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Replacing Bitcoin now would be like trying to replace gold with platinum or replace HTTP. It's not going to happen, no matter what technical advantages another

by aneth4 13y ago

Replacing Bitcoin now would be like trying to replace gold with platinum or replace HTTP. It's not going to happen, no matter what technical advantages another currency has. Bitcoin has critical mass. Sorry. Game over. I don't say this as a Bitcoin fanboy. Bitcoin is far from ideal, but it is good enough, and capable of evolving to stay good enough. In my opinion, there is zero chance of another cryptocurrency being superior as money in the near future.

kintamanimatt 13y ago
Never say never. Bitcoin certainly doesn't have a critical mass, and won't until a majority of the world is using it. We've seen protocols replace other protocols (HTTP pretty much replaced Gopher), and incumbents squeezed out by upstarts (WordPress pushed aside MoveableType, for example). New can replace the old. In any event, the mission of Bitcoin appears to replace government-issued currencies which most certainly have a critical mass! Bitcoin just so happens to be the most popular cryptocurrency right now, but relatively speaking it's not all that popular. Its deflationary nature might be its downfall and there's certainly room for something to take its place, and it's very myopic to say that just because something appears somewhat popular now that it will remain that way forever.
- rubinelli 13y ago
  Have you seen those physical bitcoins? It's possible to create something similar in digital form, a coin that "wraps" a wallet with a known amount of bitcoins. This would allow a new and better currency to offer "backwards compatibility" with bitcoins and a migration path.
- aminok 13y ago
  Gopher and HTTP came out at around the same time and were contenders from the beginning. This is very different than the situation with cryptocurrencies, where Bitcoin came out long before the competing derivatives, and where mindshare and market capitalization of alternative cryptocurrencies has always been insignificant compared to BTC. Bitcoin could be more properly compared to HTTP, and alternative cryptocurrencies as protocols that are slighty modified versions of HTTP that no one uses.
Retric 13y ago
It's got name recognition, but it's still tiny. Saying it won is like saying MySpace won except MySpace was over 10x as large. Bitcoin can't do fast or even reasonable speed transactions (aka less than 10 minutes) and unless that's fixed it's doomed.
- vbuterin 13y ago
  Instant transactions are actually safe for nearly all applications. Try buying something for BTC at some point; the confirmation will happen in 5-10 seconds.
  - maaku 13y ago
    No, they are absolutely not (and reception of a transaction is not confirmation). Zero confirmation transactions rely on the default behavior of bitcoind, which is not protocol enforced. There is a patch that adds replace-for-fee, and market dynamics will pressure miners to adopt it.
    - aminok 13y ago
      Miners have not included 'replace by fee' rules in four years, despite the short term financial incentive of doing so. There's no reason to believe any significant portion of miners will adopt the patch in the future either, because mining pools have a long term interest in the success of Bitcoin as a whole, and adding replacement for fee would jeopardize it.
      - maaku 13y ago
        No, adding replace-for-fee would remove the false sense of security people have about accepting zero-conf transactions. Zero-conf transactions are not safe, and can be gamed on the current station. Dispelling beliefs to the contrary is in the long-term interest of bitcoin.
julespitt 13y ago
I'm going to take the opposite view. Bitcoin is still staggeringly unadopted amongst the general population - it's like declaring Prodigy the winner in digital communications. Meanwhile, any currency is "as good" as Bitcoin when it is accepted and easily converted - so if CoinBase or Mt. Gox add new currencies, instantly they work as well as Bitcoin (as money, not necessarily as an investment) for the customer or merchant. Only in information-poor environments does one need currency near-monopolies for economies to thrive - this is no longer the case. So, the future? Hundreds of cryptocurrencies, private currencies, and still mostly good old fashioned government currencies. All instantly convertible so no merchant need really care what a customer pays in, as long as he gets the one his obligations are predominantly denominated in.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- aneth4 13y ago
  Currency has two major functions. As a medium of transfer, you may be correct. As a store of value - I find it hard to believe another cryptocurrency will approach Bitcoin.
tokenadult 13y ago
Replacing Bitcoin now would be like trying to replace gold with platinum or replace HTTP. I rather suspect that replacing Bitcoin with something new and improved might first be like replacing Lycos or Excite (used as a search engine) with AltaVista, and then later like replacing AltaVista with Google. We won't know what a currency with true critical mass looks like until we see one. I can't predict what important feature differences the next electronic currency will offer that provide more user value than Bitcoin offers, but it's quite plausible to me, given the history of technology, that Bitcoin hasn't closed the market to other entrants yet. From a nephew comment: Reddit has become integral to the culture in a way comparable to Twitter and Facebook Nope.
- aminok 13y ago
  BTC is an excellent implementation of a new protocol type, despite being the first, which I think makes it more akin to HTTP than to Lycos.
tekromancr 13y ago
No, It would be like replacing Gopher with HTTP. Gopher was fantastic, and well adopted (for it's time, at least in the Mid-West) but then Tim Berners-Lee came along with a better solution that people ended up using.
- aminok 13y ago
  Gopher was completely different from HTTP. It also came out about the same time as HTTP, giving it no initial lead. The alternative cryptocurrencies are virtually identical protocols to Bitcoin, using a fork of the code, but are just incompatible with BTC clients. They came out much later than Bitcoin and at no stage in the last four years have they come close to rivaling Bitcoin's mindshare or market capitalization. It's possible that in the future, a completely new protocol will come out that will be significantly better than BTC, but so far there's nothing on the horizon, and I think it's unlikely someone will make a Satoshi Nakamoto like effort and create one.
maaku 13y ago
> Replacing Bitcoin now would be like trying to replace gold with platinum or replace HTTP. It's not going to happen, no matter what technical advantages another currency has. Bitcoin has critical mass. Sorry. Game over. There's some real cognitive dissonance if you think that bitcoin has a chance against fiat but no currency could take on bitcoin.
- aminok 13y ago
  Because Bitcoin offers a paradigm-level improvement over fiat, whereas other cryptocurrencies would not offer any such improvement over Bitcoin.
- aneth4 13y ago
  Bitcoin doesn't have to compete against fiat currency because it addresses a different market - one that wants fast international money movement, minimal regulation, privacy, low cost, and minimal institutional involvement. Bitcoin isn't going to destroy fiat currency, it's going to complement it. And I find it unlikely that anyone would hold any cryptocurrency other than bitcoin, since it will be difficult to create the perception of value once a currency has been established.
bpodgursky 13y ago
That mindset is what got us into the IPv4 mess we're in right now.

by aneth4 13y ago

kintamanimatt 13y ago

Never say never. Bitcoin certainly doesn't have a critical mass, and won't until a majority of the world is using it. We've seen protocols replace other protocols (HTTP pretty much replaced Gopher), and incumbents squeezed out by upstarts (WordPress pushed aside MoveableType, for example). New can replace the old. In any event, the mission of Bitcoin appears to replace government-issued currencies which most certainly have a critical mass! Bitcoin just so happens to be the most popular cryptocurrency right now, but relatively speaking it's not all that popular. Its deflationary nature might be its downfall and there's certainly room for something to take its place, and it's very myopic to say that just because something appears somewhat popular now that it will remain that way forever.

rubinelli 13y ago
Have you seen those physical bitcoins? It's possible to create something similar in digital form, a coin that "wraps" a wallet with a known amount of bitcoins. This would allow a new and better currency to offer "backwards compatibility" with bitcoins and a migration path.
aminok 13y ago
Gopher and HTTP came out at around the same time and were contenders from the beginning. This is very different than the situation with cryptocurrencies, where Bitcoin came out long before the competing derivatives, and where mindshare and market capitalization of alternative cryptocurrencies has always been insignificant compared to BTC. Bitcoin could be more properly compared to HTTP, and alternative cryptocurrencies as protocols that are slighty modified versions of HTTP that no one uses.

Retric 13y ago

It's got name recognition, but it's still tiny. Saying it won is like saying MySpace won except MySpace was over 10x as large. Bitcoin can't do fast or even reasonable speed transactions (aka less than 10 minutes) and unless that's fixed it's doomed.

vbuterin 13y ago
Instant transactions are actually safe for nearly all applications. Try buying something for BTC at some point; the confirmation will happen in 5-10 seconds.
- maaku 13y ago
  No, they are absolutely not (and reception of a transaction is not confirmation). Zero confirmation transactions rely on the default behavior of bitcoind, which is not protocol enforced. There is a patch that adds replace-for-fee, and market dynamics will pressure miners to adopt it.
  - aminok 13y ago
    Miners have not included 'replace by fee' rules in four years, despite the short term financial incentive of doing so. There's no reason to believe any significant portion of miners will adopt the patch in the future either, because mining pools have a long term interest in the success of Bitcoin as a whole, and adding replacement for fee would jeopardize it.
    - maaku 13y ago
      No, adding replace-for-fee would remove the false sense of security people have about accepting zero-conf transactions. Zero-conf transactions are not safe, and can be gamed on the current station. Dispelling beliefs to the contrary is in the long-term interest of bitcoin.

julespitt 13y ago

I'm going to take the opposite view. Bitcoin is still staggeringly unadopted amongst the general population - it's like declaring Prodigy the winner in digital communications. Meanwhile, any currency is "as good" as Bitcoin when it is accepted and easily converted - so if CoinBase or Mt. Gox add new currencies, instantly they work as well as Bitcoin (as money, not necessarily as an investment) for the customer or merchant. Only in information-poor environments does one need currency near-monopolies for economies to thrive - this is no longer the case. So, the future? Hundreds of cryptocurrencies, private currencies, and still mostly good old fashioned government currencies. All instantly convertible so no merchant need really care what a customer pays in, as long as he gets the one his obligations are predominantly denominated in.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
aneth4 13y ago
Currency has two major functions. As a medium of transfer, you may be correct. As a store of value - I find it hard to believe another cryptocurrency will approach Bitcoin.

tokenadult 13y ago

Replacing Bitcoin now would be like trying to replace gold with platinum or replace HTTP. I rather suspect that replacing Bitcoin with something new and improved might first be like replacing Lycos or Excite (used as a search engine) with AltaVista, and then later like replacing AltaVista with Google. We won't know what a currency with true critical mass looks like until we see one. I can't predict what important feature differences the next electronic currency will offer that provide more user value than Bitcoin offers, but it's quite plausible to me, given the history of technology, that Bitcoin hasn't closed the market to other entrants yet. From a nephew comment: Reddit has become integral to the culture in a way comparable to Twitter and Facebook Nope.

aminok 13y ago
BTC is an excellent implementation of a new protocol type, despite being the first, which I think makes it more akin to HTTP than to Lycos.

tekromancr 13y ago

No, It would be like replacing Gopher with HTTP. Gopher was fantastic, and well adopted (for it's time, at least in the Mid-West) but then Tim Berners-Lee came along with a better solution that people ended up using.

aminok 13y ago
Gopher was completely different from HTTP. It also came out about the same time as HTTP, giving it no initial lead. The alternative cryptocurrencies are virtually identical protocols to Bitcoin, using a fork of the code, but are just incompatible with BTC clients. They came out much later than Bitcoin and at no stage in the last four years have they come close to rivaling Bitcoin's mindshare or market capitalization. It's possible that in the future, a completely new protocol will come out that will be significantly better than BTC, but so far there's nothing on the horizon, and I think it's unlikely someone will make a Satoshi Nakamoto like effort and create one.

maaku 13y ago

> Replacing Bitcoin now would be like trying to replace gold with platinum or replace HTTP. It's not going to happen, no matter what technical advantages another currency has. Bitcoin has critical mass. Sorry. Game over. There's some real cognitive dissonance if you think that bitcoin has a chance against fiat but no currency could take on bitcoin.

aminok 13y ago
Because Bitcoin offers a paradigm-level improvement over fiat, whereas other cryptocurrencies would not offer any such improvement over Bitcoin.
aneth4 13y ago
Bitcoin doesn't have to compete against fiat currency because it addresses a different market - one that wants fast international money movement, minimal regulation, privacy, low cost, and minimal institutional involvement. Bitcoin isn't going to destroy fiat currency, it's going to complement it. And I find it unlikely that anyone would hold any cryptocurrency other than bitcoin, since it will be difficult to create the perception of value once a currency has been established.

bpodgursky 13y ago

That mindset is what got us into the IPv4 mess we're in right now.