I totally disagree. Their intrinsic value is that they cannot be controlled by despotic governments, nanny state mothers and fathers, or by corrupt bankers or payment gateway vendors. They do not suffer from long term inflation. They have negligible to zero transmission fees.
The fact that the currency is as stable as it is is remarkable, and this is a perfect site to take advantage of bitcoins.
Their intrinsic value is that they cannot be controlled by despotic governments, nanny state mothers and fathers, or by corrupt bankers or payment gateway vendors
You could say that for any currency you might care to invent. Limited-edition Franklin Mint velvet Elvis collector plates? They'd be a great currency, if only you could persuade anyone to use 'em.
Alternatively, if you don't like that, then I could invent Bitcoin Prime. It's exactly like Bitcoins, except... well, it's called Bitcoin Prime. Every string of bits that is a bitcoin is also a Bitcoin Prime... except that regardless of who "owns" that bitcoin, I own the Bitcoin Prime. Who wants to buy some?
(Oh, and if such a thing ever does become popular, I guarantee that despotic governments, nanny states and corrupt bankers will find a way to get in on the action.)
The fact that the currency is as stable as it is is remarkable
Stable on a one-year timescale? When the only people who own them so far are the first-gen speculators trying to drive the price up? The "beanie baby" alternative currency lasted longer than that.
You could say that for any currency you might care to invent. Limited-edition Franklin Mint velvet Elvis collector plates? They'd be a great currency, if only you could persuade anyone to use 'em.
True, but Franklin Mint collector plates are not supremely divisible, easily transferable, or free to store.
Alternatively, if you don't like that, then I could invent Bitcoin Prime. It's exactly like Bitcoins, except... well, it's called Bitcoin Prime. Every string of bits that is a bitcoin is also a Bitcoin Prime... except that regardless of who "owns" that bitcoin, I own the Bitcoin Prime. Who wants to buy some?
Go ahead and try, nobody will get on your bandwagon because the market will expect that a fragmented market for crypto-currency is in nobody's interests.
Oh, and if such a thing ever does become popular, I guarantee that despotic governments, nanny states and corrupt bankers will find a way to get in on the action.
Short of large scale quantum computing (which is my largest semi-fear), bitcoins mathematically cannot be controlled. Your statement is the equivalent of "if ssh tunneling every truly took hold you can guarantee that despotic governments will will find a way to listen in on them." While some governments may try to take measures stop traffic that looks as if it could be bitcoin, they cannot stop the wallet-on-a-usb-stick and in practice they would have an extraordinarily hard time doing so anyways.
There is a real market need for non-reversible, hidden transactions, driven mostly by the Governments that erect inane laws in the first place. Also, governments move slowly, they won't turn their focus onto bit coins until the first kidnapping and ransom is facilitated via bitcoins (a very real possibility).
That's very interesting and I hadn't thought of that, but it seems that you'd need to conduct a transaction with the newly-acquired coins in order to ensure that they aren't spent twice.
>The fact that the currency is as stable as it is is remarkable
the currency will fail as soon as NSA withdraws its funding from this project of distributed generation of these hash signatures with very specific properties. Who else do you think maintains such a stable and modestly growing valuation? Free market? :)
I admit it's not exactly a pyramid scheme, but it does have many features in common -- in particular, the fact that the folks who get in on the ground floor can potentially earn lots of money by persuading as many other folks as possible to join in and then cashing out before the bubble bursts.
In a pyramid scheme, the people at the top of the pyramid want to stay in the game for as long as they can, not cash out as soon as the opportunity arises. What you've described sounds closer to "pump'n'dump".
Do you mean a good idea relative to giving away stuff for free, or relative to dollars/euros?
The first question is really, "Why should we use money?" I'm not going to get into that in any depth here, but the short answer is that money allows you to collaborate with people you don't trust, or even know, in efficiently using scarce resources.
As for the second question, they're currently easier to transfer over the internet than dollars or euros, less prone to fraud, and more anonymous.
Because if you want to build stuff with payments, you deal with APIs and not paperwork. Which is much friendlier for us hackers.
Considering bitcoins actually have value (the market works, you can buy and sell them - right now they're roughly $1), it's a real shot at micropayments done right.
It's another in a long list of attempts to create a digital cash scheme which will never work. Regular money is more than satisfactory for almost everyone.
It's "Cash" for the web. Currently if you want to do business on the web, your options are accept payments via a private entity, and give them some percentage of your revenue, or work for free. This aims to solve that issue.
I think it also puts us in the right direction in terms of globalization. There are many problems with doing business internationally. The first of which is foreign exchange rates, if we all accepted one currency international transactions become simpler
Personally I don't think it solves the problem in an optimal manner, but if it starts a movement, then I'm all for it.
