Is competition healthy for Bitcoin? - page 5.

JoelKatz

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Quote from: amincd on March 11, 2013, 09:02:48 AM

It would be like a company creating a WOW gold II, that can be used as currency in the WOW MMOG, and people accepted it. It would effectively double the supply of WOW gold, and reduce the value of each gold coin. If parties could create unlimited numbers of WOW gold variants that could be used in the WOW world, and the WOW servers accepted them as of equal value, then the economy would experience rapid inflation, and the currency would become less useful, if not totally useless.

Unless it also brought in new players or increased interest from existing players. It's all about supply and demand.

More importantly, I think we all know that Bitcoin's key to long-term success is increased adoption as a means of exchange. Deflation harms that because it means that prices need more frequent adjustment. A small amount of inflation (assuming it is gradual and small, rather than sudden and huge) would actually be a good thing. It would also help to drive out speculation, which would decrease the risk of a bubble collapse. Collapses are disastrous to adoption because they make Bitcoin risky as a means of exchange. So anything that drives off speculation is good for Bitcoin's long-term success.

amincd

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Quote from: markm on March 11, 2013, 08:11:03 AM

So world of warcraft gold and eve online currency and second life lindens and such all become more and more valueless as more and more such things come into existence?

No, because WOW gold and Second Life Lindens are different currencies for different virtual worlds. Bitcoin variants are almost clones of Bitcoin, and would have the same use as bitcoins, thus increasing the bitcoin-like-currency money supply.

It would be like a company creating a WOW gold II, that can be used as currency in the WOW MMOG, and people accepted it. It would effectively double the supply of WOW gold, and reduce the value of each gold coin. If parties could create unlimited numbers of WOW gold variants that could be used in the WOW world, and the WOW servers accepted them as of equal value, then the economy would experience rapid inflation, and the currency would become less useful, if not totally useless.

BlackBison

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How can you possibly think that mccorvic? I just cannot believe hardly anyone gets how 2 competing cryptos will likely lead to faster progress through competition etc. Of course there are negatives, but I believe 2 competing dev teams will push the crypto concept much further much faster, than just a potentially lumbering, arrogant btc team with no real incentive to innovate or take any risks that might jepoardize their own personal btc treasure hoards.

mccorvic

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Quote from: BlackBison on March 11, 2013, 08:48:42 AM

Apologies if I made an error there mccorvic, there are hundreds of anti-LTC dead bodies lying by the wayside over the last 12 months so excuse me if I can't remember exactly what you said Grin

Eh, maybe you mistook one of my claims that if LTC reaches any REAL modicum of success, i.e. more than just emo-sad GPU miners use it, then the whole SYSTEM will crash. BTC and LTC both. Though I don't know if I specifically ever used the word crash.

BlackBison

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Apologies if I made an error there mccorvic, there are hundreds of anti-LTC dead bodies lying by the wayside over the last 12 months so excuse me if I can't remember exactly what you said Grin

mccorvic

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Quote from: BlackBison on March 11, 2013, 08:37:15 AM

Quote from: mccorvic on March 11, 2013, 08:28:28 AM

This is literally the worst analogy I've heard yet. Congrats.

Better the worst analogy than the worst prediction: you have been saying LTC will crash for months now. Hows that working out for you?

Lol. I haven't said LTC would crash. I've just said it was a terrible idea.

Now LTCers are just making stuff up about me because they can't argue a use for their BS.

BlackBison

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Quote from: mccorvic on March 11, 2013, 08:28:28 AM

This is literally the worst analogy I've heard yet. Congrats.

Better the worst analogy than the worst prediction: you have been saying LTC will crash for months now. Hows that working out for you?

bitcool

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Quote from: markm on March 11, 2013, 08:11:03 AM

Quote from: mccorvic on March 11, 2013, 08:00:05 AM

Quote from: amincd on March 11, 2013, 05:37:28 AM

Litecoin and other POW Bitcoin-variants are just new bitcoin blockchains with new names and a couple of superficial changes to how it works. They are an attempt to increase the bitcoin-like-currency money supply, which hurts peer-to-peer currency as a whole by reducing the integrity of the scarcity of its money supply. Without supply scarcity, a currency can't hold value, which makes it less useful.

It's always nice to see someone else who gets it.

So world of warcraft gold and eve online currency and second life lindens and such all become more and more valueless as more and more such things come into existence?

Totally agree. To most people, p2p-backed virtual currencies is concept they've never heard of. It's hard to wrap their minds around the fact a currency can exist without government's backing.

The more p2p virtual currencies there is, the more people will become aware of this concept.

mccorvic

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Quote from: markm on March 11, 2013, 08:11:03 AM

Quote from: mccorvic on March 11, 2013, 08:00:05 AM

Quote from: amincd on March 11, 2013, 05:37:28 AM

Litecoin and other POW Bitcoin-variants are just new bitcoin blockchains with new names and a couple of superficial changes to how it works. They are an attempt to increase the bitcoin-like-currency money supply, which hurts peer-to-peer currency as a whole by reducing the integrity of the scarcity of its money supply. Without supply scarcity, a currency can't hold value, which makes it less useful.

It's always nice to see someone else who gets it.

So world of warcraft gold and eve online currency and second life lindens and such all become more and more valueless as more and more such things come into existence?

This is literally the worst analogy I've heard yet. Congrats.

bitcool

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Live and enjoy experiments

To those who still think bitcoin is only a blockchain, a product, or a currency, you need to wake up.

Bitcoin is bigger than that, it's a technology, a techno-social experiment, all alt-chains fall under this umbrella.

This discussion is part of the experiment too Wink

markm

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That is part of what I am hoping to explore with the Galactic Milieu...

Basically if you look at totally differently scaled games one sees a vast range in scale of what a given number of dollars will buy; in clubs and swords era villages games you might only be able to buy some swords and clubs, whereas in galactic armada games you might be able to buy entire armadas.

I am interested in seeing what happens when galactic armadas fly around in galaxies in which some planets have clubs and swords villages on them... If it is learned how many millions of swords and clubs it takes to build a ship, of which thousands might form an armada, yet swords and clubs are worth a few bucks, imagine how expensive, in bucks, a galactic armada might be...

-MarkM-

JoelKatz

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Democracy is vulnerable to a 51% attack.

Quote from: markm on March 11, 2013, 08:11:03 AM

So world of warcraft gold and eve online currency and second life lindens and such all become more and more valueless as more and more such things come into existence?

It's all about supply and demand. A new world that uses a virtual currency also adds to the demand for goods that can be purchased with virtual currencies.

But I might be a bit of a contrarian because I think looking at the price of a virtual currency (in units like dollars per bitcoin) is useful only so long as it accurately measures adoption of the currency. If other factors push the price of the virtual currency up or down, we shouldn't care. Bitcoin's success will depend on how widely adopted it is. To the extent price measures that, then it's a measure of success. But to the extent it doesn't, it isn't.

In fact, to the extent a higher price means more speculation, that can be a bad thing. Speculative bubbles can burst which can cause sudden drops in price. Those drops increase the risk of using the currency as a means of exchange which drives adoption down.

We should care about adoption of Bitcoins as a means of exchange. That's what will determine Bitcoin's long-term success, or lack of it.

markm

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Quote from: mccorvic on March 11, 2013, 08:00:05 AM

Quote from: amincd on March 11, 2013, 05:37:28 AM

Litecoin and other POW Bitcoin-variants are just new bitcoin blockchains with new names and a couple of superficial changes to how it works. They are an attempt to increase the bitcoin-like-currency money supply, which hurts peer-to-peer currency as a whole by reducing the integrity of the scarcity of its money supply. Without supply scarcity, a currency can't hold value, which makes it less useful.

It's always nice to see someone else who gets it.

So world of warcraft gold and eve online currency and second life lindens and such all become more and more valueless as more and more such things come into existence?

The more MUDs there are, each with their own variety of MUD-gold or MUD-currency, the less second life lindens are worth?

This seems like crazy talk. Surely as more and more virtual currencies and game currencies are observed to be exchangeable with fiat currencies the more all virtual currencies and game currencies gain in credibility as potentially of value?

If even BBQcoins have value, as evidenced by someone paying 100+ litecoins for 40,000 BBQcoins, then heck, darn near any such thing could turn out to have value, and if even far-fetched ones have value surely the granddaddy of them all, bitcoin, must be supremely valuable?

-MarkM-

bitcool

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Live and enjoy experiments

The fact that we are debating this topic, and this forum has a alt-chain section show the tolerance and inclusiveness of this community.

In Nazi Germany and Communist China, people are not allowed to talk about competition, they have more important things to worry about, such as Mr. "BIG", taxes and death.

mccorvic

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Quote from: amincd on March 11, 2013, 05:37:28 AM

Litecoin and other POW Bitcoin-variants are just new bitcoin blockchains with new names and a couple of superficial changes to how it works. They are an attempt to increase the bitcoin-like-currency money supply, which hurts peer-to-peer currency as a whole by reducing the integrity of the scarcity of its money supply. Without supply scarcity, a currency can't hold value, which makes it less useful.

It's always nice to see someone else who gets it.

Bitcoinpro

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their is a reason why people dont play cpu based games anymore Cheesy

amincd

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I don't believe that it is competition for Bitcoin, since it uses almost all of the same code, and the same security model and technology. Ripple is competition to Bitcoin since it is fundamentally different from it from a technological and functional standpoint.

Litecoin and other POW Bitcoin-variants are just new bitcoin blockchains with new names and a couple of superficial changes to how it works. They are an attempt to increase the bitcoin-like-currency money supply, which hurts peer-to-peer currency as a whole by reducing the integrity of the scarcity of its money supply. Without supply scarcity, a currency can't hold value, which makes it less useful.

Notanon

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I see. It'll probably be a while before I use Ripple for anything (in the middle of dealing with some personal debts, so watching my spending atm), so will wait and see on that.

markm

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Anyone can make Litecoin useable inside Ripple just by issuing LTC IOUs.

Actual websites that let you turn those IOUs in for actual coins on the blockchain, and turn coins on the blockchain into those IOUs will have to wait for the Ripple server source code, or at least the ability to set a Ripple account up to require destination codes so the webpage will work, but that is just a convenience thing, until then you can still buy IOUs over the counter and sell then back for coins over the counter.

-MarkM-

Notanon

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I can see Bitcoin working more for expensive purchases (i.e. LED TVs, fridges, computers, etc.) as time goes on and Litecoin working more for smaller purchases, like movie tickets and so forth, mainly due to the faster block generation timeframe. Given one of the recent threads where people are complaining about microtransactions inflating the block size, perhaps Litecoin and other alternate currencies would help Bitcoin in this way by diverting micropayments to them, leaving large transactions and trades more the domain of Bitcoin.

As for Ripple, would be interesting to see if they do adopt Litecoin as a form of payment as well (last time I checked, there didn't seem to be that option available).

Topic: Is competition healthy for Bitcoin? - page 5. (Read 11322 times)