A great 20-min introduction. The potential it brings to the 1 billion=20 people with internet but no bank account is truly revolutionary, never=20 mind all the uses the 1st world techies / VCs are excited about. Andreas Antonopoulos J Jesse Lackey wrote: > Hi Bob, with all due respect, this is exactly what bitcoin isn't. It > isn't fiat, it supply cannot change due to the whims of anyone, and its > rise in value is not a Ponzi scheme. It has already facilitated a $50M+ > Ponzi scheme (broken up by the Feds), like any currency or readily > exchange-able store of value can. > > Bitcoin suffers from its own success at creating enthusiasm among > technical people and risk-taking investors, which means large & rapid > swings in value vs. fiat: > is a good place to watch it all liv= e. > > This prevents its use as a currency anytime soon, end of story. It has > been said that the fixed supply rate of new bitcoin (granted when a > block is solved, i.e. hundreds of transactions are combined into a new > block added to the worldwide blockchain), which prevents swings in value > due to inflation (anyone angry at the Federal Reserve's QE printing of > money love this), will make it not possible to use as a currency, > because as people buy and sell their bitcoin as an investment (i.e. > major fiat money goes into and out of bitcoin) the price /has/ to swing, > since supply is absolutely fixed while demand varies widely. There is > no authority to create more or destroy it to temper these swings. > > If there aren't a lot of merchants using it (to make it more > currency-like and more stable), the main value becomes what you think > you can sell it to the next investor for in a day/month/year, and now > you have tulip bulbs you can trade instantly worldwide. > > It may well be that one of the dozens of other virtual currencies that > have sprung up on bitcoin's groundbreaking architectural underpinnings > will prove to be more useful. Yet another amazing feature of what is > possible now is that if you /want/ inflation, or you want to prevent > concentration of wealth, or have no cap on the quantity of 'coin' over > time, or make the mining process much harder to put into ASICs, or make > true micropayments (like literally 1c) be practical, or make it far more > (or less) anonymous, it is largely knobs to tweak in a codebase and > relatively minor changes in how some of the technical details work. It > is a construction kit. If someone creates a better scheme for use as a > currency (the money-in-your-pocket 'silver' to bitcoin bars-of-gold in > vaults, as they say), that could really take off. (already: Litecoin, > peercoin, primecoin, zerocoin, ...) > > Personally, I'd like to get my $2000 for custom pcbs sold to a theater > scenery building business in Italy yesterday paid w/o giving ~4% to > paypal or a combined $50 fee on their side + my side + 3 day wait for > the banks. That's my real-world use for bitcoin or its more stable in > value successor. > > Like I said, I'm a bit obsessed. If I weren't an EE I'd be an economist. > > J > > > Bob Axtell wrote: >> Bitcoins are just another fiat currency that will shortly run out of gas >> and fail, just like the paper dollar will/is doing. No real wealth was >> ever accumulated using paper money, and none ever will, Bitcoins >> included. It is just another Ponzi scheme, like musical chairs, or >> casino gambling. >> >> In the glaring light of the failed world-wide banking system, the idea >> that ANOTHER fiat currency could gain popularity, simply boggles my >> fevered brow. >> >> Invest in something with a genuine return, such as a real education, >> land (in a country where one can actually OWN- not just rent- the land), >> gold dust or nuggets, platinum, or silver. Many good opportunities are >> being missed, and many are no longer possible in most Western countries, >> such as the USA. >> >> --Bob A >> --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .