7 ms·

It seems to me many people assume they'll find their greater fool to sell to and not be left holding the bag - everything else is just rationalising that greed.

nivenkos 5y ago
To be fair, it has grown a lot. From Usenet groups, to some little-known thing used with Tor to buy drugs, to now having adverts for various companies in Snapchat, at the Superbowl, etc. That's a lot more potential bagholders injecting capital.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  It has grown as a speculation vehicle, but how much has it grown as an actually used means of exchanging value? (How much outside of toy usages? How much outside of immoral usage?)
  - xupybd 5y ago
    Bitcoin is too slow for a transactional currency
    - lowkey 5y ago
      You are conveniently ignoring Lightning which currently power payments for an entire nation (El Salvador) and has plenty of capacity for more. Lightning scales fast and cheap, offering instant final settlement powered by the largest security hashpower wall ever invented. Try that with Fiat.
      - vgeek 5y ago
        "Blockchain is so great, it had to invent off chain transactions to be practical" isn't the best argument for real world feasibility. LN has lots of centralization with popular nodes, if you're still paying for an on chain transaction to open/close a channel, you have to start the channel with enough reserves to make it worthwhile.
        lowkey 5y ago
        Tell me you don't understand the fundamental blockchain tradeoff between scalability, decentralization, and security, without telling me you don't understand. Blockchain technology has unique advantages and constraints, like any novel technology. Bitcoin chose a set of parameters designed to ensure sufficient security budget to protect the network, while optimizing for decentralization thereby limiting transaction throughput on layer 1 as the tradeoff. Lightning and other layer-2 provide the scalability by leveraging the security of layer-1. Bitcoin layer-1 is ideal for sending large payments (say >$1000USD today): It currently costs ~$1USD to post a transaction on the Bitcoin layer-1 blockchain. For that I can send an arbitrary amount with no upper limit of value, enjoy payment finality in about 6 blocks (~1hr) and I never have to pay any more to store the value associated with my Bitcoin address. Security for the life of the network is included in my $1 transaction fee. Bitcoin layer-2 (Lightning) is ideal for small payments (<$1000USD today): It currently costs a small fraction of a penny to send funds across the Lightning network with near instant finality (seconds) and very good anonymity. The two technologies complement one another to provide an example to the world of what a sound-money system could mean if it was truly decentralized and immune from manipulation by centralized actors (central banks, governments, etc). Prove me wrong. Is there another form of money that: - is virtually guaranteed to be immune to manipulation by central actors? - allows you to transmit any amount of value to anyone (censorship resistance) anywhere in the world within about an hour for about $1USD and know with confidence that the payment will go through with finality? - allows you to send smaller amounts for fractions of a penny in seconds to anyone anywhere?
        vgeek 5y ago
        Solutions to non problems that introduce larger problems are inherently bad solutions. Point 1) there are more bad actors wash trading, manipulating markets and pump & dump scams involved in crypto than any other markets. (Even ignoring Tether, the common DAO exploits involving $xx,xxx,xxx+ of losses) Point 2/3 are the same. There isn't an easy, well known way to do this for no fee to any country. WU is expensive and PayPal will block your account. Egold tried to solve this in the past, until fraud caused it to shutter. There are niche Fintech startups that likely address this for sub 0.5% fees, without the learning curve and exposure to currency exchange volatility. Gas and BTC fees show that they weren't really built with this consideration in mind, they just added hacky pseudo-solutions at a later date. I'm lost as to the "anonymous" part, since I had to do all types of AML/KYC stuff when I've opened accounts with popular exchanges, so there is likely an element of discoverability.
      - bob1029 5y ago
        > Try that with Fiat. You're going to have to be more specific. Real money is a big place. LMAX does more transactions per second than all of BTC does in a week. In many cases, instant final settlement is a liability, not a feature. Being able to reverse and compensate bad transactions is part of what provides confidence in the system we have today. If all credit card transactions were immediate, final and non-negotiable, I suspect it would have a chilling effect on consumer behavior.
        lowkey 5y ago
        To be clear, the problem Bitcoin was designed to solve was not improving transaction throughput at scale. The problem Bitcoin aims to solve is all the trust involved in the fiat system we currently call money. The current system requires us to trust that politicians and central bankers won't give in to the temptation to debase the currency by money printing out of thin air. As a result this exposes them to spend more public funds without the traditional constraint of having to raise taxes on the populace. In short, Bitcoin was designed to offer an alternative monetary system to those who understand that the current fiat-based system is a scam and has been since the governments all moved off the gold standard. You may argue that this assumption is incorrect, but it is clear to me that Satoshi was solving the problem of trust in the creation of money. Satoshi found a way to create digital value by minting a form of scarce digital money that does not rely on any government to give it value and makes it virtually impossible for any centralized actor to cheat the system and print more Bitcoin out of thin air. Satoshi's vision was about honest money not high transaction throughput. As for payment finality, I believe there is room in the market for multiple options and offering more options to the market is almost always good. I agree that credit card transactions have their place in society and offer real and compelling benefits for consumers, but they are a nightmare in many ways for merchants. As a merchant, you cannot really rely on credit card payment receipts to be final for ~6 months if you must be certain there will be zero chargebacks. Try managing cashflow of a business if you have to be sure you will keep all the money you received via credit cards in the past 6 months. For merchants who wish to have an option to receive payments with clear unambiguous and immutable fast final settlement of funds with no risk of chargebacks, there really is no alternative to Bitcoin in my opinion. tl;dr Bitcoin offers the world an option to use honest money that cannot be manipulated. Can LMAX do that?
  - throwaway248329 5y ago
    There is over $10 billion settled on Bitcoin network per day.
    - newsbinator 5y ago
      How much of that is exchanging value though? E.g. paying for goods or for work, or giving a loan. Even 1%
      - throwaway248329 5y ago
        We can't know, but that percent is likely growing. Year ago it was unthinkable that Bitcoin will be declared a legal tender in any country.
        AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
        Bitcoin being legal tender in certain places seems like more of a negative indicator on those countries, rather than a positive indicator for bitcoin.
        lowkey 5y ago
        That's your opinion based on your disapproval of Bitcoin. Care to share why you are negative on Bitcoin? I believe most people confuse Bitcoin as an alternate means of payment instead of what it really is which is an honest sound digital money system, with a transparent monetary policy from now to infinity AND a censorship-resistant payment network built on the most secure distributed computer network ever created by humans. Bitcoin is not competing with Visa or Mastercard. It is competing with all fiat currencies, as well as any other security or property that is used as a store of value (stocks, bonds, real estate, etc).
        AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
        I am mostly indifferent to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, but strongly opposed to people shilling for them. I see no evidence thus far for bitcoin being anything other than a vehicle for speculation; just one more form of gambling with the froth on top of our financial system, distracting people and diverting resources from actual useful activity.
  - bko 5y ago
    Why does every thread on HN about crypto turn into a circle jerk about how it's a ponzi, used for nefarious purposes and is bad for the environment? HN used to be (and for the most part is) a place for people excited about new ideas that could transform the world not blind derision and mockery. But every time this topic comes up you see the same predictable responses with nothing interesting or unique to add.
    - NicoJuicy 5y ago
      You could look for arguments against it, if you see it so much. Ps. He wasn't saying anything about the environment and it's also what I'm thinking :)
      - md2020 5y ago
        There are arguments against it within 5 minutes of Google search, it’s the people repeating this stuff that should do their research.
        NicoJuicy 5y ago
        That's mostly how they/we conclude those things... Obviously. Eg. You call it Ponzi, i call it money printing with tether.. And courts actually seem to agree on a lot of those things. We'll see how coinbase fares, but it's already obvious they can't do some things that others do. Because they care more about regulations. Eg. Even the first Bitcoin discussion on the original board mentioned it would be a bad currency. Let's not pretend it's a good one and throw 100 of years of economic lessons out of the window. I mostly see proponents don't do their research and see them influenced by plain greed. Eg. Here, you didn't even reply on topic on the original comment and added a lot of other things out of thin air here. Lol No one was even talking about Ponzi or environmental issues. They wanted to see actual applications for it, selling avatars isn't one fyi.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - 5y ago
  - DelightOne 5y ago
    As long as there's a need for money laundering, Bitcoin will thrive if it is not shut down.

nivenkos 5y ago

To be fair, it has grown a lot. From Usenet groups, to some little-known thing used with Tor to buy drugs, to now having adverts for various companies in Snapchat, at the Superbowl, etc. That's a lot more potential bagholders injecting capital.

colechristensen 5y ago
It has grown as a speculation vehicle, but how much has it grown as an actually used means of exchanging value? (How much outside of toy usages? How much outside of immoral usage?)
- xupybd 5y ago
  Bitcoin is too slow for a transactional currency
  - lowkey 5y ago
    You are conveniently ignoring Lightning which currently power payments for an entire nation (El Salvador) and has plenty of capacity for more. Lightning scales fast and cheap, offering instant final settlement powered by the largest security hashpower wall ever invented. Try that with Fiat.
    - vgeek 5y ago
      "Blockchain is so great, it had to invent off chain transactions to be practical" isn't the best argument for real world feasibility. LN has lots of centralization with popular nodes, if you're still paying for an on chain transaction to open/close a channel, you have to start the channel with enough reserves to make it worthwhile.
      - lowkey 5y ago
        Tell me you don't understand the fundamental blockchain tradeoff between scalability, decentralization, and security, without telling me you don't understand. Blockchain technology has unique advantages and constraints, like any novel technology. Bitcoin chose a set of parameters designed to ensure sufficient security budget to protect the network, while optimizing for decentralization thereby limiting transaction throughput on layer 1 as the tradeoff. Lightning and other layer-2 provide the scalability by leveraging the security of layer-1. Bitcoin layer-1 is ideal for sending large payments (say >$1000USD today): It currently costs ~$1USD to post a transaction on the Bitcoin layer-1 blockchain. For that I can send an arbitrary amount with no upper limit of value, enjoy payment finality in about 6 blocks (~1hr) and I never have to pay any more to store the value associated with my Bitcoin address. Security for the life of the network is included in my $1 transaction fee. Bitcoin layer-2 (Lightning) is ideal for small payments (<$1000USD today): It currently costs a small fraction of a penny to send funds across the Lightning network with near instant finality (seconds) and very good anonymity. The two technologies complement one another to provide an example to the world of what a sound-money system could mean if it was truly decentralized and immune from manipulation by centralized actors (central banks, governments, etc). Prove me wrong. Is there another form of money that: - is virtually guaranteed to be immune to manipulation by central actors? - allows you to transmit any amount of value to anyone (censorship resistance) anywhere in the world within about an hour for about $1USD and know with confidence that the payment will go through with finality? - allows you to send smaller amounts for fractions of a penny in seconds to anyone anywhere?
        vgeek 5y ago
        Solutions to non problems that introduce larger problems are inherently bad solutions. Point 1) there are more bad actors wash trading, manipulating markets and pump & dump scams involved in crypto than any other markets. (Even ignoring Tether, the common DAO exploits involving $xx,xxx,xxx+ of losses) Point 2/3 are the same. There isn't an easy, well known way to do this for no fee to any country. WU is expensive and PayPal will block your account. Egold tried to solve this in the past, until fraud caused it to shutter. There are niche Fintech startups that likely address this for sub 0.5% fees, without the learning curve and exposure to currency exchange volatility. Gas and BTC fees show that they weren't really built with this consideration in mind, they just added hacky pseudo-solutions at a later date. I'm lost as to the "anonymous" part, since I had to do all types of AML/KYC stuff when I've opened accounts with popular exchanges, so there is likely an element of discoverability.
    - bob1029 5y ago
      > Try that with Fiat. You're going to have to be more specific. Real money is a big place. LMAX does more transactions per second than all of BTC does in a week. In many cases, instant final settlement is a liability, not a feature. Being able to reverse and compensate bad transactions is part of what provides confidence in the system we have today. If all credit card transactions were immediate, final and non-negotiable, I suspect it would have a chilling effect on consumer behavior.
      - lowkey 5y ago
        To be clear, the problem Bitcoin was designed to solve was not improving transaction throughput at scale. The problem Bitcoin aims to solve is all the trust involved in the fiat system we currently call money. The current system requires us to trust that politicians and central bankers won't give in to the temptation to debase the currency by money printing out of thin air. As a result this exposes them to spend more public funds without the traditional constraint of having to raise taxes on the populace. In short, Bitcoin was designed to offer an alternative monetary system to those who understand that the current fiat-based system is a scam and has been since the governments all moved off the gold standard. You may argue that this assumption is incorrect, but it is clear to me that Satoshi was solving the problem of trust in the creation of money. Satoshi found a way to create digital value by minting a form of scarce digital money that does not rely on any government to give it value and makes it virtually impossible for any centralized actor to cheat the system and print more Bitcoin out of thin air. Satoshi's vision was about honest money not high transaction throughput. As for payment finality, I believe there is room in the market for multiple options and offering more options to the market is almost always good. I agree that credit card transactions have their place in society and offer real and compelling benefits for consumers, but they are a nightmare in many ways for merchants. As a merchant, you cannot really rely on credit card payment receipts to be final for ~6 months if you must be certain there will be zero chargebacks. Try managing cashflow of a business if you have to be sure you will keep all the money you received via credit cards in the past 6 months. For merchants who wish to have an option to receive payments with clear unambiguous and immutable fast final settlement of funds with no risk of chargebacks, there really is no alternative to Bitcoin in my opinion. tl;dr Bitcoin offers the world an option to use honest money that cannot be manipulated. Can LMAX do that?
- throwaway248329 5y ago
  There is over $10 billion settled on Bitcoin network per day.
  - newsbinator 5y ago
    How much of that is exchanging value though? E.g. paying for goods or for work, or giving a loan. Even 1%
    - throwaway248329 5y ago
      We can't know, but that percent is likely growing. Year ago it was unthinkable that Bitcoin will be declared a legal tender in any country.
      - AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
        Bitcoin being legal tender in certain places seems like more of a negative indicator on those countries, rather than a positive indicator for bitcoin.
        lowkey 5y ago
        That's your opinion based on your disapproval of Bitcoin. Care to share why you are negative on Bitcoin? I believe most people confuse Bitcoin as an alternate means of payment instead of what it really is which is an honest sound digital money system, with a transparent monetary policy from now to infinity AND a censorship-resistant payment network built on the most secure distributed computer network ever created by humans. Bitcoin is not competing with Visa or Mastercard. It is competing with all fiat currencies, as well as any other security or property that is used as a store of value (stocks, bonds, real estate, etc).
        AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
        I am mostly indifferent to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, but strongly opposed to people shilling for them. I see no evidence thus far for bitcoin being anything other than a vehicle for speculation; just one more form of gambling with the froth on top of our financial system, distracting people and diverting resources from actual useful activity.
- bko 5y ago
  Why does every thread on HN about crypto turn into a circle jerk about how it's a ponzi, used for nefarious purposes and is bad for the environment? HN used to be (and for the most part is) a place for people excited about new ideas that could transform the world not blind derision and mockery. But every time this topic comes up you see the same predictable responses with nothing interesting or unique to add.
  - NicoJuicy 5y ago
    You could look for arguments against it, if you see it so much. Ps. He wasn't saying anything about the environment and it's also what I'm thinking :)
    - md2020 5y ago
      There are arguments against it within 5 minutes of Google search, it’s the people repeating this stuff that should do their research.
      - NicoJuicy 5y ago
        That's mostly how they/we conclude those things... Obviously. Eg. You call it Ponzi, i call it money printing with tether.. And courts actually seem to agree on a lot of those things. We'll see how coinbase fares, but it's already obvious they can't do some things that others do. Because they care more about regulations. Eg. Even the first Bitcoin discussion on the original board mentioned it would be a bad currency. Let's not pretend it's a good one and throw 100 of years of economic lessons out of the window. I mostly see proponents don't do their research and see them influenced by plain greed. Eg. Here, you didn't even reply on topic on the original comment and added a lot of other things out of thin air here. Lol No one was even talking about Ponzi or environmental issues. They wanted to see actual applications for it, selling avatars isn't one fyi.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - 5y ago
- DelightOne 5y ago
  As long as there's a need for money laundering, Bitcoin will thrive if it is not shut down.