As can 49%, 40%, 20%, etc., they just have zero chance of succeeding.
Fixed it for ya
Topic: delete - page 2. (Read 5174 times)
Everyone is driven by greed, this argument gets a little tiresome. All these forks tried something different to implement what they felt was an improvement over Bitcoin. I agree that is many cases this wasn't much improvement at all, but if you are angry that someone is making money, who cares? Let them make money, how is that hurting you? If you think an alternate currency is no good tell us why, not just that you don't like the fact that someone besides you is making money.
I never said there was anything wrong with their being greedy, but let's call a spade a spade and not try and hide it under the guise that these new block chains are breaking new technical ground.
That's the part that bothers me is that these technical "enhancements" spread indirect misinformation about Bitcoin itself.
Honestly, these new block chains could easily be likened to a typical pyramid scheme. Where people who get in early are in a good position to make money, but only if they can get more people to buy into the idea. Bitcoin is the same way, but at least it has an actual 1st tier market behind it. These other block chains are only trading against BTC, which to me shows there's little interest in true investment from people sitting on fiat.
In this currency the available supply will always be close to 100% of the base because demurrage is taken from every address and given back to miners as part of the block reward. So money that got locked up due to lost private keys will slowly get back in circulation.
But someone will still create a new currency at some point to compete with it once your coins become valuable enough or too hard to mine, I wasn't really talking about lost coins. The supply of coins from the new network would diminish the value of your coins.
Savings and loaning out savings are an important part of economic growth, demurrage provides a disincentive for this.
What? Loaning out your savings is certainly encouraged by demurraged. If you just leave your money sitting in your wallet then you'll slowly lose it.
I should say savings is discouraged, which in turn would diminish lending since money to lend comes from savings. Of course a bank would pay enough interest to cover fees on the savings, but I guess it would also raise interest rates. Of course I doubt there would be any banks for your new currency for a good long while, if ever. Basically holding your money is heavily discouraged, I'm not sure if this is always a desirable result. Maybe you're right in that there is a benefit to it, but this hasn't been proven. It all comes down to again convincing people to jump on board, which is hard enough to do with crypto-currency without having the added complexity of demurrage. 
People can start using the other network, and once supply of the original currency gets low there will be powerful incentive to do so. We are starting to see that already to a certain extent with Bitcoin.
In this currency the available supply will always be close to 100% of the base because demurrage is taken from every address and given back to miners as part of the block reward. So money that got locked up due to lost private keys will slowly get back in circulation.
Nobody has studied the long term effects of demurrage.
This is true but it is also true for a currency like Bitcoin (before anyone says anything, no, the gold standard was never deflationary during its lifespan). It doesn't make the reasoning behind them any less meaningful.
Savings and loaning out savings are an important part of economic growth, demurrage provides a disincentive for this.
What? Loaning out your savings is certainly encouraged by demurraged. If you just leave your money sitting in your wallet then you'll slowly lose it.
Quote
My, such a strong opinion from an account 12 days old...which early adopter are you the sock puppet for, I wonder?
Awww you are plumming one of them fallacy devices, thats almost clever... I've followed Bitcoin for about a year including lurking on forums and IRCs, but I didn't get into it until recently. Instead of attacking the "sock puppet" try attacking the facts of my message
The OP is pimping SC and debasing BTC, he made a post that belongs with all the rest of the refuse in the Bitcoin Forum > Other > Alternate cryptocurrencies. Thats all.I didn't see many facts. I did, however see a lot of hateful ranting in your post. The ones who have been most virulently attacking SC have more often than not been 'senior' and 'hero' members. Suddenly we have a new account with the same level of hate. Here I thought competing currencies was a good thing. Everybody seems to point to that when comparing BTC to USD. I am not sure why people cannot accept multiple cryptocurrencies existing together. Fear of a superior product, perhaps? If the alternate chains are so horrid, the market will take care of them and they will die off on their own, without ranting from others about how everyone using them is either an idiot or scammer.
Oh, and since you can only purchase SC with BTC or by mining, I do not follow how it dilutes the value of Bitcoin. If anything it would create a temporary demand for it as people would be exchanging their $ to BTC and then to SC.
I do agree OP could have been a bit more...tactful in his post, but he did ask about the future of Bitcoin.
Creating clones of a currency doesn't make the original non-deflationary as they are not part of the same network.
The effect of demurrage on people's purchasing power is basically the same as inflation so I don't see why they wouldn't be able to accept it. Currencies with demurrage have already been successfully introduced by the way.
People can start using the other network, and once supply of the original currency gets low there will be powerful incentive to do so. We are starting to see that already to a certain extent with Bitcoin. Nobody has studied the long term effects of demurrage. Savings and loaning out savings are an important part of economic growth, demurrage provides a disincentive for this. Also again the problem of the average person understanding this, and then wanting to pay just to hold on to their money. I wish you guys luck, but I just don't see it happening.
As can 49%, 40%, 20%, etc., they just have zero chance of succeeding.
Fixed it for ya I believe both Bitcoin and its clones will fail to reach mainstream acceptance because they have a serious economic flaw, which is that deflation severely hurts investment and borrowing. I think a deflationary currency with demurrage will have better luck at stimulating economic growth.
There is no such thing as a deflationary crypto-currency, anyone can create more of them. I don't see people going for a currency with demurrage realistically, I can see the deer in the headlights look already trying to explain that to the average person.Creating clones of a currency doesn't make the original non-deflationary as they are not part of the same network.
The effect of demurrage on people's purchasing power is basically the same as inflation so I don't see why they wouldn't be able to accept it. Currencies with demurrage have already been successfully introduced by the way.
ITT: people think mining 6 1-minute blocks in a row is as difficult as mining 6 10-hours blocks in a row
Unless I missed something, then that's correct, but only if you interpret it in a certain way.With the same relative hashpower vs. the rest of the network, over the same # of blocks, chances of finding X blocks in a row are the same, doesn't matter if avg. time/block is 10 seconds or 10 days.
But... wouldn't a theoretical attacker care more about how much time it takes to get a successful double-spend instead of how many blocks?
Either way you would have to put together 51% of the hashpower of the network to pull it off, I guess longer blocks could make the attack more inconvenient, but they would probably still do it if they had the capability.
51% just gives you a high probability of succeeding. 50% can succeed. As can 49%, 40%, 20%, etc., they just have lower chances of succeeding. If someone is intent on double-spending, they will attempt it more than once. Again, the faster the chain, the less secure. I think what makes the alt currencies silly is their transparency in that they only exist because people are trying to get in "early" on something like bitcoin in an effort to make the same money that BTC early adopters did. Thus far, none of these alt currencies offer anything that bitcoin can't in the near future.
So basically you have a bunch of people who are driven by greed. I mean, might as well start investing in Testnet too, right? What's the conversion rate there?
Everyone is driven by greed, this argument gets a little tiresome. All these forks tried something different to implement what they felt was an improvement over Bitcoin. I agree that is many cases this wasn't much improvement at all, but if you are angry that someone is making money, who cares? Let them make money, how is that hurting you? If you think an alternate currency is no good tell us why, not just that you don't like the fact that someone besides you is making money. So basically you have a bunch of people who are driven by greed. I mean, might as well start investing in Testnet too, right? What's the conversion rate there?
If you're walking into a store you're going to expect verification in less than a minute, that's what you get with credit cards or cash.
While you are correct with cash, you are not with credit cards. Credit cards take at least a day to actually confirm. The "instant" verification that credit cards do is no different from a 0/unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction."No it's not. A Bitcoin transaction confirms that you have held the funds in your wallet. After a Bitcoin transaction you wait for a block to include the transaction to actually have the funds transferred, and then it will start accruing confirmations, which takes a few hours but that's just the time a Bitcoin transaction takes. The settlement of all your transactions happens when a block includes them, but a Bitcoin transaction guarantees the funds are good."
I think what makes the alt currencies silly is their transparency in that they only exist because people are trying to get in "early" on something like bitcoin in an effort to make the same money that BTC early adopters did. Thus far, none of these alt currencies offer anything that bitcoin can't in the near future.
So basically you have a bunch of people who are driven by greed. I mean, might as well start investing in Testnet too, right? What's the conversion rate there?
So basically you have a bunch of people who are driven by greed. I mean, might as well start investing in Testnet too, right? What's the conversion rate there?
If you're walking into a store you're going to expect verification in less than a minute, that's what you get with credit cards or cash.
While you are correct with cash, you are not with credit cards. Credit cards take at least a day to actually confirm. The "instant" verification that credit cards do is no different from a 0/unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction.If you're walking into a store you're going to expect verification in less than a minute, that's what you get with credit cards or cash.
While you are correct with cash, you are not with credit cards. Credit cards take at least a day to actually confirm. The "instant" verification that credit cards do is no different from a 0/unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction. I believe both Bitcoin and its clones will fail to reach mainstream acceptance because they have a serious economic flaw, which is that deflation severely hurts investment and borrowing. I think a deflationary currency with demurrage will have better luck at stimulating economic growth.
There is no such thing as a deflationary crypto-currency, anyone can create more of them. I don't see people going for a currency with demurrage realistically, I can see the deer in the headlights look already trying to explain that to the average person. Yes! Housing bubbles for the win!
I didn't expect such a stupid knee-jerk reaction from you. How do you propose such a bubble would occur in a currency with finite money supply and demurrage?
I believe both Bitcoin and its clones will fail to reach mainstream acceptance because they have a serious economic flaw, which is that deflation severely hurts investment and borrowing. I think a deflationary currency with demurrage will have better luck at stimulating economic growth.
Yes! Housing bubbles for the win!
Bottom line is this, ten minutes is too long. If you want to just keep trading these things among yourselves fine, if you want these to actually be widely used in the real world this problem has to be solved. And no I'm not letting anyone walk off with my stuff with zero confirmations, or even just one confirmation. And my customer isn't going to sit there for an hour to wait to leave with the stuff he's trying to buy. Bitcoin with 10 minute confirmations is a niche currency for certain internet transactions, at best.
Are you just stating this as a general problem or are you suggesting that SolidCoin solves/helps with this problem? SolidCoin has 3 minutes between blocks, right? I don't see how that makes much of a difference. The thing is, you still need to take variance into account. Sure, on average you have a block every 3 minutes. But that means that for a 95 % chance of finding a block, you need to wait about 9 minutes (math here: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-log%281-0.95%29%2F%281%2F3minutes%29 ). Which in turn means, that in 5 % of the cases you actually have to wait even longer than 9 minutes. So what have we really gained?
Sure, there might be situations where "wait for a little while" (SolidCoin) is acceptable whereas "wait for quite some time" (Bitcoin) would not be. But I can't think of that many situations to see this as much of an advantage.
If you're walking into a store you're going to expect verification in less than a minute, that's what you get with credit cards or cash. Ten minutes plus isn't going to work. If I take an order over the phone, pretty much same deal. The only situation it would work is where I take an order over the internet and ship it the next day. I have even taken orders over the internet late in the day and quickly packed an order and dropped it off at UPS to try to provide good service, that would even be tough to do.
I believe both Bitcoin and its clones will fail to reach mainstream acceptance because they have a serious economic flaw, which is that deflation severely hurts investment and borrowing. I think a deflationary currency with demurrage will have better luck at stimulating economic growth.
Bottom line is this, ten minutes is too long. If you want to just keep trading these things among yourselves fine, if you want these to actually be widely used in the real world this problem has to be solved. And no I'm not letting anyone walk off with my stuff with zero confirmations, or even just one confirmation. And my customer isn't going to sit there for an hour to wait to leave with the stuff he's trying to buy. Bitcoin with 10 minute confirmations is a niche currency for certain internet transactions, at best.
Are you just stating this as a general problem or are you suggesting that SolidCoin solves/helps with this problem? SolidCoin has 3 minutes between blocks, right? I don't see how that makes much of a difference. The thing is, you still need to take variance into account. Sure, on average you have a block every 3 minutes. But that means that for a 95 % chance of finding a block, you need to wait about 9 minutes (math here: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-log%281-0.95%29%2F%281%2F3minutes%29 ). Which in turn means, that in 5 % of the cases you actually have to wait even longer than 9 minutes. So what have we really gained?
Sure, there might be situations where "wait for a little while" (SolidCoin) is acceptable, whereas "wait for quite some time" (Bitcoin) would not be. But I can't think of that many situations to see this as much of an advantage.
Jump to: