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Re:Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month by tedunangst on Friday February 08, 2013 @04:18PM (#5190210)
You have made the Internet-libertarian/goldbug mistake of thinking fiat is a dirty word.
Re:Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month by pixie_ on Friday February 08, 2013 @05:30PM (#5190508)
Show me a fiat currency the appreciates over time and maybe I'll look at it differently. Have you ever thought of that the root of our over-consumption society might be caused by the need to keep our money always moving to prevent it from depreciating?
Re:Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month by Jd on Friday February 08, 2013 @06:22PM (#5190738)
This is a very complicated and interesting topic. Many economists believe that inflation is necessary to keep people from hoarding. Spending, either in the form of acquisition or investment, is necessary to keep the economy juiced up.

In other words, your criticism would be considered a design feature by many economists. Some even considered adding a fee (demurrage) instead of facilitating inflation, encouraging you to use whatever money you had. This would be akin to a 1% asset tax instead of an income tax.

Re:Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month by stch2 on Friday February 08, 2013 @10:41PM (#5191538)
Why do you think a currency that naturally appreciates over time is desirable?
Re:Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month by tedunangst on Friday February 08, 2013 @09:11PM (#5191249)
Sure. Bitcoin is a fiat currency that has, so far, generally appreciated.
Re:Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month by pixie_ on Saturday February 09, 2013 @12:06AM (#5191759)
It's not fiat because you can't create Bitcoins from nothing. If you can then create one. I dare you to create a single Bitcoin.
Re:Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month by tedunangst on Saturday February 09, 2013 @01:24AM (#5191917)
ooo, I can play this game. I dare you to create a single US dollar. ha! proof that the US dollar isn't fiat.
Re:Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month by pixie_ on Saturday February 09, 2013 @03:02AM (#5192059)
Not really, you missed the point which was the government can create new dollars at will. Nobody can create new Bitcoins on a whim.
Re:Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month by Retric on Saturday February 09, 2013 @04:15PM (#5194029)
The rate of bit-coin creation is only fixed over time, you can create a new bit-coin 'out of thin air' if you add enough computing power to the network at the right time and in the short term. The compensation is to slow the rate of bit-coins over the next cycle not shorten this cycle time. In theory you could crate more bitcoins than the 'long term cap' if you had enough computing power.

There is also a voting mechanism that can change the Bitcoin protocol, the NSA for one probably has enough computing power and bandwidth to flat out 'take over' the network and give themselves arbitrary bitcoin amounts.

PS: Voting is a basic problem with all network based protocols. If enough machines say this is what happened then that's what happened.

Re:Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month by pixie_ on Sunday February 10, 2013 @01:35AM (#5195647)
I could 'create' dollars too if I had a lot of resources the forge bills and coins. The point is any government can fuck with a currency.. what's new? There are plenty of ways to defend against attacks.. I was around during the P2P client wars. I know all about it. Back when the RIAA was trying to disrupt file sharing networks there were trusted/signed black lists of bad hosts to exclude from the network.. and that is only one defense type, there are many.
Re:Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month by cmccabe on Saturday February 09, 2013 @05:16PM (#5194277)
The point of Bitcoin is to have a currency that isn't subject to central control, but is easier to trade than gold or other commodities.

We can argue about whether or not that is a good thing, but let's at least be clear about what we're talking about. Using definitions of words that are different from what everyone else uses is not the way to communicate your ideas to other people, let alone convince them that you're right.