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There's bitcoin (the unit of measurement), Bitcoin (the software, system, and distributed consensus network), and "Bitcoin" (the people, community, and economy

There's bitcoin (the unit of measurement), Bitcoin (the software, system, and distributed consensus network), and "Bitcoin" (the people, community, and economy that have emerged around Bitcoin in the past five years). Your argument conflates Bitcoin and "Bitcoin" so seamlessly that the reader may not even know there's a distinction. They seem to be a single identity to you, and the differences appear to become lost. The misunderstandings and errors of logic in your argument come from treating two distinct concepts as if they were one. For instance, the term "security model" has a distinct meaning when used in the context of a distributed computing system, but that doesn't seem to matter to you.

drewblaisdell 13y ago
> They seem to be a single identity to you, and the differences appear to become lost. This is a good description of patio11's Bitcoin arguments. He ignores the problems Bitcoin does solve and focuses on the aspects of the community that are broken and still need work. Gates called Bitcoin a techno tour de force. It has potential and solves some real problems, but it has a long road before becoming anything like a usable currency. Patrick tweeted about HN comments of this sort last week and it sums up exactly how I feel about his Bitcoin comments: https://twitter.com/patio11/status/435315147427430400 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/435315147427430400