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Digital currencies will eventually be the only kind of currency there are; "plastic money" (AKA credit cards) were created to ease the handling of personal and

by ivanca 13y ago

Digital currencies will eventually be the only kind of currency there are; "plastic money" (AKA credit cards) were created to ease the handling of personal and business finances; digital currencies are one step further, were we don't depend on a piece of plastic but paying via web or by proximity and confirming on your personal phone (similar to the way two-factor authentication works). "Real" money is just a piece of paper that represents value supported by the government behind it; so representing it on bytes supported by the open-source cryptography behind it is less dramatic than most people would assume.

fat0wl 13y ago
i don't think many people expect to use plastic money forever -- they are already comfortable buying things by scanning an iPhone. And I don't think the lack of government endorsement is so much the issue with Bitcoin either, though it certainly will be if things don't go smoothly. i think it really comes down to the crazy hyper-distorted-redistribution-of-wealth-dispersement/adoption scheme (early adopters have wild fortunes for pennies compared to those spending thousands today), liquidity issues, extreme market volatility, not a ton of evidence of use in transactions aside from being siphoned immediately back to traders via 3rd party processors describing its problems in a way that can be summarized as "its so revolutionary its blowin minds too quickly and needs time to settle in" is really sugarcoating it to an extreme degree
- yen223 13y ago
  The way I see it, the technical aspect of Bitcoin is fascinating; the economic aspect, less so.
  - fat0wl 13y ago
    Yes, that I can live with. If the tech were implemented within a more sane economic system I would be very intrigued indeed, but I think it would bore the open-source world. I'm slowly beginning to believe that this is part of a movement where open-source is becoming like.... well like the software equivalent of Videodrome snuff films or something. Closed source & corporate is just too "traditional", even though it's likely a more solid A-to-B solution could be created with expert help. Especially since Bitcoin has tech allure (layman can't use it) without being prohibitively difficult (you don't actually have to know how to code), it's the perfect balance of intrigue versus commitment with a bit of an ego boost on the way.

by ivanca 13y ago

fat0wl 13y ago

i don't think many people expect to use plastic money forever -- they are already comfortable buying things by scanning an iPhone. And I don't think the lack of government endorsement is so much the issue with Bitcoin either, though it certainly will be if things don't go smoothly. i think it really comes down to the crazy hyper-distorted-redistribution-of-wealth-dispersement/adoption scheme (early adopters have wild fortunes for pennies compared to those spending thousands today), liquidity issues, extreme market volatility, not a ton of evidence of use in transactions aside from being siphoned immediately back to traders via 3rd party processors describing its problems in a way that can be summarized as "its so revolutionary its blowin minds too quickly and needs time to settle in" is really sugarcoating it to an extreme degree

yen223 13y ago
The way I see it, the technical aspect of Bitcoin is fascinating; the economic aspect, less so.
- fat0wl 13y ago
  Yes, that I can live with. If the tech were implemented within a more sane economic system I would be very intrigued indeed, but I think it would bore the open-source world. I'm slowly beginning to believe that this is part of a movement where open-source is becoming like.... well like the software equivalent of Videodrome snuff films or something. Closed source & corporate is just too "traditional", even though it's likely a more solid A-to-B solution could be created with expert help. Especially since Bitcoin has tech allure (layman can't use it) without being prohibitively difficult (you don't actually have to know how to code), it's the perfect balance of intrigue versus commitment with a bit of an ego boost on the way.