Topic: Do we really need Bitcoin? (Read 2944 times)
We do need bitcoins. Not everyone likes formalities encountered during bank transactions..
We do need a virtual currency, people don't like hassles which paypal offers in money..
The person who really interested about bitcoin he or she needs bitcoin. It's simple.
I think I understand your general view (please correct me if I am wrong). Your vision is that Bitcoin, while having at this moment some drawbacks like yes, extortion by individual scammers is possible or funds can be lost (but coming technology is making this more unlikely than losing fiat) it solves the biggest of problems: institutionalized stealing by state agents and the economic elite. Or in other words, Bitcoin may, at this moment, make us a little bit more vulnerable to small-scale thefts (and even that is being solved) while protecting us from the biggest scammers who steal money in front of our face and modify the laws as needed to make it 'legal'.
If so, of course it would open another whole can of worms about in which situations the market should or should not be free, like in asymmetric information scenarios (car dealer-client, health insurance-client, etc), or in which scenarios could be useful to devaluate the currency and, of course, if the people who make these decisions are honest or not. But well, I am sure it would be a really interesting debate but that is not the scope of this thread.
Maybe we are in opposite sides of the world but thanks to Internet we are having this interesting discussion. If Bitcoin makes to the economy what the Internet made to the information I am sure that interesting times are coming.
If so, of course it would open another whole can of worms about in which situations the market should or should not be free, like in asymmetric information scenarios (car dealer-client, health insurance-client, etc), or in which scenarios could be useful to devaluate the currency and, of course, if the people who make these decisions are honest or not. But well, I am sure it would be a really interesting debate but that is not the scope of this thread.
Maybe we are in opposite sides of the world but thanks to Internet we are having this interesting discussion. If Bitcoin makes to the economy what the Internet made to the information I am sure that interesting times are coming.
You have done a great job of summarizing my argument. The beauty of the Bitcoin protocol is that it is designed in such a way that it encapsulates voluntarism and agorism at a protocol layer. Certainly, any government or person with any political ideology can use Bitcoin and benefit from its feature sets but at a design level no one can be forced into using bitcoin or upgrading to another version with features that they don't agree with(I.E... blacklisting). Bitcoin just IS, and like pandora's box cannot be removed or completely controlled by regulators. Society is going to have to adapt to this reality despite their misgivings. Mathematics is the great equalizer which allows individual people to have certain protections equal to even the most powerful organizations.
Bitcoin has its flaws and will never be perfect but right now has many qualities which make it more honest and safer if you understand it than traditional banking. There are some radical transparency and accountability features that can be used:
If you have a charity or are running a crowd-funding campaign you can accept donations where all donors or investors can clearly see the funds accountable in real time that are 99.999% verifiable. You can than use a M of N multi-sig to ensure that it is impossible for the treasurer or any individual to embezzle the funds or spend them without the agreed upon consensus within the bylaws. In the past a long drawn out legal battle would ensue with any dispute with parasitic lawyers milking both sides and with Bitcoin the protocol protects everyone.
Blockchain technology and crypto-currency is a black swan event. Many of us are unapologetically embracing the cleansing effect of its disruption. Whether its Bitcoin(most likely) or another crypto-currency doesn't matter, the effects of this technology is going to change everything just like the internet has.
I like and need bitcoin because i can hide my cash. i just need to hide maybe from banks as well. these cash doesn't come from any illegal activities but really i work hard for it.
What about con artists stealing from small businesses by requesting charge backs?
What about banks freezing your assets while they investigate?
What about governments seizing your assets for legal reasons or under asset seizures ?
Isn't one of the reasons why traditional bank fees much higher than bitcoin because theft is merely socialized and recouped across all participants and all theft indirectly affects all users?
What about banks freezing your assets while they investigate?
What about governments seizing your assets for legal reasons or under asset seizures ?
Isn't one of the reasons why traditional bank fees much higher than bitcoin because theft is merely socialized and recouped across all participants and all theft indirectly affects all users?
I see what you say, and I agree with your points. Nevertheless, when I make a payment (as a customer) I feel much more comfortable paying with Paypal than with any other payment method (unless of course the seller is well known and respected as Amazon or Dell). "Accepted by Paypal" tells me two things about a site: (a) that they wouldn't be doing business with Paypal for long if they were scammers and (b) that I can get my money back if things go bad.
Of course, with Bitcoin and escrow one could do the same thing. Maybe one day the "Using escrow with inBitweTrust" (for example) will transmit the same level of customer protection as today Paypal. Now I understand better the real practical applications of multisig transactions.
It is sometimes difficult to identify the detractors with an agenda from those offering healthy criticism.
I completely understand that posts like that of "LET'S CRASH BITCOIN" are tiresome and sometimes outright trolling. I am glad that you don't see me now as one of them.Escrow in Bitcoin is actually very inexpensive.[...]. In fact anyone can become an arbitrator.
Here is one example of a marketplace of arbitrators for multisig escrow: https://www.bitrated.com
Thanks for the URL, I didn't know it. On the other hand I don't completely agree with you about the economics of arbitrators, but well, time will say if they are cheap or expensive. Anyway, what I find a clear advantage is that the escrow is not needed in a normal scenario and, above all, it cannot steal the funds (as could theoretically Paypal do today).Here is one example of a marketplace of arbitrators for multisig escrow: https://www.bitrated.com
When someone steals my credit card, I am responsible for a 50 dollar deductible and all of the loss eventually comes back to hurt me and the rest of society. Merchant fees of 3-8% raise the prices of all goods and services. You don't get your money back, the loss is just abstracted and amortized.
I agree that today the loss is amortized, but I don't see it necessarily a bad thing. What is true is that chargebacks and insurance come at a price (which one may or may not be willing to pay, the market will decide).In the future with hardware wallets bitcoin will become much more secure as well.
My point is the banks and governments have already betrayed the public's trust repeatedly and are not accountable.
They are corrupt and incompetent and should not be trusted. Decentralized mining pools have a much better track record.
I would personally rather deal with a hypothetical risk than a definite bad actor.
[...]
Extortion isn't just easier with Fiat but a central part of its design. Extortion and theft is an intrinsic property of Fiat and happens continuously.
I think I understand your general view (please correct me if I am wrong). Your vision is that Bitcoin, while having at this moment some drawbacks like yes, extortion by individual scammers is possible or funds can be lost (but coming technology is making this more unlikely than losing fiat) it solves the biggest of problems: institutionalized stealing by state agents and the economic elite. Or in other words, Bitcoin may, at this moment, make us a little bit more vulnerable to small-scale thefts (and even that is being solved) while protecting us from the biggest scammers who steal money in front of our face and modify the laws as needed to make it 'legal'.
If so, of course it would open another whole can of worms about in which situations the market should or should not be free, like in asymmetric information scenarios (car dealer-client, health insurance-client, etc), or in which scenarios could be useful to devaluate the currency and, of course, if the people who make these decisions are honest or not. But well, I am sure it would be a really interesting debate but that is not the scope of this thread.
Maybe we are in opposite sides of the world but thanks to Internet we are having this interesting discussion. If Bitcoin makes to the economy what the Internet made to the information I am sure that interesting times are coming.
For me I need bitcoin. It kills me to put money in a bank that is going to charge me a monthly fee for them to take my money and lend it out to people, collect interest on it and only give me a fraction of what they collect. Not to mention all the other upfrint and hidden fees they pile on. So do I need bitcoin?.... My answer is YES... YES I DO
In order to make a steady state economy possible, we need debt-free money. FRB money, which includes all fiat and even some gold, bears interest and thus it requires the economy to grow exponentially, forever. If you belive exponential growth forever in a finite world then I wish you a great carrier in economics...
Bitcoin is essentially the only game in town when it comes to equity money (since physical gold is hopelessly impractical). Everything else is debt money. Bitcoin therefore MUST succeed. If you see problems - fix them!
Your concern about security and insurance for the average non-crypto-geek is valid, but market demand for a solution will solve it. Circle comes to mind.
Bitcoin is essentially the only game in town when it comes to equity money (since physical gold is hopelessly impractical). Everything else is debt money. Bitcoin therefore MUST succeed. If you see problems - fix them!
Your concern about security and insurance for the average non-crypto-geek is valid, but market demand for a solution will solve it. Circle comes to mind.
But there is still the problem with malware. Sure, fiat has it too, and it happens often. But with fiat these problems are reversible, with Bitcoin unfortunately they are not.
The non reversibility of Bitcoin also prevents theft as well.
What about con artists stealing from small businesses by requesting charge backs?
What about banks freezing your assets while they investigate?
What about governments seizing your assets for legal reasons or under asset seizures ?
Isn't one of the reasons why traditional bank fees much higher than bitcoin because theft is merely socialized and recouped across all participants and all theft indirectly affects all users?
I appreciate your passion and I understand that it is a sensitive subject. I'd rather keep the tone neutral and a rational discussion.
I apologize for coming off rash but my reaction was prompted after reviewing some of your post history and seeing multiple negative posts criticizing bitcoin. I take it that you are just cynical and extremely skeptical which is fine but some of us get tired of hearing the same myths propagate repeatedly. It is sometimes difficult to identify the detractors with an agenda from those offering healthy criticism.
The problem I see with escrow is that it must be trusted by both parties. These entities (trusted by many people) will be scarce and thus they can impose high fees. In addition, these trusted entities can always side with the buyer (for example) if they chose to. Is it the same as Paypal? Isn't it centralization? Theoretically you can use whatever payment gateway you can find, but the trusted ones are few (Paypal and few others).
Escrow in Bitcoin is actually very inexpensive.. Multisig allows escrow to be free in most cases and only if there is a dispute there is a fee which is less expensive. Because Multisig removes counter party trust there is 0 risk that the arbitrator can independently steal the funds and thus allows for many arbitrators to compete driving down prices further. In fact anyone can become an arbitrator.
Here is one example of a marketplace of arbitrators for multisig escrow: https://www.bitrated.com
Crackers attack the fiat system all the time. And they succeed. And you call the bank and have your money back. With Bitcoin you call the Waaaahmbulance (I liked that picture!).
When someone steals my credit card, I am responsible for a 50 dollar deductible and all of the loss eventually comes back to hurt me and the rest of society. Merchant fees of 3-8% raise the prices of all goods and services. You don't get your money back, the loss is just abstracted and amortized.
In the future with hardware wallets bitcoin will become much more secure as well.
My point is that I'd rather trust an established system with accountability and traceability than an anonymous mining pool without accountability to make them self-control.
My point is the banks and governments have already betrayed the public's trust repeatedly and are not accountable.
They are corrupt and incompetent and should not be trusted. Decentralized mining pools have a much better track record.
I would personally rather deal with a hypothetical risk than a definite bad actor.
Yes, I see your point. But again, the fact that you can extort with fiat doesn't mean we should use a currency with which extorsion can be easier.
Extortion isn't just easier with Fiat but a central part of its design. Extortion and theft is an intrinsic property of Fiat and happens continuously.
I don't really use bitcoin that often until now.
I'm noticing some people can't take paypal so i switched over to the BTC side.
Also, sometimes when the price fluctuates, I get happy or sad.
To me, BTC is like stocks except, usable everywhere. (Nearly)
I'm noticing some people can't take paypal so i switched over to the BTC side.
Also, sometimes when the price fluctuates, I get happy or sad.
To me, BTC is like stocks except, usable everywhere. (Nearly)
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1008
Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political
M) Bitcoin protects you from inflation, currency manipulation, global economic disaster, etc.
A) I agree, too. But this is exactly the 'non sequitur' fallacy. I agree that the governments (or the classes that control them) have way too much control over the currency. But this problem comes from really long ago.
Non sequitur comes from Latin, meaning "does not follow".
An assertion that Bitcoin protects from inflation follows
clearly from the fact that the Bitcoin supply is limited.
An assertion that Bitcoin protects from currency manipulation
follows clearly from the fact that there is a protocol in
place that every needs to follow.
YOU are the one committing a non-sequitor when you say
the problem of government manipulation comes from
long ago. THAT does not follow or have anything
to do directly with the initial statement.
I like posts like these. Not every post should be pro bitcoin, good arguments need to made. In my opinion, my biggest reason for using bitcoin is that I want to hold my OWN money. Yes, I "own" the money in the bank. But they are holding it and I am at the mercy of them. When I hold my own bitcoins, I can do what I want, when I want, with no restrictions.
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1008
Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political
Quote
Some proposed solutions involve hardware wallets, but this solves no problem. How can we be sure that the RNG is not backdoored?
Simple don't use an PRNG.
Here is a very powerful, unhackable and easy to use RNG
You'd have to be a REALLY good hacker.
"do we really need bitcoin?" = "do we really need toilet paper?"
in some cultures no, but i know what i want and need
end of
in some cultures no, but i know what i want and need
end of
Bitcoin makes internet transaction more convenient and cheaper. But we can live without it.
No that isn't correct. A hardware device can act as a black box however if the outputs are deterministic then the outputs can be validated. If a block box provides you a key how do you know it is random? The reality is you don't and thus you need to TRUST the results are truly random. However if you provide a black box which implements BIP32 (HD Wallets) a seed you can VERIFY the keys match the expected outputs. Single random seed -> a lifetime of verifiable results.
Of course! Verification of the results after applying a deterministic algorithm! You just recovered my interest in hardware wallets!
I remember a couple of projects in the Project Development subforum. One of then is/was Trezor. What is its current status? And, why is it so difficult (honest question)? I would naively think that with a Raspberry Pi, a LED screen and a cheap webcam (to send the transaction to sign) it could be done. What am I missing?
Good point. After all one cannot have both security and convenience. But careful when intutively using systems as throwing two dices. Often times the distributions are not as constant at it may seem.
Of course you can. I wouldn't say taking two minutes to generate a single high entropy seed using a deck of cards gives up either security or convenience.
Actually the seed is the beginning of a long algorithm you are trusting. And if you trust the algorithm, you can also trust the seed generator. If not, you need to generate for each private key 256 bits of entropy throwing a dice (for example).
No that isn't correct. A hardware device can act as a black box however if the outputs are deterministic then the outputs can be validated. If a block box provides you a random key how do you know it is actually random? The reality is you don't and thus you need to TRUST the results are truly random. However if you provide a black box which implements BIP32 (HD Wallets) a seed you can VERIFY the keys match the expected outputs. Single random seed -> a lifetime of verifiable results.
Good point. After all one cannot have both security and convenience. But careful when intutively using systems as throwing two dices. Often times the distributions are not as constant at it may seem.
Of course you can. I wouldn't say taking two minutes to generate a single high entropy seed using a deck of cards gives up either security or convenience.
Actually the seed is the beginning of a long algorithm you are trusting. And if you trust the algorithm, you can also trust the seed generator. If not, you need to generate for each private key 256 bits of entropy throwing a dice (for example).
Good point. After all one cannot have both security and convenience. But careful when intutively using systems as throwing two dices. Often times the distributions are not as constant at it may seem.
Of course you can. I wouldn't say taking two minutes to generate a single high entropy seed using a deck of cards gives up either security or convenience.
every couple of week we have some post like this!
do we really need bitcoin! YESSSSFFS
do we really need bitcoin! YESSSSFFS
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