I absolutely do not hate Bitcoin. What is more, I already made my part to the community selling some at the time. With Paypal indeed. And no, I was not scammed one single time. I stopped because it was more a proof of concept, I enjoyed building the system but not so much running it and, above all, because I discovered that in the US one can buy a prepaid SIM card withoud providing ID.
The tone of some of the answers really shocked me. I did not expect to make people angry and that raises some concerns about how do we interpret this. I had seen this reaction with extremely religious and political people, but never in a technical field (maybe in some Windows/Linux and XBox/PS2 discussions among teenagers). In other threads I saw how some users are pushing their friends to join in, others who invest all their life savings and some who blame the victim when someone loses their wallet. Being myself passionate about Bitcoin, I am doing this exercice of scientific skepticism to try to validate my beliefs about this matter. I am educated about the technicalities of Bitcoin and I follow the current news. I would like to invite you to make this exercise of introspection with a neutral and passion-less mentality.
Now I would answer some of your most interesting points. Thank you again for your time.
Bitcoin gives me the freedom to easily and securely store and transfer value without the help of a middleman or the permission of an authority.
In a world of ever increasing capital controls, yes I need this freedom.
Does it require some responsibility on my part? Of course. Freedom isn't free.
In a world of ever increasing capital controls, yes I need this freedom.
Does it require some responsibility on my part? Of course. Freedom isn't free.
You are right, and this is an important fact. Nevertheless, I fail to see the practical implications in the everyday life. Could you please provide an example were these controls pose a regular problem to people? It is true that it would be hard to move large capitals to another country, but people do not have regulations to pay for groceries, electronics or a house, for example.
Simple don't use an PRNG.
Here is a very powerful, unhackable and easy to use RNG
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.Here is a very powerful, unhackable and easy to use RNG
May we ask why your site is down - http://www.donotcompare.com? Did you get scammed by accepting an insecure currency in exchange for a more secure currency ?
inBitweTrust, thanks for your long answer. I already explained what happened to my site and why I don't think that it is relevant. Anyway, even if I were scammed, what does it have to do with the security of the currency? A)I agree, that might work. But at this point I don't see the difference with traditional metal coins and paper bills. And the risks of the previous point.
If someone steals my wallet full of fiat usd there is little hope of getting my cash back. If someone steals by cellphone with my bitcoin wallet that is secured than I can retrieve and use my bitcoins with my backup and the thief has almost no chance of using or stealing my bitcoins.A) 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. And the traditional way to deal with it are offshore investments.
Offshore investments are much more expensive and complicated to setup than bitcoin. They are also far less secure as governments have been successfully going after "terrorist" and money laundering individuals no matter which country they hide their wealth in.
A) National (or global) instabilities are a problem of the rich. If you have less wealth than a threshold ($100,000 I think?) your deposits are guaranteed.
Inflation actually hurts the middle class and poor most. Your deposits are not guaranteed to do anything but decrease in value. You can guarantee that you will lose 5-8% a year in the US and 25-55% in countries like Argentina. You are also making the false assumption that Fiat currencies never fail completely as history has shown otherwise.
A) So are Paypal/Visa/MasterCard, etc.
Making the assumption that the unbanked and underbanked don't exist in the world. How provincial.A) Security
Bitcoin is as secure or insecure as you choose to make it. Example - selling Bitcoin for paypal fiat is just plain stupid. A) If you say that Visa's fee is higher... well, that doesn't seem to be a problem for most people, considering the advantages (chargebacks and insurances).
Xapo and other merchants offer insurance as well. Clients can use escrow to protect themselves and businesses prefer not to deal with chargebacks.A) Bank accounts are NOT frozen for the most part of people. If you bank freezes your account often, I guess that you are still a niche market.
Bank accounts are temporarily frozen or permanently all the time for many people even if they are conducting 100% legal business. Ever hear of Operation Choke point or the Cypress Bail ins?A) Your wealth can be gone in a matter of seconds for reasons you might don't event understand
This does happen all the time with traditional payment methods. You don't think hackers attack traditional fiat too?A) Centralization problem.
So because there is a risk of less decentralization with Bitcoin we should go straight back to using a centralized solution instead. What is your point?
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. I think it is immensely more likely that a mining pool starts a 51% attack to take as many Bitcoin as possible and then disappear than my government to start printing money non-stop and the responsibles disappear. Of course it could happend (and happened, unfortunately, as well as in Bitcoin with MtGox, Bitcoinica et al and their hacks). I am just talking about posibilities. Nirvana fallacy if you want. Just because the current banking system is not perfect it doesn't mean that we need to go all-in in an experimental, anonymous currency.
A) Anonymous transfers incentive thefts and blackmail.
You are ignoring all the thefts and corruption that exist within Fiat that dwarfs the corruption scam artists using bitcoin. You don't have to be anonymous to steal money from people. People can easily be manipulated into thinking that they aren't being robbed blind. one example out of many - Economists now have over 5 different ways of calculating the CPI. When they normally cite inflation they use the formula that doesn't include food or fuel. Real inflation is actually closer to 5-8 % in the US. This is theft and hurts the middle class and poor more-so.
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.A) ....price instability and deflation.
Volatility is a valid criticism but Bitcoin is provably becoming more stable so in the longterm should not be an issue. The deflationary spiral argument is unfounded and research from payment processors like Bitpay have proven that spending actually increases during rapid deflationary bubbles.
I meant that I don't find these two criticisms valid. Price volatility and deflation have nothing to do with Bitcoin itself. They are just market eventualities and, as you say, it will stabilize over time.
