Ask HN: Is Bitcoin still hot? The hype seems to have died down | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is Bitcoin still hot? The hype seems to have died down

10 pointshoodoof24 comments

Yes and no.

Yes: the public has somewhat lost its interest in Bitcoin. It's no longer new to them, it's no longer in a price frenzy, the hype is gone.

No: that the hype is gone doesn't mean that Bitcoin is no longer 'hot'. There are still massive developments and there's still massive interest in Bitcoin, but it has just assumed some more realistic proportions. There are TONS of huge things going on behind the scenes that the general public is not interested in, but that are really really promising for the future of Bitcoin. The amount of VC money flowing into Bitcoin is enormous, more and more shops keep accepting Bitcoin (in 2014 we've seen companies like Dell, Overstock, TigerDirect, PayPal, Braintree, Newegg and many others starting to accept Bitcoin) and behind the scenes there are loads of developments.

I think that Bitcoin WILL be huge, but that the general public will never care about it and will almost never use it directly. I see Bitcoin as just a network, or a protocol. Tons of payment services will be built on top of Bitcoin, offering superior service to the customer, but abstracting any interaction with Bitcoin away for the end user. For example: this week came out that the 3 biggest banks in the Netherlands (ING, ABN AMRO, Rabobank) have been investigating Bitcoin for a year now and are looking to make all their transactions work through the blockchain. The user wouldn't notice anything different, but the bank would be able to provide its services much faster and much cheaper.

While a lot of Bitcoin's boom can definitely be attributed to hype, it is also worth remembering how much value was added by the illicit drug trade (e.g. Silk Road). That trade provided some of Bitcoin's long term stability, and given the recent closures and arrest (even on Tor) that market has diminished somewhat (plus the legalisation in some locations).

On most sites (such as Coinbase) you must provide passport and id scan to even buy any bitcoins. Then you have to wait while they verify your credentials. So there is no anonymity at all and it's more hassle than purchasing something with your credit card. Well, you can use a mixing service but then you incur even more hassle and fees.

Realistically, to use bitcoins you have to buy it from a site (incurs fees), then create transactions to other bitcoin addresses (more fees) whose owners will have to someday convert their bitcoin to real currency (even more fees). It's not even competetive with bank transfers which costs me a flat fee of about 5€ to transfer funds using my banks internet portal to any other eu bank account.

> It's not even competetive with bank transfers which costs me a flat fee of about 5€ to transfer funds using my banks internet portal to any other eu bank account.

They charge you? These are free for me.

In fact, EU law says that your bank cannot charge you any more for a transfer to another EU account than to a domestic account.

Yes, you're completely right. The 5€ fee is for transfers to accounts outside of the eu area.

Realistically, I think that bitcoin will probably be "embraced and extended" by some larger financial institution (PayPal? Stripe? Wells Fargo? Goldman Sachs? HSBC?) that takes advantage of the open source codebase and creates their own trusted version with colored coins and its own blockchain.

The killer app for bitcoin will be the FDIC offering insurance on bitcoin deposits.

SIPC already exists. I don't see why that wouldn't cover bitcoin investments at registered broker/dealers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securities_Investor_Protection_...

Transactions per day is close to it's all time high. https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all&s...

I think people finally realized that Bitcoin is never gonna be a mass-market thing... especially after Apple Pay.

I always found it hard to get behind as an idea because I've never known anyone except one person to ever use Bitcoin to pay for anything.

It seems very complicated and techie to me.

The problem is not complexity, but uselessness. Why do anybody need Bitcoin, especially when the price is not doubling every couple of months anymore? Also, with Tor being owned by the NSA, even those interested in buying child porn or illegal drugs with Bitcoin are no longer that interested. Speculators are leaving the market as clearly indicated by the dropping trade volumes. So, if you've got any, sell them in January (baseless New Year optimism), because in February, prices will go below $300 again!

Unfortunately the killer app of bitcoin is probably ransom ware. Malware infections won't go away, and ransom ware seems a good way to monetise them.

That's another more practical use, yes, but still traceable.

No, that's not the killer app. Bitcoin is extremely traceable, much more so than cash. Actually there is a fair chance of deanonymizing users. One of Bitcoin's killer apps would probably be micropayments. Changetips is really taking off and for the first time it's making micropayments really feasible.

You are all massively missing the point. You don't need to hold Bitcoin yourself, you can just use the network to send money around the world in an instant. Banks could do this on a large scale under water and convert it to another currency right away.

Banks don't need Bitcoin - they've got SWIFT.

...

It takes days to send money with SWIFT and the costs are much higher. Bitcoin is a superior technology that provides substantial benefits to banks. That's why the 3 biggest banks in the Netherlands are seriously looking at using Bitcoin for their payments.

No, SWIFT is not slow. I move money from US to EU in 12 hours thru wires and pay a flat fee of $20. SWIFT is fast, it's just a messaging system, but slowness comes from elsewhere, for example, going thru correspondent banks. "Seriously looking" is a gross exaggeration. Banks always look at alternatives, but are very careful about changing their proven methods!

I wager it will at least be more commonly used for remittances in the future.

Don't bet on it! I've been using TransferWise [0] recently - it's cheaper than Bitcoin as its fee is up to 1%, which is lower than Coinbase and all fees (and possible losses due to rate fluctuations) associated with buying on end and selling on the other.

Disclaimer: [0] is a referral link, which will give you a free transfer up to 3,000 GBP.

[0] https://transferwise.com/u/eb4f

It doesn't have to be, just like HTTP doesn't have to be mass-marketable in order for you to use the internet.

Also: Apple Pay is no innovation, it's just the existing financial system in a new coat. It's so completely different from Bitcoin...

Tell the billion consumers out there that Apple Pay (and Google Wallet) are no innovation! It's fast, it's secure, it's convenient - nobody except the crooks and those vested in it need Bitcoin!

If that's really what you think, you have sooo not any clue about what Bitcoin is. Bitcoin is much faster and much cheaper than the current financial system. How can you say nobody needs it?

Yeah, the Bitcoin fans always arrogantly assume and claim that they are smarter and only they can get Bitcoin (which shows how flawed their thought process is anyway as if Bitcoin is so hard to grasp, how can one hope for mass adoption). I do get it, I've been using Bitcoin since 2011, I trade Bitcoin as there are enough idiots to still keep this thing going, but I've never used it for buying stuff or moving funds as there are better, safer, and cheaper alternatives.

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