What are your thoughts on BitCoin?

[Terxpahseyton]

No I do not know this "CosbyCoin"

Though I don't think you would exactly be back to square one. Those institutions just would make it more comfortable. You can also save some money to get the necessary equipment, have a bit of a hassle and do it yourself or privately pool resources etc. Much more easier than setting up an actual bank. Which also would mean that those institutions would be subject to way more competition than banks. They would be the free market banking system we never had.

 

[Crezth]

I don't agree. "Low" entry cost is purely theoretical and ignores entrenched advantage. If anything, a lack of regulation would exacerbate issues.

At any rate, it's more the principle of the thing. You end up paying third parties a percentage in both cases.

 

[Symphony D.]

In vaguely related news, BitCoin has helped prove the relative restraint of the US government.

 

[Farm Boy]

How exactly is that restraint? If somebody were to trade 18 boxes of condoms tomorrow for somebody to send a poisoned letter to a congressman, would it be restraint to not advocate stricter controls on what people do with condoms? Or is there another point entirely?

 

[Symphony D.]

Or is there another point entirely?

BitCoin still exists and its adherents have neither been renditioned to CIA black sites nor taken out via drone strikes, which given the activities at hand, is somewhat remarkable.

 

[Farm Boy]

Is it also remarkable we're still not a cashless society? Given the activities at hand?

 

[Souron]

Yeah, no.


This is the price to be paid when your "currency" is stupid and requires everyone to be informed of every transaction: massive bandwidth wastage simply to inform everyone of transactions, correspondent throttling of total transactions, and ridiculous file sizes given the data stored.

Also, it's not even secure for all that effort.

There are bitcoin clients that are as little as 8 MB in size that allow you to do transactions. There is a need to keep a full transaction history, but it is not necessary to download it to make a transaction.

 

[Tahuti]

Is it also remarkable we're still not a cashless society? Given the activities at hand?

Given that we are continually in debt, and a measure is needed to take that debt into account, money is necessary. When you buy something, it is essentially incurring debt and pay it back immediately.

 

[Souron]

The most common reason why BitCoins receive hate is because they are associated with Libertarians. If you could pay your tuition fees in BitCoins and some economist of the likes of Paul Krugman or Joseph Stiglitz would support it, I bet 80% of CFC would be sympathetic towards BitCoins.

Likewise, many Libertarians support BitCoins because it seems such a perfectly Libertarian thing to do. You might as well try to associate it with Neo-Nazis or NOI followers who try to get rid "Zionist bankster money" so that most Libertarians withdraw their support as well.

I'm not really taking a side in the BitCoin debate, other than that I perceive that most arguments about BitCoins are in the end not as much based on rational considerations as they are of group identity.

I agree mostly, but libertarians aren't just a social group, but a political ideology. As such, being libertarian is not so much about being cool, as it is about believing in it's ideas.

 

[Farm Boy]

Given that we are continually in debt, and a measure is needed to take that debt into account, money is necessary. When you buy something, it is essentially incurring debt and pay it back immediately.

Well yes, but money doesn't have to be little green pieces of paper with no transaction history required for it to change hands, or be traded for heroin or a prostitute's services or those of a hit man, or be stolen. By cashless I simply mean that we could, theoretically, force monetary transactions into the realm of more easily traceable electronic transactions, if we so chose as a society.

 

[Darkflight]

Can anyone point me towards something concrete you can actually use Bitcoins for other then pushing them back and forth and paying increasingly large sums of money for them? I tried to read the entire thread but could only pick up bits and pieces of "this company is considering it".

Right now this just looks like a new version of russian roulette to me.

 

[Symphony D.]

There are bitcoin clients that are as little as 8 MB in size that allow you to do transactions. There is a need to keep a full transaction history, but it is not necessary to download it to make a transaction.

Everyone needs a copy of the blockchain in its entirety, which will be constantly updated. It's not centrally stored anywhere (because that would "defeat the point"), and so you do need a copy to make transactions.

You're committing to 11GB (currently) up front, that will grow with time. That growth depends on the number of users. Growth will naturally accelerate as more users are added; file size grows in linear proportion to users. The bandwidth required to transmit changes in the blockchain however, will grow exponentially or geometrically, as every single user will be informing every single other user. In the event that BitCoin were to go mainstream, this would begin to seriously limit, if not halt, its growth. I have referred to this as the scaling problem. No one has addressed it since I entered this thread.

 

[Cutlass]

Regarding deflation: Yes I wondered about that myself. I suppose one could handle it a bit by steadily increasing the usage of smaller and smaller fractions of bit coins. I.e. one bit coin would one day be the equivalent of a huge some of wealth and 1/1000000 coin or something would be the equivalent of a dollar. Still, a consistently deflating currency goes against any economic wisdom I've heard of, so yep, probably no replacement for fiat.

Deflation is the reason bitcoin could never replace real money. Deflation is one of the most destructive forces in economics. But that alone doesn't stop bitcoin from supplementing real money.

As far as I can see in this thread, Mise has the only really valid points in favor of bitcoin. And that is that the competition could push down the fees of an uncompetitive banking industry. But the cost of getting that is not just the untraceable transactions of criminals, but also the untaxable and unregulatable transactions of those who desperately believe that they are entitled to be criminals. People who think the world owes them a living like bitcoin because it will facilitate free riding, having the benefits of a developed nation, while making others pay for it and contributing nothing themselves.

 

[timtofly]

Well yes, but money doesn't have to be little green pieces of paper with no transaction history required for it to change hands, or be traded for heroin or a prostitute's services or those of a hit man, or be stolen. By cashless I simply mean that we could, theoretically, force monetary transactions into the realm of more easily traceable electronic transactions, if we so chose as a society.

I would say, "Given that we are continually in debt"... we may as well be. Capitalist are unwilling to give up that last "bit" of property, that money represents.

 

[Zelig]

Actually, it is.

There's nothing there that speaks to the design. We really don't know anything about the express design of Bitcoins, there's been nothing publicly released by the authors.

That itself is irrelevant.

You brought it up.

Then you responded to me because?

Felt like correcting your premise and/or argument, don't care about your conclusion.

1. Those words, they do not mean what you think they mean.
2. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks.

1. What? I've linked what the words mean, you clearly didn't use them in that sense.
2. That doesn't make any sense in context, I never used the term "cherry picking".

Yet you have done nothing of the sort.

You seem to have missed all my posts.

I will take this as a return to "I'm arguing for giggles."

I like correctness, it doesn't make me giggle.

You still have yet to address the scaling problem, and I am still waiting for an explanation as to why a currency that can never be used by more than a very few people isn't a bad currency. Really what you like to do is attack people, not arguments.

I've never made any claim contingent on Bitcoins being able to massively scale.

Can anyone point me towards something concrete you can actually use Bitcoins for other then pushing them back and forth

What do you mean? That's half the point of any currency.

 

[Symphony D.]

There's nothing there that speaks to the design. We really don't know anything about the express design of Bitcoins, there's been nothing publicly released by the authors.

Ergo there was no discernible intent at all! We don't know for sure, so it is simply impossible to draw conclusions from a historical narrative or inference or any such mechanism! Mystery solved!

You brought it up.

Yes, because it remains relevant to my argument. "Well, I don't care about that," is not a convincing counterargument.

Felt like correcting your premise and/or argument, don't care about your conclusion.

"

" is not a "correction."

1. What? I've linked what the words mean, you clearly didn't use them in that sense.

Exactly!

2. That doesn't make any sense in context, I never used the term "cherry picking".

No, you were (and are) simply guilty of it, and I was calling you out on it.

You seem to have missed all my posts.

It does not behoove me to go read the entirety of your contributions to this thread to justify your assertions that you have addressed my points. If you care so much, make them again. There are these wonderful features that computers have called "copy" and "paste" and if you click "edit" you could even do so with formatting, instead of simply using "quote," if it bothered you so much.

I like correctness, it doesn't make me giggle.

Strange, you don't seem very committed to it to me.

I've never made any claim contingent on Bitcoins being able to massively scale.

Is this an admission that you don't actually have a counterargument and are just wasting my time by being a troll?

 

[Farm Boy]

But the cost of getting that is not just the untraceable transactions of criminals, but also the untaxable and unregulatable transactions of those who desperately believe that they are entitled to be criminals.

Would you also classify those who operate mostly or entirely on cash as people who desperately believe that they are entitled to be criminals?

This really is reeking of You Have Nothing To Fear If You Have Nothing To Hide. Was that what you were going for?

 

[Crezth]

Surely if bitcoins can't scale in terms of the block chain there will come a time when using them for anything is prohibitively time/space expensive.

 

[Tahuti]

Deflation is the reason bitcoin could never replace real money. Deflation is one of the most destructive forces in economics. But that alone doesn't stop bitcoin from supplementing real money.

Deflation is bad because of the importance of debt: Banks expect inflation, and if the economy hits a bout of deflation, it may cause a cascade of destruction because people and business suddenly have to default on their debts. Since BitCoin doesn't seem to be used for the purposes of emitting and repaying debt, I doubt BitCoin deflation really matters, just as long it won't be used for debt. In fact, since BitCoins aren't used in debt, deflation may actually be quite beneficial for BitCoins as it encourages people to switch to BitCoins, while avoiding the downsides of deflation. Whether that is good for the economy in general is another question.

I agree mostly, but libertarians aren't just a social group, but a political ideology. As such, being libertarian is not so much about being cool, as it is about believing in it's ideas.

Perhaps not, but being cool certainly plays a role for many BitCoin detractors.

 

[Symphony D.]

Is it also remarkable we're still not a cashless society? Given the activities at hand?

I do not believe there is an appendage to the US Mint that advocates using its services (i.e., dollars) to assassinate public figures, nor that there are any persons attached to this hypothetical branch who have recently sent deadly poisons to world leaders.

So no.