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I think the real question now is, whether Bitcoin can be stopped. For example, banks are "not feeling comfortable", since more fiat money are being extracted f

by greyman 13y ago

I think the real question now is, whether Bitcoin can be stopped. For example, banks are "not feeling comfortable", since more fiat money are being extracted from their money network and put into BTC network. For example, I took about half of my savings and bought bitcoins - all my bank can see is, that the money "vanished", and they can't collect any more fees from services they could offer me handling those money. Actually, no bank knows where the value now is, since I made a lot of BTC transactions since then. It's same with the wealthy people - yes, they will not feel comfortable about the idea that other individuals will own most wealth in the future. But what can they do about it? It's like today: most people are not comfortable with the fact that just a few individuals or their families control 90% of the total wealth, but that is about all they can do, feel uncomfortable about it. With bitcoin it's similar, it's not that bitcoin will succeed only by making banks and rich people comfortable, bitcoin might succeed despite that. Also, I realized an interesting property about the BTC network, which is not talked about much. Namely, people who invested into BTC, do not have much incentive to do damage to the network, since that would only cause the BTC value to go down, and they would incur loses to themselves - they will realize, that by behaving "properly" they can gain more. It's more possible that some hostile government or other entity will try to sink bitcoin, but it might be hard to achieve. And if their attack will not be very quick, the BTC owners can detect that something is wrong, and could quickly transfer the money to alternative cryptocurrency.

diminoten 13y ago
That money didn't "vanish". You paid someone for those coins, and that person put their money into a bank.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> For example, I took about half of my savings and bought bitcoins - all my bank can see is, that the money "vanished" Nope. Your bank can see that that money was transferred out of your bank account and where it went -- quite likely, to another bank account (possibly, even, at the same bank -- so many of them being global institutions). Currency isn't consumed when its used to buy things, whether its a car or a bitcoin.
notahacker 13y ago
I don't think banks are at all uncomfortable about the decision of a few people to buy Bitcoins. You could have bought the entire stock of BTC ever produced at the highest rate ever paid for a Bitcoin on an exchange, for less than 0.5% of the excess reserves held by banks in the US alone. That's the reserves the banks don't need to be legally compliant and solvent, and those reserves are themselves a tiny fraction of the banks' outstanding loans which is where they actually earn their money. So the banks don't exactly see BTC as a threat, especially since retail banking operations aren't exactly a major profit centre for them. And, as someone has correctly pointed out, your hard-earned savings that you're risking went into the bank account of the person you bought Bitcoins from, therefore staying in the banking system anyway. Bitcoin, on the other hand, lacks the solvency guarantees the banking system does: if people decide they want to leave en masse, the price crashes. Even if BTC owners will be able to "quickly transfer the money to alternative cryptocurrency", if their government (or the US government) decides to effectively ban Bitcoin transfers, it's certain they will end up able to purchase less than they were prior to the attack. May I politely suggest you reconsider your decision to put half your savings into BTC before it's too late.

by greyman 13y ago

diminoten 13y ago

That money didn't "vanish". You paid someone for those coins, and that person put their money into a bank.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> For example, I took about half of my savings and bought bitcoins - all my bank can see is, that the money "vanished" Nope. Your bank can see that that money was transferred out of your bank account and where it went -- quite likely, to another bank account (possibly, even, at the same bank -- so many of them being global institutions). Currency isn't consumed when its used to buy things, whether its a car or a bitcoin.

notahacker 13y ago

I don't think banks are at all uncomfortable about the decision of a few people to buy Bitcoins. You could have bought the entire stock of BTC ever produced at the highest rate ever paid for a Bitcoin on an exchange, for less than 0.5% of the excess reserves held by banks in the US alone. That's the reserves the banks don't need to be legally compliant and solvent, and those reserves are themselves a tiny fraction of the banks' outstanding loans which is where they actually earn their money. So the banks don't exactly see BTC as a threat, especially since retail banking operations aren't exactly a major profit centre for them. And, as someone has correctly pointed out, your hard-earned savings that you're risking went into the bank account of the person you bought Bitcoins from, therefore staying in the banking system anyway. Bitcoin, on the other hand, lacks the solvency guarantees the banking system does: if people decide they want to leave en masse, the price crashes. Even if BTC owners will be able to "quickly transfer the money to alternative cryptocurrency", if their government (or the US government) decides to effectively ban Bitcoin transfers, it's certain they will end up able to purchase less than they were prior to the attack. May I politely suggest you reconsider your decision to put half your savings into BTC before it's too late.