fuck, I should've listened to Meat187 and just spend all my money on Bitcoin, he was the only one with perspective here
also, a lot of lulzworthy moments here of him roasting pkc

quote:

Originally posted by bananas also, a lot of lulzworthy moments here of him roasting pkc

i went back looking for the roasting, but all i found was a pretty reasonable discussion with meat. most of which is as true now as it was back then; obviously though i (massively!) underestimated just how much people were willing to pay for funny money that still can't buy very much. and of course, bitcoin's ridiculous increase in value since then is exactly what makes it a poor currency alternative (which is what im mostly interested in due to the associated political debate).

having said all that though, if the supposed paper-money apocalypse happens like system-j believes, then yeah, i would agree cryptos would emerge stronger than ever. im not sure i agree with his timeline though.

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Is it an asset or a currency? Can't be both. My intuition is still that it's nothing more than a(n admittedly high-concept and high-tech) scam.

quote:

Originally posted by Lews Is it an asset or a currency? Can't be both. My intuition is still that it's nothing more than a(n admittedly high-concept and high-tech) scam.

Actually that's an interesting question. It's meant to be a currency but given the lack of spending opportunity, and the fact it value is more aligned to an asset where it has to be liquidated to some other form, it's somewhat behaving as a commodity.

I don't think bitcoin is a scam in and of itself, but prone to becoming or being used as one. The value is completely artifical and arbitrary and it's volatility means it's simply not viable as a dependable currency. Even established globally traded currencies are subject to massive crashes and inflationary factors, but at least they have a real world bearer value. Bitcoin doesn't, and is therefore even more unstable and less viable long term.

There's probably people out there who have already figured out to manipulate it and all it takes is for one person to do it publicly for it to become worthless.

The bitcoin market has been almost entirely controlled and manipulated by the chinese since before the days of Mt. Gox. All the major exchanges and mining pools are in the hands of like a dozen chinamen, they control everything. Decentralized my ass. If the chinese ever drop Bitcoin, it'll go back to about a hundred bucks a coin because that's about the price that "legitimate" use cases (drugs, blackmail and hacking) can sustain. The western bitcoin nut collecters don't really matter in the grand scheme. Also, there a whole bunch of early adapoters with ridiculous amounts of coins (somehow, they managed to make a money-system even more unequally distributed than the real world $). Any of them could crash the market any day of the week if they wanted. And then there's of course the legendary Satoshi stash which would crash Bitcoin forever if it's ever opened, which I doubt, but it's there. And then there's the fact that the current main developers of Bitcoin are intentionally gimping the transaction limit so they may be able to sell a (currently vaporware) second hand service (Lightning Network) for increased Transactions (off the blockchain, rendering the whole point of Bitcoin useless) at some point in the future. You can't make all this shit up.

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June 2018 mix

Last edited by Woony on Sep-17-2017 at 19:35

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN I've been hearing about cashless societies for 15 years now and it still hasn't come to frutition. We have all the possible means (NFC, Chip, RFID etc) from dozens of major international companies (Banks, Apple, Google, Samsung) and while paying for stuff electronically has never been easier, the adoption rate still isn't even close to cash becoming redundant or obsolete. I don't think it will happen for a very long time, if ever. Sure a few small European countries with advanced banking systems might like Norway or Luzemborx might try to go cashless, but I don't think any major power will get close to it in our lifetimes. Even kids who grew up with chip debit cards and NFC still use cash as you can't rely on technology 100%. Just like that pint story in the other thread, you always keep a tenner on you. I pay for 80% of my life electronically (beleive it or not, checks are still in abundant use here in the USA) but always keep a bit of cash for those times where electronic payment is a no go.

its not just that but business does not want things to go cashless. How do you skim when you're not dealing with cash money.