6 ms·

Every bitcoin opposer repeats, that the money will artificially start going up and that is why it will crash. Right now, it is going down, for a long time. So

by runn1ng 15y ago

Every bitcoin opposer repeats, that the money will artificially start going up and that is why it will crash. Right now, it is going down, for a long time. So that is not why it will fail. It will fail because noone actually needs it. It has no real value over other means of electronically exchanging money - paypal, for example, is much faster, easier to use and, dwhile it is not free, thanks to the wild exchange rate of bitcoin, one will probably still have more money from paypal than bitcoin money exchange. There is no place to spend bitcoin, because most of the people don't CARE that it's centralized and someone can watch it, because it is infinitely easier to use paypal to just PAY STUFF, instead of going through the pains to exchange bitcoins through shady sites, wait DAYS to get it on your wallet, then wait hours until the blockchain is downloaded, then wait another hours since the block is 6 times confirmed. Maybe it will work in the end, it's nicely designed and all. But I don't see anyone using it right now. There is no real reason to do so.

deleted 15y ago
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weavejester 15y ago
Even though users typically don't care whether a service is centralized or not, decentralized services have the advantage when it comes to building infrastructure around them. With Paypal, the same company is responsible for sending, receiving and storing your money. A decentralized currency like Bitcoin could act as an intermediary protocol that would allow users to choose different companies to handle each of these tasks. Bitcoin to me seems interesting because it's essentially an open protocol for transferring and manipulating finances. I kinda feel that talking about deflationary currencies or currency fluctuations is somewhat missing the point.
dolphenstein 15y ago
Value is arbitrary. None of the major world fiat currencies have any inherent value. They are backed by nothing. Reminds me of an episode of This American Life. Brazil's currency was down the toilet, so they invented a new currency and tricked the populace into thinking it had value. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/423/the-invention-of-money http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/423/t...
- Jem 15y ago
  On a similar vein, I recommend Terry Pratchett's 'Making Money'.
- nhaehnle 15y ago
  The price level is more or less arbitrary, but the value of fiat money is not just a shared hallucination. It ultimately comes from taxes. MMTers say that Taxes Drive Money: http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/07/mmp-blog-8-taxes-drive-money.html http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/07/mmp-blog... Some anthropologists say that this is how money got started in the first place around the palaces in ancient Egypt. In more modern history, there are stark examples of how "taxes drive money" really does work to monetize an economy; search for "Hut taxes".
  - pessimizer 15y ago
    Even non-MMTers. If you are from the US, you have to pay your taxes in US dollars, and judgments in court against you are payable in USD.
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  >Value is arbitrary. None of the major world fiat currencies have any inherent value. They are backed by nothing. They are backed by a government which knows that once it doesn't honor the value, the economy (and probably the govt too) is finished.
  - dolphenstein 15y ago
    Yes, and if they go down the toilet, you are going down with them. You aren't going to recover your losses once a more competent administration takes over.
Tichy 15y ago
PayPal is definitely not faster and easier to use, it is a huge PITA.
- runn1ng 15y ago
  From a buyer view? It is super easy. I just fill in my credit card and pay. It's instantly confirmed. Compare it with transferring money to bitcoin wallet, then paying, then waiting hours until it is confirmed by 6 consecutive blovks
  - Tichy 15y ago
    Not my experience. I tend to get hassled by PayPal a lot. Either they pressure me into using my existing account (which I often don't want to do, because it has all sorts of issues, lost passwords or whatever - I don't even want to think about it), or they want to pressure me into registering. Even if I don't register, they will send me email on a regular basis suggesting I do. I'll probably end up using a new email address for every PayPal purchase I make (otherwise the almost unavoidable 'login with your email' problem), which means even more PayPal spam over time. Most BitCoin vendors accept the payments before the blocks are confirmed. You only have to wait for the blocks if you want to be extra, super-sure. Likewise with credit cards the vendor can also not be 100% sure that they buyer won't just cancel later on or the credit card was a stolen one.

by runn1ng 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

weavejester 15y ago

Even though users typically don't care whether a service is centralized or not, decentralized services have the advantage when it comes to building infrastructure around them. With Paypal, the same company is responsible for sending, receiving and storing your money. A decentralized currency like Bitcoin could act as an intermediary protocol that would allow users to choose different companies to handle each of these tasks. Bitcoin to me seems interesting because it's essentially an open protocol for transferring and manipulating finances. I kinda feel that talking about deflationary currencies or currency fluctuations is somewhat missing the point.

dolphenstein 15y ago

Value is arbitrary. None of the major world fiat currencies have any inherent value. They are backed by nothing. Reminds me of an episode of This American Life. Brazil's currency was down the toilet, so they invented a new currency and tricked the populace into thinking it had value. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/423/the-invention-of-money http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/423/t...

Jem 15y ago
On a similar vein, I recommend Terry Pratchett's 'Making Money'.
nhaehnle 15y ago
The price level is more or less arbitrary, but the value of fiat money is not just a shared hallucination. It ultimately comes from taxes. MMTers say that Taxes Drive Money: http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/07/mmp-blog-8-taxes-drive-money.html http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/07/mmp-blog... Some anthropologists say that this is how money got started in the first place around the palaces in ancient Egypt. In more modern history, there are stark examples of how "taxes drive money" really does work to monetize an economy; search for "Hut taxes".
- pessimizer 15y ago
  Even non-MMTers. If you are from the US, you have to pay your taxes in US dollars, and judgments in court against you are payable in USD.
recoiledsnake 15y ago
>Value is arbitrary. None of the major world fiat currencies have any inherent value. They are backed by nothing. They are backed by a government which knows that once it doesn't honor the value, the economy (and probably the govt too) is finished.
- dolphenstein 15y ago
  Yes, and if they go down the toilet, you are going down with them. You aren't going to recover your losses once a more competent administration takes over.

Tichy 15y ago

PayPal is definitely not faster and easier to use, it is a huge PITA.

runn1ng 15y ago
From a buyer view? It is super easy. I just fill in my credit card and pay. It's instantly confirmed. Compare it with transferring money to bitcoin wallet, then paying, then waiting hours until it is confirmed by 6 consecutive blovks
- Tichy 15y ago
  Not my experience. I tend to get hassled by PayPal a lot. Either they pressure me into using my existing account (which I often don't want to do, because it has all sorts of issues, lost passwords or whatever - I don't even want to think about it), or they want to pressure me into registering. Even if I don't register, they will send me email on a regular basis suggesting I do. I'll probably end up using a new email address for every PayPal purchase I make (otherwise the almost unavoidable 'login with your email' problem), which means even more PayPal spam over time. Most BitCoin vendors accept the payments before the blocks are confirmed. You only have to wait for the blocks if you want to be extra, super-sure. Likewise with credit cards the vendor can also not be 100% sure that they buyer won't just cancel later on or the credit card was a stolen one.