Topic: Bitcoin as a currency (an economist view/contribution) - page 3. (Read 771 times)

Thanks, the link you posted I just read so quick, what it says is simply bitcoin adoption, use.. etc is growing and it is here to stay.

The point no. 3 is simply as follows:
How much would it cost you to pay in BTC only 10 cents to someone?

nearly 1 billion dollar yearly bitcoin payments/transactions only through BitPay disagrees with you:
https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-growth-2017/
it doesn't get any currency-er than this.

LOL...
 
Thanks  Kakmakr... but I don’t count myself “old generation”.. I am a bit old... yes... but old generation absolutely not. I am tean at heart. I am always following up new ideas and new technologies in any field, especially if it is business or economics related.

Definitely crypto currencies and blockchain is a revolution and innovation that is going to change everything in everything, finance, trade, investment, banking and above all central banking.

To comment on your post, no matter what governments or central banks do, they have only one choice. Admit, adopt and adapt to the new facts that there are non inflationary free crypto currencies.

On the other hand crypto developers have to discuss and tackle the issues facing crypto currencies and its functionality. (my second post). The community has to decide what are the targets and priorities.
Based on these priorities development should go.

P.S. as an economist, technically, I hate the fact that money gets printed just as a central bank sees convenient. This is another reason I personally wish to see crypto currencies based on the principles of Bitcoin and Satoshi Nakamoto a day to day currency, a currency that allows you to tip a waiter or donate 1 cent to a beggar, a currency you can receive your salary in. But having a for example a Crypto Dollar, or Euro,..etc... that gets issued by a central authority doesn’t mean it is a REAL crypto currency. Though it still can happen I guess.

I am glad to see that the old school Fiat economists are also coming around to the new changes in the financial systems of the world. Bitcoin can be one of the most disruptive technologies that the financial world has seen for years, but the Fiat giants and the governments are trying to slow it down or even stop it.

The old money are trying to protect their wealth and power and are also keeping the average people from coming up in the ranks.

It would be nice to see what you can bring to the table and if the older generation can allow the average Jo to join them at the table and not eating the scraps that fall down from above. ^smile^

Popistic,

I welcome your reply, yes, I am old.

I just shared what I see and what I understand.

I will highly appreciate you guide me and let me know more about crypto..
It would be very useful to me if you comment on every point I mentioned and clarify more to me.

I am not by any means against crypto or bitcoin, on the contrary I fully support the idea. I personally have a wallet already with some coins in it.

By the way, cause I am a bit old, so I don’t know what “fastardian” mean..

Hope to hear from you.

Thanks lucifochrome,

First of all I have to be clear and honest. I am not the most experienced person in the world, not the most knowledgable. I just know the ABCs.

Answering your post:
1- As long as cryptos and wallets, and blockchain are open source, not even all the governments of the world can stop it.
2- the fluctuation at this stage is so natural because it is too early, still very few adopters. Maybe if you try find some historic data about Bitcoin price volatility, you will find the volatility at previous years were much higher and that volatility is being less as time passes. This is mainly because - as we all know the theoretical ABCs of the so called perfect competition and market equilibrium, it assumes there are a lot of buyers, a lot of sellers, each controlling a very negligible amount of demand and supply so that he can’t dictate a price. Comparing this to a monopolist, he can “dictate” the price.
So, as more and more buyers and sellers come in, the power of everyone to dictate the price gets reduced, so volatility is reduced.
3- the panic sell, or the hurd crazily buying, this is normal to human nature. It happens in the stock markets. Warren buffet made his fortune understanding this fact.
4-  Currently I see crypto has just started to be a fact of life. It really exists as an asset, there is a “market”, there is value and price. It is now like hotmail at the beginning of the internet, not everybody had an account, an email was not at that time a document that proves anything as compared to signed paper sealed received and kept in a safe place in a file. Later it became a proof, contracts can be done by emails.
Crypto is still the hotmail of mid 90s.

Unfortunately it is still like a bullion or an ingot, not as a currency 100%.

It is just a matter of time, still there are some aspects that should be addressed as I mentioned in my previous post.

The goal is to have Bitcoin and crypto as a currency, where everybody has access to, easily cheaply transfer and transact,... etc.

The current situation and problems in my opinion:
1- it is still require users or adopters to be above average in IT, know what a qr code is, private and public address, the 12 word Fraser for a wallet... etc. This will be sorted out as time passes, but developers should try make things easier and simpler.
2- transaction cost, sending a crypto from someone to another, it is relatively high, so not still convenient to buy a bottle of water or a pizza and it costs the same amount to pay the seller. This simply means the buyer would pay double the price. So, still not convenient as a currency compared to FIAT.

I wonder if this can be sorted out as follows:
All wallets should have a feature like “Ok, this public address is sending to this public address 0.05 USD, let me send with it a private key for this transaction for this amount in particular. Sending through whatever communication, Bluetooth, WiFi, nfc, Sms, whatever. No need for blockchain and mining fees.

Maybe (and here I expect some miners to try to shoot me), maybe we can use wallets already running on thousands of individual mobile phones to do the job of verification. Everybody in the individual users wins. Almost instant, no transaction cost, so it will be convenient to buy a bottle of water with bitcoins.

The receivers wallet may take the senders public address and check it on the blockchain, if it really exists, if it really has the amount transferred. If true, it makes one entry with one single confirmation.

3- till now, Bitcoins and other cryptos appears to me not as currency but as a bullion of gold, a bullion of silver, a bullion of platinum, an ingot of aluminium. It costs money to buy and keep, and it costs money to spend.

4- There should be a way that different blockchains and crypto can “talk” together seamlessly, as in point 2 above, someone having bitcoin in his wallet should be able to send to the receiver directly another crypto, no need for any of them to convert from one crypto to the other. Direct wallet to wallet.

Transfer costs should be minimised to be almost zero, transaction speed should be instant. These two are considered a must to have crypto as currency, not as a bullion.

Hopefully I did not offend anybody, especially miners. Miners should think, what profit would be if the world is actually transacting in crypto.

I know many will see the above as nonsense, a few might see an idea, some might agree some might not.

But constructive discussion will always give the fruits.

First of all is welcome to the world of cryptocurrency, i am not so new in crypto world but i am also not an expert i'm still learning about bitcoin everyday. If i may ask you a question, as an economist what do you think will affect bitcoins price hike and dips? Because to me as an average joe there are some factors that are just obvious like if a country bans bitcoin then there are these people who trade and do panic selling sometimes it affects the price, but what i would like to know more are the reasons that are not obvious like you thought it would not affect bitcoin but then somehow that may contribute. Hope to learn more.
I think you'll do great in this community based on your experience.

Hi,

I just have a feeling that I should contribute to the development of Bitcoins and crypto in general because though I am still new (5-6 weeks old) to crypto, but I tried to understand as much as possible.

Before giving my contribution, allow me to give you a brief about myself to be sure you understand what I am talking about.

- I am a bit old, 56 y/o
- I am an Economist, I pretend I understand economics relatively well.
- I have worked some time into programming, software, ... so I have a litttle knowledge in this field. I used and “lived with” Linux and open source since 2000. So I know a little about open source and p2p... etc.
- I have lived in different countries all over the world, not just visited.
- In my career I have dealt closely with lots of people of different categories, poor farmers, rich farmers, businessmen, startups, small, giants, winners, losers, bankers, investors, governmental, drivers, blue collars, white collars,... yo name it.
Edit: (this added after my first reply)
- I have been in the stock market since 2003, and I survived 2008 and after, I even bought a lot during 2009.

So, as a believer in “free” cryptos in general, I feel obliged to contribute my thoughts, opinions, hopefully useful suggestions, to the community.

I know what I will contribute, might be welcome by some, not welcome by some, but this is the nature of such open project(s).

Next post will start my first contributions.
I hope we can discuss, agree, disagree, suggest, ask, answer... hopefully we all benefit.