Is anyone else starting to become a bit worried? mod note in first post

cnocbui

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Pretty much yeah. It does well as a speculative digital gold. If they could tack on some sort of stable-coin, possibly like Maker/DAI, then maybe that would open the door as a currency, but would depend on how much demand there'd be and how much competition, and how the regulators would view the whole thing

A decentralised proven stable-coin would be an excellent recourse for imploding economies

And you accuse Satoshi of not understanding economics - oh the irony!

Dohnjoe

makeorbrake wrote: »

They seem to have done alright from where I'm standing. Everything comes with trade offs. It would appear they didn't want to come up with a system that correlates with FIAT money. The USD has lost practically all of its value over the course of 100 years.

Indeed but currency isn't supposed to "accrue" value and most of that value drop you mention was in the first decade or two. Now inflation is around 1% or 2% per year. The USD is perfectly usable as a day-to-day currency, or for issuing 8 billion dollar bonds, and everything in between.

Why do we have to have inflationary economics? It's constantly being trotted out that in a scenario where FIAT currency wasn't influential, then there would be no mechanism to set monetary/economic policy (i.e. print money, tinker with interest rates, etc). That such a scenario is necessary to ensure growth, etc.

Because it's the least worst system, no one has devised anything that works better for 7 billion people

Why do we have to have cyclical boom and bust economics? I'm no economist - but I don't see how the world caves in - without that. Additionally, why should we have systems that encourage people to be indebted up to their eyeballs? I have to defer to those that have a greater appreciation of economics but I've yet to see a discussion in which the case that's set out suggests to me that it has to be this way (current system).

It's an unavoidable trait of the current system, and many would argue the very nature of economics

As regards volatility, sure it's an Achilles heel. However, at some stage, the speculative aspect of Bitcoin should die down. I'd imagine it should become far more price stable. But I don't expect that to be in the short term - that's on the long term horizon.

Yup, Apple shares have settled down over the decades - but still too inherently volatile to use as a currency, likewise gold

Bob24

Arrival wrote: »

It's unsuitable as a currency replacement due to scaling issues, and Satoshi himself even acknowledged this.

Scaling is a core issue with the bitcoin blockchain technology even as a speculative/investment asset, so yes as it stands, “core” bitcoin definitely couldn’t scale to be used as a currency.

But I don’t think it is a problem: if people had appetite to use BTC as a currency, either the way the core blockchain works could be changed to optimise it (hard and long term) or top layer transaction mechanisms could be built on top of the blockchain (relatively easy in the short term).

For exemple you could have a network of trusted entities which are processing huge numbers of small (in value) transactions off blockchain for their users, and then reconciliation balances between those trustee entities once a day with just a couple of transactions on the blockchain (at the end of the day this is not very different from what exchanges are already doing). This parallel mechanism would relieve the blockchain from very frequent and small value transactions such has buying lunch or a cup of coffee while still leaving the option for anyone to store large amounts or process large transactions directly on the blockchain if they want to.

makeorbrake

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Indeed but currency isn't supposed to "accrue" value and most of that value drop you mention was in the first decade or two. Now inflation is around 1% or 2% per year. The USD is perfectly usable as a day-to-day currency, or for issuing 8 billion dollar bonds, and everything in between.

There's no question about it being usable. As regards it not supposed to accrue value, I also don't want it to drop value. That comes out of the pockets of ordinary people. Printing money and screwing around with interest rates sees to that. We used the USD as an example - but at the other end of the FIAT scale, the Argentinian Peso dropped 30% in 24 hours the other day.

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Because it's the least worst system, no one has devised anything that works better for 7 billion people

For sure, its taken some development to come up with that system - no question. As regards whether we can come up with something better, that remains to be seen.

Dohnjoe wrote: »

It's an unavoidable trait of the current system, and many would argue the very nature of economics

Perhaps. But I'm not seeing how it's essential. Will the world fall apart if we don't have boom n bust? I can see how an indebted society can grease certain wheels but is that what we aspire to?

sexmag

Is anyone else sick of the merry go round this thread goes on?

People come in and say it will never work and rehash the same arguments over and over,people come in and argue the point of that argument with fair facts,acknowledging the concerns of the first person in the argument,that person comes back saying the same thing again

Rinse and repeat, time to unfollow this thread

Dohnjoe

makeorbrake wrote: »

Perhaps. But I'm not seeing how it's essential. Will the world fall apart if we don't have boom n bust? I can see how an indebted society can grease certain wheels but is that what we aspire to?

Unfortunately we can't have both our modern living standards and no boom/bust cycle. You'd have to revert right back to some sort of closed feudal system to avoid recessions and even then they'd still probably occur

Basically we live far better in the pits of a bad recession in the current system than we would in the "peak" of any other alternative system we know of

Also crypto doesn't propose to solve any large economic challenges, more to grease the wheels of the current system in terms of tech or act (potentially) as an alternative currency

makeorbrake

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Unfortunately we can't have both our modern living standards and no boom/bust cycle. You'd have to revert right back to some sort of closed feudal system to avoid recessions and even then they'd still probably occur

That's what we get told for sure. I keep an open mind on the subject.

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Basically we live far better in the pits of a bad recession in the current system than we would in the "peak" of any other alternative system we know of

We have not had much in the way of alternative systems being applied apart from maybe communism.

That may well be the case - or it may be that we simply don't know until someone tries out an alternate system. With quantitative easing, nobody really knew what the outcome of that experiment would be. Some claim its a success yet the reality is that the experiment has not fully played out yet. ...just by way of example.

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Also crypto doesn't propose to solve any large economic challenges, more to grease the wheels of the current system in terms of tech or act (potentially) as an alternative currency

Crypto doesn't actually promise to definitely address or solve anything. Such is the case with new tech, it will take time to figure out precisely what its use case is.

sexmag wrote:

Is anyone else sick of the merry go round this thread goes on? Rinse and repeat, time to unfollow this thread

I think it's healthy to hear the contrarian view. So long as someone wants to discuss that, then that's fine. There are a couple of folks who just want to troll/provoke whilst also being arrogant/condescending, etc. For those there is the ignore feature. I cottoned on pretty late on that one - but for the past couple of months, I've got podge n' rodge on ignore. No more problem :-)

Dohnjoe

makeorbrake wrote: »

That's what we get told for sure. I keep an open mind on the subject.

Well we aren't "told" as such, anyone is free to take up the study of this. Most economic courses throw in some sociology as that also plays a key part.

We have not had much in the way of alternative systems being applied apart from maybe communism.

There are several different schools of thought in economics, however they are typically variations on what we have or what we've tried in the past

The current system is the best (or least worst), there isn't really an alternative that isn't some risky extreme. We just keep tinkering away refining it

That may well be the case - or it may be that we simply don't know until someone tries out an alternate system. With quantitative easing, nobody really knew what the outcome of that experiment would be. Some claim its a success yet the reality is that the experiment has not fully played out yet. ...just by way of example.

At a stretch perhaps some extreme libertarian style economy hasn't been tried yet, but I wouldn't really recommend it

I think it's healthy to hear the contrarian view. So long as someone wants to discuss that, then that's fine. There are a couple of folks who just want to troll/provoke whilst also being arrogant/condescending, etc. For those there is the ignore feature. I cottoned on pretty late on that one - but for the past couple of months, I've got podge n' rodge on ignore. No more problem :-)

Yup

makeorbrake

Dohnjoe wrote: »

At a stretch perhaps some extreme libertarian style economy hasn't been tried yet, but I wouldn't really recommend it

Indeed but whilst you speculate in crypto, I doubt you'd class yourself as a libertarian, right?

Anyway, I simply don't understand it enough to hold strong views on it. I certainly would like to see another approach but of course, I also accept you can't just rush through with some other system thats untested with something as fundamental as this. For right now, I'm happy to see crypto develop as a non correlated asset as an alternative to the conventional system.

JohnnyFlash

https://i.redd.it/g4j63txvp2h31.png

I’ll take things that didn’t happen for 20, Bob.

Bob24

400m worth of USDT just got burned: https://bitcoinist.com/will-tethers-400m-usdt-burning-lead-bitcoin-to-crash/

Probably not a good side in terms of future short term price action as it likely means there is cash leaving the market.

Bob24

An increasing number of exchanges are delisting privacy coins due to legal concerns, latest occurrence here: https://cointelegraph.com/news/upbit-exchange-delists-privacy-coins-due-to-money-laundering-concerns

Not sure I would be too confident if I was holding a large amount of the likes of Monero, Dash, or Zcash.

And even without holding these, it is an interesting space to watch in terms of whether regulation can effectively kill or significantly impede a cryptocurrency.

Dohnjoe

Yeah I don't keep any in my portfolio, currently they are small enough to fly under the radar, but in the long term I don't think it's looking good for privacy coins

Kickstart1.3

Bob24 wrote: »

400m worth of USDT just got burned: https://bitcoinist.com/will-tethers-400m-usdt-burning-lead-bitcoin-to-crash/

This is the one aspect of Bitcoin that doesn't sit well. Basically they can print or burn as much tether as they want with no regulation or oversight. It has been a positive effect on the Bitcoin price for now, what happens when they want to reset the price of Bitcoin again

Bob24 wrote: »

An increasing number of exchanges are delisting privacy coins due to legal concerns, latest occurrence here: https://cointelegraph.com/news/upbit-exchange-delists-privacy-coins-due-to-money-laundering-concerns

Not good for the future, Monero, Bitcoin private etc all had the one positive aspect that it acts the same as cash. The 20 euro note in your wallet doesn't know where it came from, who had it or what it will be used for in the future.

This is the Governments slowly getting a grip on crypto

Bob24

Kickstart1.3 wrote: »

Not good for the future, Monero, Bitcoin private etc all had the one positive aspect that it acts the same as cash. The 20 euro note in your wallet doesn't know where it came from, who had it or what it will be used for in the future.

This is the Governments slowly getting a grip on crypto

Agree with you when you look at it from an individual perspective. And I would add the anonymity is good to prevent stigmatisation and censorship (for exemple with a public ledger, could see political activists looking for people which they see as enemies due to whom they transact with and stigmatise them).

But on the other end I think a problem with privacy coins is that they make it much easier than cash to transfer huge amounts of money for illegal activity. For exemple the reason the largest euro notes is 500 euros is because Germans like it (all other counties wanted smaller denominations to limit illegal use), but even then it does make it a lot more difficult to use cash for anonymous illegal activities compared to privacy crypto. For exemple if i wanted to send 50 million euros to someone in let’s say Cambodia with cash related to illegal activities, there would be quite a bit of logistics due to the space it takes and the fact that you need to physically transport it to the other side of the world without being noticed. Plus there is a good chance that such a large cash amount leaves some traces and the recipient would have problem spending the notes without being found out. For the better or the worse, a privacy oriented crypto basically makes all these problems disappear.

JohnnyFlash

Bitcoin Could Be Our Best Hope for Alien Interaction.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/op-ed-hear-me-out-in-a-post-area-51-world-bitcoin-could-be-our-best-hope-for-alien-interaction


Now I’ve always considered the majority of cryptocurrency fans to be some sort of non-human life form, but surely this article is some sort of poor attempt at satire?

unkel

WTF?

Some other posters probably disagree, but personally I feel this forum is better off with you than without you, Johnny.

JJJJNR

End is nigh.

https://www.afr.com/technology/google-claims-to-have-reached-quantum-supremacy-20190922-p52tqg

Kickstart1.3

JJJJNR wrote: »

End is nigh.

https://www.afr.com/technology/google-claims-to-have-reached-quantum-supremacy-20190922-p52tqg

Can you paste the whole article thks

JJJJNR

Another version.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-quantum-computers-supremacy

cnocbui

JJJJNR wrote: »

End is nigh.

https://www.afr.com/technology/google-claims-to-have-reached-quantum-supremacy-20190922-p52tqg

No it isn't. Google have 53 qbits. Millions would be required to have a go at a bitcoin key.

Kickstart1.3

cnocbui wrote: »

No it isn't. Google have 53 qbits. Millions would be required to have a go at a bitcoin key.

Not quite true. Millions would be required to reverse a SHA-256 hash by brute force, but research is showing that SHA-256 is not fully a one way function.

Dohnjoe

Kickstart1.3 wrote: »

Not quite true. Millions would be required to reverse a SHA-256 hash by brute force, but research is showing that SHA-256 is not fully a one way function.

Aren't there a few quantum proof cryptos out there?

JJJJNR

Ada cardano has a quantum proof as an entry on its roadmap, Its incomplete.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608041/first-quantum-secured-blockchain-technology-tested-in-moscow/

q85dw7osi4lebg

When I think of quantum computing the least of my worries is crypto.

Bob24

Gerald Obedient Manicurist wrote: »

When I think of quantum computing the least of my worries is crypto.

Especially when you think the leader in the fields seems to be an almighty private and global corporation with no public accountability and at the forefront of surveillance capitalism.

Dohnjoe

Bob24 wrote: »

Especially when you think the leader in the fields seems to be an almighty private and global corporation with no public accountability and at the forefront of surveillance capitalism.

Okay, I have to ask, what's "surveillance capitalism"?

Bob24

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Okay, I have to ask, what's "surveillance capitalism"?

Here’s what there is on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism

But in a nutshell: an economic model whereby the key to economic success is how much data you have (including personal/private data) and what you capacity is analysis/collide/monetise it. Ie which leads to the creation of large scale and borderless private entities which both have good reasons and the means to organise large scale global data collection and surveillance.

Quantum computing on top of this sounds a bit scary.

Dohnjoe

Doesn't sound scary to me at all, it's meta-data

Bob24

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Doesn't sound scary to me at all, it's meta-data

I don’t call what google holds about most of its users just metadata, very far from it. And in any case you can know a lot about people and gain a lot of influence/control just with metadata as long as you have a lot of it and the capacity to aggregate/analyse it, even without quantum computing. But that is a discussion for another thread.