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the author strikes me as ignorant TBH. Here is what people want when it comes to money: ability to exchange the money for goods. That’s it. Money is valuable

the author strikes me as ignorant TBH. Here is what people want when it comes to money: ability to exchange the money for goods. That’s it. Money is valuable because it can be exchanged and everyone has 1) accepted that you can exchange it 2) is using it for this exchange. What bitcoin is is captured in its name: bit coin == digital money. It’s not complicated. Also, breaking news: most money (like 90%+) today only exist in electronic form (in that sense the dollar is a digital currency with a paper form and so on) People hate bitcoin because they don’t understand what it is and perceive it as being somewhat of a threat. It’s not. The ultimate success or failure of bitcoin will depend on how many people use it and what it’s used for. Also, as a side note, the blockchain idea is revolutionary. Distributed consensus in a zero trust environment? yup. Has this been done before at this scale?

4512124672456 5y ago
> It’s not. The ultimate success or failure of bitcoin will depend on how many people use it and what it’s used for. Bitcoin has already failed as money. Even most coiners admit that nowadays. > Distributed consensus in a zero trust environment? The whole cryptocurrency environment still relies on plenty of trust (exchanges, programmers, apis...). It's just less regulated, and this is why it is full of scams (https://www.rekt.news/ https://www.rekt.news/).
- rantwasp 5y ago
  the environment does not rely on trust. When you make a transaction you make a transaction without needing to trust anyone. Exchanges are needed only in the world where you need to transform bitcoins into other currencies. Relying on programmers, api, etc: if you want to go down that rabbit hole, you can literally take the code and verify it yourself. It’s out in the open and it’s backed by cryptographically sound primitives. Bitcoin has failed as money? Most coiners? Where is this coming from? Do you have anything to support these assertions?
  - lottin 5y ago
    > When you make a transaction you make a transaction without needing to trust anyone. For the transaction to actually take place it means that it needs to be appended to the blockchain, and whether it is appended or not is not up to you. Instead you have to rely entirely on others for that to occur. This is the very definition of trust.
    - rantwasp 5y ago
      nah. no offense but you don’t understand how it works. there is nothing preventing you from running your own node or miner. also, you are overextending the meaning of trust. Do you trust air when you’re breathing? Do you trust traffic lights? Do you trust you’re going to eliminate excess water through pee? The point is that if you have a series of established rules and a way to verify that they are actually applied as designed, it does not really matter who applies them. One miner cannot become a bad actor and invent its own rules.
      - Arnavion 5y ago
        I wouldn't say running your own miner is necessarily the way to not "trust anyone (else)", because at the current global hashrate the chance that your individual miner will get to mint a block with your transaction in it is basically zero. The more correct answer is that your transaction has fees, which is why other miners are motivated to include it in their next block. (And also why a majority of the hashrate being centralized into a single entity with a singular will is a doomsday scenario for bitcoin.)
        lottin 5y ago
        Exactly, and fees are only an incentive. There's nothing stopping miners from discarding your transaction. Therefore trust that miners won't discard your transaction is required.
        Arnavion 5y ago
paulryanrogers 5y ago
> People hate bitcoin because they don’t understand what it is and perceive it as being somewhat of a threat. It’s not. For those paying higher prices for electricity or GPUs it's rational to see Bitcoin as a threat.
- rantwasp 5y ago
  isn’t this “the dream”? a free market where the price is dictated by supply and demand? You see it as a threat? Fine. But if you’re gonna be rational focus on all the things that impact you - don’t just listen to propaganda parroting the same things over and over again. On a side note: at least for BTC GPUs have not been a viable option is quite a while. also, mining happens in areas with low electricity prices - so not sure either of these arguments have legs.
  - drdeca 5y ago
    The bitcoin price is correlated with the price of other cryptocurrencies. Greater bitcoin price -> greater other-cryptocurrencies-price -> greater motivation for people to mine these other cryptocurrencies -> greater demand for GPUs for mining. Well, I suppose I'm conflating correlation with causation here. Are the two correlated because a higher bitcoin price produces a higher other-cryptocurrencies price, or the other way around, or another thing which causes both of them, or maybe some mix of some of these 3?
    - rantwasp 5y ago
      historically the rallies in btc triggered rallies in other cryptos
      - drdeca 5y ago
        Thanks
lottin 5y ago
The bitcoin consensus mechanism is literally a lottery in which the winner gets to decide what the "consensus" is. I don't know about "revolutionary"...
- rantwasp 5y ago
  is it though? the “lottery winner” in your case assembles a block with transactions from the transaction pool (ie you don’t just make shit up. you are taking useful transaction that people are making them and capturing them into the chain) So the winner does not decide much, except maybe what transactions to select (spoiler alert: the transactions with the highest fees are normally selected). The consensus is in the sense that: you wanted to create a transaction and that transaction is captured and everyone in the network sees and agrees that the transact happened. The miner cannot alter your transaction. Other nodes in the network cannot arbitrarily reject it. You cannot simply claim you didn’t do it after the fact.
  - lottin 5y ago
    > everyone in the network sees and agrees that the transact happened Why would everyone agree that the transaction happened?
    - rantwasp 5y ago
      everyone == bitcoin nodes that each keep a copy of blockchain locally. once a block is mined it is propagated through the network and it’s verified by all the nodes that see it. In effect, when you get the block and you append it to your local blockchain after verification you agree that the transaction that happened in that block happened.
      - lottin 5y ago
        Yes, but the question is why would all the nodes agree that the transaction has happened. What's stopping them from disagreeing?
IncRnd 5y ago
Too bad that bitcoin can't actually be used as money at the grocery store, to purchase a car, to buy fertilizer, or in any of a billion other ways that money can be used.
- decodebytes 5y ago
  Not here to defend bitcoin, but that's not true. You can buy all three of those (to varying degrees in different countries).
  - rantwasp 5y ago
    i will bet you real bitcoin that given enough time you'll be able to make all those transactions. there is absolutely no reason for someone to not accept bitcoin when they can literally turn around and convert it in fiat if they don't like holding it immediately.
    - tfigment 5y ago
      Time is a problem. If you lose value in time it takes to convert its not good. Most businesses don't care if the value increases nearly as much as it decreasing. Bitcoin volatility does not help it's case. I guess we trust banks will always be available to get dollars out when needed.
    - magicsmoke 5y ago
      You should rethink that phrasing. That's a heads I win tails you lose kind of proposal.
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      There are loads of reasons why people will not deal in bitcoins. One reason is what happened at Poly Network since you posted your comment. Bitcoin and Crypto in general are filled with thieves and scam artists. Just because some ethical people can navigate that minefield at relatively low dollar transactions - that doesn't mean many people or businesses want to stake their livelihoods on it not failing.
  - 5y ago
salamandersauce 5y ago
I understand what it is. I hate it because it's literally wasting more electricity than some countries for no reason and has also led to ridiculous demand for GPUs making them near impossible to source at MSRP.
- rantwasp 5y ago
  you know what else is wasting electricity? the whole financial system. I'm gonna bet you real bitcoin that they waste way more. Also guess what? They close at 5PM and during weekends. So there is that. The energy consumption and the high prices of GPU comes down to capitalism and freedom of choice. Who are you to decide on what we should spend energy on and what we should not spend energy on? If an activity yields more money that it consumes (even if it's in the form of an electrical bill) people are going to do that activity.
PhasmaFelis 5y ago
> People hate bitcoin because they don’t understand what it is and perceive it as being somewhat of a threat. I dislike Bitcoin because (a) it's causing quite a bit of environmental damage and (b) it has revolutionized kidnapping and ransomware. This is supposed to be a fair trade-off for letting people circumvent e.g. onerous drug laws. I'm not convinced it's worth it.
- rantwasp 5y ago
  yes. bitcoin is the worst /s you know what’s the preferred currency for crime? the USD. If you look at how something, a tool, is used and declare it bad I’m not sure you’re seeing the big picture. A hammer can be used in construction or to bash someone’s brains out. Nobody ever mentions banning hammers because someone used one in a f’ed up way. for the environmental damage part: in a free market you cannot really control what people are doing with energy. You use the energy, you pay the bill. End of story. If the profit you’re making from the activity is greater that the money you are putting in people will do that activity.
  - PhasmaFelis 5y ago
    > A hammer can be used in construction or to bash someone’s brains out. Nobody ever mentions banning hammers because someone used one in a f’ed up way. A hammer is no better suited for killing people than thousands of other common household (or natural!) objects. Bitcoin is uniquely suited for ransoms of all types. Guns are perhaps a better analogy than hammers here. Not a perfect analogy, but a better one. > for the environmental damage part: in a free market you cannot really control what people are doing with energy. You use the energy, you pay the bill. End of story. If the profit you’re making from the activity is greater that the money you are putting in people will do that activity. That's not a rebuttal, it's a description of the problem.

4512124672456 5y ago

> It’s not. The ultimate success or failure of bitcoin will depend on how many people use it and what it’s used for. Bitcoin has already failed as money. Even most coiners admit that nowadays. > Distributed consensus in a zero trust environment? The whole cryptocurrency environment still relies on plenty of trust (exchanges, programmers, apis...). It's just less regulated, and this is why it is full of scams (https://www.rekt.news/ https://www.rekt.news/).

rantwasp 5y ago
the environment does not rely on trust. When you make a transaction you make a transaction without needing to trust anyone. Exchanges are needed only in the world where you need to transform bitcoins into other currencies. Relying on programmers, api, etc: if you want to go down that rabbit hole, you can literally take the code and verify it yourself. It’s out in the open and it’s backed by cryptographically sound primitives. Bitcoin has failed as money? Most coiners? Where is this coming from? Do you have anything to support these assertions?
- lottin 5y ago
  > When you make a transaction you make a transaction without needing to trust anyone. For the transaction to actually take place it means that it needs to be appended to the blockchain, and whether it is appended or not is not up to you. Instead you have to rely entirely on others for that to occur. This is the very definition of trust.
  - rantwasp 5y ago
    nah. no offense but you don’t understand how it works. there is nothing preventing you from running your own node or miner. also, you are overextending the meaning of trust. Do you trust air when you’re breathing? Do you trust traffic lights? Do you trust you’re going to eliminate excess water through pee? The point is that if you have a series of established rules and a way to verify that they are actually applied as designed, it does not really matter who applies them. One miner cannot become a bad actor and invent its own rules.
    - Arnavion 5y ago
      I wouldn't say running your own miner is necessarily the way to not "trust anyone (else)", because at the current global hashrate the chance that your individual miner will get to mint a block with your transaction in it is basically zero. The more correct answer is that your transaction has fees, which is why other miners are motivated to include it in their next block. (And also why a majority of the hashrate being centralized into a single entity with a singular will is a doomsday scenario for bitcoin.)
      - lottin 5y ago
        Exactly, and fees are only an incentive. There's nothing stopping miners from discarding your transaction. Therefore trust that miners won't discard your transaction is required.
        Arnavion 5y ago

paulryanrogers 5y ago

> People hate bitcoin because they don’t understand what it is and perceive it as being somewhat of a threat. It’s not. For those paying higher prices for electricity or GPUs it's rational to see Bitcoin as a threat.

rantwasp 5y ago
isn’t this “the dream”? a free market where the price is dictated by supply and demand? You see it as a threat? Fine. But if you’re gonna be rational focus on all the things that impact you - don’t just listen to propaganda parroting the same things over and over again. On a side note: at least for BTC GPUs have not been a viable option is quite a while. also, mining happens in areas with low electricity prices - so not sure either of these arguments have legs.
- drdeca 5y ago
  The bitcoin price is correlated with the price of other cryptocurrencies. Greater bitcoin price -> greater other-cryptocurrencies-price -> greater motivation for people to mine these other cryptocurrencies -> greater demand for GPUs for mining. Well, I suppose I'm conflating correlation with causation here. Are the two correlated because a higher bitcoin price produces a higher other-cryptocurrencies price, or the other way around, or another thing which causes both of them, or maybe some mix of some of these 3?
  - rantwasp 5y ago
    historically the rallies in btc triggered rallies in other cryptos
    - drdeca 5y ago
      Thanks

lottin 5y ago

The bitcoin consensus mechanism is literally a lottery in which the winner gets to decide what the "consensus" is. I don't know about "revolutionary"...

rantwasp 5y ago
is it though? the “lottery winner” in your case assembles a block with transactions from the transaction pool (ie you don’t just make shit up. you are taking useful transaction that people are making them and capturing them into the chain) So the winner does not decide much, except maybe what transactions to select (spoiler alert: the transactions with the highest fees are normally selected). The consensus is in the sense that: you wanted to create a transaction and that transaction is captured and everyone in the network sees and agrees that the transact happened. The miner cannot alter your transaction. Other nodes in the network cannot arbitrarily reject it. You cannot simply claim you didn’t do it after the fact.
- lottin 5y ago
  > everyone in the network sees and agrees that the transact happened Why would everyone agree that the transaction happened?
  - rantwasp 5y ago
    everyone == bitcoin nodes that each keep a copy of blockchain locally. once a block is mined it is propagated through the network and it’s verified by all the nodes that see it. In effect, when you get the block and you append it to your local blockchain after verification you agree that the transaction that happened in that block happened.
    - lottin 5y ago
      Yes, but the question is why would all the nodes agree that the transaction has happened. What's stopping them from disagreeing?

IncRnd 5y ago

Too bad that bitcoin can't actually be used as money at the grocery store, to purchase a car, to buy fertilizer, or in any of a billion other ways that money can be used.

decodebytes 5y ago
Not here to defend bitcoin, but that's not true. You can buy all three of those (to varying degrees in different countries).
- rantwasp 5y ago
  i will bet you real bitcoin that given enough time you'll be able to make all those transactions. there is absolutely no reason for someone to not accept bitcoin when they can literally turn around and convert it in fiat if they don't like holding it immediately.
  - tfigment 5y ago
    Time is a problem. If you lose value in time it takes to convert its not good. Most businesses don't care if the value increases nearly as much as it decreasing. Bitcoin volatility does not help it's case. I guess we trust banks will always be available to get dollars out when needed.
  - magicsmoke 5y ago
    You should rethink that phrasing. That's a heads I win tails you lose kind of proposal.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    There are loads of reasons why people will not deal in bitcoins. One reason is what happened at Poly Network since you posted your comment. Bitcoin and Crypto in general are filled with thieves and scam artists. Just because some ethical people can navigate that minefield at relatively low dollar transactions - that doesn't mean many people or businesses want to stake their livelihoods on it not failing.
- 5y ago

salamandersauce 5y ago

I understand what it is. I hate it because it's literally wasting more electricity than some countries for no reason and has also led to ridiculous demand for GPUs making them near impossible to source at MSRP.

rantwasp 5y ago
you know what else is wasting electricity? the whole financial system. I'm gonna bet you real bitcoin that they waste way more. Also guess what? They close at 5PM and during weekends. So there is that. The energy consumption and the high prices of GPU comes down to capitalism and freedom of choice. Who are you to decide on what we should spend energy on and what we should not spend energy on? If an activity yields more money that it consumes (even if it's in the form of an electrical bill) people are going to do that activity.

PhasmaFelis 5y ago

> People hate bitcoin because they don’t understand what it is and perceive it as being somewhat of a threat. I dislike Bitcoin because (a) it's causing quite a bit of environmental damage and (b) it has revolutionized kidnapping and ransomware. This is supposed to be a fair trade-off for letting people circumvent e.g. onerous drug laws. I'm not convinced it's worth it.

rantwasp 5y ago
yes. bitcoin is the worst /s you know what’s the preferred currency for crime? the USD. If you look at how something, a tool, is used and declare it bad I’m not sure you’re seeing the big picture. A hammer can be used in construction or to bash someone’s brains out. Nobody ever mentions banning hammers because someone used one in a f’ed up way. for the environmental damage part: in a free market you cannot really control what people are doing with energy. You use the energy, you pay the bill. End of story. If the profit you’re making from the activity is greater that the money you are putting in people will do that activity.
- PhasmaFelis 5y ago
  > A hammer can be used in construction or to bash someone’s brains out. Nobody ever mentions banning hammers because someone used one in a f’ed up way. A hammer is no better suited for killing people than thousands of other common household (or natural!) objects. Bitcoin is uniquely suited for ransoms of all types. Guns are perhaps a better analogy than hammers here. Not a perfect analogy, but a better one. > for the environmental damage part: in a free market you cannot really control what people are doing with energy. You use the energy, you pay the bill. End of story. If the profit you’re making from the activity is greater that the money you are putting in people will do that activity. That's not a rebuttal, it's a description of the problem.