Originally Posted by
newbitech
The point is that it's artificial scarcity. Besides that, strange things happen in math when you introduce irrational numbers into equations. Such as divide by 0, or infinite divisibility.
A math error such as that would be a flaw,therefore easy to demostrate a need to correct in the community,
bitcoin had flaws in the past which were corrected, and the new software containing the correction was adopted quickly across the board
Not saying that has happened in btc, yet, but there are lots of common misconceptions about math. People say math doesn't lie, yeah it does. People also say there would be no rational reason for the artificial limit of 21 million to be changed, yeah there is.
You just say the 21 million change would have a reason but don't give one
Also another misconception I hear a lot of, that somehow there is this vast I guess democratic network of network users to download the new software. You just need 51% of the miners to do it. And really not even 51% of the people, just 51% that control the hash power.
Not true, if the economic actors don't following the forked chain, it is not going to be considered bitcoin. Say 51% of the miners(or whatever percentage you like) decided to change the 21 million limit tomorrow, the old network with 49% would not recognize the new incompatible blocks, the 49% hashrate side could continue forever, and if the change the miners pushed was unpopular most of the activity and transaction fees would happen on the 49% chain. The 51% chain would exist, but since it did a highly unpopular and hostile action against the userbase, it's doubtful it would maintain that status for long,
as mining would become unprofitable on that chain with so much excessive hashrate compared to economic activity
What would be the equivalent of Jekyll Island in bitcoin? My guess is somewhere in Asia.
See above
Overheard the Janitor at my 40 story office building talking to one of the window washers on the way down the elevator at lunch the other day. Talking about how he bought in at coinbase a couple weeks back and that he has quadrupled his investment.
Yeah, probably a 100 dollars worth, he's likely to learn more about it now though, and be less ignorant of the system as time passes, it's possible to know nothing about bitcoin, and move to knowing all the basics in days
I asked him if he understood that coinbase trades at a higher premium and he looked at me cross-eyed. I doubt that anyone getting into bitcoin for the first time at this stage understands the nuance of the money vs store of value vs digital gold debate, much less the functionality of a block chain or no counter party risk ledger.
I like the possibility, but the biggest flaw of bitcoin imo is that it's software. It's virtual. Has no tangible value.
Software as a whole is worth more than all the Gold in the world combined, and society is far more reliant upon software for its survival than gold.
If all the gold in the world disappeared it would be a hiccup, if all the software disappeared it would billions dead in a year. Most of your "gold" value is from speculators and hoarders not from any productive use of it. Gold would be worth a small fraction of it's present cost if it only relied on practical use. So, okay, 10%(my guess) of gold's price is based on productive use outside of transacting potential or ornamentation. Wow. Plus, if you want to look a small step into the future, likely 50 years or less, Gold will be destroyed once the first asteroid is mined. Long term gold has 0 future. Fact. Sure, bitcoin might not have a long term future either, but gold is dead man walking 100%.
Even tally sticks could be used to whack someone over the head trying to steal them. Even sea shells or other such trinkets could be used to decorate a home or to woo a potential mate. What can you do with numbers that don't represent anything tangible at all? You can plug them into the world's biggest calculator and have the worlds most inefficient heater. That's what.
The blockchain has some potential to become useful, but not if it's read/write functionality are concentrated into the hands of a few.
Guessing you mean by the miners. Well, here's the thing, Japan next year is going to be producing there own asics as well. So, that's help the problem of competition in asic miner production, which really is Bitmain and bitfury at present with a few small outfits making up the remainder. Let's pretend bitcoin increases it's transaction rate, and ebay, and amazon etc... accept bitcoin, at some point those companies will not look at mining as simply a means to make money, but rather a means to protect the network. I fully intend to buy a bitcoin asic miner eventually, and not look at it at all as a profit center, but a slight loss producer, to help protect the network. That will likely happen with the next gen miners which will be very, very, close to hitting the limit of all present technologies available, after that they'll have to wait right along with intel/AMD etc... for new fabrication advances that only come every few years. In other words instead of a miner going obsolete completely in a year,
words a new miner will be competitive for a few years.
Just the fact that you can have a literal unlimited versions of this technology all with slightly different operating code should give anyone serious about investing in a particular pull request pause.
Yeah, and I can try to pay for gas with a 100 dollar bill I made with a crayon. Copying and modifying the bitcoin codebase to make a new alt coin does not grant you all the infrastructure of bitcoin, nor the userbase. If I can convince enough people to accept my crayon 100 dollar bill, then I might be considered competing with the us dollar, however the mere fact I created a virtual copy of the dollar scheme does not grant me the clout and infrastructure of the us dollar
One thing that anyone serious about investing in technology should have no problem understanding is that there will always be a better version of the technology.
True, bitcoin is not guaranteed dominance, it only has the most coders, the longest history, the most testing, and the most effort put into it's proof of work system. But yeah, it could be replaced. There are no serious contenders at present.
Saying that people won't change to a new version because the like the old version and they are so invested in it is a technological anti-pattern. Especially in software. The minute you believe that you software is "done" is the minute you fall behind and someone else replaces it. It's the minute your value falls away.
You can improve the bitcoin software as long as the input and output is compatible with the present rule set. There has been plenty of improvements,
they changed the way code for verifying transactions was done a year or so ago, that more than doubled the speed of that process, just as one example. You don't need a hardfork for that, you need a system wide hardfork to change the basic rules. Such as the block reward calculation.
There is huge incentive to continue to change the Bitcoin software to benefit those who care about it and use it the most. Which would be the miners btw, and the one thing that the miners need the most to continue to operate is something to mine. The arbitrary and artificial number of 21,000,000 will be reached. Miners will cease to be miners at that point and their profits will fall through the floor.
The only way they will make enough money to support their vast operation is to collect fees off transactions. So btc mining will eventually not be as difficult, because btc mining won't be a hype driven cash cow forever. Eventually the processing of transactions will have to happen the way it was initially envisioned, in that anyone on the peer network can participate in proving the ledger. Eventually it will become more like a lottery ticket and less like whoever throws the most power at it wins.
It's actually argued that bitcoin has an excessive amount of hashrate at present, and could lose some and still not be a target for 51% attack.
Regardless, transaction fees were always intended to replace the blockreward eventually. Not really seeing why you think that is the death of bitcoin. The transaction capcity of bitcoin will eventually be increased, nearly all developers agree with that, it's just when that is the question. Of course the community has to agree to it,
and most would if the developers were behind it
Long before that happens, the miners will have figured out the only way to perpetuate their resources will be to switch to a different technology. Or change the fundamentals of the one they are comfortable with.
Miners can't unilaterally change bitcoin. They can fork off at anytime, but that doesn't mean the whole ecosystem has to follow.
Crypto-"currency" is a dead end. Technology is not going to change human nature. Human nature will assimilate the technology, manipulate it and continue on unabated.
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