Topic: My ideas on bitcoin - Challenge please! (Read 830 times)

Yet again people who don't really understand the technology getting hung up on bitcoin as a currency. Bitcoin is already being used as a currency and it might have wide ranging uses as a currency in the future, but the bitcoin protocol is exponentially more important than as a currency.

I'm not going to waste anymore time going into details that have been discussed on the forum literally 1000s of times.

I will just LOL at people who think they know something but have produced nothing questioning a technology that people that have produced many somethings are pouring their life and hundreds of millions of dollars to build an eco-system around.

yeah wobber. What you have stumbled upon is an epic pump and dump. Everyone on this forum thinks they are smart enough to sell first when that day comes.

no one has really exited because it never crashes properly below the last high, as a new wave of speculators saves the day each time.

that same hardening of never selling crashes and never panicking will be the undoing of many, as when the big crash comes, they will hold all the way down.

PS bitcoin was never designed to be used as a currency. The people who designed it were smart enough to see the shortage of coins would lead to wild volatility. it was designed as a pump, benefiting the early adopters. Kind of a shame as eventually it has to implode on itself, leaving tears for the majority of holders.

Anyways the barriers to creating other crypto currencies is basically nothing, all you need is the idiots on the BTCE trollbox to start mining and off you go.

The spectacular bitcoin implosion is inevitable, just impossible to predict when. Need more people aboard the train first before we head off the cliff.


 

You bought into a start-up at the very early stage. Nobody can really cash out until the IPO. The product is only marginally usable. There is alot of promise and hype, and big investors line up with funding rounds, making your initial investment valuation grow. Reminds anything? Because it is.

All of the above - growing pains.

EDIT: sorry that was a rather facile answer 

Mining protects the network. It serves as both a security guard and an accountant. Yes, it uses a lot of electricity. So does the whole banking system behind fiat currencies. Is it ideal? No. Is it a major issue? Not really, IMO.

Mining equipment only obsoletes when the marginal cost surpasses the income. Right now, most of the cost of mining is in the initial purchase, with marginal costs (power usage) being rather low. It will take a considerable increase in difficulty before it is no longer profitable to leave an already produced miner running. After that, yes, it no longer serves a purpose other than as a space heater.

Agreed. Though I feel this will be smoothed out somewhat as Bitcoin appreciates in price and early adopters start spending part of their stash (either by cashing out to fiat or by spending BTC directly).

Agreed. But I do think a large part of the current high price is due to peoples expectations for future Bitcoin adoption as a proper currency.

So was the internet in its early days. Bitcoin is far from ready for mainstream. Services need to be developed to use the underlying protocol and wrap it in a userfriendly package.

Drop the whole BTC denomination, count everything in mBTC, while giving that unit a new name if needed and it's fine. This is just a matter of time and getting used to new terminology IMO.

Centralized exchanges are still the easiest way to exchange fiat for BTC. As the commercial use of Bitcoin grows, there will be less need to convert before and after every purchase and a larger part of the economy can be transacted completely in Bitcoins.

Agreed. Simply multiplying # of coins with the last exchange price is far too simple an estimate of the amount of fiat money in Bitcoin. It's an okay statistic to track in time, but not to compare to the market cap of, for example, companies.

Eventually people will have to start spending Bitcoin, otherwise it loses its point as a currency and merchant-acceptance will decrease. In the scenario where everyone only hoards (except when they exchange for fiat), Bitcoin will only have value as a store-of-value, which means it has lost most of its potential.

The network as a whole is consuming too much electricity to mine and the hashing provides nothing (but bitcoins) See http://bitcarbon.org

Most mining equipment won't serve any purpose after their hashrate is obsolete.

The Pareto Principle is even worse than in fiat currencies as only a handful of people control a large chunk of the bitcoins.

Bitcoin is overspeculated and very little used as a currency (it's intended purpose).

Bitcoin is hard to undestand and use even for 60 years old iPad-capable grandma.

Bitcoin is even harder to trade for non-tech people (also due to high price, satoshis and mBTC).This and previous statement might throw bitcoin to a niche that is almost fullfilled.

Trading in centralized exchanges almost entirely defeats the purpose of Bitcoin (also by using banks).

Market cap is irrelevant as that money is not the real money in the bitcoin ecosystem.

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The whole bitcoin thing blows my mind.

It is both value-less (because it cannot be used at anything) and valuable (because everybody wants it)

Everybody wants it because it's the best speculative instrument but nobody really wants to spend it (hodl for 1000 years).

Hoarding it makes it even more valuable as very few early adopters really exit it (unlike pyramid schemes)

Because nobody really exits bitcoin and nobody uses it at anything makes it valuable and makes everybody want it.