Bitcoins/Litecoins/Virtual Currencies
- Thread starter Tripamang
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Catch a break? What did you think was going to happen in a completely unregulated economy? I guarantee that if bitcoin doesn't get a regulatory bitch slap in the gox aftermath, that another exchange/bank/scam will suck down an equivalent amount of bitcoins and actual money.
Izo
Tranny Chaser
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regulation is NOT the answer
smarter market participants are
Hopefully after this, bitcoin market participants will be smart enough to realize that they need to fix their code so shit like this malleability-related theft is doesn't happen.
The next lessons they learn the hard way afterwards, in order are:
1. Give the cryptocurrency intrinsic value.
2. Don't fuck with governments monopoly on currencies.
I was looking at these currencies here.Crypto-Currency Market Capitalizations | Bitcoin Ripple Litecoin Peercoin Dogecoin Nxt Mastercoin Namecoin ProtoShares Quark and more...
Do any of these have their value tied to anything other than algorithms?
Do any of these have their value tied to anything other than algorithms?
Yeah, if only everyone was smarter and behaved like perfect rational actors then the market would work flawlessly. Well minus all the ways markets break all on their own anyways. I'm sure this bunch is finally the ones who finally cast off human nature and solve this problem for the first time in human history. By cargo culting modern finance and economy. Somehow.
If you think that exchanges, banks, and funds operating within a black box are going to magically eradicate large scale theft, fraud, greed, and incompetence through the goodness of people's hearts then I applaud your optimism, but I'm troubled by your naivete.
The chief problem is that bitcoin solved how to make a decentralized trustless network, but didn't address any problems that a decentralized network creates. It's horrendously inefficient, and even the absolutely paltry number of bitcoin transactions currently consumes as much power as a small country each day. When you combine this base inefficiency with problems of scale and inability to adapt you've got a clusterfuck.
The next steps are figuring out how provide proof or work and secure the network in such a way as to not encourage an arms race to the bottom, while providing a protocol that is adaptable without hard forking itself every time you want to try and change something. Also, a sane method of distribution and creation. I also have no idea how a decentralized currency/commodity/weird hybrid is suppose to respond to developing economic conditions. I'd guess the true believers would say that the market will just work itself out, which is not an answer grounded in either history or reality. It's just a fucking endless series of things that need to be addressed to make a functional decentralized e-coin. Bitcoin was a first step. Much more actual innovation and considered study are needed, which are things I've never once seen in the cyptocurrency community.
Elerion
N00b
- 735
- 46
Gox horror story thread - How much did you lose? : Bitcoin
A fool and his money etc, but those are some pretty rough losses.
A fool and his money etc, but those are some pretty rough losses.
Eidal
Molten Core Raider
- 2,001
- 213
Everything else you said was great, but this is a misleading statement. The difficulty is high right now because the high rate of BTC minting (25 per block) combined with its value in USD makes it profitable for this extreme electrical burn. Block rewards will diminish, hardware will become more specialized. So the current high rate of burn is not sustainable.
I imagine there are lots of really bad people that are going to start looking for Mark Karpeles' head right about now. Russian/Japanese mafia. Drug cartels. He'd better hope that money he stole will buy him a lot of anonymity, otherwise it's his head on a stick, for sure.
No regulation is the best way to prevent failure of the regulator you idiot.
Cryptocurrencies are not gonna die, there is a demand for it, there is a need for it, it's just still in developpement stage, and hopefully it will always be.
Cryptocurrencies are not gonna die, there is a demand for it, there is a need for it, it's just still in developpement stage, and hopefully it will always be.
Izo
Tranny Chaser
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Elerion
N00b
- 735
- 46
Arative
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 3,063
- 4,771
Gox was the cause of several major issues in bitcoin. Its probably a good thing they are gone. Sucks for the people that were holding coins in gox though. I'm sure that this will lower the price of bitcoin substantially though and will probably drive a lot of miners out due to the loss of ROI. Though it might give people a chance to buy in and wait for the next bubble to come along and sell high.
I agree that it isn't sustainable and won't last, but it's because my long term view of bitcoin isn't good. Essentially, I don't think reward halving is going to significantly reduce the computing power of the network because it's more a function of how widespread adoption is. Since the overwhelming majority of coins as are in the hands of very few people, then increased adoption means mining is always going to be a path of acquisition for new entrants to the market. Just like how the 2012 halving did nothing to slow the rate at which new hardware was added to the network. Hardware has been rapidly becoming more efficient for close to a year now, but total network energy consumed has consistently and significantly outpaced the gains made through efficiency due to spurred adoption.
In short it's unsustainable because the bitcoin protocol isn't sustainable. Not for actual widespread adoption anyway.
So, if we belive that the stuff thats going around, 750k bitcoins unaccounted for. That's $375 million. One of the biggest thefts ever. Awesome. Makes me think of a GwtDT like scene where some young nerd is soon to be rocking up in Monaco with a whole new life.
Just got this one in the inbox, for those that think regulation is the magic wand (or those that want a melanchol laugh) and not another layer of corruption.
SEC Employees Make Great Stock Pickers
SEC Employees Make Great Stock Pickers