Ask HN: What do you think of Bitcoin?
I notice cryptocurrencies get quite a bit of criticism here, and yet decentralisation is a mostly shared value here on HN.
Just curious what your thoughts are on bitcoin, or cryptocurrencies in general?
Just curious what your thoughts are on bitcoin, or cryptocurrencies in general?
55 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadAnd honestly, I like that I got 'in' early (not early enough though!).
I don't like that it's not scalable. Bitcoin SV is seen a scam since it's headed by Craig Wright (who says he is Satoshi) but I like the vision that it has. In short, it wants to be a micro transactions chain. That's another reason I got interested in Bitcoin. I don't like what I have seen of the lightning network so far.
Someone might say that it can be hard forked to change the supply limit. That is true but the fork won't be bitcoin.
The fixed value acts as a measuring tape against objects, but instead of measuring length you measure value. When you measure to cut an inch of wood, you need the measuring tape to keep the length of an inch constant. If an inch were to shrink or expand at will it would be difficult to figure out how much wood to cut. Because BTC is infinitely divisible it acts like a retractable tape, allowing for as much room to measure as needed.
>why a currency where you don’t know how much you’ll able to buy with it in the future?
A fixed quantity helps with this. If your currency is free-floating and relative to others you can enter into different periods of relative purchasing power. Zimbabwe, Japan, Wiemar Germany, and Venezuela are all popular examples of floating currency behavior which can oscillate wildly.
I can't fully answer that but I can play both sides by holding a position in bitcoin. I still earn and save fiat too.
This depends a lot on how much you of the price of bitcoin you think is speculation (versus fundamental), and exactly how much inflation you expect. If the FED overshoots the inflation target speculation could cool down a lot [1]. That may give you an "inflation hedge" that evaporates if inflation actually happens.
[1] Page 74, Section A.7 Speculative premium, https://researchdatabase.minneapolisfed.org/downloads/0p0966... [PDF, 1.8MB]
One data point to watch is Christie's live auction of 9 Cryptopunks. Final bid below $9M may look "over" next to a rare Basquiat skull painting shattering records:
https://www.christies.com/lot/lot--6316969/
One phenomenon that looks interesting: Proc Gen gambling systems! Simulacra with more appeal than the actual Kentucky Derby.
Digital Horses Are the Talk of the Crypto World by Taylor Lorenz
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/style/zed-run-horse-racin...
https://zed.run/
And just this morning, US Fed's CBDC moves beyond the "hypothetical" into the "experimental" stage (with help from Accenture).
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cenbanks-digital-usa/digi...
There's definitely an element of "it's valuable because people think it's valuable". This might be working to Bitcoin's advantage.
Do not invest to gamble...
so no holdings or use of BC, and no plans to.
Could change some day if I am forced to (say hacker-news requires a .001 BC payment to use, maybe I will go buy a fraction of a bitcoin or something).
Contrast that against decentralization efforts like Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) or Mastodon, where the communication and liberation is the core focus, enabled by protocols that works offline-first (in the case of SSB) and can pass data between any peer.
- Waste of resources. - I don't think it will ever replace fiat when everybody is just HODL'ing. - Like any asset that appreciates massively, I am sour that I didn't buy when it was cheap. - Bitcoin made some people really rich, but wonder if it will leave a lot more people holding the bag when things spiral down. - Corollary to the above, the vast majority of people alive did not get a chance to participate in this by the virtue of tech know-how. It still propagates the rich-poor divide.
decentralized cult
It's also good at making me feel better for not recycling.
I honestly feel kind of sorry for some of the people who have earned orders of magnitude more in their entire life by essentially making one lucky bet than through anything that could be attributed to their own positive qualities.
When instead, speculation in cryptocurrencies becomes the road to riches (or creating a startup that never ends up profitable for that matter) that are mostly unattainable by other means, you have a problem. If you work hard, you save, you invest, you provide goods and services that others want, but are still priced out of, say, owning a house by people that provided no value, it creates a dangerous situation.
I'd be curious to ask you, 'what is money'? It seems to you, it's about working hard.
Money essentially is promises by other people to provide its holder with goods and services, in return for goods and services that someone once provided them with.
Every system of power comes up with excuses for why it is fair and most are transparently self serving.
there is a loud minority of Bitcoin freaks on social media who are incredibly strange, aggressive, hostile, and irritating. if bitcoin is going to be a major part of the world economy, then these new rich people will have to learn how to behave like decent adults, or normal people won't put up with them.
The fact is, crypto has value and also has uses which are growing every day. No one discusses the energy usage of the current financial system and crypto is ramping up to disrupt a huge swath of it. Decentralized finance is going to kill entrenched middle men like escrow and payday loan companies just to name a simple few.
Bitcoin converts computational energy into a digital store of that value which can be transferred anywhere, any time, in any amount, without the need for a trusted third-party, for a miniscule portion of that value. To assert this is a waste or that it doesn't have value is disingenuous. The fact that it is not centrally controlled is a huge game-changer and a paradigm shift. No entity can inflate it to worthlessness. No entity can seize your assets for any reason, including politics. There's no stopping crypto. The cat is out of the bag and the innovation will continue. It's decentralized nature prevents entrenched interests from regulating it out of existence and that is great for everyone.
Wrong.
https://www.investopedia.com/news/how-us-government-handles-...
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/united-states-files-civ...
That’s just the USA.
Even assuming your crypto wallet is secure and can’t be seized, as soon as you buy anything with it you face seizure. Even if you never convert to dollars and spend it the asset (your word) is subject to taxes denominated in fiat currency. Having your BTC taxed or trapped forever because you can’t spend them are essentially seizure or forfeiture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency_and_crime
The US government already seized a pile of Bitcoin that was stolen from Silk Road by apparently strong-arming or negotiating with the hacker who stole the BTC. I imagine the US government could do the same kind of hacking — a claim the FBI appeared to make in the case.
If the government wants to seize your assets but can’t find them or get to them, they seize you. A bank robber who hides the cash and refuses to give it up can’t spend it from jail.
Do people in other countries care what the US government seizes? Probably not. But governments and law enforcement agencies in other countries do. Look at how the US government strong-armed banks in almost every country to comply with US money laundering and tax avoidance laws. Try to open a bank account in a foreign country with a US passport and see if they care about US law (hint: they do). And the US government can seize foreign assets, you should have no trouble finding numerous examples of that actually happening.
Supposing BTC exchanges and your wallet are 100% secure from even government hacking and seizure (all evidence to the contrary). If the government wants to seize those assets but can’t they will seize what they can. The minute you try to use your BTC for anything of value the government can seize the cash or goods you exchange BTC for. So maybe they never get the BTC, but those coins are useless to you in the same way the box of stolen cash buried in the woods is useless to the bank robber. Forget about leaving the country, the FBI canceled your passport.
I asked this question to better understand the resistance toward decentralised finance in this community, and so far this answer has been the most eye opening.
So thank you!
Lack of governmental control seems like a fantasy, so long as you live somewhere with a government they will exert control over money.
Will freely admit that I'm upset I didn't run a computer program 10 years ago a get free money becoming a millionaire for no effort, I have a friend that did just that and just didn't see the value back then just like now so I passed. I really underestimated how far something so irrational could go.
- The proof of work system is a massive waste of energy.
- What happens when the max number of bitcoins that can be minted is reached? Why would most number of miners even still be on the blockchain if it isn't lucrative enough? One could argue that they could still make money off of transaction fees, but that has to be high enough to break even. That's another issue then -- high transaction fee.
- What about the dormant coins like Satoshi's wallet and all the other people who just lost their keys/wallet. Is that money just dead? What would happen to the value if there is a sudden influx of these coins on the market?
- The BTC numerical isn't human friendly. Most people won't be able to easily wrap around the fact that they have to pay 0.00000000126751 BTC for their pizza. Oh, now calculate tips.
- Almost everyone who holds is 'hodling' hoping for it go up. It's not being used as a currency but as a speculative security, at least for now. This is especially true if you 'hold' bitcoin in platforms like Robinhood, etc. where you don't actually hold your own coins/keys. This has all the hallmark of Greater Fool's theory written all over it.
- I think cryptocurrency in general will be an integral part of the future, just not Bitcoin.
I would love to hear arguments against my view from fellow HN'ers who are pro-BTC.
While banks create money out of thin air. We should be happy to get rid of centralized banking. And of course, the federal reserve is a private company. Not owned by the US gov't. Tell me why you want the status quo?
Be your own bank!
Now you have to deal with all sorts of security issues that you never thought of. One wrong move and you loose your coins.
Decentralized!
You forgot your password or deleted your wallet? Too bad. There is nobody to call, no way to recover it, and it's gone completely. Forever.
Anonymous!
Not really, but you'll never be able to track down that person who cheated you. No court can help you. It's the wild west, and it's your fault you lost your coins.
It's a cool idea!
Everyone in the space is trying to convince you it's the next big thing, but at the end of the day people just want to be able to buy things, and converting to crypto is an extra step in the payment flow for most people, and one that is unnecessary.
Buy the dip! Hold!
It's crowded with institutional investors. Yes you could have gotten rich if you bought a bunch, but you also could have lost your shirt. Bitcoin is the coyote, the only reason it doesn't fall is because it's not looking down.
It could crash to zero and everyone would just say "it was always just a proof of concept" and "You thought it was real? LoL Rekt!"
I'm good without it.
I want to live in a future where we don't have to keep track of who has what because everyone has enough.
As a developer working in the Crypto startup space. I see the writing on the wall. This is a once in a lifetime tail-event with massive disruption across industries. Everything changes.
And, I will not post the myriad examples of disruption happening now. Do your own research. Open your mind.
P.S. Those who invest in crypto will always find a way to rationalize the fact that it simply has no value. I'm really really curious when this will burst.