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> To Mr. Summers, the potential contained in bitcoin’s breakthrough technology, with its fast, low-cost system for confirming transactions any article that tou

> To Mr. Summers, the potential contained in bitcoin’s breakthrough technology, with its fast, low-cost system for confirming transactions any article that touts Bitcoin as "low-cost" is a joke. paying 3-5% transaction fees[1] via inflation is not any better than the 2-4% that credit cards charge. And soon the bitcoin protocol won't have any coin left to mine, so this 3-5% will just be charged to consumers just like the existing networks, thanks to its baked-in gold-bug monetary policy. At least credit cards are instant, and the companies have good fraud monitoring... not to mention the cost of the mining rigs, electricity they require, etc... [1] http://blockchain.info/charts/cost-per-transaction-percent http://blockchain.info/charts/cost-per-transaction-percent

rando289 12y ago
> "thanks to its baked-in gold-bug monetary policy" The biggest problem with bitcoin that no one wants to talk about, except to say "the means (ridiculous monetary policy) justify the ends of it becoming popular." I thoroughly do not believe it. Economists have been studying monetary policy for a long time, and I'm no economist, but I know they are pretty convinced that having flexible monetary policy is a very good thing, and having inflation be not too high, and not too low is also very good and important. Bitcoin is overall deflationary, with no monetary policy flexibility. If it did grow enough to be a serious factor in the global economy, I'm convinced it would have a horrible impact. The distributed network truly does have potential to overcome inefficiencies, but I hope to god there is a bitcoin 2.0 or perhaps several currencies which are more sensible. They compare it to the internet. Using that analogy, we had ipv4 limits and domain name limits. We changed that. But bitcoin is built for people to be invested in it not changing and not improving in very important aspects. For the technology to have a big positive impact on society, we are going to have to move on and improve the gold-like policy set in stone on its very first day of existence.

rando289 12y ago

> "thanks to its baked-in gold-bug monetary policy" The biggest problem with bitcoin that no one wants to talk about, except to say "the means (ridiculous monetary policy) justify the ends of it becoming popular." I thoroughly do not believe it. Economists have been studying monetary policy for a long time, and I'm no economist, but I know they are pretty convinced that having flexible monetary policy is a very good thing, and having inflation be not too high, and not too low is also very good and important. Bitcoin is overall deflationary, with no monetary policy flexibility. If it did grow enough to be a serious factor in the global economy, I'm convinced it would have a horrible impact. The distributed network truly does have potential to overcome inefficiencies, but I hope to god there is a bitcoin 2.0 or perhaps several currencies which are more sensible. They compare it to the internet. Using that analogy, we had ipv4 limits and domain name limits. We changed that. But bitcoin is built for people to be invested in it not changing and not improving in very important aspects. For the technology to have a big positive impact on society, we are going to have to move on and improve the gold-like policy set in stone on its very first day of existence.