5 ms·

3 - The “value” is higher, but can you actually do more with it now than you could five years ago? Hasn’t the entire community given up on buying things such th

3 - The “value” is higher, but can you actually do more with it now than you could five years ago? Hasn’t the entire community given up on buying things such that they know pretend that was never the goal? Without any real way to convert back and forth into real money, what reassurance is there that the price even means anything when every single holder is incentivised to lie and transact with themselves just to keep the numbers up? How can a global system capable of five transactions a second ever be integrated into “the world’s financial fabric”? Side-chains seem to just be a great way to centralise around more unknown entities who may or may not run off with your cash.

cs702 3y ago
> ...can you actually do more with it [I assume you mean Bitcoin] now than you could five years ago? Not really. To date, Bitcoin has been used successfully only as an alternate store of value -- one which, like gold, doesn't depend on the financial credibility of a particular government or country. Bitcoin's continued existence depends only on the integrity of its distributed consensus algorithm, which so far has withstood all attempts at hacking it. The "alternate store of value" opportunity is not small. Gold alone has a current market capitalization of $12.9 trillion.[a] --- [a] https://companiesmarketcap.com/gold/marketcap/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/gold/marketcap/
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  Bitcoin is a horrible store of value. It's incredibly volatile.
  - cs702 3y ago
    Gold is pretty volatile too. Its price has gone up and down between 5x and 10x a few times in just the past century: https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-year-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-... -- no one sane would call it stable. And yet, despite its volatility, gold has been used as a store of value for millennia.
    - mminer237 3y ago
      In the last 5 fives, gold's highest price was 60% higher than its lowest point. That is indeed pretty volatile. Let's see if Bitcoin is comparably volatile… Oh, it's highest point was only 1920% higher than its lowest point. That's definitely the exact same as gold. /s Also, that ignores that gold has been a store of value for millennia. It's almost synonymous with wealth. In a total financial collapse, if all modern technology dies, you can be sure gold will still have value. 99.9% of people have no idea what Bitcoin is besides funny computer money.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        Even if people WANTED bitcoin in a total financial collapse, what scenario collapses all normal fiat currencies and doesn't touch a system that requires cheap power and niche hardware and internet connections?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - XorNot 3y ago
        Gold has a perception of wealth but history makes clear what it actually is. For example, the hordes of gold the Spanish plundered from the Americas directly contributed to the bankruptcy of the monarchy.[1] Because they hadn't actually seized/mined "wealth" - they'd simply inflated their currency away without any commensurate expansion in productivity. People who believe that it would be "easy" to trade gold for other goods have also clearly never tried - since the entire modern banking system came into existence on the basis of the sheer difficulty of directly trading gold for other goods. No one knows how to value gold, they don't know what it's worth other then a brick is probably a lot. If they could, then the fake jewellery scam wouldn't be as successful as it is[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_revolution [2] https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/just-say-no-walk-away-fake-gold-jewelry-scammers-target-people-near-i-5-again/AYEVLPGKPVARFLCKBQUEXGXVHA/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/just-say-no-walk-away-fake-...
        3y ago
  - scottiebarnes 3y ago
    Increase timeline to account for scaled adoption and project volatility for those variables.
  - fwungy 3y ago
    In many places Btc is one of the safest ways to store value. The scenarios it could collapse under are dark. It's biggest enemy is soveriegn currency issuers and banks. They would need to attack it such that holders lose faith in it en masse and collapse it. The successful attack they need to make is dystopian in nature. It would require a global digital identity that was attached to all internet access and an alternative (CBDC) crypto that they forced everyone to use.
    - Retric 3y ago
      Nowhere is BTC the safest way to store value, it’s got far to many risks in normal use to be particularly safe. A double speed attack doesn’t need anything particularly dystopian to happen. It doesn’t even need to result in a large transaction just someone deciding to short BTC and briefly having the computing power to destroy it. Even just a creditable attempt that fails could completely undermine it.
      - fwungy 3y ago
        A double spend attack requires a specific unsafe action by the receiving end of the transaction. As long as the receiver does not accept an unconfirmed transaction they cannot be a victim to it.
        crote 3y ago
        Even confirmed transactions aren't safe. The blockchain can be retroactively edited by anyone with enough hashing power: the only thing they need to do is to generate a longer alternative chain than the current public one.
        Retric 3y ago
        There’s also plenty of fun things you can do like exclude some particular exchange from being able to commit to the blockchain. As in sorry Coinbase your transactions are no longer welcome and there’s effectively no way for them to directly fight back. The only way around that is to constantly spend more money on hashing power than any attacker, but that cost is effectively unbound. Trying to stop some random billionaire doing it for the lulz means sky high transaction fees forever. No problem for an actual currency in widespread use, but a serious issue for a hypothetical store of value which needs constant investment just to break even.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- chromatin 3y ago
  Partially disagree: the Lightning Network [1] facilitates almost instantaneous micro and small transactions which can later settle in aggregate to the Bitcoin base layer. I've used this to purchase goods both online and in person seamlessly. Custodial solutions (trust another party to hold your funds, like a bank) are turnkey. Right now the truly non-custodial solutions (i.e., run your own lightning node) are definitely in the realm of hacker/tinkerer, but continue to improve in terms of accessibility. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network
  - cycrutchfield 3y ago
    Ah yes, the lightning network will save bitcoin. How many years will we hear the same song and dance before we can finally conclude this is a pipe dream?
  - Seattle3503 3y ago
    What do you buy with the lighting network? I've always wanted to try it.
    - kdragon 3y ago
      You can use it as currency on stacker.news You can tip people on the nostr protocol. stats are on zaplife.lol you can tip musicians on wavlake there's a Minecraft server called satlantis where it is used as a currency there's a lot of plugins you can use to build your own lightning enabled apps on lnbits the space is still young so a lot of software is beta, but there's plenty to play with check out the plebdev course on udemy if you want to dive into lightning development
      - anonporridge 3y ago
        You can also go to the entire nation state of El Salvador where it is a legal currency and many shops have integrated lightning payments.
        3y ago

cs702 3y ago

> ...can you actually do more with it [I assume you mean Bitcoin] now than you could five years ago? Not really. To date, Bitcoin has been used successfully only as an alternate store of value -- one which, like gold, doesn't depend on the financial credibility of a particular government or country. Bitcoin's continued existence depends only on the integrity of its distributed consensus algorithm, which so far has withstood all attempts at hacking it. The "alternate store of value" opportunity is not small. Gold alone has a current market capitalization of $12.9 trillion.[a] --- [a] https://companiesmarketcap.com/gold/marketcap/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/gold/marketcap/

HDThoreaun 3y ago
Bitcoin is a horrible store of value. It's incredibly volatile.
- cs702 3y ago
  Gold is pretty volatile too. Its price has gone up and down between 5x and 10x a few times in just the past century: https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-year-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-... -- no one sane would call it stable. And yet, despite its volatility, gold has been used as a store of value for millennia.
  - mminer237 3y ago
    In the last 5 fives, gold's highest price was 60% higher than its lowest point. That is indeed pretty volatile. Let's see if Bitcoin is comparably volatile… Oh, it's highest point was only 1920% higher than its lowest point. That's definitely the exact same as gold. /s Also, that ignores that gold has been a store of value for millennia. It's almost synonymous with wealth. In a total financial collapse, if all modern technology dies, you can be sure gold will still have value. 99.9% of people have no idea what Bitcoin is besides funny computer money.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      Even if people WANTED bitcoin in a total financial collapse, what scenario collapses all normal fiat currencies and doesn't touch a system that requires cheap power and niche hardware and internet connections?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - XorNot 3y ago
      Gold has a perception of wealth but history makes clear what it actually is. For example, the hordes of gold the Spanish plundered from the Americas directly contributed to the bankruptcy of the monarchy.[1] Because they hadn't actually seized/mined "wealth" - they'd simply inflated their currency away without any commensurate expansion in productivity. People who believe that it would be "easy" to trade gold for other goods have also clearly never tried - since the entire modern banking system came into existence on the basis of the sheer difficulty of directly trading gold for other goods. No one knows how to value gold, they don't know what it's worth other then a brick is probably a lot. If they could, then the fake jewellery scam wouldn't be as successful as it is[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_revolution [2] https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/just-say-no-walk-away-fake-gold-jewelry-scammers-target-people-near-i-5-again/AYEVLPGKPVARFLCKBQUEXGXVHA/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/just-say-no-walk-away-fake-...
      - 3y ago
- scottiebarnes 3y ago
  Increase timeline to account for scaled adoption and project volatility for those variables.
- fwungy 3y ago
  In many places Btc is one of the safest ways to store value. The scenarios it could collapse under are dark. It's biggest enemy is soveriegn currency issuers and banks. They would need to attack it such that holders lose faith in it en masse and collapse it. The successful attack they need to make is dystopian in nature. It would require a global digital identity that was attached to all internet access and an alternative (CBDC) crypto that they forced everyone to use.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Nowhere is BTC the safest way to store value, it’s got far to many risks in normal use to be particularly safe. A double speed attack doesn’t need anything particularly dystopian to happen. It doesn’t even need to result in a large transaction just someone deciding to short BTC and briefly having the computing power to destroy it. Even just a creditable attempt that fails could completely undermine it.
    - fwungy 3y ago
      A double spend attack requires a specific unsafe action by the receiving end of the transaction. As long as the receiver does not accept an unconfirmed transaction they cannot be a victim to it.
      - crote 3y ago
        Even confirmed transactions aren't safe. The blockchain can be retroactively edited by anyone with enough hashing power: the only thing they need to do is to generate a longer alternative chain than the current public one.
        Retric 3y ago
        There’s also plenty of fun things you can do like exclude some particular exchange from being able to commit to the blockchain. As in sorry Coinbase your transactions are no longer welcome and there’s effectively no way for them to directly fight back. The only way around that is to constantly spend more money on hashing power than any attacker, but that cost is effectively unbound. Trying to stop some random billionaire doing it for the lulz means sky high transaction fees forever. No problem for an actual currency in widespread use, but a serious issue for a hypothetical store of value which needs constant investment just to break even.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
chromatin 3y ago
Partially disagree: the Lightning Network [1] facilitates almost instantaneous micro and small transactions which can later settle in aggregate to the Bitcoin base layer. I've used this to purchase goods both online and in person seamlessly. Custodial solutions (trust another party to hold your funds, like a bank) are turnkey. Right now the truly non-custodial solutions (i.e., run your own lightning node) are definitely in the realm of hacker/tinkerer, but continue to improve in terms of accessibility. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network
- cycrutchfield 3y ago
  Ah yes, the lightning network will save bitcoin. How many years will we hear the same song and dance before we can finally conclude this is a pipe dream?
- Seattle3503 3y ago
  What do you buy with the lighting network? I've always wanted to try it.
  - kdragon 3y ago
    You can use it as currency on stacker.news You can tip people on the nostr protocol. stats are on zaplife.lol you can tip musicians on wavlake there's a Minecraft server called satlantis where it is used as a currency there's a lot of plugins you can use to build your own lightning enabled apps on lnbits the space is still young so a lot of software is beta, but there's plenty to play with check out the plebdev course on udemy if you want to dive into lightning development
    - anonporridge 3y ago
      You can also go to the entire nation state of El Salvador where it is a legal currency and many shops have integrated lightning payments.
      - 3y ago