Brenden_E
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What happens after that? The population will continue to increase...
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Question of the Day: How often do you receive spam calls?
Is cryptocurrency the future? Not necessarily.
- Thread starter Bradley Prior
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Johnatan56
Honorary Master
Article is a giant fluff piece. Crypto in terms of technology will be the future, government/banks will adopt the tech over time, and it will end up backed by governments. Don't think e.g. Bitcoin will be the future.
Reward rate keeps getting decreased/halved every 4 years, final coin mined will probably be post 2100 and by that time the protocol will have changed.
backstreetboy
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The beauty of BTC is you have eight decimal places (the smallest unit called a Satoshi and named after the BTC creator).
bchip
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Why will they adopt it over time?
VISA is already faster than bitcoin. The problem with cash transfers has never been the tech, its all the admin/red-tape that comes with it.
Bitcoin has been around for over 12 years and yet all the major stock exchanges are still on T+3 and banks still have faster tech.
Bitcoin has even tried to address the tech by forking and improving, but no-one cared and didnt move over.
Then theres the other issues that come with it as well, like inflation, setting monetary policy, inheritance (how do you pass on your bitcoin to your codes if your the only one with the password)
What happens if a million people die with their passwords? Half of the worlds bitcoins disappear and inflation goes through the roof?
Moto Guzzi
Expert Member
It will cause a war...
Johnatan56
Honorary Master
No, and not sure why you're bringing in Visa for this. If you're doing it based on how many transactions happen a second, that's not what fast means, it just means that it's generally been able to scale well enough (Visa is ~1.7k transactions per second). For example, toll roads can't happen online because it's not fast enough to process, it's done offline and then charged to your account usually at the end of the day. That's but an aspect of the system. What crypto/blockchain brings is a move to a decentralized system, this means that you don't have the intermediaries anymore, so you can have the wallet with currency on the phone you're paying with, so instant transactions and no case of "who was first" kind of thing. You also cut out all the middlemen, thereby reducing transaction costs.
And note I specifically said crypto, not bitcoin. Bitcoin will never be able to be globally adopted, it's limited to around 5 transactions per second right now, max scalability around 1.7k if increasing block size to max which has other repercussions like privacy within the same block, difficulty in throughput (so would go batch, privacy issue as everyone in same batch would know all transactions) etc.
Rather stuff like lightning on bitcoin (Layer 2), where you "reserve" a section and then announce at the end that you did e.g. 5 transactions later on, same as the toll system, to bring it down to one needed transaction.
Or doing stuff like having things similar to CDN's (B-CDN, blockchain-based content delivery networks), or a combination of them.
You're thinking bitcoin is crypto, it's not, it's just the first one that was "successful".
bchip
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Yes as the conversation drifted to BTC I inferred that you were responding to that.
I can understand how blockchain can help the process sure, but what does any of this have to do with retailers then?
Isnt this like saying 'Amazing news FNB is adding a new faster server' ?
Buying bitcoin or any of these coins have nothing to do with it then as the governments will implement and control the system?
Johnatan56
Honorary Master
Exactly the last point, it will be governments controlling the system.
Bitcoin etc. has no backing, if at one point everyone realizes that it's meaningless, then it will plummet. Meanwhile it's going to keep being fuelled by hype or dreams of a non government system.
Countries can guarantee the value in terms of work, aka taxes, so inherently there is still a value outside of just speculation.
But that's a completely different discussion in terms of how currencies work.
In regards to retailers, the issue there is the speed of transaction, it must at least match the current system otherwise it cannot be used to replace, and it has to add some benefit. In this case will probably be lower transaction costs and good chance better scalability and depending on implementation, better transparency. It all depends on the final system, block chain is a very large field.
SauRoNZA
Honorary Master
I think historically in its infancy there was a much stronger case for it being totally anonymous.
The more it ages and the more popular it becomes this is less and less the case and correlations start to be made.
And with more and more regulation stepping in this will become more true.
If a given wallet address was ever attached to a person that creates a trail and even if further transactions are camouflaged and the asset itself is moved that link still exists and that person can still be taken to task.
I have seen a summons or two against crypto assets to be handed over and while I’m no expert in the forensics side of things they do a pretty good job of following the money and connecting the dots.
Also on the flip side if Bitcoin and the like is ever to become legitimate and replace current day financial systems they will ultimately need to conform in this regard.
SauRoNZA
Honorary Master
It’s not addressed because it’s not a problem.
The whole idea is to get it all mines and the faster that happens the better. If anything the price would stabilise then and give it legitimacy and it can finally start being used more actively because it’s instantly more predictable.
All the miners will still be incentivised to process transactions.
The value doesn’t lie in it being mined.
Anthro
Expert Member
$XRP is supposedly the future because of it's speed and ((relative)) cheap costs when compared to other transaction methods.
RaptorSA
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That's 100% true, but also exactly what can be said of fiat currencies, except with fiat you have to trust in the future of governments (no thanks).
For good reason people have slowly but surely started to realize since the 70's that our currencies and their "inherent value" have progressively been diluted by speculation, hideously over-complicated investment vehicles and big finance + governments all led by people asleep at the wheel or neck deep in greed and corruption.
I mean, it doesn't take a genius to realize 2008 was a big wake up call for many and I'd speculate as time goes by it's only going to become worse as I watch the current sh**tshow that is the global economy (and politics) and the debt we're racking up, and that's even without bringing in the precarious situation we South Africans are finding ourselves in (also, we've all seen this by now, if this thing doesn't scare you then we have a bigger problem: https://www.usdebtclock.org/)
But don't take my word for it, here's my anecdote, and I have a feeling I'm not alone in this, not by a long shot:
When I bought BTC back in 2017 I also gave into the hype/greed etc. I, of course, did do my research on it, lots of it actually, and no, I didn't end up as some Crypto crazy thinking it's the best thing ever and "muh freedom", I just think it's really cool, I have a lot of trust in it, and what it can do and be used for is good enough, for now anyway.
Back then I gave myself an arbitrary date, I said I'd keep my BTC 'till 2021 and then exchange it back to fiat, even if it meant paying taxes on any possible profits made. Fast-forward to today, it's almost 2021 and here's the thing: I have absolutely no intention to convert my BTC, in fact, I only sold some of it the other day so I can buy back in when the inevitable fall comes around again. I'm keeping it low risk though (meaning I doubled and cashed out my initial investment already so whatever is leftover won't send me in a depression if I lost it somehow).
This isn't a greed thing for me anymore though, here's the kicker, if you held my BTC in one hand, and my property in the other (they're "worth" about the same at this moment) and told me to choose, I'd take my BTC, hands down. That might sound crazy, but you just have to open a newspaper or watch a political rally in this sh*thole to realize that even if you disagreed, I might not be batsh*t crazy to think that.
By now I've actually grown a "relationship" with the BTC I own, that might sound stupid, but even if it is it all just comes down to Bitcoin having a big mindshare if you start adding up people's perception of it in 2020 and I don't see this slowing down, in fact, I see people's faith in fiat going down while crypto will keep climbing, regardless of any issues with some of it. And yes, this is speculation, I know. But myself and millions of others are taking the dive. The news is always filled with those who lose out big, or those who make it big, but it never covers the millions who just use it a temp store of value, or maybe as a long term "gamble" in something we trust more than we do big finance and geopolitics.
Why would someone have a "relationship" with their bitcoin?
Well you see, ever since 2017 my BTC served as a hedge for me (I don't have family or friends that can help financially so if I f**k up somehow that would be it for me), I've never spent a single satoshi of it, but while I had BTC I always knew that regardless of the market value at any given time, I could use it to cover me in case something went wrong and it would be really quick to do it, in the meantime, I could drop every salary cent I could scrape together into debt and finally I managed to be completely free of it.
Sure, I could have used some other complicated, fee-ridden "investment vehicle" with 300 pages of T&C's that's way less risky (according to some banker/broker), but as someone who hates finances and dealing with it, BTC is an absolute godsent when it comes to easily storing value and doing it all yourself, of course, as long as you deal with the small number of caveats it has.
bchip
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Its not quite true for fiat currencies nor for other commodities which cannot be said for Bitcoin.
Also there's a lot of inconsistencies in your arguments. For example
I trust bitcoin, I dont trust fiat...therefore I have currently sold some of my bitcoin and put it safely in to cash again
With cash theres legal backings, with gold theres utility for devices, with property these rent...all these things have other intrinsic values to it.
There is no difference between bitcoin, pokemon cards and world of warcraft coins....it only exists as long as theres hype, which is what makes it so unsafe
There is another issue with BTC as well. Many people are losing private keys (or taking them to the grave) and that BTC is lost forever. In the short term it will drive up prices due to scarcity, but long term it will affect the viability of it as a transactional currency.
RaptorSA
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I trust bitcoin, I dont trust fiat...therefore I have currently sold some of my bitcoin and put it safely in to cash again
That's literally just me gambling the current market, has nothing to do with anything. Also, it's a fraction of BTC I use for a reason.
With cash theres legal backings
Tenuous backings in many cases, I'd argue. But that's a long discussion.
I prefer sound mathematics to back value rather than people, governments etc.
with gold theres utility for devices
Ahh the old "but we can actually use it argument". The vast majority of gold's value is based on its perception, just as bitcoin etc. If we were to dissolve gold's perceptive value and suddenly just use it pragmatically, not only will it be worth very little, the massive reserves stashed away in vaults and jewellery, when unlocked, would flood the market with a tidal wave of the stuff and render it almost worthless for a very, very long time. We're not using gold sparingly 'cause it's expensive, we're using it sparingly 'cause we don't need to use more of it. I'd argue that even something like cobalt would be worth more than gold of we were to change our perception of it.
Don't get me wrong, I like gold, there are many reasons to like/love it. I just don't see it as an argument against Crypto and the "inherent value" proposal for gold is tenuous at best... in fact, gold is a good reason as to why I think Crypto has value.
Also, can you go to a financial institution and ask them to give you your gold investment in actual gold bars/coins?
Can you easily take your gold with you if the s**t hits the fan and you need to flee?
Can you pay for some goods or services with pieces of gold directly?
with property these rent
Sure, but your property is backed by your government and its ability to defend your property... do I need to remind you of what the ANC is currently doing or would like to do with your property? Ask a Zimbabwean how their coveted property assets worked out for them as a store of value.
(I know I'm using a worst-case point of view here, but that's exactly my point)
There is no difference between bitcoin, pokemon cards and world of warcraft coins
You're right, there isn't. But perceived value + scarcity IS value.
And ironically, a lot of Bitcoins "value" is tied to its relation/conversion to/from fiat, funny how that is actually one of its weak points, and a big one if you ask me.
Vrotappel
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Bitcoin payments are irreversible - if someone sold you a piece of crap where are you going to complain?
RaptorSA
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a) You make sure you know a guy who knows a guy...
b) You make sure that guy also take Bitcoin payments (he probably does)
Vrotappel
Bulls fan
The MTI thing:
If Johann is sitting with the private keys then the investments are gone forever and Johan will score forever.
If Johann is sitting with the private keys then the investments are gone forever and Johan will score forever.
Vrotappel
Bulls fan
With Visa and the Reserve Bank I have protection.a) You make sure you know a guy who knows a guy...
b) You make sure that guy also take Bitcoin payments (he probably does)
bchip
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Ok, mathemetically what % of times has the US, EU, And Japan government missed payments in the past 200 years?
Gold isnt just tied to jewellry, which is tied to traditions in religion in Asia, but actually does have pragmatic value
Its used in computer boards, dentistry, medical devices, aerospace...
We still need it, even if it loses its "perceptive value"...even if its as you say "almost" worthless..its still not worthless.
So your saying every country in the world should be scared of losing their property to the government...because Zimbabwe
Well in that case, Bitcoin users have been hacked in more countries in the world and lost their entire wallet....say dont do bitcoin?
Value is not perceived value + scarcity
Value is what you get (intrinsic)
Price is what you pay,
the price does not always follow value because of scarcity or perceived value ...eg IT bubble stocks