Topic: Bitcoin, ye had one job. Strict monetary policy. (Read 469 times)

Thanks Pursuer for busting through the myths and unfounded allegations (sorry to say that!) as discussed by the OP. This is nothing personal and I am happy that we are discussing all of these things because they all involved the future of Bitcoin where all of us have investments with.

I am not really well-versed on the many technical aspects of Bitcoin and their many implications in case something is changed or a thing is not anymore functioning the way it should be. I am just an ordinary guy who is trying to understand things on my plain level.

While I don't get anymore enamored with people who are just spreading FUD, am not closing my eyes to the fact that Bitcoin is not really a perfect man-made innovation and as a currency it is subject to the test of human's greed and selfishness.

All fine and true, but I don't think I'll buy back in (to Bitcoin + alt this time) until Gox unloads their 200,000 coins. I know, off topic for this thread, but damn. I'll just wait. If I shouldn't, then fuck it. Waiting anyway.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and the thing is, what separates a hard fork from an altcoin? Nothing, really. Both are incompatible forks of the original protocol. The only differences that I can see: 1) if there is no replay protection, a hard fork with significant economic backing can cause lots of people to lose value and 2) altcoin developers tend to openly admit that their coins are not BTC, whereas hard fork developers try to attach the name to a different protocol.

The important thing for people to realize is that an incompatible fork =/= printing money. The original protocol, which we are all still using is limited to 21 million coins. The positive thing for long term holders: even if we all end up using a hard fork (altcoin) in the future, you'll have coins on that fork as well.


I think a lot of us were blind-sided by the rise of altcoins. Back in 2014-2015, I firmly believe that they were merely a means to increase your bitcoin stash via greater fools. Now, I think the potential money flowing into cryptocurrency and the draw of diversity make Bitcoin Maximalism unsustainable.

What does that mean for Bitcoin? It's complicated. On one hand, fork threats bring uncertainty, which brings lower prices. On the other hand, you need to hold BTC to get your coins on any forked chain. Such a dilemma.

It's probably true, but that's because there is no economic support behind it. Even if half of Bitcoin's hash rate switched temporarily, that doesn't equate to demand on the part of users.

But that also doesn't make all hard fork attempts equal. On the contrary, I suspect that Bitcoin Cash was an experiment by Bitmain to test the waters, and perhaps wasn't intended as an all-out attack on BTC.

What will happen in November, though, if the economic majority backs the hard fork? You'd have Core and the small blockers on one side, and a majority of miners and the major Bitcoin services (and their users) on the other. That's an ugly situation.

It seems to me that the crucial distinction is this: do users really believe it's a hard fork, or do they believe it's just an altcoin? It's clear that BCH is accepted as an altcoin. I really don't know what will happen with Segwit2x, though.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, all who gave them. I clearly made a bad market call and have paid heavy consequences. I don't actually have a lot of faith in Bitcoin's price falling to my sell point again, though I do think there is a fair chance with everything going on. But I never expected these prices in these conditions, and I let go of my bitcoins. Bad call!

But it's been a helluva nearly four years.

Bitcoin is definitely not what I thought it was four years ago. Ethereum growing to half Bitcoin's market cap in three years? Hell no, didn't see that coming. Forked coin going to .15 on Bitcoin's own hash algo? Did not see that coming. All the other alt coins and their total market cap? Did NOT see any of it coming.

I have my USD (minus whatever IRS takes). It will surely go back into crypto at some point. I'll choose carefully and invest long term. Maybe never get back my lost bitcoin value. But, lessons learned and (small) money gained is great.

Consensus everywhere I've asked appears to be: BCH isn't going to hurt Bitcoin. That's good news, and I suspect that's going to be true.

Out.

You sound like just another troll to me. Attacking other people's motives... check. Attacking my motives... check. Price prediction with near certainty... check.

Move on.

Miners were always free to hardfork. In fact anyone can hardfork at any time and create their own knockoff of Bitcoin, so what? There's nothing you can do about it. It comes with the package.

At the end of the day, we have more than enough hashrate to keep Bitcoin safe. Some idiots decide to mine their shitcoin? Let them do so, let's see for how long they can sustain it. Meanwhile people that didn't fall for the FUD (and this is important, because if nobody fell for the FUD, BCH, segwit2x and so on, wouldn't even be a treat) are enjoying the nice gains. So let's not fall for the FUD, and in the case of a hardfork, dump the shitcoin on sight. The real Bitcoin always wins.

While I agree monetary policy is a problem, it's not a problem for bitcoin, it's a problem for the entire crypto-world. So what if bitcoin didn't fork, anyone could switch bitcoin into the next-big-fad altcoin and you will get another 10 million marketcap coin in an instant! Talk about hyperinflation. My own perspective, though I might be wrong, is that the crypto world will eventually equilibrate and that monetary policy might not be that big an issue moving forward. Altcoins still depend on fiat for conversion and goverments are doing the sensible thing of regulation to study the effects of crypto on the monetary system. It waits to be seen, but I do feel that the endgame might not result in a price crash but rather a survival-of-the-fittest kind of scenario where most altcoins just fade into history.

I think that OP is right to worry. Bitcoin's monetary policy is crucial for it's existence. Scarcity of bitcoins is what allows them to have a value, printing new coins means that inflation can technically happen. The problem isn't of course in the Bitcoin itself, but in it's adoption, which makes worries just as valid.

If in the future people can just create a new coin when Bitcoin becomes a major currency, it would be able to take away from Bitcoin as people switch to the new coin. This is the problem of not agreeing on the currency and it is a very real problem, since that is what currency is, an agreement of value. This has a same effect as an inflation.

This is will be a problem with all the altcoins, but with forks it is more dangerous, since it is easier for people to switch to the altcoin, since there will not be any earlier adopters taking away from it's value. Any coin that has a goal to be used as a currency is a competition to Bitcoin, as is every other national currency.

This is a real problem and it is dangerous for all the parties involved, since you can never be sure that you will stay on the winning coin. However, we can't and shouldn't stop the development of better currency, we wouldn't have Bitcoin in the first place if we did this. It is consensus of switching to a new coin, that is the issue, not it's existence. And a consensus is a difficult thing.

yes bitcoin cash is the most damaging to bitcoin to this date and will continue to be. but bitcoin is not in trouble. the damages has been minimal and very short lived. and as you can see everything is back to normal, the damages they did to mining only lasted a couple of days and unless they pump it hard and reduce the difficulty a lot, it won't happen again.

sadly most of what people say publicly are childish attacks on each other. these different camps attack each other like this over control on bitcoin!

no it is not.
the mining power of bitcoin is the same as before now. the BCH hashrate was new and it still is coming from other sources not the bitcoin power.

no it has not.
if hashrate dropped down to 20% of current hashrate then what you said was true. but the drop was tiny and it didn't even last more than a couple of days!

this is off topic.

two things:
you fell for FUD and sold
you are in it for the profit despite talking about "bitcoin's core value" and "hashrate",... you probably don't even care about any of that!

bitcoin job was never to make you rich and always go up in price.
the bitcoin job was to be a decentralized currency and to this day it has done that perfectly despite most people seeing it as an investment and "get rich quick" thing.

the chances of that happening is close to zero.

Don't get me wrong. I think the perception regarding monetary policy can be problematic. And if BCH remains viable and gains in popularity, then this will become increasingly problematic.

But remember, Bitcoin didn't change. The Bitcoin chain (with 21 million coin limit) is still fully intact. BCH simply copied the UTXO set and claims to share a parent block with the Bitcoin chain. The truth is, it doesn't. It's incompatible with the original chain. That's why it's an altcoin.

Yours seems to be the prevailing point of view. I guess I'm just out of cryptos until this starts to make sense to me.

I think there needs to be a very significant split of the community -- like 50-50 or 70-30 -- for there to be a true perception of money printing as a result of a hard fork. In that case, coin minting on multiple similar forks, each of which call themselves "Bitcoin" and each of which have significant community, service and miner support..... that can start looking like money printing beyond 21 million coins.

BCH may not be a problem in the long term, as long as it doesn't gain significant support from the community. The Segwit2x fork seems much more dangerous.

Bitcoin is already in more trouble than people for some reason are admitting. Bitcoin Cash is the most damaging attack on Bitcoin to date, and people simply are not acknowledging that fact (most Bitcoiners anyway). Adam Back says on Twitter, Segwit2x "may" subject the 5k Bitcoin price to "cancellation" if enacted. What makes no sense to some of us is why BCH does not do this already. In fact I think it will unless it is completely and permanently defeated. Right now Bitcoin's mining power is split and chasing 42 million bitcoins! This is a complete violation of Bitcoin's core value proposition, that the hash power will protect strict monetary policy. It has failed to do that. I bought my first bitcoins coming into the MtGox bubble in November 2013, at bubble prices. I lost those in MtGox bankruptcy and bought more. I remained faithful to Bitcoin through all of 2014, 2015, 2016 and most of this year. But I finally gave in and sold at 2700 before the BCH fork. I've missed out on BCH, and giant BTC price gains since I sold. But damn. Strict monetary policy is just gone. I don't know if or when I will ever buy what crypto again. I love what they can do. But Bitcoin... ye had one job. And you blew it! I think there's a fair chance the total BTC/BCH price will fall back through my sell level again. Not sure I will want it, though.