BITCOIN

Hexane

Scottex99 said:

fwor said:

Scottex99 said:

Try to wire JPY from a Bank in Tokyo to a bank in Brazil, then see how long it takes, how much it costs and if it can even be done.

Then do the exact same value of transfer via USDC and it'll land in 60 seconds from your wallet to mine

Ah Scottex - thanks, you're always ready with a nice real-world example that the average man in the street can relate to!

So... let's take the case where there's a problem, and the transfer does ~not~ land in 60 seconds. What would the average man in the street do about that? What regulator would look at the case and adjudicate for me, as a UK citizen, transferring Yen from Japan to Brazil? How would such a problem be resolved fairly?

I'll give a better example that I personally see every single day and one of the reason my company makes a good bit of revenue. Not related to the average man but the same way a 800m syndicated libor loan isn't either.

You're a company in an industry that is perfectly legal but traditionally has been hard to get banking. Gaming/Gambling, FX, CBD, !!!!!!, Crypto, etc etc. "High Risk". You're owed money from another business/client/partner in the space. They are in Poland and you are in London, they owe you £100k, how are you going to get it?

We do this everyday for firms, in the millions. 

Oh excellent, a @!@!@!@ business with hundreds of thousands in cash sloshing around in eastern Europe. Every single day! Sure there isn't some human trafficking or human slavery going on there somewhere beneath all that? It's certainly giving a good impression of crypto as a good above board respectable financial tool. (Yes I know, 55% of banks are invested in it...)

Adyinvestment

fwor said:

Scottex99 said:

It's not for everyone, it doesn't have to be. 

Yes, but while that is true, it is in no way "Quicker, easier and cheaper" than the existing banking system.

And as I don't see any prospect of that issue - and other similar ones - being solved, it's not likely to be for the foreseeable future.

Bitcoin isn't but Blockchain/crypto is, and is the reason why major banks around the world are adopting it now - your post is just made up without any knowledge.

fwor

Adyinvestment said:

Bitcoin isn't but Blockchain/crypto is, and is the reason why major banks around the world are adopting it now - your post is just made up without any knowledge.

On the contrary - your "quicker easier cheaper" assertion is just wishful thinking, based not on what is actually true, but on the fact that it serves your financial interests for other people to believe that it's true.

Most of the problems with cryptocurrencies have nothing to do with technical issues. They are to do with operational security and trust, and they are very very hard to solve in an environment which is decentralised.

Adyinvestment

fwor said:

Adyinvestment said:

Bitcoin isn't but Blockchain/crypto is, and is the reason why major banks around the world are adopting it now - your post is just made up without any knowledge.

On the contrary - your "quicker easier cheaper" assertion is just wishful thinking, based not on what is actually true, but on the fact that it serves your financial interests for other people to believe that it's true.

Again, you are just plucking out of thin air.

There are plenty of banks and financial institutions starting to adopt crypto, one example would be XRP (I have chosen them because I have no financial interest in them) who are starting to be used by well-known names such as Santander, Bank of America, links with Bank of Israel and many more.

I don't know why you think this is wishful thinking when it is actually fact.

Global Payment Solutions - Instant Processing | Ripple

I have no problem with people having a different point of view to mine, but it amazes me how the crypto haters seem to have blinkers on and make up their own truth's.

fwor

That's always the standard response - "you're a hater". But I'm not - I don't hate crypto in any way.

What I do dislike is the fact that MSE is generally a well-trusted site, and it frustrates me to see ramping threads like this, where all of the legal and operational issues get glossed over, because crypto has to be portrayed as the next great thing - to keep the money coming in and the values up.

In the example that Scottex chose, where someone transfers money from Japan to Brazil, what happens in the case of a dispute - the payer says that he has paid and the payee says he not been paid? In the "old fashioned" system, the banks produce their records and the courts decide on that basis. With crypto, will the courts in Tokyo accept that the blockchain has any legal status - will they trust what the blockchain says, see an entry made by a processor in (say) Mexico showing a transfer to a recipient in Brazil and decide in my favour? We don't know.

There is so much about the operational side of traditional "centralised" banking that can't be addressed in any easy way in a system where the components are distributed around the world in multiple legal jurisdictions, each operated by organisations that are not part of a "trusted" environment.

Scottex99

fwor said:

Scottex99 said:

It's not for everyone, it doesn't have to be. 

Yes, but while that is true, it is in no way "Quicker, easier and cheaper" than the existing banking system.

And as I don't see any prospect of that issue - and other similar ones - being solved, it's not likely to be for the foreseeable future.

Depends what you're doing in the banking system, that's why I'm giving examples. Is BTC good for buying coffee? Not really, but you dont buy coffee with gold bars or Picasso's either

Scottex99

fwor said:

That's always the standard response - "you're a hater". But I'm not - I don't hate crypto in any way.

What I do dislike is the fact that MSE is generally a well-trusted site, and it frustrates me to see ramping threads like this, where all of the legal and operational issues get glossed over, because crypto has to be portrayed as the next great thing - to keep the money coming in and the values up.

In the example that Scottex chose, where someone transfers money from Japan to Brazil, what happens in the case of a dispute - the payer says that he has paid and the payee says he not been paid? In the "old fashioned" system, the banks produce their records and the courts decide on that basis. With crypto, will the courts in Tokyo accept that the blockchain has any legal status - will they trust what the blockchain says, see an entry made by a processor in (say) Mexico showing a transfer to a recipient in Brazil and decide in my favour? We don't know.

There is so much about the operational side of traditional "centralised" banking that can't be addressed in any easy way in a system where the components are distributed around the world in multiple legal jurisdictions, each operated by organisations that are not part of a "trusted" environment.

I don't call people haters, I'm just dismayed that people wouldn't do the research and write it off. Even if you wangt to do that, cool, up to you. There has been very little ramping here either. I say that I'm bullish long term and I'll be always buying and holding for many years but I don't try to cajole or convince anyone to do the same. In fact I'd actively tell my friends and my clients that when you're buying you need to come to terms with the fact that your investment could lose 50% of its value very quickly. On the flipside you could make a lot too. The standard of the forum has nothing to do with it imo. To me, I'm investing and I've made lots and lots more money than I ever would have buying Stocks or metals in the same time frame. If I believe my assets are safe, I think there is lots more to come, but I'm fairly "young" so I'm very pro risk.

There is no disputes in the blockchain btw, once the txn is mined/approved, it's there forever for all to see. 

Trust, regulation, safety, security etc are still major factors to be discussed but in the centralised and decentralised areas of crypto for sure but trust me when I say the pace of development is ridiculous and crypto is sucking up all the best talent from many industries.

BTC closing in on $50k, nice start to the weekend!

fwor

Scottex99 said:

There is no disputes in the blockchain btw, once the txn is mined/approved, it's there forever for all to see.

That's another example of how poorly thought-out Bitcoin is.

Pretty much anyone can put anything they like in the blockchain, and there is no practical way to take it out again. For example:

http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-photographs.html

So there is a digital photo of Nelson Mandela, extracts from Wikileaks, pornography and plenty of other completely irrelevant stuff in Bitcoin's "immutable" ledger, none of which can be removed. Recently, botnet operators have been placing their bot code in the Bitcoin blockchain, because it makes the botnet immune to all conventional "takedown" actions.

Flaws like this make it quite obvious that, rather than being a viable model for a cryptocurrency, Bitcoin was only ever a partly complete proof of concept. And yet people are still "investing" in it in the belief that it's the currency of the future.

Scottex99

Yet it’s never had 1 second of downtime in 12 years, the blocks keep churning and price keeps going up. I can @ you at 100k with everyone else if you like.

BTC is the flagship, the original, the first decentralised internet money, but it’s not the be all and end all of crypto either 

fwor

Scottex99 said:

Trust, regulation, safety, security etc are still major factors to be discussed

Seriously? That is quite an admission to make about something that has existed for fourteen years.

When I ask what happens when something goes wrong, you just shrug your shoulders and say "it's not for everyone" - your money may simply be gone. The legal status of the blockchain of the "flagship" cryptocurrency is unknown, untested and yet it's still the "flagship"?