Major Bitcoin supporter quits, says it's a failure
forbes.com
forbes.com
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10905118
Does this article add anything interesting?
I guess there is also some overlap with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10909886.
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If the problem of bitcoin is purely core members deciding about configuration settings, altcoins are not affected.
If the problem is the blockchain not being able to support the massive amount of transactions, here too, having alternative blockchains to divide the load will help.
Fragmentation doesn't seem like the most healthy thing for any ecosystem, esp. an 'underground currency'.
Indeed, this will become an exchange problem, especially since it's already difficult to get merchants to allow bitcoin payments.
But that's something payment gateways can handle by themselves. I often buy things priced in USD on the web with my EUR account, and gateways handle the change transparently (although with a fee).
But, is the end game for bitcoin for me to be able to purchase my lunch with it? Because I can't do that now, and I can't see how replacing the one 'bitcoin' with a dozen variants is going to help.
For the sake of providing hypothesis, I can see one reason for which it could help. I've watched dogecoin quite closely since it was released and what stroke me is how stable it has been (past the big up and low after release): each time the btc/usd value raises, the doge/btc value lowers, and reversibly, to always keep about the same rate in doge/usd. In that regard, we could consider altcoins to be an advantage for mass adoption: the main reason why I won't keep my money as cryptocurrency is because I can't stand my wallet gaining and losing half its value one day from the other.
Now, we can find way more reasons why it wouldn't work (merchants finding adopting lot of currencies being too difficult, users being lost in all conversion rates, and I'm not even sure dogecoin stability applies in other altcoins). So I won't be too optimistic on this. It just seems to me it addresses the very problems mentioned in article.
Really? Maybe you can do that now. https://www.menufy.com/
Of course, in practice, goods ended up being priced in USD anyway (and converted just-in-time to BTC). So much of that potential benefit has already been lost.
The main reason I'm interested in cryptocurrencies is because I tend to view current banking system for individuals as a problem more than a solution. Last year alone, I've had to borrow cash from a friend because my visa was not replaced in time and I've been stuck at a grocery with all my goods because I had hit the maximum amount I could use with my card for the week, without any warning and having way enough money on my account. Not to mention how it's annoying that wire transfers always take two business days and are not proceeded during week-end (... why?).
I can see the reasons behind that to reduce fraud, but I would totally dig having day to day money in cryptocurrency and being able to send them in a record time, always having visibility on what amount I can really use.
Even though institution-to-institution exchange is done by computer now, the laws are still in effect as if it were done by humans who---working in the banking industry---get weekends off.
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/04/229224964/episo...
Thanks for sharing!
https://coinjar.com/stories/apostrophe
That said: it's a good idea to diversify your access to money. Have accounts at different banks - if your card gets frozen (eg online fraudster), banks will often freeze all your cards, so it's good to have cards with a different bank so you can still access some of your money. Prepaid / travel cards preloaded with some emergency funds are helpful too.
The diversity could indeed be a great point for cryptocurrencies. I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but here in France we had previously three main payment methods: credit card, paycheck and cash. Paychecks are now refused in most shops (there was too many frauds around them). And banks decided you can't withdraw cash anymore by visiting them (they don't want to hold any money anymore to avoid bank robbing), so you have to use your credit card at atm to have cash. Basically meaning that credit card is now the only way to use money.
Bank could build upon 'the blockchain' to let me do a bank transfer in less than 2 days, or see my credit card transactions be cleared instantly.
My general point was that I imagine most banking systems are legacy and archaic, and if they ever wanted to improve them Bitcoin could be s potential implementation detail for a modern system.
It made some inroads, but a future alt-currency alliance would need to find very forward thinking technical leadership from within the entrenched industry willing to put their names into efforts of such an alt-currency alliance. Those players would need buy-in from the business and political wings of their organization. Where are the CEOs at banks and transaction network players who feel moving to a non-sovereign currency makes bottom-line sense?
Finding such value and leaders seems unlikely due to political relationships that the entrenched financial industry has. Put your name on an effort to remove oversight and control of the nations whose central banks you presently need at your own risk.
Unless the banking industry gets burned like the tech industry has in terms of the Snowden revelations and popular movement around privacy, there isn't an obvious self-interested basis for taking on this sort of risk.