BITCOIN

Zola.

Malthusian said:

Zola. said:

Literally stupid comments by Guardian readers. If Quantum computers do somehow hack Bitcoin's network - the strongest computing network ever created, it will already have hacked every bank, every government website, etc.

If quantum computers were developed that can hack Bitcoin and every bank and government website and steal everyone's money, there are two possible scenarios:

1) The social contract endures, and banking records are reconstructed on pen and paper from whatever permanent records have survived, like my monthly RBS statements. I can prove my account balance in a court of law and RBS legally still owes me my money, even if some guy with a quantum computer raided my account. The Government prints enough money to cover the losses to quantum hackers before the banks pulled the plug, nationalises banks, and does whatever else is necessary to maintain the value of money. People who held deposit accounts still have their money, even if it's worth less. The world is much poorer and banking is now as time-consuming and tedious as it was in the 1800s, but most people can still buy food. As can people who held cash under the floorboards.

Those who hold Bitcoin, by contrast, have nothing. All their tokens are belong to haxors and they have no paper records or legal proof of ownership to say otherwise. Welcome to being sovereign citizens.

2) The social contract breaks down, the economy collapses and people resort to barter with whatever they've got, or shotguns and pitchforks. Those who hold Bitcoin still have nothing, same as everybody else.

So I'm not seeing the stupid comment here. The risk of being a sovereign citizen and rejecting any legal protection over your wealth  is real.

Also if quantum computing does get remotely close to being a realistic threat, bitcoin's encryption can be updated well in advance..

Providing that the first person to invent a strong enough quantum computer is a bro who then immediately uses it to strengthen Bitcoin's encryption before someone else invents a quantum computer and steals it. Someone like the Russian or Chinese or US governments. Or the mafia. Or anyone with more incentive to steal and/or destroy cryptocurrency than to protect it.

The only thing half decent about that article is that they actually accept that Bitcoin only uses 0.1% of global energy consumption...

It uses 0.1% of global energy consumption solely because that energy use consists of a few hundred thousand bros trading points between each other and hoping that number go up. Not because it is a particularly energy efficient way of doing nothing much.

The quantum computing theory is not even worth discussing as it's not seen as a realistic threat any time soon. 

In El Salvador alone there are 2.3 MILLION users of the Chivo Lightning wallet, processing daily averages of 65,000 transactions per second.  Those stats are from September 2021 - so likely significantly higher now. 

You can send money using the Bitcoin rails on twitter right now - open to Billions

Mobile payments provider Cash App has announced that it will introduce Lightning to its 36 million customers in the U.S. and the U.K.

etc.

Yet idiots still try to argue Bitcoin cant scale or be used for transactions as its too slow.

bugbyte_2

Zola. said:

https://twitter.com/saylor/status/1488498422495817728

How much is enough?! 

To be fair that is seriously impressive. Is it one person or a collaborative?

A question I would like to know is it new money or recycled money - i.e. did they sell at a high and buy back in now? and this isn't meant to rile anyone but if they did sell at a high would such a move create the slide which enabled them to buy back in at a low? and if so, would this be a classic dump and pump where we are in the pump part of the cycle?

Zola.

These are bought by MicroStrategy, which is Michael Saylor's business intelligence company. He is adding the Bitcoin purchases to the company balance sheet. He has a huge personal stash also. He is irresponsibly long Bitcoin. He has bought MS shares back off people who disagreed with the Bitcoin strategy, sold them, bought Bitcoin with it, taken out loans to buy more Bitcoin etc. He is either going to become one of the richest men in history, or famous for absolutely decimating his company. Time will tell I suppose. 

They started buying in 2020.. their suspected bitcoin wallet address are well known, very public... He claims they are never going to sell and will use it as collateral, as he appears to truly believe it is going to change the world. I dont know if or how he manages to do any work for Microstrategy as he appears to be never off podcasts, news stations interviews, etc. 

He is a tech visionary, prolific business man, written tech books, sees things before others do, e.g. he bought loads of domain names before anyone else thought to do so (such as michael.com, voice.com, alarm.com, hope.com) - he sold voice.com for $30m. 

Whilst there is no guarantee he wont sell some or all, at some stage, to be that long is quite a statement. 

Cus

When someone who paid a lot of his own money to close the fraud case against him by the authorities, what he does later is not important to me.

Zola.

Good document from Fidelity

https://www.fidelitydigitalassets.com/bin-public/060_www_fidelity_com/documents/FDAS/bitcoin-first.pdf

RolandFlagg

I was just going to post that link.

Page 4 they show why Bitcoin is better than Gold.

Thrugelmir

darren232002 said:

bugbyte_2 said:

Really couldn't have put it better myself.

Go on then - just for banter - what value does Bitcoin add to society? (Real value that normal people would benefit from, not some hypothetical at some point in the future collapse of fiat or pretending your average Nigerian is eternally grateful to Bitcoins existence). 

About 5 pages back I was having an argument with someone because posters leave and then other posters come in and ask the same old questions which makes it incredibly frustrating having to explain everything all over again. 

Even after eight centuries of financial folly there'll always continue to be further ones. That's human nature. Confirmation bias is extremely common amongst investors. 

chucknorris

Thrugelmir said:

darren232002 said:

bugbyte_2 said:

Really couldn't have put it better myself.

Go on then - just for banter - what value does Bitcoin add to society? (Real value that normal people would benefit from, not some hypothetical at some point in the future collapse of fiat or pretending your average Nigerian is eternally grateful to Bitcoins existence). 

About 5 pages back I was having an argument with someone because posters leave and then other posters come in and ask the same old questions which makes it incredibly frustrating having to explain everything all over again. 

Even after eight centuries of financial folly there'll always continue to be further ones. That's human nature. Confirmation bias is extremely common amongst investors. 

Thrugelmir said:

darren232002 said:

bugbyte_2 said:

Really couldn't have put it better myself.

Go on then - just for banter - what value does Bitcoin add to society? (Real value that normal people would benefit from, not some hypothetical at some point in the future collapse of fiat or pretending your average Nigerian is eternally grateful to Bitcoins existence). 

About 5 pages back I was having an argument with someone because posters leave and then other posters come in and ask the same old questions which makes it incredibly frustrating having to explain everything all over again. 

Even after eight centuries of financial folly there'll always continue to be further ones. That's human nature. Confirmation bias is extremely common amongst investors. 

Sorry I am being a bit lazy (I could probably find a post that clearly stated your opinion), but what is your opinion of Bitcoin? Mine is that I want nothing to do with it, it can't possibly add anything to my portfolio, apart from some risk (if I speculated too much), but I just don't see the point (for someone in my position).

User232002

Malthusian said:

Providing that the first person to invent a strong enough quantum computer is a bro who then immediately uses it to strengthen Bitcoin's encryption before someone else invents a quantum computer and steals it. Someone like the Russian or Chinese or US governments. Or the mafia. Or anyone with more incentive to steal and/or destroy cryptocurrency than to protect it.

Oh wow.

You do realise that you don't need to have a quantum computer in order to stop a quantum computer right? What matters is the encryption algorithm and, in this realm of mathematics, it appears to be a lot easier to encrypt rather than decrypt. Its a pretty trivial task to create a combinatoric problem that would take years (decades or centuries even) of CPU time to solve (Travelling Salesman; P v NP Complete problems) and I'm pretty confident that quantum resistant encryption will be here way before functioning quantum computers.

Also, quantum computers aren't something that you can build in your back yard or garage. So its a large university department or state sponsored machine. The mafia ain't building one.

I find it amazingly arrogant that you continue to post with such conviction and authority on these topics when you clearly know so little about them. 

adindas

Vitalik Buterin's View on quantum supremacy and Crypto

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vitalik-buterin-google-quantum-supremacy-213540740.html