You are conflating 2 things. The perceived value of a the magic beans as an investment strategy. Which I think is a very bad investment in the long run, with the concepts of blockchain and ledgers, which I think will be hugely useful.
The transaction costs still seem to be eye watering. And the energy use solving piuzzles for the magic beans cannot be a good thing. Even if you say it is renewable, you are taking wind power and converting it into heat. On a massive scale. For what?
Nah. The two are inseperable. You cannot have the Bitcoin (capital B) blockchain tech without bitcoin currency. You cannot have Etherium without ether. It’s digital currency. That’s how they work. Sure, some companies are setting up private blockchains using the tech (much like intranets) so the tech is clearly useful in itself but for this thread, private chains we can’t access or invest in are irrelevant no?
Transaction costs are coming down every day on Etherium and they are moving to a '‘proof of stake’ system (you pay 32 coins to become a validator which gives you a vested interest in it working as it should) in return for ether coins rather than the current '‘proof of work’ (which are the math problems you mention that are responsible for the energy usage concerns) so for Etherium (which I want to be clear is the only one I’m investing in and understand the future plans) that’s not a concern.
A blockchain is just a ledger. You do not need a currency to go with that. It is a neat and clever way of securing the transaction history. But a transaction could be an entry in your medical notes rather than a record of a solved puzzle changing hands. It is secure because of the distributed ledger meaning you cannot go back and change all of them.
All these currencies are is a solved puzzle which is passed around as a token of worth. Each movement is recorded using the blockchain.
You can have a blockchain without the currency. But not the currency without the blockchain.
You can have a private blockchain without the currency.
You cannot have a public one without a currency.
Fwiw, you can change the ledger too. You just need 51% of the network nodes to agree with you.
Etherium classic (which is NOT etherium and should be avoided) has been 51% compromised 3 times.
Does anyone actually use Bitcoin to, you know, buy shit with?
Seems like it would be a real ball ache to price goods in, considering how volatile it’s been over the years.
mono-stereo Any place can choose to allow purchases via bitcoin and it’s as quick as a visa transaction. The reason it’s not in use all over the place is because of scepticism of the tech and the phase of the tech maturation it’s in. Also the volatility of the value. No one wants to pay 1 bitcoin for something and then find out they could have paid half a bitcoin the next day.
Visa have stated (see earlier posts) that they are looking to add bitcoin and other crypto currencies to their company in a big way. I would imagine it will explode overnight if they allow it which, while driving up the coin price for investors would also be antithetical to it’s designed purpose of cutting out Visa and other middle men completely.
Volatility will come down as the tech matures. Already bitcoin seems to be levelling out a bit (although what happens when it hits the 21 billion coin limit for artificial scarcity in a few years is anyones guess).
Wally No one wants to pay 1 bitcoin for something and then find out they could have paid half a bitcoin the next day.
Yeah that’s what I was getting at.
mono-stereo No doubt in my mind that’s why Tesla are happy to accept bitcoins. Didn’t most of their Q1 profit come from bitcoin investing?
mono-stereo I think it’s used a lot on the dark net at the mo for buying powder and hitmen.
I think the main reason bitcoin won’t take off is because most people haven’t got a fucking clue how it works.
Smallman1 Give us a quick run down on how TCP/IP protocols work please Smallman? It powers the internet which doesn’t seem to have had a problem with people not knowing how it works under the hood.
Convenience and functionality wins every time - as soon as there’s an app that makes a difference to convenience to people’s lives or offers something new, it’ll get mass adopted and people won’t give a shit about how it works.
Wally Give us a quick run down on how TCP/IP protocols work please Smallman? It powers the internet which doesn’t seem to have had a problem with people not knowing how it works under the hood.
Convenience and functionality wins every time - as soon as there’s an app that makes a difference to convenience to people’s lives or offers something new, it’ll get mass adopted and people won’t give a shit about how it works.
Lol.
Wal’s in a right old echo chamber.
Wally Come on wal. People just fire up their browser and hand over loads of data to google. That’s how the internet works. And if you want to use the dark web you need to have some more understanding.
Bitcoin is entirely traceable thanks to its public ledger.
First you need to buy some, then put it in a wallet, but not a wallet that somebody might run off with, then you need to launder it so that the bitcoins you purchased using your debit card are not actually traceable to you, and they get used by a russian mafia gang instead, but get traced back to you (that is season 2 of this thriller) and then you need to hand over your address to somebody who posts narcs through the post to you. I cannot see any potential vulnerabilities in that at all.
I do wonder about that but I don’t understand it enough. One can assume there’s a way all around those scenarios if these “businesses” have been running smoothly for a number of years now.
People just fire up their browser
This is exactly my point - me and you are around the same age - do you not remember what the internet used to be like before browsers existed? People with the old 14k modems hooking up to text pages and bulletin boards? Back then the internet was a nerd’s pursuit that was going to die in a ditch. It was oh so stupid and pointless wasn’t it? And then, bang, browsers came out which led to mass adoption and changed our way of life. Is it so impossible to actually conceive that something similar could happen with blockchain tech that leads to mass adoption?
It took me 10 mins to register with coinbase and buy an Etherium coin a month ago (which has since just under doubled in value) I’ve no idea what you’re trying to say with all the cloak and dagger stuff in your second paragraph.
