10 ms·

Is Bitcoin the Future of Money?

36 points by pmcpinto 13y ago

servowire 13y ago
The Bitcoin protocol will play a somewhat larger role in finance, but as "money" - I'm not sure. I am sceptic how the Sidechain implementation will be. And the volatility of the currency bitcoin (as one of the first Bitcoin apps) is still the elephant in the room.
- riffraff 13y ago
  IMVHO the larger elephant in the room is bitcoin's deflationary nature.
  - phaemon 13y ago
    Neither of these is an example of an "elephant in the room". Both issues are discussed continually.
    - riffraff 13y ago
      I think we disagree on the definition of elephant in the room, the issues are most certainly discussed, but they are not addressed. The bitcoin faq regarding deflation basically says "we don't know what's going to happen", and regarding volatility the current solution for merchants to cope with volatility appears to be "convert everything to fiat ASAP".
      - phaemon 13y ago
        > I think we disagree on the definition of elephant in the room Yes, I was basically saying your definition was wrong: that's not what the phrase "elephant in the room" actually means. It means something that isn't discussed.
  - doczoidberg 13y ago
    it's deflationary nature is also an argument for it!
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
mkesper 13y ago
No.
- ds_ 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
VMG 13y ago
Behind paywall for me, even when in Incognito
- quchen 13y ago
  Try disallowing Javascript.
kolev 13y ago
Bitcoin is the present of speculation.
doczoidberg 13y ago
Bitcoin maybe is the future of money because: - it's inflation safe - no corrupt bankers or politicians can manipulate it (easily) - there are no men in the middle (edit: or only for a short time. Of course you should not save your bitcoins in a marketplace for a long time frame) - it's cheap for all sorts of transactions - it doesn't know borders (in democratic nations) When the next bigger inflation of Euro or Dollar will arrive bitcoin exchange rate will skyrocket. Though that only means you should invest in it maybe it will also become money with exchange character in future.
- CJefferson 13y ago
  Bitcoin only supports 7 transactions a second as I understand it. Surely that instantly kills any idea it could be the future of money?
  - exo762 13y ago
    This is a temporary technical issue. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability
  - dalore 13y ago
    Good way to stop high frequency trading then.
    - pathy 13y ago
      Or simply stop adaptation on a larger scale.
    - vertex-four 13y ago
      No, by transactions, they mean transactions on the block chain. That is, only 7 people in the entire world can buy things with Bitcoin every second. HFT markets would use off-chain transactions, like all current Bitcoin exchange markets, so wouldn't be affected by this in the slightest.
    - snitko 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
hellbreakslose 13y ago
Is it?
blueskin_ 13y ago
Too unstable and too slow to actually replace money, but it's definitely got a future as a supplemental currency.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  Too slow? It's faster than money, how is it too slow?
  - blueskin_ 13y ago
    Sometimes I've had to wait 15-30 min for multiple confirmations. Standing around in a shop for that long would not only suck, but be completely impractical.
    - gnaritas 13y ago
      Credit cards take 90+ days to confirm; any shop making you wait for a single confirmation is doing it wrong. A zero conformation broadcast to the network with verification that several nodes have seen it is more than enough for POS uses and is near instantaneous.
Hermel 13y ago
Interesting how persistently Bitcoin can make it to the hacker news front page. I would have expected interest to fade over time.
thejosh 13y ago
previous discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696981
wesley 13y ago
Proof of work will not succeed in the long run. I think we'll be moving to a proof of stake currency instead. Examples are peercoin and Nxt.
- andreasklinger 13y ago
  Could you briefly explain/outline proof-of-stake in a nutshell ? I read the wikipedia page but i am not 100% i really understood it correctly.
- glomph 13y ago
  Proof of stake systems have not solved the distributed consensus problem. Peercoin is centralised and Nxt doesn't solve the problem.
vertex-four 13y ago
I don't think Bitcoin will replace money, due to the time-to-confirmation and scalability issues. While I understand that 0-confirmation transactions are possible and currently used by the likes of BitPay and Coinbase, that's not going to be secure forever. I also think the current crowd are, well, a little too an-cap-focused to actually pay attention to issues that real people have with using Bitcoin. However, Bitcoin's going to stick around for a long while, even without mass appeal, and cryptocurrencies will eventually win as the dominant form of money. There's one thing we still need to wait on; zSNARKs for arbitrary computations[0] have to become faster, somehow. After that, it's trivial to build a network of block chains which incentivise distributed storage of the chain, and allow for entirely arbitrary, complex computations and transactions to be mined. Much safer currencies, with complex rulesets, that any 50 cent microcontroller can use and verify, can be built on top of that. You could set up cryptographic guarantor or proof-of-funds systems built on whatever infrastructure you like (whether semi-centralised or varying levels of decentralised), so that entities that you are transacting with have proof that you can't scam them by way of double-spends, for in-person and digital goods transactions, while using the regular double-spend-resistant confirmation system for all other transactions. This system can also be modified and extended without ever changing the protocol, depending on its users' needs for security. [0] https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/507.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/507.pdf
- NAFV_P 13y ago
  > Much safer currencies, with complex rulesets, that any 50 cent microcontroller can use and verify, can be built on top of that. Find a 50 cent microcontroller that can mine bitcoin.
  - seabee 13y ago
    You don't need to mine bitcoin to use it. The point of the cheap microcontroller is to enable devices to send and receive transactions.
    - NAFV_P 13y ago
      > You don't need to mine bitcoin to use it. I'm aware of that, if this weren't the case, it wouldn't be classified as currency.
makosdv 13y ago
Bitcoin does not meet the requirements for being money (neither does the US dollar or Euro or Yuan, etc). It definitely has the potential to change the future of currencies and banking though.

36 points by pmcpinto 13y ago

The Bitcoin protocol will play a somewhat larger role in finance, but as "money" - I'm not sure. I am sceptic how the Sidechain implementation will be. And the volatility of the currency bitcoin (as one of the first Bitcoin apps) is still the elephant in the room.

riffraff 13y ago
IMVHO the larger elephant in the room is bitcoin's deflationary nature.
- phaemon 13y ago
  Neither of these is an example of an "elephant in the room". Both issues are discussed continually.
  - riffraff 13y ago
    I think we disagree on the definition of elephant in the room, the issues are most certainly discussed, but they are not addressed. The bitcoin faq regarding deflation basically says "we don't know what's going to happen", and regarding volatility the current solution for merchants to cope with volatility appears to be "convert everything to fiat ASAP".
    - phaemon 13y ago
      > I think we disagree on the definition of elephant in the room Yes, I was basically saying your definition was wrong: that's not what the phrase "elephant in the room" actually means. It means something that isn't discussed.
- doczoidberg 13y ago
  it's deflationary nature is also an argument for it!
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

mkesper 13y ago

No.

ds_ 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

VMG 13y ago

Behind paywall for me, even when in Incognito

quchen 13y ago
Try disallowing Javascript.

kolev 13y ago

Bitcoin is the present of speculation.

doczoidberg 13y ago

Bitcoin maybe is the future of money because: - it's inflation safe - no corrupt bankers or politicians can manipulate it (easily) - there are no men in the middle (edit: or only for a short time. Of course you should not save your bitcoins in a marketplace for a long time frame) - it's cheap for all sorts of transactions - it doesn't know borders (in democratic nations) When the next bigger inflation of Euro or Dollar will arrive bitcoin exchange rate will skyrocket. Though that only means you should invest in it maybe it will also become money with exchange character in future.

CJefferson 13y ago
Bitcoin only supports 7 transactions a second as I understand it. Surely that instantly kills any idea it could be the future of money?
- exo762 13y ago
  This is a temporary technical issue. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability
- dalore 13y ago
  Good way to stop high frequency trading then.
  - pathy 13y ago
    Or simply stop adaptation on a larger scale.
  - vertex-four 13y ago
    No, by transactions, they mean transactions on the block chain. That is, only 7 people in the entire world can buy things with Bitcoin every second. HFT markets would use off-chain transactions, like all current Bitcoin exchange markets, so wouldn't be affected by this in the slightest.
  - snitko 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

hellbreakslose 13y ago

Is it?

blueskin_ 13y ago

Too unstable and too slow to actually replace money, but it's definitely got a future as a supplemental currency.

gnaritas 13y ago
Too slow? It's faster than money, how is it too slow?
- blueskin_ 13y ago
  Sometimes I've had to wait 15-30 min for multiple confirmations. Standing around in a shop for that long would not only suck, but be completely impractical.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    Credit cards take 90+ days to confirm; any shop making you wait for a single confirmation is doing it wrong. A zero conformation broadcast to the network with verification that several nodes have seen it is more than enough for POS uses and is near instantaneous.

Hermel 13y ago

Interesting how persistently Bitcoin can make it to the hacker news front page. I would have expected interest to fade over time.

thejosh 13y ago

previous discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696981

wesley 13y ago

Proof of work will not succeed in the long run. I think we'll be moving to a proof of stake currency instead. Examples are peercoin and Nxt.

andreasklinger 13y ago
Could you briefly explain/outline proof-of-stake in a nutshell ? I read the wikipedia page but i am not 100% i really understood it correctly.
glomph 13y ago
Proof of stake systems have not solved the distributed consensus problem. Peercoin is centralised and Nxt doesn't solve the problem.

vertex-four 13y ago

I don't think Bitcoin will replace money, due to the time-to-confirmation and scalability issues. While I understand that 0-confirmation transactions are possible and currently used by the likes of BitPay and Coinbase, that's not going to be secure forever. I also think the current crowd are, well, a little too an-cap-focused to actually pay attention to issues that real people have with using Bitcoin. However, Bitcoin's going to stick around for a long while, even without mass appeal, and cryptocurrencies will eventually win as the dominant form of money. There's one thing we still need to wait on; zSNARKs for arbitrary computations[0] have to become faster, somehow. After that, it's trivial to build a network of block chains which incentivise distributed storage of the chain, and allow for entirely arbitrary, complex computations and transactions to be mined. Much safer currencies, with complex rulesets, that any 50 cent microcontroller can use and verify, can be built on top of that. You could set up cryptographic guarantor or proof-of-funds systems built on whatever infrastructure you like (whether semi-centralised or varying levels of decentralised), so that entities that you are transacting with have proof that you can't scam them by way of double-spends, for in-person and digital goods transactions, while using the regular double-spend-resistant confirmation system for all other transactions. This system can also be modified and extended without ever changing the protocol, depending on its users' needs for security. [0] https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/507.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/507.pdf

NAFV_P 13y ago
> Much safer currencies, with complex rulesets, that any 50 cent microcontroller can use and verify, can be built on top of that. Find a 50 cent microcontroller that can mine bitcoin.
- seabee 13y ago
  You don't need to mine bitcoin to use it. The point of the cheap microcontroller is to enable devices to send and receive transactions.
  - NAFV_P 13y ago
    > You don't need to mine bitcoin to use it. I'm aware of that, if this weren't the case, it wouldn't be classified as currency.

makosdv 13y ago

Bitcoin does not meet the requirements for being money (neither does the US dollar or Euro or Yuan, etc). It definitely has the potential to change the future of currencies and banking though.