Wowie, wow, wow! The best takedown of Bitcoin myths I've seen in quite a while! I love what Bitcoin did for the industry but we've got to stop spreading myths.
If you really want to be an educated investor, study Austrian economics. The idea that the value of something is driven by what it cost to make it (Bitcoin Theory 101) is thoroughly debunked here.
John Macafee Accidentally Revealed Why Bitcoin is a total Fraud
I'll do it in less words.
What is the cost to produce the contents of a major city's land fill dump?
What is that dump worth?
The value of a coin depends only on its supply and demand.
Oh, and China could order just three mining CEO's to change their code to China's specs and Bitcoin would be forced to adopt the new code.
Decentralized my donkey's hind end.
For the fair and balanced record, here are some favorable comments from Zero Hedge about what bitcoin is good for...
What Jamie Dimon Got Wrong About Bitcoin Tulips
"Decentralized my donkey's hind end."
Doesn't that mean you ass's ass?
You, sir, put that quite eloquently.
Bitcoin is CENTRALIZED. IT HAS BEEN FOR A LONG TIME.
Remember that.
Agreed. This, to me, is why Bitcoin cannot be the winner in the long term. It will still exist, but in a smaller fashion.
pretty clever
ha
i disagree its not centralized its based on the power of demand and supply
I agree that the labor theory of value is retahded.
Bitcoin gets its value for somewhere else than the cost of mining though. It's essentially just a tool that does a job. And monkeys use tools to do stuff with them. #eloquence
Just like Gold is a tool for monkeys to more easily trade and store value. Gold is good money for it's properties. Look at the periodic table only 4 items on there are fit for middle world sized creatures to use. Some break down, some change to another element, some are radioactive and kill you, some are gases, some are liquids, some are too abundant (try buying a house using a chunk of iron!), some are easy to recreate.
Only gold and silver could be divided, recombined, were fungible (as opposed to say, diamonds and cows).
They were also rare enough to use.
When we discovered how to heat metals up to higher temperatures, platinum and palladium became useful as money as well. Too late though.
Bitcoin has those properties and some extra ones too. Too bad mining wastes and sucks out a fuck-ton of wealth from the ecosystem though..
Yes, the electricity cost of mining BTC is absolutely hilarious! Better, making value by blogging. Where can I look at the progress of your Light Speed Bitcoin btw?
"What is the cost to produce the contents of a major city's land fill dump?
What is that dump worth?"
Classic
Well. I thought you were on to some good reasoning in the last couple of interviews I saw. Very good in fact. So good, even my mother would be able to grasp the beauty of this technology.
Still the urge to kick mud is just too overwhelming. And to use Adams as a truth teller is not particularly smart. Adams has had the "preppers" as customers for years and probably fear the competition from bitcoin. Which is also popular among this particular customers.
I think everyone who has lived and seen how economy works will know very well that within very short time the bitcoin miners will set up factories offshore. Just like the car industry abandoned Detroit after the financial chrisis. We get our cars, don't we? Just not from Detroit.
And speaking of centralization, I vividly remember the hunt for a certain Chinese in order to fund needed fixes and enhancements of the light wallet.
I could go on with the centralization of steemit that is so densely centralized, it does not matter what I vote or think.
Mud kicking might be fun, but I seriously think it is not suited as a selling point.
Touche. But the article was on Bitcoin myths. The quest for perfect decentralization cointiues...
True. And it should. So I suggest leaving the others in peace and focus the true beauty, fix the problems and excelling beyond.
"if Bitcoin drops below $1,000, mining now becomes unprofitable, rendering a very large part of the entire Bitcoin mining infrastructure instantly obsolete."
Isnt it true, that if less people mine bitcoin that the difficulty is less. That is what Macafee said in the interview as well. So if bitcoin loses that much value and people stop mining than it won't cost $1000 any more. Amazing how it works!!
Yep, when demand for Bitcoin inevitably drops, it will put expensive mining out of business and allow less expensive miners to participate. But there is zero correlation between who mines and the value of Bitcoin. It depends only on supply and demand.
I heard Macafee will be sending some solar antminers in to space.
Just 2 days ago, perhaps as you were writing this story @stan, I tried to transfer out my OPEN.BTC that I had bought last week on your Bitshares DEX to try it out.
But the Bitshares system showed me a $80 open ledger fee (0.22 BTC) to make a simple $100 btc transaction to move my bitcoin off the centralized open ledger wallet on Bitshares. Needless to say, I chose not to do the transaction.
Found out yesterday that it was a "bug" in the bitshares code, or so I am told by the front end team.
And so, I respectfully urge you to spend your wonderful energy, and to use your public facing "Godfather" position, toward improving the Bitshares system to an actually useful system within the cryptosphere before you throw daggers at Bitcoin.
TLDR; I could not sell BTC at $3,900 a few days ago on the Bitshares platform with confidence, and sadly that's not "better than Bitcoin" in my opinion.
OpenLedger != BitShares.
BitShares fees for transfers are 0.015$
That is per the blockchain's protocol. Whatever OpenLedger does differently, if they screw you, it is not BitShares' fault.
Also, if you have OPEN.BTC on BitShares you TOTALLY miss the point of BitShares.
With respect to you @xeroc ... it was a $100 test of OPEN.BTC. So I never knew total ignorance was so cheap, but thank you for the encouragement since I must be getting such a great deal /s
Although we have never met, I truly believe that you can handle some truth here (you too @officialfuzzy) and it starts with:
I never wanted an openledger wallet. I wanted a Bitshares wallet.
I first found Bitshares.org three months ago (which is run by @stan and Cryptonomex) and it linked me to openledger when I tried to create a bitshares wallet. And thusly my wallet (and my upstream affiliate payments) are to openledger.
Bitshares.org sends me to OpenLedger, then I have a problem, then you tell me it's my fault for choosing openledger. Cannot get much more unaccountable than that. I must be getting a deal here too.
This ^
There is also a known display bug that instead of showing the fee as .22 BTS it shows .22 BTC or some other asset. It's only a display bug though, you won't actually be charged .22 BTC. I don't know if this applies in your situation. Maybe a screen shot would help. I don't think Openledger charges .22 BTC fee for anything.
Agreed! That is why bitshares isn't just relying on Open Ledger and has the possibility for many exchanges to build onto it!
If OpenLedgers experience doesn't do it for you, there is much potential for others!
And even if there isn't one that pops up right away...we already have a team working on fixing these bugs and being PAID BY THE CHAIN! :D
Spot on Stan :)
@stan,
Personally I don't believe BTC is a decentralized coin anymore! We all know there are a set of dump as*es are handling all things and they say "Oh, buddy BTC is a decentralized coin"! My personal feeling is JP also holding a huge bulk of BTC too!
I still can't understand WTH is happening out there. When BTC drop all Alts start their dropping season :/ It's little bit hurt and I hope this BTC myth should be flush off by BTS, STEEM and few other top listed coins. BTC is not the alpha anymore! But people blindly believe it is the ALPHA! Hope they will open their eyes and see ALTs like BTS, STEEM are under-valued and will change the history in near future!
Cheers~
BTC has strength simply because all exchanges accept BTC and most alts are paired with and priced in BTC. It is difficult to trade or acquire crypto without owning some BTC at least some of the time. This could eventually change but BTC, despite all of its flaws, has first mover advantage and the largest network effect.
This article from Natural News is ridiculous. Just because Macafee is using the wrong description of what gives bitcoin value, doesn't mean that's what actually gives bitcoin value.
Natural News has been hating on bitcoin for quite some time.
Good point.
I think what you meant is, just because McAfee uses the wrong description of what gives Bitcoin value, doesn't mean Bitcoin has no value.
The only thing they got right in this article is that Bitcoin's value doesn't come from digging ditches. The rest isn't really well thought out.
To answer the questions posed in the article:
What does Bitcoin produce? Value transfer without interference or permission, for one. Of course, there are better, faster coins. But it does this. That has value.
Bitcoin doesn't need to introduce anything new to increase in value. As people discover it and other cryptos, it's new to them. That's enough to increase its value.
Bitcoin and other cryptos are a store of value if held long term. And as they are used more, the volatility decreases so that their ability to store value works better over shorter time periods.
I'll know when to sell my Bitcoin (or Bitshares or Steem) when I can sell a small fraction and get more than my original fiat investment. But, what I'm really waiting for is more infrastructure and acceptance by vendors so I don't have to sell, but can just spend it anywhere.
Number five is a good point. Other cryptos are better than Bitcoin. Doesn't mean Bitcoin has no value though.
No idea what the typical profile of a new Bitcoin user is, but what does that have to do with the value?
If the entire power grid goes down across the world, we're all fucked anyway, whether crypto ever existed or not. And as long as your coins are stored in cold storage or a paper wallet, if the grid comes back online you should still have your coins.
Haha, you knew what I meant
Nice, +Austrian economics.
Mike Adams is completely off base. He talks about bitcoin as if it's a company not a currency.
Actually, we use the metaphor that Bitcoin is a company that uses its own shares as a currency. This revolutionized the industry in 2013. Google "Bitcoin and the Three Laws of Robotics"
Good read. Thanks.
"if Bitcoin drops below $1,000, mining now becomes unprofitable, rendering a very large part of the entire Bitcoin mining infrastructure instantly obsolete."
If this were true, the entire shale patch would be obsolete and nonexistent, which is manifestly false. A bitcoin price drop below $1000 would mean one of two things:
Neither would be an immediate outcome, as the author suggests. Most likely scenario would be a shakedown of the miners, where only the most efficient would survive, as suggested by Stan.
if the commodity is no longer mined then the inferstructure and technology defeloped to mine it is obsilite
Understood. However, my point is the dropping of price below cost of mining would have to sustain indefinitely for the network to become obsolete.
I would say and I have had this idea for quite a while that crypto currency is just the elites testing what could be the future of money, they move it around as they wish, just think about this, why should Steem be affected nearly mirrorwise by BTC fluctuations, when Steem isn't even available to most owners until after they have powered down, and this takes weeks, yet the effects are instant, doesn't make sense.
So I stick with my idea that this is the playground of the elite, so the best anyone can do is just go along and try to make a profit. Don't think crypto is going to save the world.
Easy peasy. If one currency is priced in bitcoin, then a change in bitcoin price in dollars is instantly reflected in the dollar value of the currency priced in bitcoin. Ideally, the other currency adapts, but only ideally.
I would rather think the system is being manipulated, Steem has gone from 80000 satoshis to about 30000 now, why would that be? That is a huge loss, so Steem it isn't tied to BTC, yet apparently there are some players who can make the price of all alt coins go up or down whenever they want to, and make it seem like it is tied to BTC ups and downs. There is no reason for Steem to lose so much value against BTC.
Your reasoning for BTC to USD is good, but can you give me an answer to this one?
The other factor is speculators moving out of solid chains and into exciting chains. There is little incentive to stay with long-term growth when you can chase short term pumps generated by herd mentality. I can always be back into the solid products a few seconds after the pump ends. Its the nature of the industry - no "stickyness" to keep capital stationary for the long term. Price is a measure of short term thinking only.
Hi Stan, I had a little think and I have come to the conclusion BitShares needs a name change, it isn't catchy enough and it is a full ecosystem now, not just shares.
Should it not be called something that resembles a fair and safe banking opportunity.
If u want the average Joe to invest we must be able to tell them to go to the new decentral bank in town, a name that connects to heroes as well as to the fact that banking doesn't have to be done through third parties.
How about:
BE (BitShares eco)
now you can BE your own bank
BE a Hero
BE a stock market
BitShares is a tough name to market, it is big, sounds to complicated and doesn't feel connected to anything.
Heroes Bitusd etc.. the names don't connect to the core system, it makes it complicated.
I know changing the name is a pain in the backside, but it will also draw a lot of attention to the crypto world, it will show that things are moving forward!
Whilst also making it easier to sell to those who find bit and shares two scary words.
i guess
for attention
I just don't fathom why the price of Bitcoin keep affecting our own Steem....Giving me headache each time i check my tiny wallet and see the value drops
This is why most coins are now moving to proof of stake. It will be interesting to see what happens with bitcoin and bitcoin cash over the next several months. I have a feeling whichever one can remain the most nimble will become king.
From now on, the currency revolution from the Fiat currency to the crypto currency (or better system) will definitely occur, but I do not think it will proceed smoothly due to resistance forces including the country.
I am paying attention.
so many countries are backing the coin no one should doubt its potential
amigo #resteemia at your service
'but we've got to stop spreading myths.' 100% agree with it. excellent facts & nice post @stan
ReSteemia
'UpVoted ReSteemed Commented'
@stan - Nice article Sir, one day people will believe BTC is a myth & BTS is the future :) You are building that path Sir. Love your work Sir. Therefore, I wish to ReSteem your post.
+W+ [UpVoted & ReSteemed]
Congratulations @stan
MinnowsPower listed your post "Not picking on Bitcoin, I love Ford's Model T too!" as one of the top 10 upvoted and commented posts of the day...!!!
Standing at the right side of the BTC myth. Exceptional article and an useful reference to crypto lovers.
100% Upvoted by @MinnowsPower
MinnowsPower is not a bot, I am a Crowdfunding Hybrid
One small UpVote of Yours build MinnowsPower and MinnowsPower will Not Forget Your Support...!!!
whether we like it on not bitcoin has come to stay and will soon replace the traditional currency nobody not even government can stop it
That's a funny way of putting it together xD Thanks for the summary, lol.
Nice post @stan, thank
Less than 1% of the American adult population even understands what the hell crypto-currency is.
As evolution continues to plow on - more and more people get educated.
These new people don't read about alt-coins, don't understand alt-coins and don't buy alt-coins - they buy Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is-indeed the father of all coins and tokens. It was the first. It's been here the longest and has the best long-time track-record.
When BitCoin temporarily loses value - all other coins suffer and lose value.
New alt-coins don't even come close to the strength, infrastructure and public trust of BitCoin.
When businesses set up to accept crypto - they don't choose piecoin - they choose BitCoin because it covers a larger % of the market (their customers) whom they're trying to reach.
The very FACT that Bitcoin is the first and the father of crypto... assures its continued long-term success.
Yep, and we still drive Ford Model T's too. :)
I like the analogy but I think it falls a little short. If cars are the blockchain tech then roads are the network effects. Sure you can buy a faster more efficient car but if all the existing lanes that reach the most destinations are only compatible with Ford Model T's you may think twice before trading it in.
I am far from understanding blockchain. So this is a neophyte question. My current understanding is that the work done to mine bitcoins is not futile, but the required processing for the functioning of the system. It is not like digging holes and filling them, Keynes style, but rather like doing the processing for the network and getting paid for it. Is this wrong?
Thank you for the very interesting and useful article.
Both are true. The network requires people to dig holes and fill them in as a super inefficient way of securing itself, and wastes most of its newly printed money on paying people to do that job.