4 ms·

To me, the fact that Bitcoin is a money out of the hands of governments, or anyone really, is the use case. It's also cool that you can use your brain to effect

To me, the fact that Bitcoin is a money out of the hands of governments, or anyone really, is the use case. It's also cool that you can use your brain to effectively store your money. Of course, if you believe that governments are good stewards of money, you will probably not find a use case.

mypastself 4y ago
The brain wallet part is very cool unless you’re like me, and don’t have a particularly good memory. “What was the sixth word of my mnemonic? Strand? Strait? Spleen? Oh God, what if I never recover my 35 Shibs…”
TremendousJudge 4y ago
Is it really? If you can't change it for goods and services before turning it back into regular, government controlled currency, is it out of the hands of governments? If China can get all the miners to move to Kazakhstan, were they ever out of government control?
- tresqotheq 4y ago
  > If you can't change it for goods and services .. There is nothing preventing someone from accepting it and providing the services you need.
- silentsea90 4y ago
  You may have answered your own question. You don't need to turn it back into fiat for it to be used in the long run. Lightning network makes txns quick and cheap, and BTC volatility has been going down enough that it isn't hard to imagine it being stabler short term against fiat (though long term it will gain value as fiat collapses)
  - bagacrap 4y ago
    btc volatility has been going down? is this a joke? it's worth a third of what it was less than a year ago. plus every time I sell or transfer, it's a taxable event, which makes use as a currency incredibly onerous
    - silentsea90 4y ago
      Not a joke. In the 2013s it went from $10s to $1000 (100x), 2017 it went from $300 to 20k (70x), 2021 it went from 6k to 60k (10x). In each of these cases, the crash floor is also a smaller multiple. Overall, Bitcoin is becoming more contained in its rise and fall. Indeed, but that's regulation. Regulation can be changed which is where we're heading with greater adoption and mass support. Even if not for the regulation, it'll make Bitcoin the store of value backing currencies in time (this one's my opinion, you don't have to agree)
JohnFen 4y ago
The problem, though, is that you give up the benefits of working within a regulated system. Things like being able to stop or reverse mistaken or fraudulent transfers, protections from fraud, protections from whoever is handling your money for you (with crypto, someone is still handling your money for you) going out of business, etc. Everything has an upside and a downside. But in the regulated system, you at least have a chance at some sort of recourse if something goes sideways.
- olalonde 4y ago
  By government's hands being out of Bitcoin, I was mostly referring to its fixed money supply and the fact that its "permissionless", like cash. > Things like being able to stop or reverse mistaken or fraudulent transfers, protections from fraud, protections from whoever is handling your money for you (with crypto, someone is still handling your money for you) going out of business, etc. That's only true when you do on-chain transactions, or in the case of fiat, when you pay with cash. If you worry about dispute arbitration, you could use the same dispute arbitration services that exist for fiat. For example, I don't see a reason why payment networks like Visa or Mastercard couldn't add support for Bitcoin eventually. You'd still get a currency that can't be arbitrarily debased and that you can easily transfer on and off the payment network. As a side note, a lot of Bitcoiners would hate me for saying the above. A large chunk of the community believes that everything needs to be decentralized and it has probably hindered adoption.
  - bagacrap 4y ago
    visa and Mastercard can unilaterally reverse transactions whereas the entire point of crypto is that there's no centralized authority that can rewrite history
    - olalonde 4y ago
      My point was that this is not the entire point of crypto.
uoaei 4y ago
As soon as it becomes big enough, the US govt has the power and ability to effectively 51% the entire network. They haven't yet only because it doesn't threaten the dollar.
- bagacrap 4y ago
  or just, you know, make it illegal, immediately shutting down Coinbase and cutting off the law abiding 99% of the population from using it. What is the value of a Bitcoin after it's banned by one or more major countries?
- olalonde 4y ago
  So what? It would cost like 50+ billion dollars to censor the network for a few hours until the mining algorithm is changed.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    You are aware of how fiat currency works, right? The government can create that money with as much friction as is present in their keyboards. And anyway, they don't actually need to run any new nodes, just compromise communication between them until all the blockchain records on the individual nodes are bunk.
UncleMeat 4y ago
You don't have to believe that governments are good stewards of money. You have to believe that they are better stewards of money than Satoshi was when he decided on the mining curve.

mypastself 4y ago

The brain wallet part is very cool unless you’re like me, and don’t have a particularly good memory. “What was the sixth word of my mnemonic? Strand? Strait? Spleen? Oh God, what if I never recover my 35 Shibs…”

TremendousJudge 4y ago

Is it really? If you can't change it for goods and services before turning it back into regular, government controlled currency, is it out of the hands of governments? If China can get all the miners to move to Kazakhstan, were they ever out of government control?

tresqotheq 4y ago
> If you can't change it for goods and services .. There is nothing preventing someone from accepting it and providing the services you need.
silentsea90 4y ago
You may have answered your own question. You don't need to turn it back into fiat for it to be used in the long run. Lightning network makes txns quick and cheap, and BTC volatility has been going down enough that it isn't hard to imagine it being stabler short term against fiat (though long term it will gain value as fiat collapses)
- bagacrap 4y ago
  btc volatility has been going down? is this a joke? it's worth a third of what it was less than a year ago. plus every time I sell or transfer, it's a taxable event, which makes use as a currency incredibly onerous
  - silentsea90 4y ago
    Not a joke. In the 2013s it went from $10s to $1000 (100x), 2017 it went from $300 to 20k (70x), 2021 it went from 6k to 60k (10x). In each of these cases, the crash floor is also a smaller multiple. Overall, Bitcoin is becoming more contained in its rise and fall. Indeed, but that's regulation. Regulation can be changed which is where we're heading with greater adoption and mass support. Even if not for the regulation, it'll make Bitcoin the store of value backing currencies in time (this one's my opinion, you don't have to agree)

JohnFen 4y ago

The problem, though, is that you give up the benefits of working within a regulated system. Things like being able to stop or reverse mistaken or fraudulent transfers, protections from fraud, protections from whoever is handling your money for you (with crypto, someone is still handling your money for you) going out of business, etc. Everything has an upside and a downside. But in the regulated system, you at least have a chance at some sort of recourse if something goes sideways.

olalonde 4y ago
By government's hands being out of Bitcoin, I was mostly referring to its fixed money supply and the fact that its "permissionless", like cash. > Things like being able to stop or reverse mistaken or fraudulent transfers, protections from fraud, protections from whoever is handling your money for you (with crypto, someone is still handling your money for you) going out of business, etc. That's only true when you do on-chain transactions, or in the case of fiat, when you pay with cash. If you worry about dispute arbitration, you could use the same dispute arbitration services that exist for fiat. For example, I don't see a reason why payment networks like Visa or Mastercard couldn't add support for Bitcoin eventually. You'd still get a currency that can't be arbitrarily debased and that you can easily transfer on and off the payment network. As a side note, a lot of Bitcoiners would hate me for saying the above. A large chunk of the community believes that everything needs to be decentralized and it has probably hindered adoption.
- bagacrap 4y ago
  visa and Mastercard can unilaterally reverse transactions whereas the entire point of crypto is that there's no centralized authority that can rewrite history
  - olalonde 4y ago
    My point was that this is not the entire point of crypto.

uoaei 4y ago

As soon as it becomes big enough, the US govt has the power and ability to effectively 51% the entire network. They haven't yet only because it doesn't threaten the dollar.

bagacrap 4y ago
or just, you know, make it illegal, immediately shutting down Coinbase and cutting off the law abiding 99% of the population from using it. What is the value of a Bitcoin after it's banned by one or more major countries?
olalonde 4y ago
So what? It would cost like 50+ billion dollars to censor the network for a few hours until the mining algorithm is changed.
- uoaei 4y ago
  You are aware of how fiat currency works, right? The government can create that money with as much friction as is present in their keyboards. And anyway, they don't actually need to run any new nodes, just compromise communication between them until all the blockchain records on the individual nodes are bunk.

UncleMeat 4y ago

You don't have to believe that governments are good stewards of money. You have to believe that they are better stewards of money than Satoshi was when he decided on the mining curve.