and Paolo Ardoino are having an argument with reality.
- jtms 5y ago
  Bitcoin is deflationary by definition, not inflationary. Once the last coin is mined that's it - that's all there will ever be. I think you might have inflation and deflation backwards. Inflation can result from a large supply of currency being injected into a monetary system (ie: "bailouts"). This injection dilutes the value of all existing units of currency. This can cause prices to rise (though not always). In other words: the value of the good or service is relatively static, but the value of the money decreases due to the supply being larger. What happened in the Weimar Republic (hyperinflation) has nothing to do with Bitcoin price swings... they turned the money printers on max and diluted themselves into oblivion trying to prop up the economic machinery. This is quite the opposite of what is happening in BTC land. BTC price swings are just speculation (aka gambling with extra steps).
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    You're describing money supply, not inflation. Inflation is a change in purchasing power of a unit of currency, not the supply of the currency. The supply may influence its purchasing power but there's a lot more to it, obviously.
    - hanniabu 5y ago
      Words have different meaning in different contexts. In blockchain, inflation refers to the emission of newly minted coin.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        In economics inflation is a change in purchasing power of a currency. Words have meaning. This is what inflation means to everyone without laser eyes ;) and the word appears to have been redefined to spur unsubstantiated fear to pump bitcoin. So I suggest we all begin using the right word for the job and correcting folks who are using it wrong.
        hanniabu 5y ago
        "The term is used differently in this context" "No the context I'm used to is the only possible answer" This combined with your mention of fear and pumping, it seems you have a heavy bias against cryptocurrencies so it's not worthwhile to continue this discussion with you.

arcticbull 5y ago

Hard money doesn't exhibit 15000% annualized inflation in a one-month period. That Weimar Republic behavior. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad about that - it's made me tons of money on the short side. I'm just saying, it's bad money.

vmception 5y ago
I'm looking forward to third party assets being tradable on the Bitcoin network again. My contribution to the gradient of behaviors on that network was one where the Bitcoin asset was only used to cover transaction fees for the actual money being traded. The whole "merchant adoption" thing was always a squirrel to me. When merchants will accept stable value assets more readily, or use those stable value assets for settlement, just like the US regulator greenlighted a few months ago.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Genuine curiosity: why would you trade third-party assets on the Bitcoin network when you could do it infinitely more efficiently on any of the competing chains? It's by far the least efficient blockchain ergo the least efficient way to trade third-party assets. [edit] Direct fees are lower than they used to be, and the energy cost is about now up to about $100-120 per transaction. While that's being socialized across block reward for now, when that ends, it will have to be born directly by customers or see the network become less secure.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    > While that's being socialized across block reward for now, when that ends, it will have to be born directly by customers That's true, total transaction revenue will need to go up. That doesn't mean per-transaction revenue needs to go up though. Put another way, transaction volume needs to scale before inflation gets too low.
    - wmf 5y ago
      transaction volume needs to scale before inflation gets too low Good thing they decided to never scale transaction volume.
      - thebean11 5y ago
        That's simply not true. They are ultra conservative with block size. That doesn't mean transaction volume won't scale. It doesn't even mean block size won't go up.
  - vmception 5y ago
    I'd like the option as thats where they were traded before the transaction space was limited. Counterparty, OMNI... doing that stuff over Lightning Network. Other Layer 2s. The growth of this stuff is limited by bitcoin's current state. It just makes interoperability with the broader Defi space more practical. Regarding energy, if thats your battle then work on that aspect, there are some influencers aiming to convince miners to create a more energy efficient version of transaction propagation, settled on the Bitcoin network.
- gruez 5y ago
  > I'm looking forward to third party assets being tradable on the Bitcoin network again. Again? Did some sort of protocol fork break colored coins or the omni network?
  - vmception 5y ago
    How do you want me to answer that? Older things are still compatible on bitcoin network in the older address format. But that mostly means choosing between meta-assets or multisig, or choosing a meta asset or segwit. They also are not transmittable over lightning network reliably yet, this is mostly a factor of no protocol and gui being finished but two people can make their own protocol. I’m looking forward to this all being standardized and wallets surfacing it after they agree on the protocols.
guiomie 5y ago
I'm not sure to follow "15000% annualized inflation in a one-month period"... Could you expand?
- arcticbull 5y ago
  A ~50% drop in purchasing power over a one-month period (from 65K to 29K) is an annualized inflation rate of ~15000%.
  - ulzeraj 5y ago
    That’s not inflation. Inflation as the name suggests is the expansion of monetary supply.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      That definition of inflation is old and discredited. Austrian economics is roughly speaking tinfoil hat economics. The modern definition is a change in purchasing power of a unit of currency, not solely of its supply. The reason is simple: if you have the treasury mint a $1T coin and give it to me, then I throw it in a vault, and do not spend it then prices do not change. As such, the Austrian model is obviously incomplete as it does not take into account what happens to that supply. You can see this play out in the macro. Since 1980 the M2 supply has increased 12X but prices are about 3X higher.
      - rogueSkib 5y ago
        Your thought experiment is assuming that $1T is permanently locked "in a vault", therefore it is not actually part of the monetary supply, since it can't be spent without violating your assumption.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        throwaway2048 5y ago
dcolkitt 5y ago
I mean, you're being a little silly by comparing a short-term market gyration to "annualized inflation". The Yen is down 38 basis points against the dollar today. Nobody would describe that as "exhibiting 135% annualized inflation".
- arcticbull 5y ago
  True, but there's a big difference between dropping 38 basis points and losing 57% of its purchasing power. [edit] more importantly, the yen may have dropped 38 basis points against the dollar, however that doesn't necessarily represent a drop in domestic purchasing power at all. Just foreign purchasing power. This change makes imports into Japan more expensive and exports of Japanese products denominated in dollars more affordable to foreign buyers. You're measuring apples vs oranges in that comparison.
  - HighlandSpring 5y ago
    Doesn't get more apples and oranges than comparing fiat currencies with hard money
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Well that just sounds like a religious argument, no? Is there some basis on which you are making this assertion?
  - dcolkitt 5y ago
    Peak-to-trough, the Pound Sterling lost about 25% of its value against the Deutsche Mark during Black Wednesday. It lost about 30% over Brexit. The Aussie dollar fell about 35% against USD during the 2008 financial crisis. The Euro fell approximately 40% against the Swiss franc over the 2011 sovereign debt crisis. So yes, "real currencies" can and do fluctuate significantly in terms of exchange rates. It simply makes no sense to contextualize exchange rate fluctuations as "annualized inflation".
    - 5y ago
gruez 5y ago
>Hard money doesn't exhibit 15000% annualized inflation in a one-month period I'm curious, what's your definition of "hard money"? It's clear that your idea of "hard money" is very different than the parent's.
samatman 5y ago
No one has ever tried to take a ledger from the unit of account representing no value to representing value on a global scale. Every historical money has come from a cultural context where the token was valuable, beautiful, or frequently both. When people point out Bitcoin's volatility, I wonder how else this could be accomplished on a decentralized and voluntary basis. Which isn't to say that BTC will achieve that, of course. But unless it does, how could it possibly have a stable value in between? It's either worth $0 or ~$1-10mm per Bitcoin, and the market is having a vigorous argument about which.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Some market participants are. Certainly the wildcat banks and Paolo Ardoino are having an argument with reality.
jtms 5y ago
Bitcoin is deflationary by definition, not inflationary. Once the last coin is mined that's it - that's all there will ever be. I think you might have inflation and deflation backwards. Inflation can result from a large supply of currency being injected into a monetary system (ie: "bailouts"). This injection dilutes the value of all existing units of currency. This can cause prices to rise (though not always). In other words: the value of the good or service is relatively static, but the value of the money decreases due to the supply being larger. What happened in the Weimar Republic (hyperinflation) has nothing to do with Bitcoin price swings... they turned the money printers on max and diluted themselves into oblivion trying to prop up the economic machinery. This is quite the opposite of what is happening in BTC land. BTC price swings are just speculation (aka gambling with extra steps).
- arcticbull 5y ago
  You're describing money supply, not inflation. Inflation is a change in purchasing power of a unit of currency, not the supply of the currency. The supply may influence its purchasing power but there's a lot more to it, obviously.
  - hanniabu 5y ago
    Words have different meaning in different contexts. In blockchain, inflation refers to the emission of newly minted coin.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      In economics inflation is a change in purchasing power of a currency. Words have meaning. This is what inflation means to everyone without laser eyes ;) and the word appears to have been redefined to spur unsubstantiated fear to pump bitcoin. So I suggest we all begin using the right word for the job and correcting folks who are using it wrong.
      - hanniabu 5y ago
        "The term is used differently in this context" "No the context I'm used to is the only possible answer" This combined with your mention of fear and pumping, it seems you have a heavy bias against cryptocurrencies so it's not worthwhile to continue this discussion with you.