Parththakkar12

What do you think about bitcoin?

49 posts in this topic

Is bitcoin, a decentralized currency, a libertarian dream come true? Do you think it'll last or it'll crash?


"Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one." - Bruce Lee

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You are asking about BTC in particular or crypto phenomena in general?

I think mechanism behind it it's like the internet and cryptos are like web pages so this invention is here to stay. 

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I don't know the first thing about how cryptocurrencies work so this is just my random opinion, but I can't help but feel like they'll never break out of anything more than a "niche" role. It'll only ever be for hardcore libertarians / netizens / computer nerds / online drug dealers / etc. because otherwise it requires too much thought and effort for your average layperson to get into and doesn't have immediately obvious benefits. Not to mention just how entrenched "real" money is in the worlds of finance, government, etc. I just don't see the US government or JP Morgan adopting Bitcoin as a fundamental part of their platform.


“All you need is Love” - John Lennon

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Same opinions people had on internet, emails years ago when it was difficult to use. Or switch from paper to credit cards. Right now it is kind of difficult to get into but it is getting easier and easier. I like Andreas Antonopulos analogy on that ~ 20 years ago in order to send an email he had to spend like a day on it and only technical ppl were able to do so and now everybody is doing that with a swipe. He also has great point about criminals being in a profession where every adventage they can get matters a lot, so naturally they were first to use boots in order to outrun police, or cars, planes, emails, internet, crypto.

Besides that young people through games and aplications are getting more familiar with concept of digital currencys so it's already natural for them. Why would you wait days or hours for bank transfers if you can do it with crypto in minutes, soon probably instantly. Why would you go to bank in order to open account, do some transactions, why would you care about anybody permission for you to have an account or do with your money whatever you please? And you know there are also fees, paper work. Sure it doesn't seem like huge benefits for most people in "civilized" regions but that changes if you are underaged, or an outlaw, or you live in regions that do not have acces to banking structures at all, but they got phones.              There is also an issue of government ability to print as much money as they want beeing a house of cards awaitnig for a collapse and if such scenario would came about it would be nice to have some replacement ready so we don't have to trade with silver coins or pickle jars amongst each others. But that's a deep well in itself to understand and there are few posibilities of how that situation can play out. I saw there is already topic here about that so go there if you are interested.            

I think it's possible that with time what will happen to banks will be the same as what happened to post offices or printing houses or stables. People are still sending letters from time to time but email's are simply faster and more convenient. People still enjoy morning coffe and newspaper.  People still like riding horses. And ofcourse post offices and printing houses and stable owners protested against innovation but world moves forward. Today nobody even remembers that.  

Edited by Abrakadabra

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On 7/22/2020 at 9:39 AM, Parththakkar12 said:

Is bitcoin, a decentralized currency, a libertarian dream come true? Do you think it'll last or it'll crash?

The inventor of Bitcoin solved a very hard technical problem. Bitcoin creates a decentralized system in which no third party can mediate your will. 

The technology behind bitcoin will be here for the next thousand years. The Bitcoin brand itself, I am not so sure. 

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21 hours ago, JosephKnecht said:

The Bitcoin brand itself, I am not so sure.

Can you elaborate?

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I've spent a fair amount of time understanding bitcoin and monetary economics.  

Bitcoin is an interesting technology, but in my opinion a decentralized deflationary currency is inferior to centralized currency.  If people in an economic system choose to hoard their bitcoin, it can cause what's called a deflationary spiral.  The value of bitcoin goes up due the increased demand due to hoarding, but this pressures the prices of everything else in the economy downwards making an extremely volatile economic environment.  On top of that an increase in the value of bitcoin means that while your the numerical value of your debt stays the same, the relative value of the debt increases, increasing your debt load.  

So, what you end up having is an economy that is at the whim of the perceptions of the extremely irrational public.  A temporary irrational wave of fear which causes hoarding could lead to a great depression scenario.  

A centralized currency if done properly can be controlled by leading economists to serve the interests of economic prosperity for everyone.  Most people who talk bad about centralized banking you'll notice will also have anti-semitic conspiratorial beliefs.  

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18 hours ago, Abrakadabra said:

Can you elaborate?

Bitcoin is not scalable. 

When a system acquires a large enough size, the system becomes harder to change. Bitcoin is currently a large system. Making large changes to its codebase becomes nearly impossible.  

It is much more likely that there will be another small, decentralized cryptocurrency that would eventually come to the market that will solve the scalability problem of bitcoin. When a system is small, it is easy to adjust. 

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On 25.07.2020 at 8:25 AM, JosephKnecht said:

Bitcoin is not scalable. 

When a system acquires a large enough size, the system becomes harder to change. Bitcoin is currently a large system. Making large changes to its codebase becomes nearly impossible.  

It is much more likely that there will be another small, decentralized cryptocurrency that would eventually come to the market that will solve the scalability problem of bitcoin. When a system is small, it is easy to adjust. 

You are right but BTC has 1 advantage no other coin has - it is completely decentralized, i.e. government can't come to BTC's creator and tell them what to do unlike with ETH, for example. That is a HUGE advantage, I think.

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2 hours ago, Deco Rim said:

government can't come to BTC's creator and tell them what to do

Government has already massively regulated BitCoin. It's almost impossible to buy or trade BitCoin without ID any more.

Gov doesn't need to regulate the creator of BTC. All it has to do is regulate every major access point. Which has already happened.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Government has already massively regulated BitCoin. It's almost impossible to buy or trade BitCoin without ID any more.

Gov doesn't need to regulate the creator of BTC. All it has to do is regulate every major access point. Which has already happened.

solid response.

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20 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Government has already massively regulated BitCoin. It's almost impossible to buy or trade BitCoin without ID any more.

Gov doesn't need to regulate the creator of BTC. All it has to do is regulate every major access point. Which has already happened.

My friend from Russia says that on Bestchange (local aggregator) he can easily find a BTC seller/buyer and perform a transaction anonymously sitting at home. When there is demand there will be supply. Gov regulated TON (by killing it) because they knew the founder and could invent some sanctions against him and his business. BTC is another pair of shoes.

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@datamonster So when you buy into Bitcoin, what are you investing into (if you don't mind me asking)? Is it like speculating on the exchange rate of a foreign currency, or are you buying shares in something? Just curious because I don't see where the growth comes from. 


Relax, it's just my loosely held opinion.  :) 

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4 hours ago, datamonster said:

@Parththakkar12 I regularly buy some. About 2% of my investment budget goes to Bitcoin. So far I don't regret it :D

Just don't forget that IRS expects a cut of your profits.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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8 hours ago, Deco Rim said:

My friend from Russia says that on Bestchange (local aggregator) he can easily find a BTC seller/buyer and perform a transaction anonymously sitting at home.

In Russia...


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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@snowyowl You're getting an alternative currency. It is deflationary, so your value is coming from it becoming scarcer. Also, the actual cost to produce one plays a factor in it. It is set up to get more and more difficult, so it costs more in electricity and computer hardware. 

So with a regular dollar for example it inflates and loses value. This is designed to do the opposite. The value like anything is subjective though just like the dollar would be. It only has the value society assigns to it. 

@Deco Rim

On 11/1/2020 at 3:32 PM, Deco Rim said:

You are right but BTC has 1 advantage no other coin has - it is completely decentralized, i.e. government can't come to BTC's creator and tell them what to do unlike with ETH, for example. That is a HUGE advantage, I think.

There is a lot of other coins that are decentralized. You could actually copy the code of bitcoin and just make another one. It wouldn't be the same Bitcoin though. You are mostly getting the user base behind that coin. 

 

12 hours ago, Deco Rim said:

My friend from Russia says that on Bestchange (local aggregator) he can easily find a BTC seller/buyer and perform a transaction anonymously sitting at home. When there is demand there will be supply. Gov regulated TON (by killing it) because they knew the founder and could invent some sanctions against him and his business. BTC is another pair of shoes.

I mean if I wanted to be anonymous I would use a different coin opposed to BTC. To be fair though the creator is not publicly know still, so it can still work. 

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Bitcoin (and other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies) are horrendously inefficient. They consume a shocking amount of electrical energy, and consequently produce unacceptable levels of carbon emissions. 

For comparison, the bitcoin network is currently consuming more energy than Austria or Bangladesh

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/

If these kinds of cryptos catch on the way the fanboys are dreaming, it would be an environmental catastrophe. This information is not well known, because the people holding crypto are so focused on getting rich that they never want to look at the elephant in the room. But it's right there, and people need to know about it.

For me, a technology that is that damaging and wasteful is just not worth investing in or supporting.

Luckily there are alternatives. 


How to get to infinity? Divide by zero.

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@outlandish What if cleaner energy is used? I would imagine the amount of emissions caused by the dollar is much higher. I don't have a source on that though. Imagine all of the resources printing, guarding, storing, and transporting. 

I could see proof of stake and other alternatives moving past this in the future too. Also, I would assume second layer solutions would still help curb and reduce this and cross chain compatibility.

 

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If mining/confirming was all conducted using cleaner energy, it would still be using clean energy that other more useful things could be using. But yeah, clean energy is always better.

It's kind of like having a pig of a truck that only gets 0.01mile/gallon - is the solution to burn biodiesel, or find a way to build a more efficient truck?


How to get to infinity? Divide by zero.

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@outlandish No doubt, this is pretty much the Model T of cryptocurrency. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network

It's gradually getting better. It's pretty slow though in how fast it progresses, but it also makes it the safest in that regard usually. You could do a cross chain swaps with a proof of stake network potentially. Even this integrates smart contracts, which was a second generation crypto currency feature. 

Edited by Average Investor

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