Topic: Bitcoin Failure is likely - page 2. (Read 21638 times)

okayguy.jpg

(we're not allowed to post the actual meme images, right?)

I really didn't see the date before I wrote my post 

I for one will necro the fuck out of this thread. It's important for the history of Bitcoin.

Why are we posting rebuttals to posts made almost a year ago?

Simple. You have 0, yes 0 clue about what money is, where it came from, how it came about, what was it's initial function or utility and especially what is a good money. ZERO clue.

Come back to me after you learned all that and then we can talk.

Hint: You might as well start here -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vowbrq_g5NM

By all means, why don't you make such a thing then? If it's so easy, how come Bitcoin is the first in existence? And how come no alternate crypto-currency to this date has solves any of the issues you mention?

The 10 minute block time is a trade-off between, as you mention, confirming transactions as quickly as possible, and - on the other hand - making sure announcements of new blocks don't happen too quickly in the network, which in the worst case would cause a congestion in the network, and at least be a disadvantage to the miners farther away from the person who finds the block, leading to territorial mining monopolies.

I'm not sure you fully understand why time in a P2P, distributed currency is needed. Since we're using proof-of-work, we need time. Working takes time. If we can do something in a short time, so can an attacker, time is the key to the security in the Bitcoin network.

Unless someone designs a crypto-currency that doesn't use proof-of-work, we will never get instantly confirming transactions. The double-spend problem remained unsolved for a long time for a very good reason. It would be awesome if this were possible though. This would be vastly superior to Bitcoin. But so far, no true P2P currency exists that doesn't use proof-of-work.

LOL I concur!

+1

In Bitcoin the phrase "..of the people by the people and for the people." has meaning. Miners and those using Bitcoin are the authority. The world is full of corrupted currencies and history is replete with cases of governmental market manipulation and money corruption, decentralization is the cure.

History has also been a long road of citizens seeding power and influence to those who really crave it. Government, law, and the very character of this and other nations have been bent and broken piecemeal by those with the money to afford a voice. 

Money is said to be the life blood of a society however would any of you allow the beating of your heart to be controlled by any democracy you know let alone an elite group of charlatans like those involved in the recent housing shenanigans, or governments that are clearly controlled by interests other than those of the general voter?

Everything is hard until it's easy, but Bitcoin was a long time in coming. I worked half a life time and saved like a mother fucker to have almost all of it taken by the faceless fucks who really control us, whether it's Bitcoin, Phatcoin, or the fucking Qubit I'm out of the Monopoly money game for good.

How can we sink so low as to imagine we dont have the right to determine value?

I hope he didn't jump off a bridge. ...  Check the price chart from March to July 2011.

Weren't Bitcoins worth like $0.50 in March of 2011?  Bet he's sorry he didn't buy a bunch up at that time...

INACCURATE
There is a mention of fraud concerns by "Mastercard and other banking affiliates" in the press release of why Paxum isn't dealing with BTC companies anymore.  Try not to be so alarmist and misleading.

See that other thread, Mastercard is forcing their customers to stop using BTC.  If Mastercard thought BTC was going to fail they wouldn't care about BTC.

Long winded way to say money is evil. The false sense of scarcity has allowed power over others for a long time. It's not clear how much longer their power to manipulate minds and hold back tech. advances lasts. But things are unraveling in a good way now and if the unraveling follows other trends it may happen quickly.

You are holding Bitcoin to a higher standard.

Cash.  5 seconds = possible counterfeit and you lose 100% value + value of any change.
Credit card. 5 seconds = possible stolen card and you lose 100% value + $30 fee.
Bitcoin. 5 seconds (verify transaction exists w/ multiple peers) =possible but highly improbable chance of double spend and you have a 50% chance of losing value.

Neither cash nor credit card are 100%.  I would wager your odds of being defrauded with stolen credit card (or "friendly fraud" by reverse easy system) or counterfeit bill (possibly second hand) is much higher than the odds of being double spent for most transactions.


Your right it is stupid which is why the blockchain would be on servers and clients would be lightweight and connect to them as needed.

smellyBobby,

It's a very important, obvious, and valid point you raise.  And it won't go away by any means - it's just too easy to design a superior crypto-currency alternative that does everything Bitcoin does, only much better in one or more aspects.  For example, faster confirmed transactions:

Bitcoin is currently poorly implemented as a means by which a quick transaction (100% confirmed in under 15 seconds) can take place at a place of business between buyer and seller.  Making a purchase with paper currency can be authenticated in a matter of seconds (you give me $20 for a $13.49 purchase, here's $6.51 in change, your receipt, and we're done), and it takes about 5 seconds max to authenticate a credit card transaction.  With bitcoin, nothing's 100% confirmed until the 5-20 minutes it takes to solve a block.  That's not very reassuring to retailers. A node/server based system where the blockchain isn't reconciled on every client is absolutely necessary to save time and hard drive space.  As bitcoin becomes more popular, its flaws will limit its success and make way for an infinite number of possible alternatives which do its job better, faster, more safely, and with a greater degree of versatility.  There is no counter-argument to this point.  Bitcoins will hold antique value and nothing more in the long term.  It's the single most obvious reason why investing long-term in cryptocurrency that's not backed by the full faith of the treasury of a powerful nation is foolhardy.

I agree 100% with everything you say.  Think about the 'best case' scenario where 25% of all transactions were through bitcoin.  Imagine every client with a 1,000 TB blockchain.  Just.. stupid.

Bitcoin is an incredible proof of concept and its developers have my highest respect, but it's a proof of concept.

Also (edit) just to clarify, Bitcoin is BY FAR the best crypto currency out there right now.  Everything else is silly garbage or a disrespectful hack job of the original source.

Someday this thread and the 10,000 BTC Pizza will be in the international museum of crypto-currency.

STILL HERE

1/27/2012

LETS KEEP THIS THREAD GOING GUYS!

of course it won't
everything is going to be OK
the blockchain will prevail
evil shall be banished into the realm of altcoins

bitcoin will NOT fail
bitcoin cannot fail
I want to be rich