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> Investment-wise, the prognosis is still the same as it ever was: BTC will either become a huge thing worth a lot, or it will be worth near zero Almost but no

by dualogy 13y ago

> Investment-wise, the prognosis is still the same as it ever was: BTC will either become a huge thing worth a lot, or it will be worth near zero Almost but not quite: it must surely go to zero at some point, because chances are extremely high that we haven't accidentally hit the holy grail of digital cryptocurrencies and no better thing could ever be possibly come along for all eternity. Before that happens, it will most likely become a bigger thing than now. So I think most folks are just wondering two things: before we reach zero, how much bigger will it become (multitudes? exponentially bigger? orders of magnitude? or just another $3.50 higher?) and over what timeframe. And even the most educated guess at those two questions is as good as any other, truly.

javert 13y ago
> Almost but not quite: it must surely go to zero at some point, because chances are extremely high that we haven't accidentally hit the holy grail of digital cryptocurrencies and no better thing could ever be possibly come along for all eternity. Bitcoin mathematically approximates Byzantine concensus with arbitrary parcitipants. This is the fundamental insight over the fundamental hurdle that made all prior attempts at cryptocurrencies (for decades) non-starters. What is the space of cryptocurrencies that exploit the Byzantine insight, but are somehow better than Bitcoin? I would suspect that it is very small, or nil. So unlike you, I don't think there is a high chance of something better coming along. I think there is a low but significant chance. A slight digression: I _do_ think that bitcoin may end up being the "gold" used to resolve balances between crypto-banks that have their own currencies. The advantage of such a system is confirmation in almost no time, and not having to pay a transaction fee to get your transaction into a block (which could be large as contention for block space rises). But other cryptocurrencies backed by bitcoin will have to be redeemable for bitcoin, always. If you sever the link, they become worthless. Now if they increase the block size limit to keep transaction fees low, there may never be any need for other cryptocurrencies backed by bitcoin.
chipsy 13y ago
Investments always have an exit time frame; if you never end up exchanging them for something else, then their worth is as meaningless as if the price were zero. This is as true of a business as it is of stock or currency trading. I look at market trading similarly to competitive games of strategy like Chess now, because they share this nature of having to carefully exchange resources over time to achieve an increasingly advantageous position.

by dualogy 13y ago

javert 13y ago

> Almost but not quite: it must surely go to zero at some point, because chances are extremely high that we haven't accidentally hit the holy grail of digital cryptocurrencies and no better thing could ever be possibly come along for all eternity. Bitcoin mathematically approximates Byzantine concensus with arbitrary parcitipants. This is the fundamental insight over the fundamental hurdle that made all prior attempts at cryptocurrencies (for decades) non-starters. What is the space of cryptocurrencies that exploit the Byzantine insight, but are somehow better than Bitcoin? I would suspect that it is very small, or nil. So unlike you, I don't think there is a high chance of something better coming along. I think there is a low but significant chance. A slight digression: I _do_ think that bitcoin may end up being the "gold" used to resolve balances between crypto-banks that have their own currencies. The advantage of such a system is confirmation in almost no time, and not having to pay a transaction fee to get your transaction into a block (which could be large as contention for block space rises). But other cryptocurrencies backed by bitcoin will have to be redeemable for bitcoin, always. If you sever the link, they become worthless. Now if they increase the block size limit to keep transaction fees low, there may never be any need for other cryptocurrencies backed by bitcoin.

chipsy 13y ago

Investments always have an exit time frame; if you never end up exchanging them for something else, then their worth is as meaningless as if the price were zero. This is as true of a business as it is of stock or currency trading. I look at market trading similarly to competitive games of strategy like Chess now, because they share this nature of having to carefully exchange resources over time to achieve an increasingly advantageous position.