Re: [Cryptography] What has Bitcoin achieved?
This is wandering away from crypto
No better way to naysay BTC than to break the crypto and wash everyone out. $Billions gone, and a permanent seat in the research hall of fame ;-) (BTW, where are the BTC insurance companies...)
announced that they will not exceed 40%. Down from 55% to 32% now...
That's not surprising. Bitcoin is a speculative asset, and at this point the Bitcoin fans have a shared interest in keeping its price up. The story that nobody's in charge is one of the things that makes people want to buy it, so, well, sure. In the admittedly unlikely event that there are enough contracts or debts denominated in Bitcoin that there were significant non-speculative demand, things could change.
I'd agree that actual market float outstanding is thin right now. Yet different from purely propping things up, speculation is all about assessing future value and making moves accordingly today... https://ciphrex.com/archive/bofa-bitcoin.pdf http://honestnode.com/bitcoin-fair-value-a-first-assessment/ http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-2014-report/ http://www.coindesk.com/state-of-bitcoin-q2-2014-report-expanding-bitcoin-ec...
This is what's technically known as "marketing BS". Dell accepts dollars. They have a deal with Coinbase in which Coinbase takes the risk of raising dollars by selling Bitcoins in return for a commission
Not so fast! Yes, Dell accepts dollars (subject to whatever BTC holdback they, like Overstock, may be specifying). However obtaining those dollars is totally dependant on Coinbase's ability to convert BTC to dollars on exchange or privately. And Coinbase is surely nowhere near whole enough from commissions to be able to back their contracts against any significant outstanding float in a long price dive situation. Therefore Dell *is* in the BTC game before dollars on these sales, regardless of the denomination they're booking. So is everyone else who 'accepts' BTC. Dell and others are large companies, with well paid accountants and lawyers... it takes more than whim of 'marketing BS' for them to put a BTC sticker on their door.
volatility but if there's another collapse in the Bitcoin market
The BTC market has been in a fairly steady log uptrend over the long term. The 'collapses' people speak of are, in that context, spikes returning to normal. All new markets and properties undergo price discovery. It's a continual process. Ever watch the NYSE, it's volatile too.
the distributed notary idea seems likely to be useful for something
There is no 'useful for this or useful for that' concerning things riding on top of this tech... the underlying model, including the social contract aspects, either works for all uses, or for none. It's either broken or it's not.
but it's never going to replace real money.
Neither will credit/debit cards. Nor is your fiat paper of choice 'real money' either, it's just called money by default. (Probably because the next default, real property, is hard to fit in your pocket.) Digital currencies will, like 'money', operate in the layer above real property. Again, here's the recycle bin for your trash, this time I'll even waive the recycling fee... ;) btc:1C96B6DszNqnX4KRzveu6BKRuznmmdFhdm
On re, replies on: Ghash.io, 50%, takeovers, self regulation...
50% is not a magical binary breakpoint, it merely permits more influence as the share moves along the scale from 50% to 100%. Right now, the $130M plus expenses (or $27M plus for ghash) that is needed to reach 50% seems to not be worth it to anyone. Who is graphing the cost-to-50%? And the cost-to-50% to market cap, volume, and quantity ratios? Those would be interesting and important graphs to watch. $130M is nothing to someone who wants to own a currency. So why hasn't it happened to BTC yet? Perhaps because the value of BTC owes a lot to its decentralization. If so, and you take that away, you're risking your own value before you start. And risking an exodus fork. Just as easy as it was to add BTC to Dell's checkout in N days time, adding another currency is easy if yours (or your takeover) fails, or customers continue to demand a decentral one. And you're not going to win a takeover anyways because no one will tolerate you blocking their transactions... no entity survives having 50, 40, 30 percent of its users in abject protest against theft, loss of value and service, and principle. Among other things, you'd be prosecuted, sued, DDoS'd off the net, badmouthed, and forked against. Probably better to start your own digital currency and put $115M into marketing and $15M into central hardware.
Also, were such a thing in the works, I wouldn't count on the people involved publicly broadcasting their intentions on Twitter.
That only applies to mining 'companies'. Mining 'pools' derive their share from the users who elect to use them. Of course a pool could become a company. And a company could uphold the social contract. The Ghash was a remarkable social contract event by both shedding users and users leaving. It's happened before, and each time it does it underscores the importance of the contract to the currency to everyone involved. In the end, if anyone succeeds in taking/making any private/centralized coin, there will be some users who follow it, and some people who reject it in favor of other decentral coin. Digital banking and transacting has been done for decades. Banks could have made ACH/Wire compellingly attractive to users and the marketplace. But they waited, and didn't, and lost the chance... just like telcos lost the internet and music lost itself. As with those things, crypto in the 90's and overlay networks today, what is really being tested with BTC along with the tech, are meta concepts such as freedom, regulation, where value is stored, law, etc. At the moment it would be quite hard to say decentral digital currency is failing or holds little long term prospect. You can fund more drunken rambling here... :) btc:1D6rPeQUETfGpSp2JB2oojJUC8GiURyhp7
And similarly to reach point of no return adoption before centralizers realize it's too late to say no?
There will always be some set of benefits to crypto-currencies that won’t exist elsewhere. So their growth will just happen, no matter what. The question is just if “centralizers” throw their entrepreneurial citizens in jail, when they build these benefits for fellow citizens. But even when they do that, it will still grow in other countries and by other entrepreneurs. Soon it will be illegal to publish open source software in some cases. That would be the only way to stop a future Satoshi from releasing a next generation of bitcoin. That is where “centralizers saying no” or “centralizers stopping it” means they must throw people who publish open source software in jail. Best, -Bryan Bryan Starbuck | Bryan@TheStarbucks.com On Jul 20, 2014, at 4:00 PM, grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com> wrote:
This is wandering away from crypto
No better way to naysay BTC than to break the crypto and wash everyone out. $Billions gone, and a permanent seat in the research hall of fame ;-) (BTW, where are the BTC insurance companies...)
announced that they will not exceed 40%. Down from 55% to 32% now...
That's not surprising. Bitcoin is a speculative asset, and at this point the Bitcoin fans have a shared interest in keeping its price up. The story that nobody's in charge is one of the things that makes people want to buy it, so, well, sure. In the admittedly unlikely event that there are enough contracts or debts denominated in Bitcoin that there were significant non-speculative demand, things could change.
I'd agree that actual market float outstanding is thin right now. Yet different from purely propping things up, speculation is all about assessing future value and making moves accordingly today...
https://ciphrex.com/archive/bofa-bitcoin.pdf http://honestnode.com/bitcoin-fair-value-a-first-assessment/ http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-2014-report/ http://www.coindesk.com/state-of-bitcoin-q2-2014-report-expanding-bitcoin-ec...
This is what's technically known as "marketing BS". Dell accepts dollars. They have a deal with Coinbase in which Coinbase takes the risk of raising dollars by selling Bitcoins in return for a commission
Not so fast! Yes, Dell accepts dollars (subject to whatever BTC holdback they, like Overstock, may be specifying). However obtaining those dollars is totally dependant on Coinbase's ability to convert BTC to dollars on exchange or privately. And Coinbase is surely nowhere near whole enough from commissions to be able to back their contracts against any significant outstanding float in a long price dive situation. Therefore Dell *is* in the BTC game before dollars on these sales, regardless of the denomination they're booking. So is everyone else who 'accepts' BTC. Dell and others are large companies, with well paid accountants and lawyers... it takes more than whim of 'marketing BS' for them to put a BTC sticker on their door.
volatility but if there's another collapse in the Bitcoin market
The BTC market has been in a fairly steady log uptrend over the long term. The 'collapses' people speak of are, in that context, spikes returning to normal. All new markets and properties undergo price discovery. It's a continual process. Ever watch the NYSE, it's volatile too.
the distributed notary idea seems likely to be useful for something
There is no 'useful for this or useful for that' concerning things riding on top of this tech... the underlying model, including the social contract aspects, either works for all uses, or for none. It's either broken or it's not.
but it's never going to replace real money.
Neither will credit/debit cards. Nor is your fiat paper of choice 'real money' either, it's just called money by default. (Probably because the next default, real property, is hard to fit in your pocket.) Digital currencies will, like 'money', operate in the layer above real property.
Again, here's the recycle bin for your trash, this time I'll even waive the recycling fee... ;) btc:1C96B6DszNqnX4KRzveu6BKRuznmmdFhdm
On re, replies on: Ghash.io, 50%, takeovers, self regulation...
50% is not a magical binary breakpoint, it merely permits more influence as the share moves along the scale from 50% to 100%.
Right now, the $130M plus expenses (or $27M plus for ghash) that is needed to reach 50% seems to not be worth it to anyone.
Who is graphing the cost-to-50%? And the cost-to-50% to market cap, volume, and quantity ratios? Those would be interesting and important graphs to watch.
$130M is nothing to someone who wants to own a currency. So why hasn't it happened to BTC yet? Perhaps because the value of BTC owes a lot to its decentralization. If so, and you take that away, you're risking your own value before you start. And risking an exodus fork.
Just as easy as it was to add BTC to Dell's checkout in N days time, adding another currency is easy if yours (or your takeover) fails, or customers continue to demand a decentral one.
And you're not going to win a takeover anyways because no one will tolerate you blocking their transactions... no entity survives having 50, 40, 30 percent of its users in abject protest against theft, loss of value and service, and principle. Among other things, you'd be prosecuted, sued, DDoS'd off the net, badmouthed, and forked against.
Probably better to start your own digital currency and put $115M into marketing and $15M into central hardware.
Also, were such a thing in the works, I wouldn't count on the people involved publicly broadcasting their intentions on Twitter.
That only applies to mining 'companies'. Mining 'pools' derive their share from the users who elect to use them. Of course a pool could become a company. And a company could uphold the social contract.
The Ghash was a remarkable social contract event by both shedding users and users leaving. It's happened before, and each time it does it underscores the importance of the contract to the currency to everyone involved.
In the end, if anyone succeeds in taking/making any private/centralized coin, there will be some users who follow it, and some people who reject it in favor of other decentral coin.
Digital banking and transacting has been done for decades. Banks could have made ACH/Wire compellingly attractive to users and the marketplace. But they waited, and didn't, and lost the chance... just like telcos lost the internet and music lost itself.
As with those things, crypto in the 90's and overlay networks today, what is really being tested with BTC along with the tech, are meta concepts such as freedom, regulation, where value is stored, law, etc.
At the moment it would be quite hard to say decentral digital currency is failing or holds little long term prospect.
You can fund more drunken rambling here... :) btc:1D6rPeQUETfGpSp2JB2oojJUC8GiURyhp7
participants (2)
-
Bryan Starbuck -
grarpamp