Bitcoin on the path to irrelevance?

111,956 Views | 1822 Replies | Last: 3 days ago by Yukon Cornelius
ac04
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bitcoin's monetary properties are immutable and protected by the most powerful computing network in existence. there is nothing any human can do about that. i think you may be the one who is missing the point.
Kvetch
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AG
ac04 said:

bitcoin's monetary properties are immutable and protected by the most powerful computing network in existence. there is nothing any human can do about that. i think you may be the one who is missing the point.


Ok now talk about the issues that can arise from finite supply.
aggiehawg
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AG
Quote:

bitcoin's monetary properties are immutable and protected by the most powerful computing network in existence.
Okay, if you say so.
ac04
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finite supply is exactly why bitcoin is more suited to be an asset than a currency, and why all the back and forth about whether i can buy coffee or bread with it is a complete waste of time.
ac04
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it's not me that says so, it's the code and the hashing power. very strange response.
Ags4DaWin
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Kvetch said:

ac04 said:

bitcoin's monetary properties are immutable and protected by the most powerful computing network in existence. there is nothing any human can do about that. i think you may be the one who is missing the point.


Ok now talk about the issues that can arise from finite supply.


Finite supply, but a commodity that can be divided up greatly.

Counting and weighing gold shavings is very hard to do.

With BTC it is very easy.

It's not an apples to apples thing ur talking about. And that is the thing about cryptos....they have properties that no other commodity thus far have had.
ac04
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CDUB98 said:

ac04 said:

in this transaction from yesterday, $160MM was transferred directly between two parties (with absolutely no need for permission or approval by any third party) for a fee of $1.61: https://mempool.space/tx/ab0aebadf57464eeac2d6fce06182e56e21e8bfa22d548b50935aad524ded10b

is the ability to complete this transaction independent of any institution or government, virtually for free, and with final settlement in an hour or less valuable?


The ability to transact isn't the issue so many, like me, have.

The problem we have is valuation. Other than speculative exchange, what tangible value does it have? None.

The perceived value of BTC is still quantified in hard, fiat currencies, typically, the dollar. If the dollar were to go like a fart in the wind, BTC shoots to eleventy-billion, or gets abandoned as the SHTF anyway.

As a means of transaction, and a potential hedge on inflation, yes, it does/can work. But as a hard asset, I'm not sold.

the ability to transact as you see fit without anyone being able to stop you is valuable in itself. the fact that you can do it with anyone in the world almost for free and achieve final settlement in minutes is a bonus.

not sure exactly what you're looking for regarding tangible value. bitcoin has value because of the credibility of its monetary policy and its censorship resistance.

does a VPN have value? if so, why.
Ags4DaWin
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aggiehawg said:

Quote:

bitcoin's monetary properties are immutable and protected by the most powerful computing network in existence.
Okay, if you say so.


Proof of work coins are pretty much incorruptible.

Proof of stake not so much. This is pretty well known.
Adverse Event
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Question: BTC is a finite supply, correct? No more coins being "made"?

Short answer, the supply is constrained by the code to produce ~21M BTC, finishing around the year 2140 [two-thousand-one-hundred-forty].

Long answer involves diving into mining, blocks, halvenings, and mining rewards, and also whether consensus changes the minimum unit size from .00000001 BTC to a smaller number.
exp
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AG
The Keynsian brainwashing is strong with these elastic money supply arguments.

CDUB98
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AG
Quote:

the ability to transact as you see fit without anyone being able to stop you is valuable in itself. the fact that you can do it with anyone in the world almost for free and achieve final settlement in minutes is a bonus.

not sure exactly what you're looking for regarding tangible value. bitcoin has value because of the credibility of its monetary policy and its censorship resistance.

does a VPN have value? if so, why.


But, whatever that transaction's value is still based on fiat currency. Prices are made in 0.002 or 5 BTC. Prices are stated in dollars/pesos.etc.

The underlying quantification is still fiat currency. 1BTC = 1 BTC, but the "value" of that 1 BTC changes daily, well, technically more often, but for simplicity's sake.

As I've said, I agree on the transaction abilities, but at the end of the day, you're still trading nothing more than dollars converted into something else.
ac04
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CDUB98 said:

Quote:

the ability to transact as you see fit without anyone being able to stop you is valuable in itself. the fact that you can do it with anyone in the world almost for free and achieve final settlement in minutes is a bonus.

not sure exactly what you're looking for regarding tangible value. bitcoin has value because of the credibility of its monetary policy and its censorship resistance.

does a VPN have value? if so, why.


But, whatever that transaction's value is still based on fiat currency. Prices are made in 0.002 or 5 BTC. Prices are stated in dollars/pesos.etc.

The underlying quantification is still fiat currency. 1BTC = 1 BTC, but the "value" of that 1 BTC changes daily, well, technically more often, but for simplicity's sake.

As I've said, I agree on the transaction abilities, but at the end of the day, you're still trading nothing more than dollars converted into something else.


the exact same thing could be said about every investable asset. you price real estate, stocks, oil, gold, etc in dollars. does that somehow make them less valuable? i'm not following.
Muy
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AG
Bag said:

Muy said:

In the US it's a collector's item that soon gets traded back to the dollar when someone feels they've made enough.
so, similar to gold, diamonds, copper, catalytic converters, oil, natural gas, corn, wheat, soy beans, steel, ammunition...?


Seems they are actually tangible items, you're joking right? Can we back the dollar with vapor currency?
Muy
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AG
I'm a believer in blockchain technology, but not Bitcoin. I don't need to know everything about it, being 55 I know the new pet rock and Beanie Baby when I see it.
aggiehawg
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AG
Muy said:

I'm a believer in blockchain technology, but not Bitcoin. I don't need to know everything about it, being 55 I know the new pet rock and Beanie Baby when I see it.
You forgot tulip bulbs.

Disclaimer: I did buy my late brother a Pet Rock as a gag Christmas gift. BUT I never bought a Chia Pet.
CDUB98
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AG
Quote:

the exact same thing could be said about every investable asset. you price real estate, stocks, oil, gold, etc in dollars. does that somehow make them less valuable?


Exactly.

This is the point I've been driving at. It's still dollars.

BTC is sold as something that somehow overcomes fiat currency because it is limited. There is truth to this, but at the end of the day, it is nothing more than a speculative commodity that has not tangible backing. It's value can, theoretically, be wiped out overnight as it is nothing more than 1s and 0s.

At least with other assets, there is some sort of tangibility. The real estate. The precious metal. The cow. The wheat. Etc. A hard asset.

BTC is good for hiding transactions and avoiding transaction fees through banks. A+

As for value, it uses the same mechanism as anything else. So, other than the monetary system falling apart, what good is it?
ac04
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its a provably finite asset being priced against an infinite asset. its a mechanism to protect yourself from intentional debasement. its censorship resistance. surely you understand why a method to circumvent financial censorship would be increasingly valuable as everything further digitizes?

the hangup about tangibility is confusing to me. is this conversation we're having tangible? does that make the information we're exchanging any less real?
exp
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AG
CDUB98 said:

Quote:

the exact same thing could be said about every investable asset. you price real estate, stocks, oil, gold, etc in dollars. does that somehow make them less valuable?


Exactly.

This is the point I've been driving at. It's still dollars.

BTC is sold as something that somehow overcomes fiat currency because it is limited. There is truth to this, but at the end of the day, it is nothing more than a speculative commodity that has not tangible backing. It's value can, theoretically, be wiped out overnight as it is nothing more than 1s and 0s.

At least with other assets, there is some sort of tangibility. The real estate. The precious metal. The cow. The wheat. Etc. A hard asset.

BTC is good for hiding transactions and avoiding transaction fees through banks. A+

As for value, it uses the same mechanism as anything else. So, other than the monetary system falling apart, what good is it?


IT'S NOT DOLLARS

IT'S ENERGY

All money is a receipt on energy, a call option you hope to redeem in the future. Dollars of late stage fiat have NO physical basis in energy. DC Suits and bankers print them out of nothing. Only Bitcoin is digital energy. Eventually everything will be priced in energy (sats) not dollars.
exp
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AG
Gold is proof of work and pseudo scarcity.

Bitcoin is proof of work and absolute scarcity.

Fiat is the mother hole of almost all western societal pitfalls related to food, wars, debt, education, medicine...
CDUB98
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AG
In so much as the gov't doesn't care about our conversation, no.

But, the gov't does not like the competition of BTC, and since it is nothing more than speculative, makes it risky against gov't intervention.

I trust gov'ts less than I do BTC. What happens when the gov't on which BTC is valued decides it wants to try and regulate some aspect? Does the market just shift the British Pound, or the Euro, or do they go wild into the Moroccan Diram?

Our conversation here only differs in that the medium is 1s and 0s rather than vibrations from our throats if we were in person.

A transaction in BTC is no different than an exchange of dollars other than the medium.

What makes BTC so attractive to true believers like Adverse that I should dump all my free cash into it as the only mechanism to transact? Yes, I'm being a bit facetious. To do this, one must believe that BTC will never lose value against the dollar or be abandoned by the marketplace.

Also, what makes BTC so much better than other cryptos? Are the others open ended code that allows for infinite amounts?
exp
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AG
Burdizzo
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ac04 said:

bitcoin's monetary properties are immutable and protected by the most powerful computing network in existence. there is nothing any human can do about that. i think you may be the one who is missing the point.


Sounds a lot like SkyNet.
exp
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AG


MRB10
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AG
The way to think about the supply is that there is a limit on the number of BTC that will ever exist. That number cannot be increased or decreased. The current supply of BTC does not equal the limit and more will continue to be "made" until the limit is hit.

The rate and method of production, until they hit the limit, is programmed into the code of the protocol.

Hope that helps. Other questions?
Adverse Event
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I'll never understand How anyone expects to be taken seriously when comparing flowers or stuffed animals to the invention of Digital Scarcity and a non-soverign, global, decentralized, scarce communication technology.... I'll never know.

Why shouldn't these folks be met with derision and scorn and snark for their hubris?

If the comment was preceded with "look, I'm an absolute ****tard but this looks like beanie babies and tulips, can you help fix my derpitude?"

And then when the information is provided showing that:
A) they know literally nothing about tulips, or the 3 month craze that drove crazy pricing during a time when the monetary standards were wobbly in the netherlands
B) nothing about supply or demand and why beanie babies are their own thing
C) know nothing about the internet, except how to use it to claim things they know little to nothing about looks like beanie babies or tulips.

The internet will have less impact than the fax machine, said the lauded ben Bernanke. He too deserves derision and scorn for such a farcical statement.


[Nice post exp, was about to add thr Dylan video. Excellent presentation]
MR Gadsden
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If people here are interested in someone who both pro-dollar and pro-bitcoin check out Nik Bhatia

https://thebitcoinlayer.substack.com/p/bitcoin-versus-the-dollar

You can also read his book Layered Money.
Adverse Event
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I posted a video about THA GOVERNMENT (Texas is the only one that matters, amirite) doing everything in its power to attract bitcoin talent and assets to Texas, how it is a symbiotic relationship to managing cheap electricity across the state and allows for more flexibility in the grid.

With all the benefits it brings, and the detriments of banning it, government with long term thinking will not attempt to ban it.

And government that react poorly will receive nothing of value for their transgressions except the complete erosion of trust within their populace (at least from anyone that doesn't have beanie babies or tulips the first thing out of their mouths, and frankly those folk didn't matter anyway, xoxoxo hawg, i dont mean any of this to you, probably).
exp
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AG


Sorry forgot which topic this forum was pro government and anti government on. In any case, Mr. LeClair seems kinda sharp on all such topics.

TexasRebel
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AG
Pepper Brooks said:

The way to think about the supply is that there is a limit on the number of BTC that will ever exist. That number cannot be increased or decreased. The current supply of BTC does not equal the limit and more will continue to be "made" until the limit is hit.

The rate and method of production, until they hit the limit, is programmed into the code of the protocol.

Hope that helps. Other questions?


It's code written by man.

Can be rewritten by man.
MRB10
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AG
Sure. The rewritten code will be a new protocol doing whatever it's designed to do and will no longer be BTC. Google the history of Bitcoin Cash if you want an example of what I mean.

There is no root user for the BTC protocol. No single person or entity can implement a change without the acceptance of the nodes/miners supporting the network. It's why BTC is unique, compared to the other coins out there(ETH, ADA, SOL, etc), and is why people say it's the only truly decentralized digital technology out there at the moment.
Muy
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AG
Working in big tech, one of my buddies who is a very solid solution engineer has been huge in preaching about crypto for 6-7 years. I asked him for 30 minutes to just help me better understand it.

After 30 minutes I was still completely perplexed that this was our future of currency. He explained that you need a device to manage all of your crypto. You need a super duper secret passcode that only you know to access your crypto.

I asked him who you contact if you lose his password, and he said "you can't call anyone for it, there is nobody to help you"

So I asked "then what do you do?!"

He explained that he had his passcode stamped into two metal bars and is hiding one in his house, the other in his vacation home.

Geezus. No thanks, this is loony.
TexasRebel
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AG
Not to mention, as those 21,000,000 slowly disappear into the "lost forever and unrecoverable" category… you end up with nothing.
MR Gadsden
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Geez responsibility and self- sovereignty sucks, too much work.

Govern me harder.
Ags4DaWin
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There are ways to recover these BTC's where people lost their access phrase/seed key.

This was an issue, but when BTC spike above 10K people figured out a way to do it.
Adverse Event
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Muy said:

Working in big tech, one of my buddies who is a very solid solution engineer has been huge in preaching about crypto for 6-7 years. I asked him for 30 minutes to just help me better understand it.

After 30 minutes I was still completely perplexed that this was our future of currency. He explained that you need a device to manage all of your crypto. You need a super duper secret passcode that only you know to access your crypto.

I asked him who you contact if you lose his password, and he said "you can't call anyone for it, there is nobody to help you"

So I asked "then what do you do?!"

He explained that he had his passcode stamped into two metal bars and is hiding one in his house, the other in his vacation home.

Geezus. No thanks, this is loony.

A whole 30 minutes and it didn't make sense!?! Must be a scam.
Carry on.
 
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