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What you're saying clearly makes sense but Bitcoin isn't accepted almost anywhere which is what "new" means. Porn would be an early adopter for potentially mass

by gleenn 4y ago

What you're saying clearly makes sense but Bitcoin isn't accepted almost anywhere which is what "new" means. Porn would be an early adopter for potentially mass consumption. It would be new to me certainly as I've never purchased a single thing with Bitcoin and that's almost certainly true for most people.

woodruffw 4y ago
I don't know. I passed a bitcoin ATM machine (don't ask me what that actually means, please) on the street yesterday. Friends and family members, including (especially?) non-technical ones, have asked me about Bitcoin and how to invest in it. One of my friends recently bought a car with Ethereum. "New" means "new," it doesn't mean "not widely adopted yet." We don't widely adopt things that fail or have unacceptable side effects; that doesn't make them new again.
- gleenn 4y ago
  How about new in the sense that other currencies have been around for hundreds of years compared to only 14?
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    The euro is most certainly not hundreds of years old, and isn't that much older than Bitcoin.
    - sophacles 4y ago
      The euro is not a new type of currency tech. Its just a new painting on the same type of currency that has existed for hundreds of years (that is it's a new brand of banknote).
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    I don't buy that. The Euro was conceived in 1992 and constituted a radical shift in international monetary policy; it wasn't fully rolled out until 2002. That's 10 years compared to Bitcoin's 14, with arguably far more in concrete financial activity (and quality of life) to show for it.
    - gleenn 4y ago
      Sure but again let's be a little more nuanced. When the Euro came out, trillions in wealth were automatically converted to it. Pretty apples to oranges comparison. If all USD was converted to BTC, BTC would become useful everywhere as fast as people could change the POS systems. Not a fair comparison at all.
      - woodruffw 4y ago
        > When the Euro came out, trillions in wealth were automatically converted to it. This is true, but also misleading: the physical Euro switch took place over months, and involved a coordinated public campaign to encourage millions of Europeans to exchange their physical bills. Digitalization helped with banking, but a significant human and policy effort occurred in parallel. And there's another problem: it's really not clear what it would mean for "all USD to be converted to BTC." BTC has already been issued, and will continue to be algorithmically issued. The Euro switch could not be economically triaged per se, because it was an in-kind transition. No such transition is possible for cryptocurrencies, unless we allow a central authority into the mix.

by gleenn 4y ago

woodruffw 4y ago

I don't know. I passed a bitcoin ATM machine (don't ask me what that actually means, please) on the street yesterday. Friends and family members, including (especially?) non-technical ones, have asked me about Bitcoin and how to invest in it. One of my friends recently bought a car with Ethereum. "New" means "new," it doesn't mean "not widely adopted yet." We don't widely adopt things that fail or have unacceptable side effects; that doesn't make them new again.

gleenn 4y ago
How about new in the sense that other currencies have been around for hundreds of years compared to only 14?
- jcranmer 4y ago
  The euro is most certainly not hundreds of years old, and isn't that much older than Bitcoin.
  - sophacles 4y ago
    The euro is not a new type of currency tech. Its just a new painting on the same type of currency that has existed for hundreds of years (that is it's a new brand of banknote).
- woodruffw 4y ago
  I don't buy that. The Euro was conceived in 1992 and constituted a radical shift in international monetary policy; it wasn't fully rolled out until 2002. That's 10 years compared to Bitcoin's 14, with arguably far more in concrete financial activity (and quality of life) to show for it.
  - gleenn 4y ago
    Sure but again let's be a little more nuanced. When the Euro came out, trillions in wealth were automatically converted to it. Pretty apples to oranges comparison. If all USD was converted to BTC, BTC would become useful everywhere as fast as people could change the POS systems. Not a fair comparison at all.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      > When the Euro came out, trillions in wealth were automatically converted to it. This is true, but also misleading: the physical Euro switch took place over months, and involved a coordinated public campaign to encourage millions of Europeans to exchange their physical bills. Digitalization helped with banking, but a significant human and policy effort occurred in parallel. And there's another problem: it's really not clear what it would mean for "all USD to be converted to BTC." BTC has already been issued, and will continue to be algorithmically issued. The Euro switch could not be economically triaged per se, because it was an in-kind transition. No such transition is possible for cryptocurrencies, unless we allow a central authority into the mix.