Re:Announcing SegWit support
by firasd on Friday February 23, 2018 @07:59PM
(#16450973)
I'm glad to see the adoption of such changes. The 'hodl' crowd have changed their talking points to 'Bitcoin is an asset, not a currency' but as far as I'm concerned, if that's how it ends up--if you can't pragmatically buy a $2 cup of coffee with BTC--it would really puncture the immense promise of decentralized financial tech.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
You can't buy a cup of coffee with a slice of a gold bar either!
Yeah and that's the problem. Gold bars haven't solved the problem of e.g. banks taking multiple days to clear deposits (not counting holidays and weekends!), or credit card processing fees, and I'm hoping Bitcoin provides competition... but for that, BTC transfers need to be quick and cheap.
Re:Announcing SegWit support
by onoffswitch on Friday February 23, 2018 @08:08PM
(#16451011)
That was kind of his point.
Crypto sounds less like a revolution if markets treat it as an asset; as opposed to treating it as a currency.
With all the crypto hacks which can cause you to lose everything, cryptocurrencies are the last place I would want to redistribute any of my current assets.
Re:Announcing SegWit support
by Hippocrates on Saturday February 24, 2018 @08:08AM
(#16453102)
If you protect your private keys properly (and therefore actually own your bitcoin) it is not feasible for someone to steal it. At least it through a hack. The hacks you hear about are about stealing an exchange’s private keys which are are not adequately protected and are holding BTC on the users behalf.
And that is why gold is a horrible day-to-day currency.
One benefit of gold is that you can make more of it every day by placing your coins in a bag and shaking. The energy you put into the bag causes more gold to be produced in the form of dust within the bag. Helps work against inflation!
Re:Announcing SegWit support
by philipwhiuk on Friday February 23, 2018 @09:28PM
(#16451283)
Big deal, you can do the same with milk: https://youtu.be/ToZ4Z9qlb4k?t=29
gold is very soft, technically it would be possible with the right scale and knife...
You don't have to assay Bitcoin.
Confirmation times = assaying BTC
Re:Announcing SegWit support
by IntronExon on Friday February 23, 2018 @08:06PM
(#16451004)
I’m pretty sure that if you offered one to the person behind the counter, good and coffee would rapidly be exchanged.
Not if it's an equivalent amount of gold. Nobody has time to deal with a couple bucks worth of precious metal
You also can't buy a cup of coffee with TCP/IP. But with PayPal you can.
Bitcoin is not ment to be used for buying coffee. But software based on it is.
Do you mean “blockchain”? Because bitcoin was designed as a currency. It’s in the name.