Cryptocurrency

[scooterscot]

On the negative side, I had high hopes for digibyte but I've lost 65% on that one.

Just gone up 58% in the last couple of hours - hope you held! And keep smegging holding! Unless you feel lucky to short.

[Nayab]

An interesting bubble but I am not impressed by it. Permit me to take a step back for an over-simplified and historical wide-angle view. Humans started off bartering (goods/skills/time). After trade became more developed, various things were used as currency, ranging from salt to gold. Fast forward to modern banks that now no longer back fiat with anything tangible, I can see the appeal of crypto as "only 21 million bitcoins can ever exist". But just like the "helicopter money" pumped into the system to maintain "liquidity" new crypto simply got invented on a whim. Classic signs of bubble in my humble.

I might have some faith in crypto if it was actually used for the original noble intent - to be used as a worldwide viable alternative to worthless fiat. Greed, hoarding, govt legislation, crime and stupidity will all beat that nobility into the ground at some point I feel. Basically all the most modern and progressive aspects of human civilisation will kill the future of human civilisation. I have given myself enough reason to never be involved in it. I have my own thinking on long term monetary security. I won't bother sharing it here as opinions seem to differ rather violently on this forum.

As for your good self OP, I do wish you good luck on that bumpy ride of crypto.

[psychocandy]

Just gone up 58% in the last couple of hours - hope you held! And keep smegging holding! Unless you feel lucky to short.

Tidy. Yep held because it was pointless selling for so low.

[scooterscot]

An interesting bubble but I am not impressed by it. Permit me to take a step back for an over-simplified and historical wide-angle view. Humans started off bartering (goods/skills/time). After trade became more developed, various things were used as currency, ranging from salt to gold. Fast forward to modern banks that now no longer back fiat with anything tangible, I can see the appeal of crypto as "only 21 million bitcoins can ever exist". But just like the "helicopter money" pumped into the system to maintain "liquidity" new crypto simply got invented on a whim. Classic signs of bubble in my humble.

I might have some faith in crypto if it was actually used for the original noble intent - to be used as a worldwide viable alternative to worthless fiat. Greed, hoarding, govt legislation, crime and stupidity will all beat that nobility into the ground at some point I feel. Basically all the most modern and progressive aspects of human civilisation will kill the future of human civilisation. I have given myself enough reason to never be involved in it. I have my own thinking on long term monetary security. I won't bother sharing it here as opinions seem to differ rather violently on this forum.

As for your good self OP, I do wish you good luck on that bumpy ride of crypto.

Ta...

It is not just about money however. My interests in blockchain tech are beyond the financial. People setting up blockchains to trade insurance data, for example, which would make insurance a lot cheaper. Currently the DVLA sell your data to third parties. Do you remember getting a dividend in the post? No, I din't either.

Information is the last thing of real value. Governments and business know this. Decentralisation through blockchain will succeed in that. Think about it. Global organisation like Starbucks, Google, Apple, they have more power than most governments, they choose were to pay tax. Whether you like it or not globalisation is here to stay and power in the hands of the few is fast loosing grip.

Get on board!

PS: A single bitcoin will be $50k by middle of next year.

[Drei]

Agreed with Scoot on this one. Blockchain may well be the next Internet, it will most likely change the way any transaction is processed. This means anything from contracts to proof of delivery to proof of origin, to voting etc...

I know someone that started a Blockain company, he explained what it will do an it does sound amazing. They may do an ICO soon, will keep an eye see if it worth investing. Right now they hired the hardware from Google I believe to compute the transactions.

I still think BTC will be the biggest Ponzi Scheme ever. Saying that if it does all go belly flop it may cause the next recession. Or if it does stabilises so that people can actually start using it without fear of volatility.

I was watching Silicon Valley, last series, the guy was talking about creating a free Internet with Blockchain technology. This is great however for this to work people do need to allow every single Blockchain company out there to put their application on their devices, how many of them could you put on your machine/device before it becomes clogged up barely moving.

Sure for self driving cars it would be amazing because the cars themselves would be the devices and the information shared across the cars network, not use personal devices but then what happens at night when you are driving alone in the middle of nowhere with no connection to that network? What about driving in a country where the network is not adopted? It is a bit like the whole EU issue, cannot have an EU if every country in it has different rules, different economy, different salaries etc.

If no one adopts your solution then you are pretty much forced to hire the computing power from a provider which will be centralised.

Simply put the way Blockchain work is pretty much like a RAID 10 system owned by 100 people. That way the data cannot be amended or faked because it is constantly checked against the information kept by the other people. I already said this when I looked at Sia Coins. Imagine running 10 different blockchain apps on your phone, would your battery last only 30 minutes before needing charging? Would your data be constantly used? In the end it is the people supporting the system paying the bills, because of this they get some coins, the value of that coin will go up and down depending on the supply demand of that service.

[Drei]

Here, this is a pretty great place where block-chain could start working:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJSHXr8i-ZU

[TheGreenBastard]

Here, this is a pretty great place where block-chain could start working:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJSHXr8i-ZU

How would "blockchain" be better than a distributed data store that uses raft / paxos consensus algorithms (both of which are inherently more performant than "blockchain"-like distributed ledgers)?

[Drei]

How would "blockchain" be better than a distributed data store that uses raft / paxos consensus algorithms (both of which are inherently more performant than "blockchain"-like distributed ledgers)?

You should probably ask Toyota that question

The reason why blockchain is better the the scale, you won't be able to use paxos consensus algorithms on a global network of self driving cars. Trust-free consensus and cryptographically verified audit trail?

Then again paxos consensus algorithms has been around waaaaay before Bitcoin, so it makes you wonder why Bitcoin became what it is with a much much much higher computation power requirement.

[TheGreenBastard]

You should probably ask Toyota that question

The reason why blockchain is better the the scale, you won't be able to use paxos consensus algorithms on a global network of self driving cars. Trust-free consensus and cryptographically verified audit trail?

Then again paxos consensus algorithms has been around waaaaay before Bitcoin, so it makes you wonder why Bitcoin became what it is with a much much much higher computation power requirement.

Those are different problems to the one in the video... What's the maximum transactional capacity of a blockchain implementation? Let's only hope we need to update the positions of 3 vehicles per second!

[Hobosapien]

I get this feeling that blockchain is the new XML. A solution they throw at every problem that doesn't actually solve the problem in the most efficient way.

The bearded hipster of the IT community.

I'll hold my hands up as being proved wrong when you're all billionaires having somehow cashed out of the ponzi scheme and have more than just paper wealth.