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I'm not an expert on the economics, but as of now, Bitcoin hasn't been hacked, which suggests it lives up to its promises. Personally, I find it incredibly usef

I'm not an expert on the economics, but as of now, Bitcoin hasn't been hacked, which suggests it lives up to its promises. Personally, I find it incredibly useful to be able to carry my wealth anywhere on Earth, just by remembering a few words.

miramba 2y ago
My credit card does that too, and I can buy things with it almost anywhere. There is also a system in place to restore access in case I forget the magic words.
- kjksf 2y ago
  Up to a (meager) daily / monthly limit. Unless you're Canadian protester and the government freezes your bank account. Unless you're American, like Melania Trump, and the bank decides to kick you out and take away your credit card because the politician sent them a letter threatening "oversight" if they don't kick out "risky" clients. Unless you trip bank's fraud metrics and they freeze your account for months, refuse to say why, ignore your attempts to contact them and fix it. Unless you're Russian and U.S. bans you from using international banking system. Other that that, there's no difference.
  - desumeku 2y ago
    They'll just say that these are all good things because they're political enemies who should be targeted anyway. I mean, Melania Trump? Russia? Obviously we should weaponize the financial system to target people that we don't like, and vehemently oppose any system that might threaten our ability to do that.
paulgb 2y ago
> as of now, Bitcoin hasn't been hacked We should be cautious about whether past precedent applies to future bitcoin, because the bitcoin halving mechanism ensures that bitcoin enters uncharted territory (with regards to the incentives at play) every four years for the next ~100. Satoshi's design was that bitcoin would be used as cash and transaction volume would provide the funds to secure the network. That largely hasn't happened (it's a "store of value" now, lightning exists, etc.), so mining incentives are still ~95-98% funded from the exponentially diminishing supply of new coins. Short of some institution stepping in to secure the bitcoin network by mining at a loss, it's hard not to imagine a 51% attack being relatively cheap on the time scale of decades.
- desumeku 2y ago
  One word: fees.
  - paulgb 2y ago
    Transaction fees currently make up a tiny sliver of the mining rewards, and this seems likely to be even more the case the more ways there are to exchange it off chain (like trading ETFs). https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/block-fees-subsidy https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/block-fees-subsidy
    - desumeku 2y ago
      If bitcoin becomes a world reserve currency like maxis think it will, then in a late-stage bitcoin scenario, the main chain would have such a high demand, and thus high enough fees, that it would serve more as a settlement layer where side-chains take up the majority of user activity, which collects enough in fees to push a transaction to the 'base' bitcoin chain, using the metadata to provide cryptographic proof of its activities (to avoid fraud), kind of like ETH l2's.
BSOhealth 2y ago
Has the dollar been hacked? Currency is not a “thing”—it is a promise. We invest in promises, whether currency, stock, etc.

miramba 2y ago

My credit card does that too, and I can buy things with it almost anywhere. There is also a system in place to restore access in case I forget the magic words.

kjksf 2y ago
Up to a (meager) daily / monthly limit. Unless you're Canadian protester and the government freezes your bank account. Unless you're American, like Melania Trump, and the bank decides to kick you out and take away your credit card because the politician sent them a letter threatening "oversight" if they don't kick out "risky" clients. Unless you trip bank's fraud metrics and they freeze your account for months, refuse to say why, ignore your attempts to contact them and fix it. Unless you're Russian and U.S. bans you from using international banking system. Other that that, there's no difference.
- desumeku 2y ago
  They'll just say that these are all good things because they're political enemies who should be targeted anyway. I mean, Melania Trump? Russia? Obviously we should weaponize the financial system to target people that we don't like, and vehemently oppose any system that might threaten our ability to do that.

paulgb 2y ago

> as of now, Bitcoin hasn't been hacked We should be cautious about whether past precedent applies to future bitcoin, because the bitcoin halving mechanism ensures that bitcoin enters uncharted territory (with regards to the incentives at play) every four years for the next ~100. Satoshi's design was that bitcoin would be used as cash and transaction volume would provide the funds to secure the network. That largely hasn't happened (it's a "store of value" now, lightning exists, etc.), so mining incentives are still ~95-98% funded from the exponentially diminishing supply of new coins. Short of some institution stepping in to secure the bitcoin network by mining at a loss, it's hard not to imagine a 51% attack being relatively cheap on the time scale of decades.

desumeku 2y ago
One word: fees.
- paulgb 2y ago
  Transaction fees currently make up a tiny sliver of the mining rewards, and this seems likely to be even more the case the more ways there are to exchange it off chain (like trading ETFs). https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/block-fees-subsidy https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/block-fees-subsidy
  - desumeku 2y ago
    If bitcoin becomes a world reserve currency like maxis think it will, then in a late-stage bitcoin scenario, the main chain would have such a high demand, and thus high enough fees, that it would serve more as a settlement layer where side-chains take up the majority of user activity, which collects enough in fees to push a transaction to the 'base' bitcoin chain, using the metadata to provide cryptographic proof of its activities (to avoid fraud), kind of like ETH l2's.

BSOhealth 2y ago

Has the dollar been hacked? Currency is not a “thing”—it is a promise. We invest in promises, whether currency, stock, etc.