6 ms·

I don't know what you expected, Bitcoin enthusiasts. You bought into a system where coins could be permanently lost because you forgot a password. You bought

I don't know what you expected, Bitcoin enthusiasts. You bought into a system where coins could be permanently lost because you forgot a password. You bought into a system where the government cheerfully gained control of a large share of the market by simple confiscation. You have recreated money. But you aren't even good at it! You still think that simple cryptography will excuse you from the fact that you're greedy bastards. The reason I hate Bitcoin is that it intentionally promotes a counter-establishment treatise, and you have the batshit insane gall to claim that it is different. I'm venting.

drstewart 13y ago
>You bought into a system where coins could be permanently lost because you forgot a password. As opposed to a system where coins can be permanently lost because you have a hole in your pocket?
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  Would have to be a rather large hole to lose a million dollars through it. Would have to be about 43" wide.
  - Helianthus 13y ago
    It's funny seeing you on my side. How you been? I haven't crossed words with you in a while. james_d?
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      Different, James, I think. I'm not completely on board with your view, but your criticism here is valid and should be acknowledged by BTC proponents if they have any hope of observing their currency as realists. This kind of thing is a major drawback to using Bitcoin.
      - Helianthus 13y ago
        Have you never trolled the r/debatereligion circuit?
        jamesaguilar 13y ago
        Oh, you have got the right guy then. :) but I don't know why you said james_d.
        Helianthus 13y ago
        Somehow I always thought your middle name (or initial) was d. It's nice to see you.
asciimo 13y ago
Are you referring to the 144,000 BTC confiscated in the Silk Road bust? There are almost 12,000,000 BTC in circulation. The Silk Road share accounts for about 1.2% Compare that with any government currency that is 100% government-controlled. It's easy to permanently lose cash, too.
- Helianthus 13y ago
  Yeah, it's easy to lose cash if you're on Wall Street, but no one lauds that. You're stuck in a place where you're trying to differentiate yourself from Wall Street and you are exactly like Wall Street. And then you compare the total BTC in circulation and its equivalence in USD... and... What the fuck do you think you're doing? Do you think you're toying with trillions of dollars? The banking machine is ignoring you. It simply doesn't care.
  - baq 13y ago
    i guess the point is that money on wall street only changes hands. BTC are permanently destroyed.
mrb 13y ago
You fail to point out that cash has all the same drawbacks: You can permanently lose cash if destroyed in a fire. Your cash or bank account can be confiscated easily by the government. Etc. Of course, unlike cash, Bitcoin has advantages because it offers the option to prevent these losses: you can back up a Bitcoin wallet. You can avoid government confiscation (password-protected wallet). Etc.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - mrb 13y ago
    Wait a few years for the Bitcoin ecosystem to mature, and all the security mechanisms developed by banks (and more advanced ones that are just inapplicable to cash) will appear and be applied to Bitcoin: theft insurances, properly secured web wallets (HSM, userbased multi-sig, cold wallets, etc), tamper-proof hardware wallets, etc.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - Helianthus 13y ago
      Unicorns!
    - eterm 13y ago
      And at which point we'll be back to seeing 0.3+2.9% on every transaction to cover the costs of such...
      - mrb 13y ago
        Which will be fine. Even with such fees, Bitcoin would remain superior to existing currencies/payement networks: instant transfers across the world, censorship resistance, etc.
- Helianthus 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
pera 13y ago
Instead of hating something you should try to understand it first: > permanently lost because you forgot a password You don't have to encrypt your wallet, that's up to you. If you believe that not even knowing the password of an encrypted wallet you should be able to recover your bitcoins your problem is actually with cryptography in general. > the government cheerfully gained control of a large share Powerful entities have power, welcome to the real world. > the fact that you're greedy bastards huh? can you expand on this? > it intentionally promotes a counter-establishment treatise Nop, Bitcoin is a technology, and neither the paper nor the Bitcoin Foundation is "counter-establishment". Actually the last one is trying really hard to make Bitcoin "pro" establishment. Sorry I don't wanna be rude but your post is absurd.
psionski 13y ago
Nobody is forcing you to use it OR help its development. Why do you even care?
- lmm 13y ago
  I care because the stories are spamming up HN. You can't downvote stories, and flagging them would probably be considered inappropriate.
  - psionski 13y ago
    Can't you just... like... not read them? On every visit to HN I click 3-4 links tops, but you don't see me complaining in the comments section of the other 26 :)
    - lmm 13y ago
      Yes I can, but if I do then the site will only get worse. http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/
      - psionski 13y ago
        Interesting link, thank you! But I don't see how it's relevant - this is a site about start-up news and Bitcoin is exactly where the opportunities for start-ups are. It's not like they're posting porn or something - probably the next PayPal will come from someone reading these links and comments here. Although I admit that sometimes there are too many links about politics on HN, but you can say politics is also kind of relevant to the start-up world, especially when it concerns policy decisions about technology. In conclusion, I'm yet to see an irrelevant link on HN. The algorithm works as advertised IMHO.
dasil003 13y ago
I'm not an enthusiast, I don't own and have never owned any Bitcoin. However I think your dismissal of Bitcoin is wrong. Not because it doesn't have flaws, and not even because it's guaranteed to succeed—there's no telling when a crypto breakthrough could cause Bitcoin to crash and burn faster than tulip bulbs—but rather because Bitcoin is the most interesting development in currency of the past millennium. There's simply no denying it has unique properties of considerable interest, regardless of ideology or affiliation.
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  I'm not particularly invested in BTC either (own like 0.000001 or something), but I find it fascinating for similar reasons. Imho it represents and inflection point in human history, by virtue of solving a previously unsolvable algorithmic problem (distributed consensus), at least in the context of digital currency. BTC's solution wasn't even technically possible until two other major innovations - the construction of the internet, and the invention of the Bittorrent protocol. And 'Satoshi's' insight that a simple time delay via proof-of-work finally tied it all together and made possible the first (technically) viable distributed currency. All the remaining problems are minor by comparison and will eventually get solved, in the same way the modern banking system eventually solved problems of bank robberies and fraud - not so much completely solving them, but by making them extremely difficult to pull off and/or get away with, reducing the odds and risk to levels acceptable for the general public. Same will happen with BTC and its infrastructure over time as well.

drstewart 13y ago

>You bought into a system where coins could be permanently lost because you forgot a password. As opposed to a system where coins can be permanently lost because you have a hole in your pocket?

jamesaguilar 13y ago
Would have to be a rather large hole to lose a million dollars through it. Would have to be about 43" wide.
- Helianthus 13y ago
  It's funny seeing you on my side. How you been? I haven't crossed words with you in a while. james_d?
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    Different, James, I think. I'm not completely on board with your view, but your criticism here is valid and should be acknowledged by BTC proponents if they have any hope of observing their currency as realists. This kind of thing is a major drawback to using Bitcoin.
    - Helianthus 13y ago
      Have you never trolled the r/debatereligion circuit?
      - jamesaguilar 13y ago
        Oh, you have got the right guy then. :) but I don't know why you said james_d.
        Helianthus 13y ago
        Somehow I always thought your middle name (or initial) was d. It's nice to see you.

asciimo 13y ago

Are you referring to the 144,000 BTC confiscated in the Silk Road bust? There are almost 12,000,000 BTC in circulation. The Silk Road share accounts for about 1.2% Compare that with any government currency that is 100% government-controlled. It's easy to permanently lose cash, too.

Helianthus 13y ago
Yeah, it's easy to lose cash if you're on Wall Street, but no one lauds that. You're stuck in a place where you're trying to differentiate yourself from Wall Street and you are exactly like Wall Street. And then you compare the total BTC in circulation and its equivalence in USD... and... What the fuck do you think you're doing? Do you think you're toying with trillions of dollars? The banking machine is ignoring you. It simply doesn't care.
- baq 13y ago
  i guess the point is that money on wall street only changes hands. BTC are permanently destroyed.

mrb 13y ago

You fail to point out that cash has all the same drawbacks: You can permanently lose cash if destroyed in a fire. Your cash or bank account can be confiscated easily by the government. Etc. Of course, unlike cash, Bitcoin has advantages because it offers the option to prevent these losses: you can back up a Bitcoin wallet. You can avoid government confiscation (password-protected wallet). Etc.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- mrb 13y ago
  Wait a few years for the Bitcoin ecosystem to mature, and all the security mechanisms developed by banks (and more advanced ones that are just inapplicable to cash) will appear and be applied to Bitcoin: theft insurances, properly secured web wallets (HSM, userbased multi-sig, cold wallets, etc), tamper-proof hardware wallets, etc.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - Helianthus 13y ago
    Unicorns!
  - eterm 13y ago
    And at which point we'll be back to seeing 0.3+2.9% on every transaction to cover the costs of such...
    - mrb 13y ago
      Which will be fine. Even with such fees, Bitcoin would remain superior to existing currencies/payement networks: instant transfers across the world, censorship resistance, etc.
Helianthus 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

pera 13y ago

Instead of hating something you should try to understand it first: > permanently lost because you forgot a password You don't have to encrypt your wallet, that's up to you. If you believe that not even knowing the password of an encrypted wallet you should be able to recover your bitcoins your problem is actually with cryptography in general. > the government cheerfully gained control of a large share Powerful entities have power, welcome to the real world. > the fact that you're greedy bastards huh? can you expand on this? > it intentionally promotes a counter-establishment treatise Nop, Bitcoin is a technology, and neither the paper nor the Bitcoin Foundation is "counter-establishment". Actually the last one is trying really hard to make Bitcoin "pro" establishment. Sorry I don't wanna be rude but your post is absurd.

psionski 13y ago

Nobody is forcing you to use it OR help its development. Why do you even care?

lmm 13y ago
I care because the stories are spamming up HN. You can't downvote stories, and flagging them would probably be considered inappropriate.
- psionski 13y ago
  Can't you just... like... not read them? On every visit to HN I click 3-4 links tops, but you don't see me complaining in the comments section of the other 26 :)
  - lmm 13y ago
    Yes I can, but if I do then the site will only get worse. http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/
    - psionski 13y ago
      Interesting link, thank you! But I don't see how it's relevant - this is a site about start-up news and Bitcoin is exactly where the opportunities for start-ups are. It's not like they're posting porn or something - probably the next PayPal will come from someone reading these links and comments here. Although I admit that sometimes there are too many links about politics on HN, but you can say politics is also kind of relevant to the start-up world, especially when it concerns policy decisions about technology. In conclusion, I'm yet to see an irrelevant link on HN. The algorithm works as advertised IMHO.

dasil003 13y ago

I'm not an enthusiast, I don't own and have never owned any Bitcoin. However I think your dismissal of Bitcoin is wrong. Not because it doesn't have flaws, and not even because it's guaranteed to succeed—there's no telling when a crypto breakthrough could cause Bitcoin to crash and burn faster than tulip bulbs—but rather because Bitcoin is the most interesting development in currency of the past millennium. There's simply no denying it has unique properties of considerable interest, regardless of ideology or affiliation.

SkyMarshal 13y ago
I'm not particularly invested in BTC either (own like 0.000001 or something), but I find it fascinating for similar reasons. Imho it represents and inflection point in human history, by virtue of solving a previously unsolvable algorithmic problem (distributed consensus), at least in the context of digital currency. BTC's solution wasn't even technically possible until two other major innovations - the construction of the internet, and the invention of the Bittorrent protocol. And 'Satoshi's' insight that a simple time delay via proof-of-work finally tied it all together and made possible the first (technically) viable distributed currency. All the remaining problems are minor by comparison and will eventually get solved, in the same way the modern banking system eventually solved problems of bank robberies and fraud - not so much completely solving them, but by making them extremely difficult to pull off and/or get away with, reducing the odds and risk to levels acceptable for the general public. Same will happen with BTC and its infrastructure over time as well.