Bitcoin discussion and news

[Idaho]

Following on from my last point, should bitcoin truly become a force to be reckoned with then I cant really see various states and institutions letting the situation prevail. The money laundering, war on drugs, sanctions busting, tax evasion etc stuff will provide impetus and justifications to legislate. But I dont think they will bother unless volumes become massive.

It's not that easy to stop. It seems that you don't really understand it so are therefore generally against it.

 

[Idaho]

Ah yes, I think I accidentally inverted the concept I was thinking of when considering the endgame of the plan to control the amount of bitcoins in circulation.

Anyway its yet another reason for me to wave my fist at anger at those who are presently in a position to buy significant quantities of bitcoins. Greedy wankers expecting to profit from holding a significant slice of the money pie that they hope they'l be able to exchange for more and more real stuff as time goes on. Like hoarders of vital goods during a period of rationing. Mind you even if bitcoin didnt go wrong there are plenty of opportunities for other powers to piss on their chips - just as with gold and bread, if they really got into a position where they were holding everyone else to ransom then the state could use its muscle to confiscate their hoard. A good reason why liberturdians hate the state. They can try to kid themselves that technology can place their 'wealth' beyond the reach of the state but it cant, because there is always the law and state-sanctioned violence.

It's money. Money is a tool of the rich. No change here.

Early adopters are taking the risk that a bitcoin might be worth 0.01p from next week onwards. Speculators provide liquidity in the market.

 

[Idaho]

It's useful for buying drugs and other grey / black economy stuff, but I assume that you must have some form of bitcoin identity / code in order for that transaction to be processed, which doesn't seem any different to a bank account number other than the bank account is traceable to you.

I manage to pay and get paid instantly via online banking just fine, though I'd not want to use it for buying drugs or anything else illicit, which is where I reckon bitcoins purpose really starts and ends, although I suppose it could have a role as a low / no cost version of paypal for internet transactions if it were stable enough.

You don't even know how a basic transaction works and yet you have all these high level objections and criticisms?

 

[elbows]

It's not that easy to stop. It seems that you don't really understand it so are therefore generally against it.

Bollocks dont I. I'm not an expert but I think I understand enough to make the criticism I have.

 

[elbows]

Quite a self righteous attitude you got there, you want to spell out in what way looking to hold a rising asset is being a parasite? I'd understand if people needed to live inside bitcoins but in this case the sneering looks groundless to me. You also implied most people that use bitcoin aren't doing so for things like remittance, considering that your own interest in the subject comes on the back of the media circus kicked up by yet another speculative mania, I suspect this crowds your understanding of the technology into a single dimensional context. Crying Tulip has become a tired old bitcoin cliché, yet the sense in the technology has survived two major bubbles now, and yes there probably will be further bubbles. I recommend not speculating, but I'm not a gambler.

My attitude is pretty consistent. I'm not going to spend years moaning about market ideologies, goldbugs, libertarian wankers with dubious agendas, market manipulators and tossers playing stupid games, only to reverse this attitude when it comes to something 'shiny and new' that involved technology. Just because some of the people playing the game with this currency may not have done so in the past, doesnt mean they will escape being tarred with the same brush by me. It doesnt matter to me that bitcoin is not presently an important currency, the manipulation of which can affect the lives of millions, because bitcoin fans are quite keen to hype it up and speak of its future potential, and this invites scrutiny, the questioning of motives, and comparisons to the traditional shitty games.

 

[not-bono-ever]

bitcoin is speculator heaven at the minute- look at how many new wallets accounts have been opened this year. I cant imagine many of these see it as anything more than s short term money making opportunity.

 

[Idaho]

Perhaps you want a more general "capitalism sucks" thread?

 

[Idaho]

bitcoin is speculator heaven at the minute- look at how many new wallets accounts have been opened this year. I cant imagine many of these see it as anything more than s short term money making opportunity.

It's not right now. Probably steady or sudden decline in the price is more likely.

 

[elbows]

Perhaps you want a more general "capitalism sucks" thread?

No, I want to quite specifically criticise this currency and the people who think they can drone on about its supposed upside and enjoy the games while pretending they should be immune from the cirticism we give to traditional versions of these games. This is u75 ffs.

But dont worry, I dont have a hell of a lot more to say about this shit right now. Given time I will find something else to say though, deal with it boom tish.

 

[camouflage]

My attitude is pretty consistent. I'm not going to spend years moaning about market ideologies, goldbugs, libertarian wankers with dubious agendas, market manipulators and tossers playing stupid games, only to reverse this attitude when it comes to something 'shiny and new' that involved technology. Just because some of the people playing the game with this currency may not have done so in the past, doesnt mean they will escape being tarred with the same brush by me. It doesnt matter to me that bitcoin is not presently an important currency, the manipulation of which can affect the lives of millions, because bitcoin fans are quite keen to hype it up and speak of its future potential, and this invites scrutiny, the questioning of motives, and comparisons to the traditional shitty games.

Still, you remind me of a bloke stumbling into a room of people crowding around a shinny new object, poking at it and kicking it and trying to work the thing out, and you pipe up with "Yous lot are all a bunch of cunts!" before turning round and staggering off into the night.

Fair nuff, it's your opinion anyway.

 

[ffsear]

My attitude is pretty consistent. I'm not going to spend years moaning about market ideologies, goldbugs, libertarian wankers with dubious agendas, market manipulators and tossers playing stupid games, only to reverse this attitude when it comes to something 'shiny and new' that involved technology. Just because some of the people playing the game with this currency may not have done so in the past, doesnt mean they will escape being tarred with the same brush by me. It doesnt matter to me that bitcoin is not presently an important currency, the manipulation of which can affect the lives of millions, because bitcoin fans are quite keen to hype it up and speak of its future potential, and this invites scrutiny, the questioning of motives, and comparisons to the traditional shitty games.

Agree with what you say. But until the cancer that is human beings are wiped off this planet, the problems you mention will remain. They were here before money, and they will be here after, no matter what form it takes... Greed is in us all.

Until then, lets talk about Bitcoin.

 

[elbows]

The idea that I am not talking about bitcoin sensibly just because I offended some people by comparing them to traditional parasite traders makes me chuckle.

 

[butchersapron]

Agree with what you say. But until the cancer that is human beings are wiped off this planet, the problems you mention will remain. They were here before money, and they will be here after, no matter what form it takes... Greed is in us all.

Until then, lets talk about Bitcoin.

But only within tightly circumscribed paths that it's sulky defenders have a) decided is a legitimate topic to discuss and b) think they can handle.

 

[Idaho]

Seems to me that it's another case for the Leftist handbook of things I don't understand .

The situation of being considered ignorant on a topic is unthinkable. After all, aren't you the people who inform the ignorant? Let's look up bitcoin in our leftist manual ... Er.. No entry in the most recent edition (1952), how about checking under the Money heading and just stick to familiar ground.

It's like when Buddhism is discussed. The manual comes out and the reference says "see Tibet".

 

[butchersapron]

Forward to the future! Together!

 

[elbows]

Still, you remind me of a bloke stumbling into a room of people crowding around a shinny new object, poking at it and kicking it and trying to work the thing out, and you pipe up with "Yous lot are all a bunch of cunts!" before turning round and staggering off into the night.

Fair nuff, it's your opinion anyway.

How about stumbling into a room of would-be traders and true believers, some of whom are trying to figure out how they might be able to exploit the currency, and me pointing out various flaws in the system and daring to describe what they are doing and compare them to existing players. And being met with a distinct lack of proper defence of the currency or what its being used for. Instead a silly attempt to narrow the spectrum of legitimate debate, a crude fall back to misanthropic justifications in leu of any proper moral justification, shouts of 'but its new!', and attempts to draw attention to my flaws rather than the flaws of the currency.

 

[elbows]

Seems to me that it's another case for the Leftist handbook of things I don't understand .

The situation of being considered ignorant on a topic is unthinkable. After all, aren't you the people who inform the ignorant? Let's look up bitcoin in our leftist manual ... Er.. No entry in the most recent edition (1952), how about checking under the Money heading and just stick to familiar ground.

It's like when Buddhism is discussed. The manual comes out and the reference says "see Tibet".

lol, if you want to make that stick you should point out the specific areas where I am wrong. Your own grasp of the currency and its implications is too feeble for that I fear. True belief gets in the way, even when you acknowledge various flaws you try to downplay the implications.

Try harder.

 

[fredfelt]

My attitude is pretty consistent. I'm not going to spend years moaning about market ideologies, goldbugs, libertarian wankers with dubious agendas, market manipulators and tossers playing stupid games, only to reverse this attitude when it comes to something 'shiny and new' that involved technology. Just because some of the people playing the game with this currency may not have done so in the past, doesnt mean they will escape being tarred with the same brush by me. It doesnt matter to me that bitcoin is not presently an important currency, the manipulation of which can affect the lives of millions, because bitcoin fans are quite keen to hype it up and speak of its future potential, and this invites scrutiny, the questioning of motives, and comparisons to the traditional shitty games.

Out of interest do you think of a gambler in the same way as anyone taking a punt on Bitcoins for speculative reasons? Wanker, tosser, dubious agendas all sounds a bit OTT to be.

Bitcoin is an emerging system. No one really knows where it will head. The hype is because similar innovations have been transformative.

Another peer to peer system has already changed a whole industry beyond recognition. Downloading of music and media was a transformational technology built from the ground up despite the best efforts of the music industry. The technology is here to stay, people liked it, use it, and the music industry had to adapt to it. By all means question the scrutiny and motives of any peer to peer developer community - I'm sure they are many and varied. I guess the point it the technology is shaped by those involved in it and if it's adopted there's little anyone can do to change that.

In this way Bitcoin / virtual currencies are similar to peer to peer file sharing. Some of the people involved may be the scumbags you think them to be, but your criticisms miss the point. A community has built a potentially new and parallel / competing system to an existing system. It may turn out to be insignificant or in some way it may well turn out to be revolutionary.

I think by the nature of a peer to peer system any values of the system are mostly shaped by those involved in it - with legislation shaping it how it can. If someone wants to take a punt on the future success of this emerging system why is that such a big problem?

 

[elbows]

Blessed are the bitcoin yuppies, they will save us.

The onus is on those who want to promote the new and shiny to demonstrate what aspects make this game any different to what has gone before.

Hint: Freedom from state & traditional bank control is not enough. And failing to hide glee at potential profit from buying and selling at the right moment is a poor start if attempting to demonstrate that bitcoin is inherently different.

 

[Idaho]

Sounds just like you are trying to justify your ignorance.

You create some straw man of this being a thread for true believers, when that isn't the case. It's a thread for people interested in the topic who also have a detailed list of more informed criticisms.

I also don't see why you care about speculators making money, seeing as other speculators would necessarily have to lose for them to do so.

 

[ffsear]

Its the age old myth about speculators by those that don't understand how markets work. Speculators can only drive a marketplace for so long. Ultimately, the laws of supply and demand determine price. They are merely speculating on where they believe the market will actually be. And no speculators want to get "stuck" with a supply that has then decreased in value.

 

[camouflage]

But only within tightly circumscribed paths that it's sulky defenders have a) decided isa legitimate topic to discuss and b) think they can handle.

I take it as a matter of principal never to defend bitcoin; it's as intriguing, capricious and cruel as a gangster princess and can more than stand up for itself.

Scuze the anthropomorphism's but I think they fit well, it's money you see, people come with all sorts of agendas and it'll 'eat' em all. Like one of those alien blobs in sci-fi or something, hit it with the laser and it just grows bigger, hit it with a nuke and it grows bigger still, freezing it might slow it down but throw anything active at it, speculative bit-fever, oppressed markets, straight-forward cross-border transactions, tax evasion, sneaky manipulations... just propels it further.

I am interested in interesting conversations about bitcoin (that interest me anyway), I just find it pointless seeing the same old criticisms trotted out by people who think the're the first to cry Tulip or whatever and betray that they haven't quite grasped the implications of this technology that are worth considering for better or worse. As a social democrat I'd like to try and envision how mixed-economies and welfare states can thrive in a world of crypto-currencies, so excuse me if I tend to roll my eyes at those still not getting how a world economy can run on only 21 million units or express their offence at people having crazy money making schemes, as if this is only just now the invention of money and credit itself.

 

[fredfelt]

Blessed are the bitcoin yuppies, they will save us.

The onus is on those who want to promote the new and shiny to demonstrate what aspects make this game any different to what has gone before.

Hint: Freedom from state & traditional bank control is not enough. And failing to hide glee at potential profit from buying and selling at the right moment is a poor start if attempting to demonstrate that bitcoin is inherently different.

If you are replying to my post you completely missed the point. In a peer to peer system the onus is not on anyone to do anything.

 

[butchersapron]

I take it as a matter of principal never to defend bitcoin; it's as intriguing, capricious and cruel as a gangster princess and can more than stand up for itself.

Scuze the anthropomorphism's but I think they fit well, it's money you see, people come with all sorts of agendas and eats em all. Like one of those alien blobs in sci-fi or something, hit it with the laser and it just grows bigger, hit it with a nuke and it grows bigger still, freezing it might slow it down but throw anything active at it, speculative bit-fever, oppressed markets, straight-forward cross-border transactions, tax evasion, sneaky manipulations... just propels it further.

I am interested in interesting conversations about bitcoin (that interest me anyway), I just find it pointless seeing the same old criticisms trotted out by people who think the're the first to cry Tulip or whatever and betray that they haven't quite grasped the implications of this technology that are worth considering for better or worse. As a social democrat I'd like to try and envision how mixed-economies and welfare states can thrive in a world of crypto-currencies, so excuse me if #I tend to roll my eyes at those still not getting how a world economy can run on only 21 million units or express their offence at people having crazy money making schemes, as if this only just now the invention of money and credit itself.

I think we both know who i was on about.

But this above, this whole bitcoin thing isn't really about technology at all is it? And i'm not at all convinced that you're short-sighted enough to imagine that it is - in fact you hint at what you see as the political implications towards the end and tried to place technology in some sort of social context earlier.

 

[camouflage]

I think we both know who i was on about.

But this above, this whole bitcoin thing isn't really about technology at all is it? And i'm not at all convinced that you're short-sighted enough to imagine that it is - in fact you hint at what you see as the political implications towards the end and tried to place technology in some sort of social context earlier.

Yes, that's what I'm trying to do. To say that 'greedy' people are attracted to money or that speculators speculate on markets isn't really mind-blowingly new information. There are social discussions to be had about this thing, I think those discussions can extend beyond Money can be Filthy 101.

 

[Idaho]

So you propose that technical innovations go through some form of committee for ideological approval? How about just trying things and seeing what happens while advising people that these new things are very risky to be involved in?

 

[butchersapron]

Yes, that's what I'm trying to do. To say that 'greedy' people are attracted to money or that speculators speculate on markets isn't really mind-blowingly new information. There are social discussions to be had about this thing, I think those discussions can extend beyond Money can be Filthy 101.

Well, i will admit i've not read the whole thread (but will do so at some point tonight) but i haven't seen anyone saying anything like that since i started reading it.

 

[camouflage]

So you propose that technical innovations go through some form of committee for ideological approval? How about just trying things and seeing what happens while advising people that these new things are very risky to be involved in?

No committees please, I'm just up for a chat to throw ideas about, maybe stumble across an angle I hadn't previously considered before. Yes speculators are drawn to volatile markets, yes at this stage volatility makes traditional movements of money in business risky so new and agile approaches are required to take into account those potential wild swings, and yes deflation can curdle economies where obligations are nailed to a deflationary currency. I don't see btc as replacing fiat by the way, credit shouldn't be scarce and inflationary fiat dresses credit quite well.

Yes things that are popular and that many find useful require large chunks of energy you can run half a city on (like the worldwide bubble-gum industry), I do think looking at the potential for exponential energy use to power the bitcoin network as it becomes more popular should be discussed. The principal of specialist machinery like ASIC gear is to tip power to energy-consumption ratios toward being cheaper and more efficient, waste is loss, efficiency is profit. I suspect that more energy hogging outfits would lose out to those using more efficient machinery to mine coins. This isn't about huge engines gulping down as much petroleum as possible, a btc-miners dream would be banks of cool servers running on wind-chimes or something, with any waste heat re-captured and sold to the neigbours maybe. This isn't drag-racing.

And actually there's no reason that bitcoin mining wouldn't turn to sustainable energy sources to gain an advantage (solar powered DC anyone?) In fact advances in bitcoin mining could lead to advances in energy conservation more generally, right now if you want to start a wind-farm, you need to hope the banks like your face and choose to direct financial resources to your ideas. If you're a bitcoin power-miner, you now have the finances to say to wind-farmer engineer guy, "fuck the banks, I want cheap sustainable energy I don't need to rely on some centralized monopoly for, gimme the best of what you got in the workshop and to hell with the interests of Shell Corporation!" or whatever.

New paradigms or new ways of thinking about the same old stuff can be exciting, likewise discussing new criticisms and new problems and potential pitfalls. But there's no point talking about why wolves are a threat to sheep farmers when you've been asked about the mosquito net industry or something.

 

[kabbes]

One criticism that is specifically of bitcoin that I have not seen defended yet is this: a wildly unstable currency is useless for anything other than speculation. You can't trade with it if you don't know what it is going to be worth by the time the trade is completed. The arguments in favour of it seem to be based on a use that it cannot realistically yet have.

It might stabilise at some point in the future, but it might not. Until it does, it's just gambling.

 

[joustmaster]

One criticism that is specifically of bitcoin that I have not seen defended yet is this: a wildly unstable currency is useless for anything other than speculation. You can't trade with it if you don't know what it is going to be worth by the time the trade is completed. The arguments in favour of it seem to be based on a use that it cannot realistically yet have.

It might stabilise at some point in the future, but it might not. Until it does, it's just gambling.

It has been fairly stable, except for the two "bubbles". And there are a lot of trades made with it. Silkroad is meant to get through $22 million a year.
Its not a steady currency. But it is usable.