

Why bitcoin will rise in price again, but it will take years - gasull
http://forum.theuklibertarian.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=597&start=20#p8590

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nextparadigms
I don't think Bitcoin dropping in price to the $3 level or whatever level it's
at now, means it's the end of Bitcoin. I was very surprised when it had the
value of just $1 back April I believe. A currency needs to be supported by
_real_ economy, not just speculation. It seems all the speculators are gone
now, and Bitcoin will continue its normal course of growing at the pace of its
own economy. I believe one of the catalysts for Bitcoin will be NFC payments,
because that would remove a huge obstacle for Bitcoin, and it would allow many
merchants of real products to sell them for Bitcoin very easily.

Of course, it would help if merchants wouldn't have to be afraid that FBI will
come knocking at their door questioning them about it, or if the Government
wouldn't immediately freak out about it if its usage explodes in the
marketplace. You'd need a president that supports currency competition, too,
and might even allow something like this in the market (Ron Paul could be such
a president).

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fhars
But would the customer who wants to pay wth BitC using NFC technology accept
that he must wait for some confirmations before he can take his merchandize
home? And would merchants, especially large stores that go to substantive
effort to streamline checkout processes, accept a payment protocol that by
design adds a one hour delay (IIRC, people seem to regard six confirmations as
definitive proof of payment, and the work factor is adjusted to give one
confirmation per ten minutes on average) to every checkout? Even requiring
just one confirmation would mean that a supermarket cashier could only process
about four or five customers per hour if you want to keep the process
sequential.

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nazgulnarsil
unnecessary. transactions don't have to be bitcoin transactions. two people
with accounts with mtgox can have instant transfers for instance.

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taken11
why would you use bitcoin below that though? requiring a both vendor and
customer have an account at some paypal like site just makes it paypal. it
will have the same problems. so what does bitcoin add? nothing

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nextparadigms
Lower transaction fees maybe? Like in the 0.x%.

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wccrawford
I looked at mining BTC when it was $7/coin, and I couldn't make it work
economically. Now that it's $3/coin, I certainly couldn't. And the fact that
it hit $17/coin makes it even worse.

You see, the more miners there are, the harder it is to mine each BTC. So in
order for it to be worth my electricity and hardware, a LOT of people would
have to stop mining. I don't see how it could possibly make sense for me to
start mining while so many people are quitting, either.

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Helianthus
I'm seeing a lot of posts on HN supportive of Bitcoin, and honestly, I just
don't get it. Someone explain.

1) I don't see that Bitcoin can escape any boom-bust cycle. I don't. Arguably
the dollar can't either, but I think that's part of my point: that's with
people _trying_ to regulate it. Bitcoin ultimately has a finite economy, which
means that it's only stable if it is constantly deflationary (unless the
population size stays the same I guess? I'm not going to make _that_
assumption) and _that_ motivates hoarding, which locks down currency.

You can _maybe_ construct some differential equation where the amount of
hoarding is balanced out by the amount of 'cashing out' as people give up
hoarding to spend freely, but that's a _heck_ of a wild guess to base a
currency on. And anything _less than that perfection_ will inevitably result
in boom-bust: freeze until you sell your dough, therefore simultaneous
motivation to sell, therefore flooding of market, therefore crash. Which
tangentially brings up:

2) In the above example, Bitcoin is (like any other currency) a surrogate of
value for the things you can _do_ with it, which tells us that value lies
outside of currency altogether and that currency is just a measuring stick.
And therefore...

3) Bitcoin is essentially _still_ a fiat currency, but without the benefits
of, you know, a significant support base. Sorry, you can go into almost any
bank in the world and exchange an American dollar for local coin. I'd rather
just _abolish money_ than supplant it with even _more_ imaginary money.

Sure, some counterculture activity subsists on Bitcoin. Sure, it's a neat
thought experiment. But I can't see it becoming practical (read: successful).

~~~
gregschlom
> But I can't see it becoming practical (read: successful).

And to add one more point: if it were to become successful, governments would
likely make it illegal. Yes, it's decentralized, but they could still sue
random people for using it, just like with people downloading music.

So, yes, neat thought experiment, revolutionary idea, but very unlikely to be
used by more than a handful of people.

~~~
vectorpush
I feel like this is the real achilies' heel of bitcoin. Once governments start
losing tax revenue they're going to pull out all the stops. Beyond that, US
law enforcement is already concerned with bitcoin because of its use in drug
trafficking, online poker, and other dubious crimes then you add in the
omnipotent banking lobby who have an obvious agenda to assert. I can't imagine
a world where a successful bitcoin would be allowed to thrive.

