Cryptocurrency

[Lance]

Again you are not telling me anything new nor are you answering my question. How will blockchain work when no one in the world volunteers their devices to actually calculate all those transactions?

They're not volunteers. They get paid in bitcoins to do the mining.
If, as you believe will happen, that Bitcoins become worthless then nobody mines and everyone is stuck with their useless bitcoins.

It's a ridiculous scenario though, as the Bitcoin market MUST have died before that point. Prior to your scenario there would need to be nobody wanting any more Bitcoins ergo the value has crashed BEFORE anyone stops mining. You have the cause and effect wrong. Your scenario is the effect of the market going down the tubes, not the cause.

[FrontEnder]

will blockchain work when no one in the world volunteers their devices to actually calculate all those transactions?

Well that wasn't the question you asked

As lance has explained, as long as there is a financial incentive to do so, miners will mine. Even if they don't mine, there's miner's fees, so that could still provide income when mining is economically challenging. Not sure how well that will work though...

A guy I work with has a start-up company based on blockchain however they had to rent the server power from a provider, thus making it centralised in that country. The other alternative would be to hire a rack in every datacentre in the world in every country. Advantage being that not one country would have jurisdiction to get to the data compared to have in one country where the local law enforcement agency could gain access to it. Does your business have something to hide?

As soon as someone else is running a node, it becomes decentralised.

[northernladyuk]

It's Darren_Test. He was stood in the pissing rain one day trying to push a soggy envelope with £2 in 10p's falling out of it through a letter box and thought 'wouldn't it be good if there was a currency that was only on the Internet so it wouldn't get wet in the rain' And hence it was born.

Is Darren test actually she who must not be named's photographic model's accountant?

[Drei]

How exactly can it affect those that haven't invested?

As for recession..... What have you been smoking? The total BTC market value is $48bn give or take a few billion.
That's small change in terms of recession causing crashes.

Assuming that the value remains the same and not goes to $25000 as some are hoping. It will have a chain effect as some people may only have $5000 invested in or less, yet if they lose that money they may not pay their bills, mortgages etc which in return will cause them to lose their house, jobs etc... There are people that live pay-check to pay-check.

I will assume that you are a smart person and realise the butterfly effect right? No matter who they are and how much money they have, it will affect them and probably you down the line.

[pjclarke]

Falling Behind

The Ethereum blockchain seems to be growing faster than my wallet can sync it.

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

- The Red Queen.

[TheGreenBastard]

Assuming that the value remains the same and not goes to $25000 as some are hoping. It will have a chain effect as some people may only have $5000 invested in or less, yet if they lose that money they may not pay their bills, mortgages etc which in return will cause them to lose their house, jobs etc... We spoke about people that live pay-check to pay-check.

I will assume that you are a smart person and realise the butterfly effect right?

Your argument (strong word for it) is that hypothetical idiots might lose money in something they don't understand?

[Drei]

They're not volunteers. They get paid in bitcoins to do the mining.
If, as you believe will happen, that Bitcoins become worthless then nobody mines and everyone is stuck with their useless bitcoins.

It's a ridiculous scenario though, as the Bitcoin market MUST have died before that point. Prior to your scenario there would need to be nobody wanting any more Bitcoins ergo the value has crashed BEFORE anyone stops mining. You have the cause and effect wrong. Your scenario is the effect of the market going down the tubes, not the cause.

First of all I was talking about general Blockchain technology and the many many other transactions which would need calculating. Sure you can mine BTCs but can you also mine A B C D E F.... Z Y Z at the same time since that is what would happen if everyone out there goes blockchain solutions. As a company you are paying others for the computing power.

BTC is getting harder and harder to mine, currently it isn't worth mining any more as you are not making enough to cover your electric bill and hardware necessary to actually mine it. It's not like you can do it on a normal computer, you need some serious piece of specialized ASIC kit. You would need to wait months for that kit to get to you, by which time whatever BTC mining values you had may be in half. They probably use your money to build the devices and use them for 3 months so they get their money and some in BTCs plus your money. In the end you get whatever you get. If you just buy BTCs you would get the same return if not even more.


Security wise it is a huge risk.

If I knew you had 40 million worth of BTCs I would simply find out where you are, come take them from you and there is jack tulip you can do to stop me or get it back. You can easily find out if people have that kind of money if they start spending it or talk about it. After all for you to actually start using BTCs you would need to register with the different sites that accept BTC or use a BTC credit card which anyone can see you using. All it takes is a gun to your head for anyone to find out how much money BTC you have.
Before you burp out some other useless tulip, criminals would target you because no one besides you and your "army?" would go after them to actually try and get the BTCs back, which will be practically impossible to do unlike tracing FIAT. It is uninsurable, not backed by any government or enforcement body, not backed by any banks... you really are the easiest targets to steal from.

A few years back when the UK was tight with their borders and people were working here illegally. Groups of criminals would target houses or families living here illegally, they would barge in and rob them blindly, take all their money as most had it under the mattress since they couldn't open bank account, take their properties (Tech stuff, Vehicles, Jewellery etc). The reason they did this is because they could rob them without any kind of consequence, they knew those illegal workers could do jack tulip. How would an illegal person in the UK could go to the Police to complain? You as the holder of BTC would be their new target, they just need to find out who has BTC.

I would assume that HMRC or any other Tax Organisation would be quite keen taking 50% of your profit if they fund out you made such a killing with BTCs. If you don't declare your profits you should be prosecuted right? Tax is due after all...

[FrontEnder]

Christ, it's difficult to get all the way through a Drei post.

[Drei]

Your argument (strong word for it) is that hypothetical idiots might lose money in something they don't understand?

I am sure that %90 of BTC investors are hypothetical idiots. No one here has actually managed to argue any of the negative facts I have put forward. This post is pretty long, won't bother trying to find them and quoting them. I am looking about hard concrete arguments with specific details, I want to know who, how, why, when. Don't just tell me that it is better or I am wrong because you say so. I want to see it put in practice, I wanted you to explain the process.


We are not talking about a solution which is clearly explained. Right now you are dependent heavily on that Chinese guy and his 10000 ASIC to process your transactions.


If I invest in something like this I want to know the risk. Where are most of the farmers for BTC these days? I want to know because if you tell me %50 of them are in China, %30 in Russia, %10 in Korea and the rest of %10 spread around US and EU... then what happens if there is a war or a natural disaster and those 50% go? Who will process my transactions then? Bear in mind I am not talking about the ledger, I am talking about having the same computing power available to carry on supporting the system. As BTC gets harder and harder to mine, transactions take longer and longer, you need more and more power.

What about the hard fork? You talk about printing money, they can have a hard fork every year.

Also talking about printing money:

Once all 21 million have been mined, there will never be any new bitcoins (unless a change to the protocol is made to increase the supply).

So it does look like there is a potential "back door" for printing money just like the Ponzi FIAT. All someone needs is to change the protocol eh? Apparently the "board" members need to agree to increase and add extra coins.

Have a read here and the comments section too:
https://news.bitcoin.com/what-happen...l-coins-mined/

[Drei]

Christ, it's difficult to get all the way through a Drei post.

An you expect me to believe that you understand blockchain technology eh?


Bottom line:

Pure investment because you want to make an easy cash, sure invest in it. Better if you use a stock exchange platform so that you don't need to mess around with wallets and what not.

Realistic adoption and usability, if you actually are a supporter because you want to use it, is it worth it considering the volatility? Security risk too high, assume that your house goes on fire and your paper wallet is gone... your coins are lost forever. Hacked, robbed, lost... there is no refund on bitcoins EVER PERIOD!!! No insurance in case you lose them.
Transaction fees are pretty hard to understand, if we go based on 100 satoshi per byte with 250 bytes per transaction then that would be 250000 satoshi or 0.0000025 BTC. As BTC value goes up will the fees go down? So far they only went up. No one knows, it is another BTC mystery. The fees alone could be greater than the value of whatever you are trying to purchase. What if you want a refund on something you purchased, you just lost a few $$ in that transaction alone.

https://bitcoin.com.au/page/decide-s...on-fee-attach/

Before you start evangelising bitcoins and how great they are, you really need to understand it, I really do mean understand it like you understand 1+1 and why it makes 2.