etr-strike

All coins built upon PoW suffer the same scaling issues as bitcoin. Since Bitcoin is the most popular, it hit the limitations first. Second layer technologies such as Lightning Network and Rootstock do solve various problematic use cases. Bitcoin is the most widely held cryptocurrency and is the only cryptocurrency with second layer technologies being rolled out into production as we speak.

As they should -- Lightning Network is the correct technological solution for small frequent payments such as game purchases on Steam.

Lightning Network exceeds the throughput of VISA. The scaling problem is being addressed -- just not in the naive "let's throw away decentralization and increase the blocksize" way.

> Bitcoin effectively froze when Blockstream decided against increasing block size.

You mean when the Bitcoin Core implementation of the Bitcoin protocol decided decentralization was an important feature of the currency and transaction compression should be the prioritized means of scaling.

That’s a cute theory, but housing costs are much more related to the cost of money. When the federal reserve makes money cheap, asset prices increase. Since mortgage rates are at historic lows, people simply borrow as much as possible until their monthly payment is at some threshold. If you want housing prices to return to historic norms, you need to ask the Fed to first return the cost of money to normal.

The Federal Reaerve actually thinks productivity is too low: http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-fed-productivity-idUSL1N1...

Would be a dream to work just 40 hours per week.

And back to C we go.

I can buy USDs with my bitcoin. Lots of them.

Yes? Confirmations in bitcoin were never instant...

No, I think blockchains provide many useful functions. However, providing a token with value is a necessary feature. I’m very excited about things like Rootstock which add smart contract functionality to the bitcoin blockchain.

A blockchain is a decentralized trustless ledger. If the operators are trusted, you can just use a database. It’s much more efficient. It’s pretty clear from the comment that you don’t understand Bitcoin or why, when people say “we like blockchain but not bitcoin”, that they’re talking nonsense.

You can’t have a blockchain without a Bitcoin. The two are inseparable. Every blockchain needs a token reward which has monetary value to secure it.

Sure, if you don’t consider a decentralized and trustless currency a use. If you don’t consider a store of value a use. If you don’t consider a public ledger of transactions a use. If you don’t consider programmable money a use. If you don’t consider permissionless payments a use. If you don’t consider a financial system wich never close a use. If you don’t consider instant payments a use. Then sure, no use has been found.

They’ve been fighting deflation, not inflation. Asset prices need to correct and they refuse to let them. There’s a reason young people are buying so few homes.

You’ve lost your mind if you really believe inflation has only been roughly 2% the last decade.

Keep doing what you’re doing central banks! Your policies of persistent inflation have robbed us of our ability to save our wealth and accurately plan for the future. You’ve decided that devaluing our wages 2% per year is in our best interest meaning we must perpetually fight with our employers to keep our wages we fought for the previous year. Your policies of QE have driven asset prices so high we have no hope of ever owning them without becoming a debt slave. Congratulations.

House prices needed to fall. Bad debt needed to be written off. Investors making risky loans needed to lose. None of these things happened, and look where we are. I vehemently disagree with everything you said in your post.

Most of the coins people are purchasing today have been around less than a year and probably have less than 1% of the users of Bitcoin. They're pretty unproven.

I see you took the long way around to agreeing with me at the end there. Have fun with your coordinator. Cheers!

Way to pimp your altcoin at the end there. IOTA isn’t even in the same league as bitcoin. It’s not decentralized and it’s not trustless. Just use SQL at that point...

Scalability problems sure, bitcoin is hardly struggling to innovate though. Rootstock, Schnorr signatures, mimble Wimble. These are awesome new technologies. Every coin today would have the same scaling problem bitcoin has if they had the same user base and amount of attacks going on.

Bitcoin is the least risky of all the cryptocurrencies. It has the largest user base. It has the most widespread infrastructure. It has financial products and derivatives. Every other coin is unproven, many are mostly unheard of, and are the highest risk.

Such cliche reasoning. If Bitcoin is going to be a successful currency and/or store of value, everyone and the brother needs to be talking about it (just like they talk about gold or the USD). I bet these same barbers have discussed the S&P500 and index funds, is it time to get out of those too?

This is the history of Bitcoin. Booms and busts with no taxpayer funded bailouts. A decentralized and trustless currency is, in my opinion, the safest asset to have in the long term. The world's broken financial system is built on fraud and corruption. It won't end well for fiat bag holders.

Bitcoin has immense economics value. There's no other asset on the planet that allows me to put my faith in logic and mathematics instead of a person or institution.

Meanwhile, there's a lot of people putting their faith in opaque corporations and unelected central bankers. With the markets sitting at all time highs by every historical measure and debt loads higher than ever it'll be interested to see how that works out for them.

I chose bitcoin because for several reasons:

1. I believe in the technology approach bitcoin is taking over any other coin (I believe functionality like smart contracts should be a side chain to the main bitcoin chain).

2. It has had a firm 21m supply cap since the beginning

3. It is the most decentralized

4. It has the largest userbase -- it's a more widely adopted currency

5. It has the most proof of work behind it (most of the mining power in the world targets the bitcoin blockchain). Proof of work is what keeps the chain secure from malicious actors.

6. The ledger is public

Something like gold can't be audited. If I bought gold, I wouldn't want to store that in my house. I'd need to trust a third party to store it for me. Who's auditing that third party? Is my gold only mine on paper? Bitcoin is auditable, gold is not (for the average person).

Cash is a depreciating asset -- at best, it loses 2% per year (likely much more).

Your “real estate” investment is propped up by the federal reserve. You were bailed out at the expense of savers. I’m glad you missed out on bitcoin. It wasn’t made for you.

The TARP money was just a small fraction of the actual bailout. The Federal Reserve also drove the interest rate on your savings account below the rate of inflation (robbing you of your wealth). Artificially suppressing interest rates also propped up asset prices -- assets such as houses which all the banks own. TARP was the tip of the iceberg.

Most of us Bitcoiners are skeptical of modern monetary policy and want a risk-free store of value for our wealth. Today Bitcoin is very risky, however, we believe its fundamental properties will ultimately lead to a stable place to put our savings. Sure, it won't gain interest or dividends but it also won't be subject to inflation or central banker manipulation.

The above is purely my opinion and is frequently the subject of disagreement. It is, however, why I got into bitcoin.

The market is more free and open with Bitcoin than our own stock markets. Bitfinex and Coinbase are just two of hundreds of exchanges. There's even localbitcoins, which allows you to trade directly with the other party. The ecosystem has come a very long ways and is the freest market in the world.