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You're right in the sense that distributed ledgers are effectively an end run around regulations and trusted parties who we pay for centralized ledgers today. I
by natrius 12y ago
You're right in the sense that distributed ledgers are effectively an end run around regulations and trusted parties who we pay for centralized ledgers today. I think you're underestimating how important that is.
Transaction fees are going to zero.
Markets are moving to blockchains: securities markets, eBay-style markets for goods, Uber-style markets for services.
Markets that have been regulated out of existence will now thrive. Drug markets get all the press, but prediction markets will change the world. (http://augur.net/ http://augur.net/)
We currently pay banks to keep our money safe and to make it digital so we can swipe a card or enter some numbers to send money. Distributed ledgers combined with current and future software do that for free. Today, everyone's money has to be in a bank, so they get to keep almost all the profit from your money. In the near future, your money will be safe, digital, and controlled by you. When you decide to lend it to other people, you'll get paid more to lend your money out.
Most countries have currencies that harm their economies and/or decrease in value rapidly. Distributed ledgers and the financial derivatives that can be built on top of them will give the whole world stable currency. This outcome isn't just an end run around regulations or trusted parties: it's a new thing that just wasn't possible before. We have better technology to build currencies now.
It's definitely harder to pitch blockchains to consumers as revolutionary, but if you think about it for a while and still conclude that it's not going to have a huge impact on the world, I think you've missed something.
- danbruc 12y agoMaybe there will be a successful cryptocurrency at some point but chances are (very close to) zero that it will be Bitcoin. Bitcoin is dying. EDIT: Read that [1] for my reasoning instead of blindly down voting opinions you don't like or at least point out where I am wrong. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8905475 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8905475
- patrickaljord 12y ago> Bitcoin is dying. http://bitcoinobituaries.com/ http://bitcoinobituaries.com/
- danbruc 12y agoI am aware that I am not the only one convinced that Bitcoin will fail. Maybe the Bitcoin price will even stop falling and rise again once more, but finally it will fail. See the linked comment for my reasoning.
- patrickaljord 12y agoThe transaction fee argument is an old one, as the answers to your comments say, it isn't what will make bitcoin fail.
- danbruc 12y agoThey argued about the exact numbers but they did by no means show that the argument is invalid. Bitcoin has no important advantages over credit cards or PayPal, besides the claimed low transaction costs. And this argument is not true, not now and it is not obvious that it will become true in the future.
- patrickaljord 12y agoThe number one innovation from bitcoin is not its low transaction cost. Its the blockchain, that is to say the possibility for two people to make a transaction without a centralized third party involved.
- danbruc 12y agoI said advantages, not innovations. Nobody cares about whether there is a centralized authority or not. I never ordered something on Amazon and was secretly concerned that paying with my credit card involves some central authorities. It may be a nice goody but it is nothing average people care about and therefore no reason for them to adopt Bitcoin.
- patrickaljord 12y ago