| ▲ | Hilliard_Ohiooo 4 hours ago |
| You'll get nothing but up votes here on HN, a lot are still angry they missed the boat. But solving the problem of how to transfer value trustlessly and anonymously, instantly anywhere in the world is one of the biggest breakthroughs since the Internet. Amazing how in a few short years kids started growing up with Bitcoin and don't understand how it work or why it exists :( |
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| ▲ | dgellow 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| It’s an interesting technical problem to solve. But after 15y still has no meaningful benefits for our societies. Other than gambling/speculation/illegal stuff. The transformative cryptocurrency shift didn’t happen |
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| ▲ | tardedmeme 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | When the USA collapses it could become the new global reserve currency (it won't but it could) Point is, it's a currency you can use right now independently from the increasingly unstable-looking US dollar. You could also use euros, yuan, rupees, or Australian dollars but it's really hard to get an account in those currencies if you don't live in those countries. Crypto is much easier to get access to. | | |
| ▲ | dgellow 30 minutes ago | parent [-] | | We can create various use case scenarios, that‘s what has been done since 2009, but there is no signs that’s something we are moving towards and so far the only use cases that stuck are the ones I mentioned. For a global currency you would need something stable and while the US is declining, in comparison cryptocurrencies (ignoring stablecoins) are a nightmare of instability |
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| ▲ | sowbug 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Some people think communication mechanisms shouldn't enforce policy. They don't want their phones automatically disconnecting if they talk to a friend about illegal or immoral things. They don't want their TVs shutting off if they watch stuff that's politically unacceptable. So it follows that they don't want their money throwing an exception if they try spending on an transaction too unsavory for Stripe or your bank. Free speech is for all the stuff you personally detest and personally choose to avoid. In a free country you hold your nose and allow others to engage in it. If money is speech, then having a kind of money that doesn't pass through policy gates is an essential component of a free society. | |
| ▲ | AureliusMA 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | We are very far from 2140, the year the last bitcoin will be mined. 15 years is nothing, this is a very long term paradigm shift. | | |
| ▲ | dgellow 40 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | You seem confused. The claim has never been that the paradigm will shift when all bitcoins have been mined. When all bitcoins are mined BTC will be even more deflationary and miners won’t get rewards from mining. But that has nothing to do with bitcoin being useful for society. And it should be pretty obvious that a deflationary currency is a terrible currency.
If it is actually useful as a currency in 2140 it is also way more likely that it will be forked to postpone that deadline, but that’s beside the point. We are 15y in and there is still no trace of a meaningful use case outside of the ones I mentioned. I don’t think it’s a failure of bitcoin itself (it’s a neat proof of concept), I see it more as a complete delusion of people pushing cryptocurrencies | |
| ▲ | thinkingtoilet 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is 2140 how far we're moving the goal posts now? All these resources burned will totally be worth it in over a hundred years? | | |
| ▲ | hyc_symas an hour ago | parent [-] | | No, Bitcoin is absolutely a waste by every measure. It was a prototype that never should have continued after all of its flaws became apparent. |
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| ▲ | holysantamaria 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There was a boat to jump on? To gain what? |
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| ▲ | tardedmeme an hour ago | parent [-] | | Uh, billions of dollars? If you bought or mines bitcoin when it was new and sold it today, you're now at least a hundred millionaire. |
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| ▲ | jayd16 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| If it's actually a transformative technology, there's no boat to miss. But it's still mostly about the speculation, it seems. |
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| ▲ | nmz an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Well, it seems he wasn't, he's not gonna get upvotes though, HN is startup culture and startup culture is selling dreams until it works or you notice too late you got robbed. And who's gonna admit that bitcoin is a ponzi scheme when all of their savings are in it? you can't, it would devalue your own money, so you're trapped, you can only further invest in it. |
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| ▲ | mothballed 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| It was mainly the early wall street types that cashed in big. If it was used as suggested by satoshi, then you were using it as spending cash rather than an investment to sit on, in which case you shouldn't have made much money on it. |
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