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Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by stale2002 on Friday December 08, 2017 @09:43PM (#15883950)
And yet, reality has seemed to prove these economics wrong.

You can use this "nonsense" money right now. And nothing that any economist says about it can stop you.

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by Barrin92 on Friday December 08, 2017 @10:02PM (#15884028)
if I'd be willing to pay 6-20 bucks for a simple transaction with a volatile currency and wanted to live with the threat of having my account hacked and no insurance whatsoever, sure
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by Frogolocalypse on Friday December 08, 2017 @10:09PM (#15884060)
Your money has been hacked. You just don't recognize it.

https://d3fy651gv2fhd3.cloudfront.net/charts/united-states-m...

PS. Every standard sized bitcoin transaction bar the past three days (and those will too), that people paid over 5c for has been committed to the blockchain.

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by jcranmer on Friday December 08, 2017 @10:16PM (#15884088)
Yeah, that rampant inflation sure destroyed my savings account.

Oh wait, no it didn't.

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by Frogolocalypse on Friday December 08, 2017 @10:25PM (#15884111)
House prices look like they're continuing their 30-year boom in my area. Oh that's right, they took them out of inflation statistics in 1983.

How's education costing these days, anyway? Healthcare?

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by jcoffland on Friday December 08, 2017 @11:45PM (#15884342)
Can you buy the same things for the same prices as when you first started saving?
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by Barrin92 on Saturday December 09, 2017 @12:18AM (#15884436)
That's not my money because I do not own any US Dollars, and more importantly I don't really see why a graph showing me the money supply is supposed to convince me to buy Bitcoin
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by Frogolocalypse on Saturday December 09, 2017 @05:55AM (#15885239)
Don't. No one is forcing you to buy bitcoin. If you don't recognise its value proposition, don't invest in it.
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by betterunix2 on Friday December 08, 2017 @09:52PM (#15883989)
You cannot use it to pay your mortgage, nor to pay your taxes. You cannot even use it to pay Steam...
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by Frogolocalypse on Friday December 08, 2017 @09:54PM (#15883999)
I have a bitcoin debit card. I use it to pay all of these things. Your argument is akin to a person in the US saying that a person from Europe using their visa card, isn't using real money, because you don't control it.
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by beefield on Saturday December 09, 2017 @02:50AM (#15884773)
> I have a bitcoin debit card. I use it to pay all of these things. Your argument is akin to a person in the US saying that a person from Europe using their visa card, isn't using real money, because you don't control it.

If the person from Europe comes to US, goes to McDonald's, buys a meal whose price is denominated in USD with his European credit card and tells me he made the purchase with Euro, I would consider that a false statement. To me, he made the purchase in USD, his credit card company just will make the FX conversion for him and accept EUR from him when he pays his credit card bill.

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by betterunix2 on Friday December 08, 2017 @10:09PM (#15884063)
What is a Bitcoin debit card? What payment system does that card actually use?

Converting BTC to fiat currency on the spot is not really the same thing as using Bitcoin to pay your bills, any more than selling some shares of stock and using the money to buy a house is the same thing as buying a house using shares of stock.

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by zik on Friday December 08, 2017 @10:31PM (#15884128)
It's a standard mag stripe card that draws from a Bitcoin account and can be used anywhere. They're quite common.
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by betterunix2 on Friday December 08, 2017 @10:46PM (#15884165)
IOW you are not paying with BTC, you are selling BTC for some fiat currency and using the proceeds to make the payment.
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by jcoffland on Friday December 08, 2017 @11:42PM (#15884334)
If I take my US debit card to Europe and buy things there, essentially the same thing happens.
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by Marazan on Saturday December 09, 2017 @02:59AM (#15884799)
But you are not paying the European merchant with USD.
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by jacquesm on Saturday December 09, 2017 @04:52AM (#15885075)
Neither are you paying with USD even if your debit card directly debits your USD account. It's a proxy for paying with USD, just like a bitcoin debit account is a proxy for paying with bitcoin. That the conversion and account adjust ment happen in one currency or another does not mean that currency is directly involved, it is merely a convenient stand-in for the number reflecting your balance, an attribute of it.

People think that banks hold their money: they don't. The bank simply owes you your money but they don't hold it for you. What you get in return for your money is a statement from the bank what debt they owe you and a device to convert that debt into goods whenever you feel like it. That device is not the same as the underlying money, it is merely a proxy for your debt.

Which you'd find out about in a hurry if your bank ever went under and your card stopped to work.

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by FabHK on Saturday December 09, 2017 @04:50AM (#15885073)
Are there standard mag stripe/chip cards that draw from a BTC account and exchange into fiat at the time of purchase of a good?

All the cards I've seen when I looked into it a bit ago converted into fiat at the time of charging the card with BTC (ie, you send BTC, that got converted into fiat immediately (at pretty mediocre rates), and then you could use that fiat to purchase stuff or withdraw cash (at pretty mediocre rates, again)).

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by endless1234 on Saturday December 09, 2017 @03:15AM (#15884847)
If you buy a debit card with $1000 on it with an ounce of gold, do you now have a gold debit card?
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by AndreKoster on Saturday December 09, 2017 @08:12AM (#15885645)
Yes. I think GoldMoney issues those kind of cards.
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by leshow on Friday December 08, 2017 @10:03PM (#15884034)
Maybe I'm not clear on how a btc debit works but that seems foolish. Maybe a few years ago when it could actually function as a medium of exchange. Now the transaction fees are exorbitant.
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by AndreKoster on Saturday December 09, 2017 @08:17AM (#15885666)
> Now the transaction fees are exorbitant.

All the remarks about the skyrocketing fees can be cut short by pointing out that Bitcoin Cash (which is much closer to the Bitcoin described in the white paper than Bitcoin Segwit [BTC]) doesn't have this problem. Just like Satoshi Nakamoto said that the block size limit could be raised once blocks started to get full, the developers of the Bitcoin Cash software also say the current max. block size of 8 MB can be raised if the blocks get full.

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by Frogolocalypse on Saturday December 09, 2017 @11:30AM (#15886475)
If you want an alt coin with more capacity than bcash, more decentralised, and faster, use litecoin. It even has atomic swaps with bitcoin.

Look at the price. Going bananas.

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by AndreKoster on Saturday December 09, 2017 @07:30PM (#15889011)
No, I'm good. Besides, Litecoin's capacity isn't bigger.
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by Frogolocalypse on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @09:10AM (#15905629)
Like i said...
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by Frogolocalypse on Friday December 08, 2017 @10:12PM (#15884075)
> I'm not clear on how a btc debit works but that seems foolish.

Not sure there's any response possible for that one. "I don't know how it works, but I think it's dumb."

> Now the transaction fees are exorbitant.

Every standard sized bitcoin transaction bar the past three days (and those will too), that people paid over 5c for has been committed to the blockchain.

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by leshow on Saturday December 09, 2017 @02:46PM (#15887677)
Either pay a ridiculous fee or wait a ridiculous amount of time for confirmation?

Replace by fee is a thing, as long as the tx is unconfirmed it could be replaced. You're effectively saying the wait time is now 3 days unless you want to pay a fee of several dollars. So that rules out most transactions.

How do you pay for anything given those restrictions?

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by Frogolocalypse on Saturday December 09, 2017 @11:04PM (#15889825)
By aggregating commits to the blockchain, and doing them in batches.
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by leshow on Sunday December 10, 2017 @04:38AM (#15890679)
Sorry but non of this sounds very convenient or useable. It seems like you just really like btc so you're making concessions on usability.
Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by Frogolocalypse on Sunday December 10, 2017 @05:51AM (#15890856)
> Sorry but non of this sounds very convenient or useable

Then you don't understand how bitcoin works, so it's probably best you refrain from commenting on bitcoin architecture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=4E3NiDC9i8E

Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf] by leshow on Wednesday December 13, 2017 @09:41AM (#15914466)
You can't explain how your bitcoin debit is usable without paying a high fee or waiting a long time, so I don't know how bitcoin works? I hardly think that's fair. Your responses are practically non-sequiturs.

Lightning network hasn't been rolled out yet. It has nothing to do with our conversation.