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Comment by pishpash | Hacker News Reader

Gold is used in electronics. It's actually a good conductor. Bitcoin is not even good for transactions, its supposed primary purpose, right now.

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If bitcoin wasn't good for transactions, then each block wouldn't be full of them. Maybe it's not so great for processing a country's volume of transactions because it hasn't scaled. Maybe it's not so great for small-fry transactions but those happen too... Online merchants often give you 24 hours to get your first verification. Your fees can be very low if you don't need your confirmation in the next ~10 minutes. (It will appear unconfirmed in the pool almost immediately.)

I think you might have it the wrong way around. Gold is valuable despite being used in electronics.

Unlike most other metals, gold is suitable as a currency partly because it doesn't get 'used up' in industrial processes in any significant way (where it is used its malleability ensures only tiny amounts are necessary - one gram of gold is enough for a square metre of gold leaf). Similarly, its use as jewellery is not so much to create beautiful objects, but as small portable stores of wealth[1] - in the world's biggest gold jewellery market (India) the price of jewellery is pretty much the same as the price of the raw materials (i.e. gold).

[1] Funny story. I once had a colleague who married an Indian woman in India. He came back to work wearing a lot of gold jewellery (watch, bracelets, rings, necklace or two, etc). Even he thought it was ridiculous, but he felt obliged to wear it. I had to explain to him that he wasn't given all of it with the expectation that he'd actually wear it - it was basically his wife's family's way of giving them money.

That's the part that gets me. Bitcoin has scaling issues, is slow and transaction fees are outrageous. Still, I have no doubt some form of crypto-currency will eventually win out.

I connected to the internet with a 14.4k modem and I'm connected to fiber today. Bitcoin is in its infancy. It's a matter of time until it reaches the levels we require for handling all the transactions that we want to happen.

Yes, and you connected with AOL and used Netscape to search with Yahoo to buy music from CD-Now.

But how much of the code that used to support your 14.4k modem is still used to support your fiber connection today?

It seems likely that the dominant currency of the future will be heavily inspired by Bitcoin--but will it be the same blockchain Bitcoin uses today?

Seems unlikely to me.

We'll assume he was using PPP or SLIP when he had a 14.4k modem. TCP/IP has been around for 30+ years. So, yes, a lot of that code is still "supporting" his fiber connection.

I have no doubt the block chain is the future and one backed by governments. I think Bitcoin and Ethereum are the MySpace before something better came along. They have so many issues that better technology will win out. Being first doesn't guarantee anything nor better technology for that matter but in this case crypto is all about technology not just an experience.

Blockchain tech will be to the next three decades what the internet was to the last. Crypto is one facet of a very interesting geometry.

We may be in the dot com era but with Crypto.

The ICO's are like the Webvan and Amazons - similar to how businesses used the Internet to serve their respective industries, we are now using ICO's to serve specific markets.

Rentberry for Rentals, Enjincoin for Games.

With so many new ICOs, it feels like the early Startup Scene but now it's with a focus in Cryptocurrency.

> Bitcoin is not even good for transactions, its supposed primary purpose, right now.

How so? I buy lunch with Bitcoin and a few weeks ago I paid for a car repair with it. If I need more, I just go to a bitcoin vending machine near by.

Where did you do this? None of the local businesses (Bellevue WA) take bitcoin that I can tell, and it is populated by lots of techies.

Go to Cap Hill if you want to spend BTC, the east side is pretty well devoid of establishments that take bitcoin.

What places take BTC in caphill?

Isn't each transaction costing you a few dollars?

Not if you use an economic fee and an accelerator.

Aren't the transaction fees now measured in dollars?* You're paying $10 for lunch and $5 in miner fees. That's not practical.

* https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees...

I'm curious - do you report your capital gains on the bitcoin you transact in?

(Assuming you bought it for cheaper than the price you transact at)

It’s good for anonymous worldwide transactions. It has proven itself there and there will always be some demand for that.

For stuff like cocaine and porn maybe. I can't buy a cheeseburger or pay my rent with it.

It's good for pseudonymous worldwide transactions. Blockchain analysis software is now a thing, and while costs are high, there are companies that specialize in tracing BTC transactions. [1] It is possible to launder/mix BTC or play a shell game to/from other currencies and wallets and raise analysis costs enough to make it not worthwhile for many adversaries and many targets.

While this may seem pedantic, it is important that people do not rely on BTC transactions for anonymity. Perpetuating this myth may become dangerous for some Bitcoin users.

[1] https://www.chainalysis.com/

not really. transparent blockchain

Lots of stuff is used in electronics but it is not worth as much as gold.

You wrote and I quote "other than looking good as jewelry it has no other real intrinsic value."

It's considered to be beautiful because it's expensive and valued. The causation is in the other direction than most people think when it comes to gold and beauty.

It's the same with expensive paintings. A painting is considered to be beautiful (some are actually ugly) and have some deep meaning only after it's sold for a lot of money.

This is an interesting topic.

I too thought most of this "throw paint onto a canvas and charge rich suckers thousands of dollars" is bullshit. But after seeing some Picassos IIRC, I realized, yes there is a method to the madness.

Even if the painting wasn't displayed in a fancy museum, I think I would still have thought it was "special".

But those "artists" that pour paint onto the canvas - complete bullshit.

If a five year old can do it - it's not art except to the parents of those "artists"

This painting sold for millions: https://nypost.com/2013/05/15/43-8-million-for-this/

Reason: it's complicated. But something that's DEFINITELY required for this to be possible is scarcity. The artist is not alive any more. It would never sell for that much if he were still alive.

True digital scarcity is a hard problem to solve (because computers are good at copying things). Bitcoin was the first system that was able to solve this problem.

Gold is used in electronics in free market economies, meaning marginal price <= marginal utility.

This does away with the idea that gold has no relevant value outside jewlery.

There is no such implication. Yes, if golf were cheaper, it would be used more often in electronics, and because not much of it is essential, users of gold for productive purposes can get by with higher prices. However, gold’s price is driven 100% by its use as a speculative fiat store of value, not for its utility or even for its ornamental use.

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