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Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by KasianFranks on Thursday December 14, 2017 @11:38AM (#15923663)
Gotta love how the negative crypto articles rise to the top on HN immediately. What's not understood is that crypto is a way for the un-banked (1/3 of the people on earth who barely have clean water, toilets or telephones, yes telephones and that make $1/day) now have access and participation in a global trading platform. Disruption for the first time is happening to both VCs and traditional investment bankers and they are rekt. Be a contrarian.
Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by darkstar999 on Thursday December 14, 2017 @11:43AM (#15923744)
Except that bitcoin transaction cost is what, $10 or $15 now? There's no way "unbanked" people will benefit from that, at all.
Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by montecarl on Thursday December 14, 2017 @11:50AM (#15923851)
Yes. For right now, the demand for transactions is greatly outstripping the fixed supply of transactions that the network can provide. Nobody has convincingly solved the problem (IOTA, I'm looking at you...). Altcoins don't have this problem yet either because they are not as widely used and those that can do more transactions per second have blockchains that would be growing very quickly in size if the blocks were close to full.

None of the current globally distributed trustless ledgers cannot support a huge number of transactions per second. We will need new technologies, possibly on top of bitcoin, or through new technology.

Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by Rmilb on Thursday December 14, 2017 @01:04PM (#15924682)
There have been low transaction fees in the past and they can return. Currently that is not the case.
Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by Tepix on Thursday December 14, 2017 @11:56AM (#15923920)
He wrote crypto, not bitcoin.
Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by matt4077 on Thursday December 14, 2017 @01:03PM (#15924663)
Yet the economists they're mocking were asked about bitcoin.
Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by KasianFranks on Thursday December 14, 2017 @12:43PM (#15924388)
Good point.
Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by matt4077 on Thursday December 14, 2017 @11:39AM (#15923680)
The unbanked have absolutely no use for a volatile pseudo-currency with transaction costs >$20
Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by KasianFranks on Thursday December 14, 2017 @12:44PM (#15924403)
Ever heard of other crypto?
Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by deadmetheny on Thursday December 14, 2017 @12:16PM (#15924121)
How are these people without basic necessities accessing their coins, exactly? It's hard to trade Internet Fun Bucks without Internet access.
Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by samastur on Thursday December 14, 2017 @11:40AM (#15923701)
I would be more willing to believe this if among many other things bitcoin price didn't rise so much. As it is, it is clearly mostly bought and not "traded" which suggest it is used as a store of value (or investment) and not currency.

It might be that cryptocoins will perform that role some time in the future, but this is not what is happening now.

Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by dresstotheleft on Thursday December 14, 2017 @12:28PM (#15924240)
Barely have toilets and telephones, yet unfettered access to the internet and Bitcoin exchanges?
Re:Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’ by KasianFranks on Thursday December 14, 2017 @12:44PM (#15924396)
Where are you from?