I like this article, made me not chuck money into this whole crazy thing:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2018/01/02/why-bitcoin-is-stupid/

Bitcoin is just one use of blockchain tech. I don't like bitcoin or own any. It's slow for transactions and bloody expensive when you do a transaction. I do like how any articles that trash blockchain tech use bitcoin as the poster boy. Yeh it's the first out of the block and most famous, doesn't mean it will continue to be the number one use case of blockchain tech. I know plenty of people who invest in cryptocurrency (and have and continue alot of money off it) and they all avoid bitcoin.

The first four decades of the Internet brought us email, the World Wide Web, dot-coms, social media, the mobile web, Big Data, cloud computing, and the early days of the Internet of Things. Blockchain and Smart Contracts could be the vanguard of Web 3.0

There are plenty of use cases of blockchain tech here are a few examples:

Tax filing
3D printing
Asset management
Authentication
Business licensing & authorization
Business process re-engineering
Commercial distribution management
Crowdfunding
Digital manufacturing
Document management & exchange system
Education
Electronic patient records management
Energy credits
Fraud prevention in Internet of Things
Government account settlement & reconciliation
Increased liquidity in inefficient markets with low volumes through the use of smart contracts Internet of Things
Issuance of equity shares
Logistics
Loyalty points and rewards
Mortgages
Prevention of cyber fraud and hacks
Real property purchase
Smart utility grids
Supply chain management
Training and development Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) filings
Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system
Remittances
Interbank payments
Asset transfer
Clearing and settlement of securities
Financial messaging system
Syndicated loans
Trade finance
Transfer, clearing, and settlement of securities
Official government identification documents management
Land registry
Business incorporation records
Birth and death certificates
Supply chain cargo tracking
Traceability of food products
Tracking car fleets
Tracking of funds
Shareholder voting
Transaction monitoring
Humanitarian cash-based transfer
Mobile money transfers
Retail purchases
Salary and bill payment

Bitcoin will never be a world currency, a digital store of value yes. A currency no. Anyone involved in cryptocurrency knows that already.

He didn't rubbish block chain at all, did you read the article?

So what you’re saying is, we should all buy during the “despair” dip in the blow off phase?

The Daddy wrote:

I like this article, made me not chuck money into this whole crazy thing

I'm still waiting for your exchange program! (Yes, I am lazy.)

The Daddy wrote:

I like this article, made me not chuck money into this whole crazy thing: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2018/01/02/why-bitcoin-is-stupid/

I'll have a quick stab at some points. 

1) Bitcoin doesn't have to replace the World's currencies and anyone who thinks it does is severely naive so that's a total strawman.


2) "Government-issued currencies have value because they represent human trust and cooperation. There is no wealth and no trade without these two things, so you might as well go all-in and trust people. There are no financial instruments that will protect you from a world where we no longer trust each other." 

Bitcoin was born when governments decided to bail out banks which led to a degree of mistrust. Bitcoin takes trust out of the equation, you don't have to trust Bitcoin but the trustless protocol is there to protect you nonetheless. 


3) "So, Bitcoin is a protocol invented to solve a money problem that simply does not exist in the rich countries, which is where most of the money is. Sure, an anonymous way to exchange money and escape the eyes of a corrupt government is a good thing for human rights. But at least 98% of MMM readers do not live in countries where this is an issue."

This is somewhat accurate. Cryptocurrency will benefit the unbanked, the people unserved because there is no profit serving them. Anonymous, it's a fucking PUBLIC ledger, anyone who thinks they can perform anonymous transactions with Bitcoin are very innocent. What is very anonymous though is fiat cash. USD cash acutally being used all over the world right now to buy weapons and fund wars.

How a cryptocurrency has best utility currently in a developed country with sophisticated banking infrastructure is with it's permissionless value. No-one can tell you how you can spend your crypto. Real life example when the banking world decided that no-one was allowed to spend their own money donating to wikileaks. Literally your own money that you couldn't legally spend how you saw fit. Anyway this worked out better for wikileaks because their BTC donations very quickly >10x.


3) " After all, you could make the same argument about Mr. Money Mustache’s fingernail clippings: they may have no intrinsic value, but at least they are in limited supply so let’s use them as the new world currency! "

Go ahead it's a free market, you're more than welcome to try no-one is trying to stop you - just show people that it has some sort of value.


4) " If cryptocurrency does take off, it will be in a government-backed form, like a new “Fedcoin” or “G20coin.” Full anonymity and government evasion will not be one of its features."

Oh great, so the government will now not only be able to see which places I spend my money but can drill down into exactly what I spent it on... I'm also going to add that our government has an appalling track record with IT systems let alone an entire digital currency. Also let's see what happens with the PETRO.


5) "Bitcoin (aka CancerPills) has become an investment bubble, with the complementary forces of Human herd behavior, greed, fear of missing out, and a lack of understanding of past financial bubbles amplifying it"

Everything is a bubble. The economy, housing market, job market, fiat currency, tulips. Everything human's have assigned value to is a bubble.


6) "Our Banker friend goes on to explain that the first Cancer-Pill might initially see some great sales. Prices would rise, especially if the supply of these pills was limited (just as an artificial supply limit is built right into the Bitcoin algorithm.)

But since the formula is open and free, other companies would quickly come out with their own cancer pills. Cancer-Away, CancerBgone, CancEthereum, and any other number of competitors would spring up. Anybody can make a pill, and it costs only a few cents per dose. But instead of seeing how ridiculous this is, even more people start piling in and bidding up every new variety of pills (cryptocurrency), over and over and on and on, until they are some of the most “valuable” things on the planet"

This isn't how pharmaceuticals work at all but he's made a two wrongs make a right. Formulations which are past their patent are of course manufactured as a 'generic' and at very low cost. However a very real phenomenon is when a GP changes a branded medicine to a cheaper unbranded one and the patient will view it with suspicion, refuse it or complain it doesn't work as well even if the formulation is exactly the same. The brand, stands for something even if it's not tangible or rational but it has value nonetheless. Switching medicine is a very delicate process and the outcomes for compliance generally are considered as not worth the risk. A factor contributing to this is that patient believes that the GP has been 'got to' by a pharma company or they're now getting cheap pills which aren't as good.

He mentions cloning X, Y, Z anyone can make it (also see above paragraph) and that happens in pharma. The the analogy runs the same, in pharma the formulations are changed a little the tablet is now a capsule, they took the gelatin and sucrose out, the gel comes in a pre-measured pump bottle instead of a rip-open satchet it could be any amount of small changes which you never think about but has legit use cases. Same with the coins. Privacy, speed, security, centralisation. The list goes on. IMO the single biggest thing BTC has is it's security. almost 10 years and it's protocol remains secure.  

As Dino has mentioned, their are different utility for coins with very legitamate use cases. When Billion dollar corporations are buying into them at enterprise level, it's difficult to shrug them off as 'meh it's just another flavour of Bitcoin.'

GooberTheHat wrote:

http://fixwillpower.com/blog/bitcoin-bubble-crash/

https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/

GooberTheHat wrote:

What service/utility does bitcoin provide that another cryptocurrency can't provide?

None but it got there first. Quite often that's enough for the masses.

Djornson wrote:

GooberTheHat wrote:

What service/utility does bitcoin provide that another cryptocurrency can't provide?

None but it got there first. Quite often that's enough for the masses.

That doesn't necessarily make for a solid investment though does it.

The main argument against speculating on a crypto to "hodl" for 1000% capital return when a bigger fool comes is that it is societally useless. When you invest your money elsewhere at least notionally it can be used for something: enterprise, public works, occupation, public works, etc. Bitcoin can't do any of these things, it can't replace banking because there is no fractional reserve etc.

Oh and you could lose it all, and if you don't, you are betting on someone else taking over your losing bet.

But is that an exclusive trait of bitcoin, or could that be replicated in another coin as long as the creator was competent?

GooberTheHat wrote:

But is that an exclusive trait of bitcoin, or could that be replicated in another coin as long as the creator was competent?

It can be replicated up to a point. You could literally hard fork Bitcoin right now and call it Bitcoin Bazillions and it will carry forward with it the same level of security that Bitcoin has carried with it up your hard-fork point. After that it's up to you, your miners ( if you have any,) your community etc  What can't be replicated by any coin that hasn't been forked off of Bitcoin is the 10 years of exposure to malicious events, you might think of it as inoculation.

WorKid wrote:

Why is bitcoin so valuable? What service/utility does bitcoin provide that another cryptocurrency can't provide? How many credible cryptocurrencies can there be?

A decade of security, never been hacked. No other coin can say that. Even Ethereum was hacked which is why there's an Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

The coin hasn't but haven't the exchanges? Practically what's the difference?

Wallets and exchanges have been hacked but the protocol hasn't. Essentially anyone who has lost money from hacking is because their adopted security (if any) wasn't up to the task. Because Bitcoin is a digital currency which is essentially code, it isn't invulnerable to being hacked. So right now, no-one has managed to hack into the Bitcoin protocol to change any balances or double spend. They have instead chosen to attack less secure centralised services or naive individuals. It's like having the most secure car ever. Thieves might give up trying to break into it and instead steal the keys off the owners because that's the easiest way to drive it away.

Practically it means that the protocol is intrinsically secure and you can trust it to do it's job which is to record ownership. You can take steps to protect your assets by not leaving stuff on exchanges and protecting your private keys.

The Daddy wrote:

Escape wrote:

The Daddy wrote:

I like this article, made me not chuck money into this whole crazy thing

I'm still waiting for your exchange program! (Yes, I am lazy.)

That's on hold due to betfair changing their pricing for API-ing.

Boo! What are the details?

We're not stocking Coca Cola anymore but we are confident fizzy drinks are the future.

Who wants to be a muglionaire.