Topic: In the long run, bitcoin will be worth $0. (Read 6708 times)

In the long run, we're all dead.

The first thing that everyone I've introduced BTC does is go online and start mining.

Hell, I sold mining rigs before I was able to sell people on buying the actual currency.

I think you are generalizing your experience way too much.

New users of bitcoins start by buying some, not by building a mining rig.

You can make the argument that the introduction of ASICs to BTC makes DIY mining much more difficult and that Scrypt as a technology is a very real competition to BTC. Any gamer with a PC can generate LTC/FTC but you need specialized hardware ATM to mine BTC, so newer users will likely start with some kind of scrypt based coin before moving onto BTC.

The reason all SHA based alts have not been a real competitor is that the specialized hardware used for btc can also be used for those alt coins making adoption very difficult.

I haven't read through the whole discussion here but let me just say this regarding new cryptocurrencies:

Trust in these doesn't come overnight. Bitcoin has been in development for about four years now.

When anything better comes along, people will not immediately jump all over it just as people still haven't jumped all over Bitcoins (Paypal is still way more popular for example). For many years it will simply trade against Bitcoins and slowly rise in valuation until it finally takes over. (And the early adopters will once again get filthy rich. That's because most cryptocurrencies never work out.)

So whether Bitcoins or another cryptocurrency "wins" in the long run doesn't really matter. Right now Bitcoins has all the momentum, for several very good reasons.

on a related note, they can be taught to do so, and they still trade it for sex.

If competition or some alt coin can come up with a just as secure public database or public ledger, with the not so big size the block chain requires, that might possibly take over as the internet currency.

You have to beat the core features of bitcoin, mainly the double-spend issue, and it's protected by strong crypto.

while another competitor could arise it would take time for it to become competition, everyday that bitcoin lives is another day people trust it more

I honestly trust bitcoin more than banks or anything else mainly for the fact that I control the value of my wealth on paper, im well diversified in assets only and have only safety money in the bank and it would take serious trust for me to move my assets somewhere else

BTC is pretty safe from the time length it has been out (as an investment and store of wealth) and it has made many of those who have believed in it from the getco richer than imagined,

BTC was also someones baby, prior to it being released to the world it was well thought and perfected, look how far it has come, Seriously this is just the beginning

as someone who holds a big number of coins ill also say that it being worth 0 is going to take a long time to happen frankly because it would take me forever to liquidate my coins and there are those who have more than I do so they are in the same boat, not only that people who are wealthier than I want hordes of bitcoin and they cant have it, now why would I want to ditch something when someone who is richer than me wants it?

This part I completely agree with. Something totally *different* from Bitcoin (only, it'll turn out to be not that different after all) could effectively replace it. I just caution not to make it sound like that happening to be a certainty (in the first decade or so after widespread adoption of Bitcoin). Could happen, sure. Doesn't have to, though, and I think those smart enough will see it coming in time to get out of Bitcoin.

If I had an answer to these questions I would probably try to implement it rather than posting here.

I thought of something along the line of different difficulty targets at once, ie a transaction gets one split second confirmation first, then in the order of seconds, then minutes, hours, days...
Storage space has not really something to do with mining, immediately I thought about leaving out the "full node" concept altogether, nodes depending on other nodes to confirm transactions, mine multiple smaller tranactions into larger ones, and so on, there probably is a much more elegant solution though.
As for the useful work part, that is something very difficult, I don't really have an idea of how to tackle it, one approach would be to use things like FFT for hashing and use the currency to buy computation power. Miners engaging in some sort of contest instead/in addition to hashing based proof of work, etc... This is very much hazy.

If the new cryptocurrency will keep all the benefits and advantages of bitcoin then maybe yes. But I am afraid that some point are incompatible. (How would split-second confirmations guarantee safety against double-spending? How would logarithmic growth of storage space motivate miners to compete for it? Who will set and influence what is "useful work"?)

You answered it already, kind of.
Once the amount of "friction" is overcome people will switch to an improved system.

But that is also not the whole factor: Facebook took over myspace not only because it took over it's consumerbase. It started from it's own consumerbase which wasn't a subset of myspace, other people who didn't previously use social networking started to use it and only after it became larger than myspace people started the switch.
This is also why the current "alt chains" aren't a real competition to bitcoin they are essentially part of it. Real competition can only come from outside the project, on a new codebase and from a new group of people as early adopters.  I don't even think that such a new cryptocurrency would call itself a "coin" or compare itself with bitcoin for that matter.
It being competitive with bitcoin would most likely be only be apparent after the fact.

Think of it this way.
Budweiser- Highest selling beers of all time in the United States. Highly marketed, accepted by many as "good" beer. One of the first in the states. Is it the best, not by a long shot. Is it even good, no. Is there other beers out there that should have taken its place as "the king of beers" absolutely. Fact is, it was first, it was widely consumed, highly publicized, rose to the top and stayed there because of its wide acceptance, its mass appeal, and its basic "trust" in the brand.

Bitcoin will be a lot like Budweiser. It was first, widely adopted, mass media attention, commonly used. Will their be better, sure. Does that mean they will be worth more, maybe. Does it mean Bitcoin will be worth less, maybe not. Does it mean bitcoin will still be the most commonly used because of peoples perception of the brand, absolutely.

*Yes this is probably one of the most ridiculous analogies ever used to describe the future of Bitcoin, however it is just a speculative and credible as any other analogy on this site because no one will ever no the future of Bitcoin or any form of crypto currency and that is the truth. So speculate away, but I say this; Make whatever fiat currency you need now, but make sure you've got a few BTC coins stashed away so that when/if they become what many hope they will become you're not standing at the top of some building contemplating jumping 50 stories to your death because you had 100 bitcoins at $3, sold them for $100 and now can barely get your hands on a satoshi.*

Chimps trade food for sex. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090407-chimps-meat-sex.html
I don't know if any species actually trades in stored value, though.

Here's where your argument breaks down (in my opinion):

You seem to think that the Bitcoin vs. [as of yet unknown altcoin] situation can be compared to the browser history. Major innovations by a newcomer in this field more than once caused the previous market leader to lose its established position (Netscape replaced by IE, IE by Firefox, Firefox by Chrome).

However I hold that the *coin situation is more similar to the history of social networks. A major innovator, with sufficient momentum generated by word of mouth, can sometimes replace the previous market leader -- say, when Facebook destroyed Myspace's entire business model. But innovation and word of mouth do not guarantee success in this field: upon release, Google+ had huge momentum, the whole might of the world's largest Internet company behind them, and was/is arguably a much more pleasant experience than Facebook. Yet, they completely tanked in their effort to even approach the position of Facebook.

The difference is previous investment in the product. Browsers require very little of it (just install a new one), social networks a lot (all your friends are on it, you'd have to convince them to follow you). Now please be honest: in terms of investment, which of the two does a cryptocurrency resemble more?

(caveat: I admit, there's always the possibility to shift your investment from one currency to another, and this is maybe somewhat easier than shifting "investements" in a social network. However, even with the option of trading currencies, this process is not frictionless, and will therefore be a serious barrier for any competitor)

and you have just identified the other half of why altcoin are popular, apart from the get rich quick motivation is the knowledge that BTC may not be it....!

I'm sure that there exists some non-human species that can barter right now.  Wonder if any animal experts know if any species outside humans know how to use an arbitrary and agreed upon method of value store today.  probably not, but perhaps some analogies can be made..  Eg. cartoons of squirrels exchanging nuts

Heh, good point.

Yes, I think any species that develops trade will develop a unit of trade, that is, money.

This is trivial, but in the long run every currency ever to have existed will be worth $0 or infinite dollars, depending on whether USD or the currency in question dies first.

By the way, this is a funny thought but once mankind disappears does money (including BTC) cease to exist?  conversely, do any current or future species outside of humans have the potential to understand the concept of money?

And this is where shit goes horribly wrong, again...

Keep spreading FUD, sell your coins quickly please while you can, bitcoin can be $0 within a day when people have read your post!
I'll take them.

Oh, and don't forget to buy litecoin, they solved all of bitcoins problems and will take over bitcoin soon!