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Comment by mrb | Hacker News Reader

Decorative christmas lights kill more people than that because these lights consume more energy than Bitcoin (see conclusion of my post)... if we are willing to spend X gigawatts on decorative lights, surely we should be willing to spend X gigawatts on a censorship-resistant decentralized payment system that changes the world.

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> censorship-resistant decentralized payment system

Does it achieve any of those words in practice?

“Censorship resistant” - Regulatory authorities are seemingly having as much impact on bitcoin as any other financial instrument.

“Decentralized” - It is not particularly decentralized. The fact that multiple nodes maintain the same log provides very little decentralization of much of anything. Here’s folks representing 90% of the hashing power of bitcoin on a stage: https://mobile.twitter.com/lopp/status/673398201307664384?la... That’s about the same number of people on the board of governors for the US federal reserve, to be fair. But to be fairer, the US dollar is one of 200 or so nation state backed currencies in the world and the federal reserve can’t invalidate transactions that have already occurred using their currency.

“Payment system” - It is not doing very well at that at all. Almost every competing payment system offers more predictable and consumer friendly behavior.

Show me a regulator able to prevent bitcoin users who own their own keys from making transactions, or one able to reverse transactions once made and confirmed.

Show me a regulator who is able to do any of those things with cash transfers of USD?

Bitcoin can though. 51% of users could just outright fork and annul whatever transaction they want, no?

In addition, we’ve learned over and over again that non-reversibility is not necessarily even a desirable property to have in a payment system, which is why so many non-cash payment systems have built those in.

No they have to re-write the history. The cartel of minors does not set the rules of bitcoin. It can only undo transactions by doing more work to write an alternate history. Even with the majority this is often unfeasible in practice.

> Show me a regulator who is able to do any of those things with cash transfers of USD?

Holding and/or transporting large amounts of cash is extremely fraught, especially across borders. US legal authorities regularly seize cash without due process and without meaningful judicial recourse. Most US banknotes are contaminated with cocaine, so it's prima facie laughable that a narcotic-detection-dog alert on a pile of money is seen as sufficient evidence that the money was obtained via the drug trade (thus allowing its seizure) -- yet this is a very common tactic.

The ability to transact in cash is meaningless if governments (and entities authorised by governments, look up "sewer service" or "gutter service") can seize cash without even a pretence of due process.

Any national regular can prevent bitcoin users from making transactions which exchange BTC for their national currency, or for retailers with a presence in their country.

Show me a regulator able to prevent US dollar users who have the money in their hands from making transactions, or one able to reverse transactions once made (doesn't even have to be confirmed—in fact confirmed instantly).

Yes, it is censorship resistant, but more importantly it is much more than payment system. It is for the first time in human history that we are able to scale trust. Money transactions are just first and obvious use of it. But it will eventually change the fabric of our society for more global, decentralized and flat. See this 20min talk for explanation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSRN8PUhHX0

Pretty sure most of Britain, at least, would vote for decorative Christmas lights over Bitcoin.

To be fair, they also voted for Brexit, so....

We're perfectly fine with people being exploited and dying while searching for hard transparent shiny rocks, which we can also create synthetically. But then they aren't valuable, except for practical uses.

How does it change the world?

Climate change, I guess? :D

Just a few examples:

A Brazilian man used Bitcoin to evade a judge's extortion attempt: https://coinvedi.com/brazilian-man-uses-bitcoin-to-evade-jud...

Bitcoin would have helped Cyprus citizens avoid banks confiscating their savings: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-10/new-laws-allow-gove...

Businesses use Bitcoin to avoid fraud, like this $100,000 charged backs twice: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/5r9nqi/credit_...

Bitcoin helps people continue to do business online, eg. when alternative PayPal exited an entire country: http://www.wsj.com/articles/paypal-to-exit-turkey-after-regu...

Bitcoin helps people have ultimate control on their money, unlike cash when for example a bank blocks a woman from accessing her account: http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/local-news/151623037-story

Bitcoin helps people escape abuse from the DEA using civil forfeiture, eg. when they stole $16,000 from a young black man: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/07/dea-asset-forfeitur...

More recently, Bitcoin becomes a safe haven when the military executes a coup: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/11/20/bitcoin-has...

And hundreds and thousands of other examples...

Most of these are just examples of bad things happening with zero explanation of how bitcoin could help. The ones which are to do with bitcoin are dubious at best.

I thought it was obvious how Bitcoin helped and didn't to explain... So it helps because it functions like cash: bitcoins are held digitally in your wallet and no one can stop you from transacting with them, unlike an account at a bank or payment processor that can be seized or frozen.

It's not at all that obvious. Bitcoin is _not_ like actual physical localized nation-state backed cash, nor does it function like one.

In your list of examples Bitcoin is the hero that saves individuals from the oppression of a government or regulation, but sometimes it's the bad individuals (e.g. tax evasion) against a government and suddenly it's not so bad if there are ways to seize assets and close their accounts.

Well, only if you think that tax evasion is a bad thing..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau)

Wrong. Bitcoin is literally digital cash: it is held in your wallet and transacted directly from wallet to wallet. There is no third-party intermediary (like a bank or credit card processor) whose authorization is needed to make a transaction. This is what makes it cash-like.

>no third-party intermediary ... whose authorization is needed to make a transaction. This is what makes it cash-like.

You need to get your transactions accepted to the ledger and you need to pay for that to happen as well (I guess whether the mining network is a third party is debatable).

Not mentioning that people will most likely use some sort of intermediary for their digital wallet to begin with.

"Extortion" attempt, the guy was fined for slander and libel, obviously, a pro-cryptocurrency site would not say that, and painted as if the video was only "criticism" of the candidate.

He was ordered to remove a video from his channel where he practices slander and libel (both crimes in Brazil) against a congresswoman, he refused, the judge ordered the fine, he traded all his money to bitcoin to avoid the execution of the fine.

I wouldn't call it a extortion attempt, if you see his videos you'll see that he openly mocks the justice and expose details of the case that was occurring under "secret of justice", where the parts can't talk about it until it is finished.

You can disagree with the decision, but it wasn't extortion, he practiced slander and libel, was ordered to remove a video, refused, was fined for that.

In Brazil the powerful can use the justice system to protect themselves. If everyone who posted a for or against Trump video was judged by the same standard most would be guilt of libel.

By moving the fiat money into bitcoin he moved them out of the judgde's control. That in itself proves the usefulness of the coin.

I don't know about you, but calling someone a whore falls into slander to me, yeah, the justice favours the riches, not a Brazil exclusive.

But even then, this isn't the point.

The guy lives in Brazil, so USA laws are completely irrelevant, don't know why you brought up this point, but anyway, he commited a crime, defied a court order and hid his assets, besides that, he boasted that on following videos, in one of them he claimed that slander should be legal, his opinion, perfectly valid, I don't agree, but he did that just because HE knows that he commited slander.

The guy is a piece of work, defending him like he is a noble fighting the big and evil hand of the government is a joke that only ancaps don't laugh at.

He didn't called her "a whore", he called a "vagabunda" which can mean either "whore" or "lazy person who doesn't work", he explicitly said in the video that he meant the second option.

Anyway, bitcoin is a libertarian/ancap tool and strategy created to minimize the power of the state, and most of us libertarians believe there are inalienable rights that cannot be superseded by state laws, and this includes freedom of expression. If you are against libertarianism than you should be really afraid of bitcoin, because it was made as a tool to subjugate the state, to evade tax and fuck up with commies. And it's working.

You are allowed to call someone a whore or a lazy asshole or anything you want, that doesn't mean that you don't have to handle the consequences of your actions.

I don't really know why a lot of people act like freedom of expression means that you can say anything without consequences, if there's not a state to enforce law, a lot of stuff that would qualify as freedom of expression would be solved by violence.

He evade taxes, but still enjoy the benefits of the state this is a clear hypocrisy that I see in a lot of the admirers of Ayn Rand.

Also, ancaps that believe that property is a natural right that would exist without a state to protect it are completely delusional.

There's also a similar amount of stories (or honestly probably greater with all the frauds, hacks, and drug deals) where bitcoin has done bad things but I guess that also proves the point that it has changed the world.

Makes it easier to buy drugs on the internet, I suppose? Though that’s beginning to migrate to monero and various other things, I think...

Provides one of the world’s greatest supplies of irritating quasi-libertarian euphoria, as well, of course.

How do poor people utilize it?

Roughly as easily as they utilize cell phones.

Less than half of the world uses a smartphone, which I think would be necessary for BC transactions, would it not?

I do not have a smartphone. I have purchased things using bitcoin. Smartphones are not necessary for BC transactions.

Did you purchase things using bitcoin with some kind of computer other than a smartphone? Or have you discovered a way to use bitcoin without any sort of connection to the internet?

They meant smartphone as opposed to the classic Nokia-style 'dumbphone'.

By which you mean reliance on someone else's system? The marketing copy for Bitcoin is really big on a democratic trust-free distributed model but from the user's perspective it doesn't seem like there's all that much of a difference between “trust this large financial company in your town” and “trust this collection of mining consortiums in different countries”, other than that the transaction fees are considerably higher and there's no recourse in the case of fraud or errors.

>there's no recourse in the case of fraud or errors.

I think this is the biggest problem with cryptocurrencies. Reversible and traceable transactions are a feature of real money, not a bug.

Lots of people like non-traceable transactions. Real money (paper notes, gold coins?) has this property. Do you mean credit card or ACH transactions are real money and paper bills are not?

> Do you mean credit card or ACH transactions are real money and paper bills are not?

No, I just forgot cash existed for a second.

>Reversible and traceable transactions are a feature of real money, not a bug.

That depends. Having a paper trail of your money in local tax office sometimes means you would be shot in a head and buried in a nearest forest.

When armed insurgency happens (and yes, they do happen) all you see in the news is "Country A" occupied parts of "Country B", but on the ground you would have armed people going full-DAESH on local tax offices to see whom to demand ransom from and that would be law-obeying people with paper trail for their earnings.

That seems like a really weird argument to me. First, you’re advocating for tax evasion rather than a particular type of currency, which isn’t a particularly good strategy for avoiding punishment. Second, it’s a really strong argument for cash and against cryptocurrencies — if you’re worried about someone mining your financial history, the last thing you want is to provide a permanent public ledger which cannot be removed (and before someone mentions tumblers, ask whether Daesh would be more likely to say “oh, guess you don’t owe anything” or “you MUST be hiding something, traitor!”).

Looking at the big picture, this is even worse: the way you don’t have Daesh is by having a strong society which has the resources to fight them off. A society with rampant corruption and black market activity is exactly how you create the conditions for them to thrive!

Doesn’t a bitcoin transaction cost a few dollars to put through, these days? There are generally cheaper ways to send money.

Domestically - yes. Internationally - SWIFT is no cheaper really, but comes with some restrictions.

For example I can accept my earned money on account in Ukraine, pay taxes here, but can't send it back to an investment account somewhere EU. This just can't be done.

Even more sillier - some time ago it was illegal to merely have an account in foreign bank without obtaining personal license from central bank here.

So yes, there are cheaper ways and there are simpler things and there was people who were sent to GULAG for doing "illegal money transactions".

unfortunately the subtle technical trade-offs that Bitcoin as, doesn't make it a suitable resource for daily use, from the poor unbanked that live on developing countries, that "use case" will need a new currency developed specifically with this objective.

Currently the best real life "use case" of Bitcoin is digital gold, a form of electronic store of value.

They buy some from a btc atm forget about it for 10 years. They buy the company they are currently working for.

That kind of redistribution of wealth is obviously not going to work for everyone, or more likely anyone.

Gold meets your requirements, except for working online.

Literal mining is messy. It's hard to compare, but i'd guess Bitcoin is greener.

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