Topic: If bitcoins go to $100 or even $1000 in value each, Could there be a Safeguard? - page 2. (Read 4817 times)

"Saying that inflation will always exist, and that the cost of goods are going up regardless, and that it'll just take more bitcoins to buy the same good doesn't make it true.  As a matter of fact, it is pretty clear that you have already been proven wrong, as it already takes less bitcoins to buy something than it did 3 months ago, and it took less bitcoins three months ago than it did 6 months ago, and it took less bitcoins 6 months ago than it did a year ago.  Clearly, you need to re-think what you are saying here."

Do you realize that you make no sense here? Bitcoin is just a type of currency whether it be digital or not. IF it costs $5 for milk then it will cost say 0.5 BTC. If milk goes up in price then its not going to cost 0.5BTC anymore will it? Hence inflation will exist.

Your second response

"You seem to be confused.  What you have described there is the United States Twenty Dollar Bill.  Or perhaps the Twenty Euro note? In other words you are describing attributes of currency, any currency.  Clearly these attributes are not getting in the way of widespread use of these currencies."

That is the whole point of currency being controlled and centralized. Bitcoin is not, yet so how can you freeze funds or anyhitng of that sort with bitcoins? You can't. So its you who seem to be confused.

I have no clue how to "quote" it so i did it liek this.

I said every one of the mare wrong except for maybe the 21 million coin ones. I gave Apple as an example. The Ipod for one is revolutionary it caught on like wildfire. Bitcoin is not an experimental idea. It works the way it is supposed to and it is not changing.

I'm sorry, but I'm having a difficult time catching on to what you are saying.

Which of my replies are wrong? Or more importantly, how are they wrong?

Which of Apple's products do you consider revolutionary, and how long did it take for the product to go from an experimental idea in Apple's lab to mainstream widespread use?

Sigh. Everyone of your replies are completley wrong except for the 21 millions which every site seems to say that is the max. And for thr last part in thsi day and age revolutionary ideas cathc on like wildfire just look at apple products. Dotn compare the telephone and radio and the wheel to bitcoins.

I just like these threads telling me that bitcoins will be worth $1000 one day ...

You seem to be confused.  What you have described there is the United States Twenty Dollar Bill.  Or perhaps the Twenty Euro note? In other words you are describing attributes of currency, any currency.  Clearly these attributes are not getting in the way of widespread use of these currencies.

Saying that inflation will always exist, and that the cost of goods are going up regardless, and that it'll just take more bitcoins to buy the same good doesn't make it true.  As a matter of fact, it is pretty clear that you have already been proven wrong, as it already takes less bitcoins to buy something than it did 3 months ago, and it took less bitcoins three months ago than it did 6 months ago, and it took less bitcoins 6 months ago than it did a year ago.  Clearly, you need to re-think what you are saying here.


You are mistaken here as well.  In reality, Bitcoin moves the decimal place eight places to the left just to make it easier for us humans in these early days when bitcoin is dealling with really big numbers.  Given the current protocol, with no significant changes in the future to divide into smaller units, there will be nearly 2.1 quadrillion whole coins.  That should be enough for a very long time.

How long does it typically take for a revolutionizing concept to catch on from it's earliest beginnings as an experiment until it is in widespread mainstream use?  I can think of a few examples (electricity, telephone, internet, radio, automobile, aircraft, etc) and none of them were all that big 4 years after someone first came up with the idea and tried it out.  Can you think of a single revolutionizing concept that went from experimental idea to widespread mainstream use in less than 4 years?

Now go ahead and list the disadvantages. They are far more powerful. Terrorist links, money laundering, tax evasion (serious since without taxes you wouldnt have many things that you take for granted everyday,) only 21 million coins possible, not accepted throughout the world only in a very minute part of the population, scams everywhere, extremem difficulty in aquiring the coins themselves.  What you people dont understand about inflation is it will exist anyways with or without bitcoin. Since the cost of goods are going up regardless itll just take more bitcoins to buy the same good. Bitcoins isnt revolutionizing anything its just a cool concept. If it was then bitcoins would be far bigger than it is. Most people have never even heard of bitcoin.

Or better said in this case as, "in your list of only advantages you missed a few":

• impossible to counterfeit
• accepted throughout the world
• has no centralized issuing authority
• has fungibility
• has scarcity
• ease of identifiability
• ease of divisibility

Furthermore, I can't think of a single merchant who would think that the irreversibility of cash transactions is a bad thing.

In the end it really comes down to mainstream use.  If bitcoin catches on and becomes widely used, it will pretty much have to exceed hundreds of dollars per bitcoin.

"Only" no inflation
Show me one other digital currency on this earth with that single advantage?
Bitcoin also has several other unique useful "advantages" (not for all your money but for some of it.) that trumph all other FIAT currencies on this earth.
How else would Bitcoin be used by millions of people to buy cars/boats etc
If Bitcoin does not go away which it wont. It will happen its just a matter of time. 2 years, 4 years or 10 years.

Bitcoin could easily go to $thousands over the next century.

This is the best idea. Or bank safety deposit box.

I have no clue what you are saying

If 1 bitcoin =1000dollars, then still bitcoins would not be worth more than the US dollars.

If people think bitcoins will be worth hundreds of dollars they are dreaming. Why would a virtual currency with only advantages are no inflation and fast transactions (which are offset by irreversible transactions, which is a negative most of the time unless you are dealing in illegal stuff) be worth hundreds of times more than the U.S dollars or other currencies? Be realistic it wont happen.

This all sounds like a rather complicated way to solve a rather simple problem.

Step 1.  Don't brag to the world about how much bitcoin you have.  As long as you aren't publicly announcing all of your bitcoin addresses or the total amount of bitcoin you own, then a thief shouldn't be able to know just how much bitcoin you own.

Step 2. Create a second wallet with an amount of bitcoin that you are willing to give up (maybe $40 worth?).

Step 3.  When the thief demands "all of your bitcoin", simply start up this second wallet instead of your usual one.  Send "all" of the bitcoin from this wallet.  Thief waits until he sees the transaction on the network (Highly unlikely that he will wait for 6 confirmations, he really doesn't expect you to be able to provide enough hash power to double spend the transaction.)

Step 4.  Thief shoots you dead so that you will not be able to identify him.

Step 5. Thief leaves, and the rest of your protected bitcoins are either lost forever, or your family/estate is lucky enough to figure out how to access them (hopefully you have provided some sort of mechanism for providing this information to your estate)

(Hopefully the thief leaves without shooting you.  In that case you get to keep the rest of your bitcoin for yourself.  Note that your system also does not prevent the thief from shooting you once he thinks the transfer has occurred.)

If you have money, you must be rich. If you are rich, hire a bodyguard, or get adequate training to be your own bodyguard.

Or just be smart and don't be stupid. Takes care of a lot of problems.

Rexcoin, there is no difference between the scenario you describe, and a cash/ATM gunpoint situation.  Basically there are 2 things you could do to mitigate against robbers/hijackers/kidnappers:

1. Carry enough Bitcoins on your phone wallet so that a thief is happy if he mugs you at gunpoint, but never carry your entire savings balance on your person.  Leave your full balance at home or on a 3rd party online service, and draw from that on a daily basis as necessary.
2. At home, have a decoy wallet with low balance.  Give that to any intruders.  Keep your real wallet somewhere else, e.g. encrypted either online or physically hidden, USB, paper wallet, brain wallet, etc.

Of course this is all moot if a burglar has done research, can link an address with a high balance directly to you, and is targetting you explicitly for that reason; he will then insist on having those funds be submitted.  So if you're paranoid about that scenario, you should always break up addresses into small amounts and/or move/mix the funds around regularly or on receipt.  Hopefully, in the future, there will be some automatic P2P coin mixing/breakup solution for nontechies that mitigates any sloppy reusing & publishing of addresses, and the consequent risk of being targetted by offline thieves.

And bitcoin offers a payment system with non-reversible transactions.   Adding a way to reverse transactions would lower its value as a payment system.  Changes to the protocol require acceptance by the economic majority.  The economic majority will not accept a change that lowers the value of Bitcoin as a payment system.

In other words, relief from the threat of being robbed at gunpoint won't be coming from changes to the protocol.  Therefore, other security measures will need to be considered.  Similar risks in other financial matters have been mitigated by requiring two signatures, or by splitting the keys, etc.   That's probably the direction to look with regard to the risk that was raised in this thread.

Is USD the currency of every country? I think not, so please refrain from mentioning USD when instead you should have said fiat currency as to avoid proclaiming USA as the only country on the planet and USD as the only fiat currency.

If I understood the OP correctly, this would mean being able to broadcast legitimate-looking transactions which would be reversed at some later time. No.

If it rises that high, average joe will be dealing in satoshi anyway and there are other, less violent, more effective ways to get at them, e.g. hack into computer, pilfer wallet.dat...