Cold fusion is also the Libertarian cold fusion. How do you think they powered Galt’s Gulch?
As I’ve said elsewhere here, I see a very limited number of use cases for cryptocurrencies (as they exist now) that make them reasonable alternatives to fiat currencies. In contrast, the underlying blockchain technology has a lot more promise, and is a better place to invest one’s fiat currency in than BTC or other Math Beanie Babies.
Jam tomorrow?
Ha. Zoom jam?
The banking system ISN’T despotic?
You’ll need to develop that thesis a bit. I’m quite happy with my credit Union.
The banking system may be “despotic and despicable”, but at least it is regulated, there are laws that try to prevent banks from ripping off their customers outright, and as a customer you have, at least in principle, various ways to address grievances you may have with your bank. Cryptocurrencies usually try to avoid these “features” as best they can. If you have problems with your Bitcoin wallet or have, say, accidentally transferred a large amount of BTC to the wrong wallet, you’re on your own.
People are starting to use it in cargo operations at airports- but it hasn’t yet proved to provide a cost savings.
When someone broke into my place and stole a checkbook- I didn’t lose a cent for all the fraudulent checks they wrote.
Can my Bitcoin wallet protect me like that?
That is by definition true for anything whose price is at an all time high, if you sell it then.
I can see them testing out blockchain there, not necessarily for the cost savings over a regular database but because (as I understand it) there are a lot of zero-trust situations that crop up amongst the numerous stakeholders in that whole cargo/shipping/bonded warehouse sector. Having an encrypted, write-once, distributed ledger is a good way of reducing and resolving the disputes that tend to crop up.
It’s just the kind of boring application of the tech I’ll take over the “sexy” applications like cryptocurrencies any day.
Blockchains are widely considered a solution in search of a problem. “Permissionless” blockchains à la Bitcoin are very expensive to operate (I think the total energy taken up by all Bitcoin miners is now on a par with the energy used to power Austria) and tend toward centralisation, where a small number of entities together hold enough aggregated mining power to do whatever they want on the blockchain. “Permissioned” blockchains, which only allow one entity or a controlled number of entities to actually add transactions to the blockchain, don’t do anything that can’t be done cheaper and more reliably with a centralised database or something like “Git”.
Finally, blockchains as a datastructure have fundamental issues with data-protection laws like the EU’s GDPR, because sometimes data ought to be removed but that is impossible without ruining the blockchain’s integrity. ISTR that currently the Bitcoin blockchain contains various examples of very unsavoury stuff which can’t be deleted, and which could land anyone with a copy of the blockchain on their computer in serious trouble.
No. If somebody hacks into your computer, grabs your Bitcoin wallet, and manages to guess or determine the passphrase somehow (think “key logger”), your Bitcoins are gone forever. Or they could simply delete the wallet from your computer, and if you don’t have a backup elsewhere then too bad.
It makes me wonder who’s interests the developers were thinking of when they designed this attractive nuisance.
The usual game plan when you’re launching a new cryptocurrency is to make sure that you have a nice fat stash of that cryptocurrency squirreled away somewhere before letting other people put their dirty little mittens on it. Wait for the thing to take off and then cash out.
The mysterious and elusive Satoshi Nakamoto, inventor of Bitcoin, allegedly sits on a wallet with a whole lot of Bitcoins, from way back when Bitcoins were very new and reasonably cheap and easy to get, that have never been touched. If one could turn those into USD at today’s $21,000+-per-BTC rates (which in practical terms one can’t) one would become very, very rich indeed. Nobody knows where Satoshi went off to, and he may even no longer be around at all, in which case, if you’re Satoshi’s heir, hope he wrote the passphrase down somewhere, or else boo to you.
I guess that I can’t understand what an “alternate form of currency” is. Currency may be speculated upon, but not as a pure bet. Bitcoin has no aspects of currency that I recognize. It claims to be some sort of currency, but anyone can make a claim about anything. Money needs to be issued and then used as way of extinguishing a tax obligation to be a currency, to the best of my knowledge. Bitcoin does not, and will not ever meet that criteria. Even if, in some bizarro world alternate timeline, Bitcoin ends up being used for actual exchange in a meaningful way, any currency issuer can easily outlaw it or tax it out of existence. And I can’t see any currency issuer ever allowing this turd to make actual inroads into their privilege of seigniorage.
It is a speculator’s plaything, and like many speculator’s playthings will most likely end up having no value.
Ok, I defer to all the smarter people in the room ha.
All excellent points, which makes one wonder: what exactly is the optimal use case for bitcoin today? Is it as an abstract investment vehicle, a place to park money outside the reach of “the man” that isn’t, I dunno, gold bullion?
I am impressed that bitcoin has survived this long and is still an ongoing concern. It’s working, for some definition of “work”. It’s doing something, filling some need in the world, but I am not sure exactly … what that need is?
(other than fantasy football for finance/crypto nerds as previously mentioned)
Sucker-fleecing, apparently. Paraphrasing Mencken, nobody ever lost money by underestimating people’s intelligence. Or as Barnum said more concisely: there’s a sucker born every minute. It’s good to be early-in on pyramid / ponzi schemes, MLMs, and trendy financial gimmicks, and not so good to be a late-comer i.e. sucker.
I agree that bitcoin isn’t nearly as useful as it’s supposed to be, but I don’t agree that it’s as worthless as MLM.
I have a grudging respect that the whole thing hasn’t come tumbling down by now. IMO it is a valid proof of concept at this point, but I just don’t fully understand what concept it is proving? 
