Bitcoin - Part 2

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PartSkeptic said:
Anonymity - Why? Illegal? Paranoia?
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You talk about African countries run by despots and you wonder why anybody would possibly not want these despots to have power over their finances?

PartSkeptic said:
Faster - you have to be joking or delusional. Give me examples.
Cheaper - what planet are you from?
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Ripple's XRP and Stellar's XLM are both cryptocurrencies that can be transferred from wallet to wallet in seconds and the fees are negligible in both cases. Neither use the "proof of work" algorithm and thus do not contribute the the giant electricity suck that bitcoin is doing.

PartSkeptic said:
Disruption - you seem to be an anarchist wanting destruction of the status quo
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If you want to keep funneling money up to the 1% then keep the status quo.

PartSkeptic said:
Countries are working together to stop drug money and money laundering.
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This is exactly what is wrong with the status quo. The "war on drugs", the "war on terror" and other artificial wars are being used as an excuse to deny individual rights and allow authorities to deprive individuals of their assets and freedoms without due process.

PartSkeptic said:
The system has many problems, and one is that the elite who run the banking systems are sometimes not better than gangsters. The solution is to fix the system not promote illegality.
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Ahh! It is SO simple. Just FIX the system. And how does one do that when people like you scream "ILLEGAL!" and throw their hands up in horror every time something comes along that threatens the power of these very elites?
 
xjx388 said:
Of course they provide a service, just not to you -or at least, you don't see it.
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Bitcoin provides the following valuable services:-

1. A semi-anonymous method of paying for criminal activities.

2. A currently legal Ponzi scheme that can be easily manipulated to separate fools from their money.

3. A vague and unrealistic promise of financial utopia that libertarians and anarchists can cling to.

4. Another gambling outlet to get people's hearts aflutter.

5. A global experiment in herd mentality, providing data for many decades of scientific study.

5. Entertainment for those of us watching from the sidelines, as this train wreak lurches towards its inevitable conclusion.

I can see all this, but if asked how much I would pay for it the answer would be 'nothing'. And I am not the only one. Bitcoin is also losing its shine with criminals, authorities are closing in and the fools are starting to get shy. Soon only gamblers and libertarians will be left to prop the price up, and eventually even they will lose interest.

The crypto that can break through will be valuable to a lot of people even if you don't see it.
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Crypto? I'm still waiting for my flying car!

Why isn't food and water priced much higher than the relatively useless gold? Probably because food and water isn't much good as a store of value. Also, they are consumables and as much as we need them, they are pretty plentiful and we don't want to pay a lot for them.
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I don't want to pay much for gold - perhaps a few cents extra for an electrical connector and that's it. In my lifetime I have spent over $1 million on real valuables such as food, shelter, and entertainment, but virtually nothing on gold. My 'store of value' is a sound mind and body, not an inert lump of yellow metal.
 
psionl0 said:
Ahh! It is SO simple. Just FIX the system. And how does one do that when people like you scream "ILLEGAL!" and throw their hands up in horror every time something comes along that threatens the power of these very elites?
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Ahh! It is SO simple. Just KILL the system, and then there will be nothing left to fix! Nobody will be able to get their hands on your money or debase its value. Libertarian paradise!

Yet Bitcoin itself is a system - and not a good one. Complete with its own elite who manipulate the price, charge exorbitant fees and 'lose' your bitcoins whenever they are strapped for cash. And there's nothing you can do about it because Bitcoin operates outside the legal system - so you can scream "ILLEGAL!" and throw you hands up in horror as much as you like, to no avail.

We have financial laws for good reason - they help protect us from the selfish actions of 'elites' who would game the system at our expense. It's bad enough that the 'elites' have managed to convince so many of us that these laws are unnecessary, but it would be much worse if all the regulations were bypassed or ignored. You only have to look at what has happened to Bitcoin to see where it would go.

Imagine a world where the currency swings so wildly you have to check the price every minute, and risk bankruptcy if you buy or sell at the wrong time. Imagine having your account cleaned out and the bank claiming it was 'robbed', or your computer hacked and your life savings stolen - with no possibility of recovery. Imagine deflation so extreme that nobody buys anything from you because they know it will be cheaper tomorrow. Imagine devastating crashes precipitated by irrational bank runs - with no central bank to smooth out the bumps. Imagine 90% of the World's energy production being wasted 'mining' new currency and validating transactions. Imagine the economy being manipulated by a few hundred 'whales' whose only goal is to become even richer - and most people don't even know who they are.

That's what a world which successfully 'threatened the elites' with cryptocurrency would look like.
 
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PartSkeptic said:
No. You don't see it. Or you have a vested interest in promoting the false hype. Tell me you have purchased crypto to buy something rather than hope the price rises so you can make a fiat currency profit.
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I have used bitcoin to buy something. I am also currently speculating on certain alt-coins. So both, actually. I’ve done the same thing with dollars.

Here in Africa we have systems that do actually quickly transfer small amount of money by cell-phone to another country. This is needed because of the many migrants sending money back to families. It is quick (minutes), easy and backed by the system. It is legal because the amounts are small. And cheap - millions of transactions.
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Sure. I can walk into Wal-Mart and send small amounts to another Wal-Mart for $8. I can go online and pay a lot more to send money via Western Union or MoneyGram. I can send money from my bank account to my wife’s account for free using Zelle and it’s instant. But if a Mexican immigrant wants to send money to family in Mexico, it’s a lot more expensive and inconvenient -especially if they don’t use banks.

Now imagine a system where we could send any amount of money really quickly anywhere in the world with minimal fees. That’s just one area of potential.

Anonymity - Why? Illegal? Paranoia?
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Nope. Security. Harder to steal your credit card when you aren’t using a credit card.
Faster - you have to be joking or delusional. Give me examples.
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Get yourself an Electroneum wallet and I’ll send you one Electroneum which will show up in your wallet in under a minute.

The Lightning network will make transactions instantaneous but I’m not technically knowledgeable to understand how or why.

Cheaper - what planet are you from?
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That same Lightning network will also make transactions much cheaper.

Disruption - you seem to be an anarchist wanting destruction of the status quo
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I mean innovative disruption. The Model T, the telephone, the computer, the internet, the cell phone...these were all disruptive innovations.

Countries are working together to stop drug money and money laundering. The Gupta family in South Africa has milked billions illegally in local currency and want to take it out the country. The African despots deposit billions into Swiss and now Dubai accounts and you want this to be legal? You want the misery of the poor in Africa made more miserable?
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Not sure the point here.
The system has many problems, and one is that the elite who run the banking systems are sometimes not better than gangsters. The solution is to fix the system not promote illegality.
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Yeah, fix it by disrupting it.

BTW. Bitcoin is creeping up. The hype is powerful. And you think the people feeding this scam are all altruistic? No, they will cause more misery by becoming rich at the expense of ordinary folk.
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How would they do this exactly?
 
Roger Ramjets said:
Ahh! It is SO simple. Just KILL the system, and then there will be nothing left to fix! Nobody will be able to get their hands on your money or debase its value. Libertarian paradise!
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What a non-sequitur! :rolleyes:

Roger Ramjets said:
Yet Bitcoin itself is a system - and not a good one. Complete with its own elite who manipulate the price, charge exorbitant fees and 'lose' your bitcoins whenever they are strapped for cash. And there's nothing you can do about it because Bitcoin operates outside the legal system - so you can scream "ILLEGAL!" and throw you hands up in horror as much as you like, to no avail.
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Yet another poster who can't tell the difference between bitcoin and bitcoin exchanges. :rolleyes:

FWIW any bitcoins in my wallet are totally isolated from the internet. Nobody can log in and steal my bitcoins (unless they can figure out my private key which is currently not possible).

Sure, there are risks in converting between BTC and other media of exchange but they are insurable risks. This means that it is possible to mitigate your losses if the worst should happen.

Roger Ramjets said:
We have financial laws for good reason - they help protect us from the selfish actions of 'elites' who would game the system at our expense.
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Spoken like a true corporate shill. :rolleyes:

Roger Ramjets said:
It's bad enough that the 'elites' have managed to convince so many of us that these laws are unnecessary, but it would be much worse if all the regulations were bypassed or ignored. You only have to look at what has happened to Bitcoin to see where it would go.
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Now who'a in CT land? In your world, there is apparently no such thing as a choice between using an official currency or using an alternative means of payment. For you, it's all or nothing.

Roger Ramjets said:
Imagine a world where the currency swings so wildly you have to check the price every minute, and risk bankruptcy if you buy or sell at the wrong time. < ... snipped for brevity ...>
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Relative price stability is the first requirement for a crytpo-currency to gain acceptance in the world of financial transactions. This hasn't happened yet.

I don't know if price stability will ever happen but if you say it won't then it is a safe bet that it will (after all, you were the one who said "short" when bitcoin first went over 1,000).
 
xjx388 said:
I have used (snip) do this exactly?
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Reasonable points. But as Roger Ramjets states you could find your money and your savings gone without any recourse to find who took it.

I still cannot figure why the governments have let cryptos alone.

Roger R - :thumbsup: :thumbsup: for your last few posts.
 
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I have in my virtual wallet virtual currency that was issued kinda lottery-wise in return for real electricity burnt uselessly to solve really meaningless tasks. but I want a lots of real fiat money for it. how crazy is that?
 
kayle said:
I have in my virtual wallet virtual currency that was issued kinda lottery-wise in return for real electricity burnt uselessly to solve really meaningless tasks. but I want a lots of real fiat money for it. how crazy is that?
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Not as crazy as the others who are willing to pay a premium in fiat money to buy it from you. Seems like there are lots of such people. ;)
 
i might have misremembered but did one of our resident experts say no way it would ever reach $10000 again? its 10,200 at the moment
 
psionl0 said:
Yet another poster who can't tell the difference between bitcoin and bitcoin exchanges.
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Sure I can. It's like the difference between having a banking account and carrying cash - except that Bitcoin exchanges are a lot less secure.

How to Store Your Bitcoin
Before owning any bitcoin, you need somewhere to store them. That place is called a “wallet.” Rather than actually holding your bitcoin, it holds the private key that allows you to access your bitcoin address (which is also your public key). If the wallet software is well designed, it will look as if your bitcoins are actually there...

Online (or cloud-based) wallets offer increased convenience – you can generally access your bitcoin from any device if you have the right passwords. .. Some leading online wallets are attached to exchanges (such as Coinbase and Blockchain).
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psionl0 said:
Sure, there are risks in converting between BTC and other media of exchange but they are insurable risks. This means that it is possible to mitigate your losses if the worst should happen.
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That's the kind of thinking that lead to the 2008 financial crisis. 'Insurable risk' is just another name for 'making others pay for my misfortune'.

Spoken like a true corporate shill. :rolleyes:
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Recognizing the need for financial regulations is being a 'corporate shill'? Only a hopelessly deluded libertarian would make such an accusation.

Now who'a in CT land? In your world, there is apparently no such thing as a choice between using an official currency or using an alternative means of payment. For you, it's all or nothing.
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Not me, but many Bitcoiners yearn for a world where fiat currency is dead. And if Bitcoin is as great as they say it is, why not? But of course Bitcoin will never replace 'official currency' because it's not a viable alternative.

I don't know if price stability will ever happen but if you say it won't then it is a safe bet that it will
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That's silly, especially since I didn't say that Bitcoin won't ever achieve price stability. If it hits zero - as some predict - then the price will be perfectly stable. :)

.
 
psionl0 said:
Current price: $10,150.
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If anyone said that the price would never reach $10K again, they are clearly wrong. But who did?

I've seen many predictions here, especially by naysayers, that have proved wrong. Some were later claimed to be jokes, not terribly plausibly.

Do you think that bitcoin is a good long-term investment? What might convince you otherwise? Have you a time constrained prediction to make, so that we can test your hypothesis?

I confess I have no such prediction one way or the other. I have a feeling that at this point, bitcoin is likely to go down in the long run, but more to the point that it is a roulette wheel from my perspective. I just don't understand why one would invest in it, since it's unclear where the value lies. I'll put my money in something I understand.
 
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