I don't get this argument. Competing cryptocurrencies won't be spendable on the Bitcoin block chain and vice versa, so Bitcoin's scarcity isn't compromised. It's true that Bitcoin could face competition from other cryptocurrencies, but that's not exactly an inherent deal breaker. People need to use a cryptocurrency for it to be of much use.
There are already a number of newer cryptocurrencies that are better than bitcoin (e.g. no block size issue, computational waste, etc.) but with bitcoin it will take more than that to dethrone Bitcoin's brand as "Internet Drug Money".
Note: This isn't a blockchain issue, it's a Bitcoin issue. Other blockchains have implemented different measures to deal with transaction saturation and block size caps.
[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_size_limit_controversy
[1] https://blog.plan99.net/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experi...
Imagine if blocks were x Gigabytes. Thats X GigaBytes that have to be sent to every single miner in the world every 10 minutes!
There is a fundamental N squared problem in blockchains that you can't get around without using some very clever tricks that haven't been implemented yet.
Like I said, different blockchains solves the blocksize differently, and Bitcoin has demonstrated that it's not capable of addressing it's blocksize issue and can't scale.
You can scoff and say, "That's a non-issue.", but even at the start of an NPR Planet Money podcast episode about Bitcoins, where they do a Bitcoin transfer, it hits the cap and gets lost.
The question is not whether a crytocurrency can do 4X. The question is whether it can do 1,000X or more.
You're splitting hairs and ignoring ZCash. The point is that other cryptocurrencies are better implementations of a blockchain than Bitcoin, even with regards to the block size.
I'm not saying Bitcoin is perfect and complete, it does need to scale, but to claim it has failed is ridiculous. Bitcoin development (or developers) will not implement something that isn't vigorously tested and could jeopardize the network. It isn't as simple as change 1mb to 8mb. If you can provide a technical case for why its so simple or that its safe to do so please post below! I'd be happy to review.
Here's the podcast where the bitcoin "market" fails NPR in just the first few minutes: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/06/29/484029238/episo...
I said bitcoin has failed to scale because the miners who have consensus control won't accept any of the forks to increase blocksize. Bitcoin hasn't failed once, twice, but five times now with BIP 100, 101, 102, 103, and 109.
If you think existence is proof of success, then I have some very successful beanie babies to sell you.
The "market" didn't fail NPR, a single transaction took longer than expected due to the transaction fee being too low at the time being sent. That's how markets work, and it's OK if you don't understand markets, but don't run around claiming that something has failed because you haven't taken the time to learn.
> I said bitcoin has failed to scale because the miners who have consensus control won't accept any of the forks to increase blocksize. Bitcoin hasn't failed once, twice, but five times now with BIP 100, 101, 102, 103, and 109.
That's not "failing to scale" because you don't know the end result. If bitcoin implemented those bip's and failed as a network it also "failed to scale" but even more it now failed as entirely.
> If you think existence is proof of success, then I have some very successful beanie babies to sell you.
Show me the current market for beanie babies, and I'll show you bitcoin's CURRENT tx volume, price increase over time, and market cap. It's not existence as proof, it was to show you that one needs patience. Bitcoin's utility is increasing. These other projects have 0 utility. If you disagree please show me anytime other blockchain projects real utility, that's not speculative.
The end result of not accepting BIP is failing transactions. We know this, because it even happened to NPR. Who are you really trying to convince here?
You're also confusing asset value with success for a currency, even as we're entering a Bitcoin bubble from the Yuan crash. Show me a successful developed currency that has the same volatility of bitcoin.
Not accepting BIPs and failing transactions aren't mutually exclusive, you can't assert that something that hasn't happened caused something else.
I'm not trying to convice anyone of anything, just point out how wrong you are so that others don't take your FUD as fact.
And no, we were comparing markets, bitcoin and your beanie baby example. Never did i say bitcoin is a successful developed currency. Keep trying though.
I don't mind disclosing have holdings in XBT, ETH, DASH, XRP, and others. None of my investment portfolio relies on Bitcoin increasing in value significantly, crypto is a small percentage of my overall portfolio. I've also been paid in bitcoin for over a year and won't sell for years. It's evident you're just here to get rich quick.
So you have a year's worth of wages tied up in Bitcoin?
No, I do contract work for bitcoin. As I already stated, "crypto is a small percentage of my overall portfolio." so not sure your point there. I manage my finances just fine thanks, it seems you're upset none of your ponzi schemes have paid off.
Sidechains only solve the problem of user scalability, not volume scalability, because they still require the Bitcoin network to verify.
For example, on a side chain it would take seconds to make 10,000,000 transactions between 2 people, but making 2 transactions between 10,000,000 people would take over a month.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Lightning_Network
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/greg-maxwell-lightning-...
It's basically a network of "payment channels" you can route instantaneous off-chain payments over, which occasionally settle on the blockchain. And you don't need to trust anyone in the network with your funds.
ZCash seems popular, but it's privately-run with a U.S. based company and can pull some strings to assist in de-anonymizing users. They basically claim no liability for it's users which means it may be too comfortable with authorities for Bitcoin users.
Other than that I think Ethereum has the best chance in terms of market traction to take off as a true international currency.
In online discussions of cryptocurrencies it's clear that many people's financial positions bias their conversational positions. I'm long on all four of these currencies.
>A powerful attacker could potentially fabricate an additional block solely for a targeted user. Spending any coins with respect to the updated Merkle tree in this “poison-pill” block will uniquely identify the targeted user.
If ZCash works with that person or organization, then they're able to deanonymize the inputs on the transaction. As a privately owned U.S. company they can be compelled to do this with authorities.
For most people this doesn't matter, but for the type of user that bitcoin attracts, I think they would care, which is why I think Monero is probably better for them.
It's saying if an attacker extends the blockchain just for you, and makes only you know about its forked blockchain, they would then know that if someone creates a transaction against the unique part of that chain, it must've been you. That attack appears to have nothing to do with the Zcash company as an insider -- the software is open source and hosted from Debian, etc. Am I misunderstanding? How does Monero stop an analogous attack?
(The paper continues "To mitigate such attacks, users should check with trusted peers their view of the block chain and, for sensitive transactions, only spend coins relative to blocks further back in the ledger (since creating the illusion for multiple blocks is far harder)." I don't know whether current software does this for you -- that paper's from 2014.)
The unique characteristic that makes Bitcoin more valuable than all other cryptocurrencies is liquidity. The order book depth for the USD/EUR Bitcoin market is more than an order of magnitude greater than all other cryptocurrencies combined.
The more liquid a monetary unit is, the less friction is involved in using it for exchange, since you pay the spread (which increases with order size) every time you enter and leave the Bitcoin market.
This is the only reason gold is still so valuable: it has immense liquidity/market depth, meaning you can quickly offload it on the market when needed. This is very useful, and the defining property of money.
Because bitcoin is not backed by any assets, anyone could come along an invent something like bitcoin, claim it has value, and disrupt it.
So it's maybe the wrong wording for the argument, but the underlying premise - the actual underlying weakness of bitcoin as an asset, is the argument.
USD's are backed by TBills, Euros are backed by pretty good quality assets. I understand it's not like you can go and exchange your Euros for landholdings or gold, but there is integrity in that system.
Bitcoin is just an idea, worth whatever a group of random people decide it's worth, which makes it highly volatile and risky.
The USD will not go do 0 tommorow - its's needed for many things. Bitcoin could go to 0 tommorow.
"They don't have value because someone just came along and claimed they do" - that's exactly why they have value - because a bunch of people arbitrarily believe they have value.
There are zero currencies which survive on this basis.
All major currencies exist because they are the medium of exchange in some economy - and/or they are backed by something tangible: in the US it's government debt, in Europe by other assets.
In China it's a little more fantastic, but the currency has about as much trust as one can have in their government - meaning, it's sketchy, but it's not going to 0 overnight.
Bitcoin could be worth 0 tommorow if people lose interest, vendors stop caring - which could happen - after all, what is the underlying impetus to keep pricing momentum? Is there demand on Bitcoin for people to pay taxes? Nope. To buy other products and services? Nope. As a 'store of value'. Nope.
Really - the only value might be to 'hide from paying taxes' or to 'hide from authorities' - which admittedly has value to some people, but I'm not sure if it's enough to keep it afloat.
Whatever alternatives may arise, the one that will be "most valuable" is the one that everyone thinks everyone else will want.
For sure, but until now, gold has not faced an alternative that beat it on a number of objective measures (portability, divisibility, scarcity, durability) so now we get to see the experimental result of what happens over time when there's an alternative that better meets the core use-cases that made it a good choice to a store of value.
Bitcoins have a base level of desirability even without currency use. They offer the ability to write (transact) on a public globally distributed time stamped, unforgeable verified data store.
The blockchain's a perfect place to store the hash of a document, for example, to prove it's existence as of a certain date.
So aside from some nice properties, it's like the 'original bitcoin'. We really don't need another.
Plus you can buy it in China and sell it in Brazil all within 30 minutes.
> We really don't need another
You are saying that you don't need another. But, among others, a million Chinese do and beg to differ here.
Obviously it's not perfect, nothing is, but it's upgrade-able and you overlook the value of global decentralized trust, for some it's really valuable and its value will keep increasing the more we get connected (e.g: see R3 and all the banks that try to use the blockchain tech, even if they miss the point).
Actually, the unique feature that makes Bitcoin special is specifically its censorship-resistance. That's why people value it -- because it cannot be shut down.
Governments could make it illegal to conduct trade using bit coins, and they could make it very difficult to convert by going after people doing the conversion. I think that would pretty effectively tank the value.
They could also buy or confiscate a large percentage of all existing bitcoin pretty easily, and then use that to manipulate the market.
You think they're not going to find a way to identify Bitcoin users? "It's on the internet, that makes it untraceable" is magical thinking that does not survive contact with sufficiently dedicated real-world agencies.
With bitcoin, if you take the right precautions, it is impossible for anyone to know which account is yours.
It is a TECHNICAL solution. It doesn't matter how many people the IRS threaten.
Can the US government tell everyone in the world to think of a random number, then these citizens don't tell anybody what number they chose, and then can the government arrest everyone who chooses the number 10? No, it cannot do this.
And if it can't do that, then it can't arrest all the bitcoin owners.
* Ever appearing at a retail establishment with security cameras
* Ever scheduling a product for delivery to any address, period
* Ever scheduling a service to be provided at any location, period
* Ever communicating with the other party via any means whatsoever, including placing an order online, not even via Tor behind seven proxies
And tell me how it goes. Because all of those things above are vectors for identifying you that big random numbers won't solve.
Please, they'll just use another branch of the government to disappear some people. It's not like they have any scruples doing that already.
And if somebody plans to kill IRS agents, well, that is going to bring out the heavy forces, and will not end well for the tax evader.
Just because it's being repeated doesn't mean it's wrong.
Facebook could sell most of their shares for today's bidding price.
If all bitcoins went on the market today, it would probably crash and never recover.
Even in a housing crash, there are creditors, deal-seekers and people who need a place to live who will stop the bidding from getting too low. And then people will come back eventually.
If/when bitcoin crashes, it's gone for good.
People keep saying that, and they keep being wrong. Think of all the illegal things that happen over bitcoin. There are lots of people who would want to shut it down if they could.
Sure, but if the US gov makes bitcoin illegal that means most of the buyers and sellers - regular people - have to withdraw from the market.
Many of bitcoins biggest owners are big name dudes - like the twin brothers from Facebook, the Winklevoss own something like 10% of all bitcoins.
If they perceive a change in law, they'll have to sell their bitcoin before that happens, as will all legit owners ... it will flood the market and might very well crash it.
- You're underestimating their capability to shut down trade in bitcoin. Sure, they won't be able to stop you from running the software. But they have the ability to stop any transfer into/out of the digital world. That part is quite easy to proof: real-world usage of bitcoin requires exchange for regular currency. And bitcoin was founded on the belief that governments have too much control over the flow of currencies. (This argument hints at a common mistake in the tech community: overestimating the power of technology and underestimating the power of law).
- You're overestimating the governments' wickedness. Functioning democracies work on a default-legal basis, and it appears to me as if a to of governments have found a good balance b/w ensuring existing mechanisms are applied to bitcoin, without creating unnecessary burdens blocking its adoption.
You overestimate the willingness of the police force to prove that they are willing to risk their lives and die for what they believe in. In fact, they won't. Ultimately, they count on the army to do that, who won't either.
Can you explain this for the non-economists here please?
Bitcoin doesn't seem to have originated this way. It doesn't appear to have been originally valued for its own sake (like Gold or butter). So Mises' regression theorem seems to fall apart when applied to Bitcoin.
Without more detail, https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Regression_theorem seems to be saying that non-money uses of a currency set a floor on its value. If there are no such uses, the floor is zero. If there used to be such use-value, the past floor can bootstrap an equilibrium with a nonzero value in the present. Is there more to this theorem?
Twenty years from now we will know which one has passed the test of time, Mises theorem or Bitcoin intrinsic value defying it, which I postulate is a consequence of their money-like characteristics instead of the correspondence to any physical goods.
This of course also applies to other crypto-currencies. May be any cryptocurrency that's not premined and is owned by a big enough network of people has some intrinsic value > 0, and it may be more related to the network size than to the underlying crypto-algorithm.