I have a question for Bitcoin fans. This is the opening sentence of the abstract from the original Bitcoin paper:
"A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution." [1]
In the Bitcoin community is that vision basically dead? As here, all of the action seems to be through financial institutions.
It's still early days. It's like asking if the goals of the Internet are dead because most people log-in via AOL and browse only AOL curated content.
Crypto adoption is still at a very low percentage in the United States. Imagine one day when _most_ people own crypto, and are willing to transact in it, and there is more advanced tooling and software and understanding. What will the world look like then?
As a specific example, take a look at the 0x protocol, and the many relayers that are building on top of it like Radar Relay or Dy/Dx. 0x and these companies are tying to build exchanges that let you trade alts with zero counter-party risk. The trade occurs via on-chain smart contracts.
The above could all fail; I'm not saying it _will_ happen. Just that it's too early to declare the original vision dead.
And as sibling commentators have noted, even today one can easily send BTC peer-to-peer once you have some without any intermediaries.
And depending on when you define the "launch" of the internet, it's 10 year anniversary was in 1999, square in the AOL timeperiod that the parent comment was talking about.
I know you put launch in quotes, but just to emphasize - the internet was launched much earlier than 1989 in terms of the technology. The base technology was worked on in the 60s and 70s, and things like email were already in use in the 70s and early 80s.
Of course, digital cash has been worked on for many years too, but if you compare the bitcoin whitepaper to, say, the TCP/IP RFC, then you'd expect AOL-comparable bitcoin usage in 2030, more or less.
If you compare this underwater spacetravel whitepaper I wrote in 2008 to, say, the TCP/IP RFC, then you'd also expect AOL-comparable underwater space travel usage in 2030, more or less.
AOL's heyday was more like '93. By 95-96, connecting directly to the internet was becoming explosively popular and everyone was starting an ISP. Source: first hand experience.
A wildly speculative investment in an era of really low (in fact somewhat negative) interest rates? I mean we have a global asset bubble in general, it's not surprising that some of it is spilling into new and untested stores of value, i suppose.
I agree that current crypto-currency ecosystems are pretty insane, but the original idea was super-cool.
Every traditional investment seems to be getting safer and lower in return, so there's all this capital looking for something better...and it's like people assume that high return and high risk go together, so let's invent stuff that has artificially created risk! I was listening to someone who said it's like the opposite of what led to the financial crisis, where they were repackaging risky investments into ostensibly safe derivatives. Now we're creating risky investments out of nothing because we don't seem to have enough risk these days...
> Imagine one day when _most_ people own crypto, and are willing to transact in it,
It doesn't really seem we are moving in that direction. While more people know about bitcoin and more people own bitcoin, it seems like the number of people willing to transact in it has made no progress.
> It's like asking if the goals of the Internet are dead because most people log-in via AOL and browse only AOL curated content.
Arguably, the original goals and design of the Internet ARE dead (or not dead, but certainly not dominant or ascendant). While the AOL business model may have failed, similar closed systems have dominated most of the content and use of the internet. The number of people who build their own sites on any topic or even publish blogs vs. the number of people who post to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat is pretty tiny. Open federated chat clients have been mostly replace by closed, proprietary systems.
> The above could all fail; I'm not saying it _will_ happen. Just that it's too early to declare the original vision dead.
While it may be too early to declare it dead. Your analogy to the internet seems like a strong argument to be concerned that the vision is dying.
> While more people know about bitcoin and more people own bitcoin, it seems like the number of people willing to transact in it has made no progress.
I'd say in some cases there have been regressions. Many indie-type groups have stopped accepting Bitcoin due to its volatility and high transaction fees. Stripe has announced its support for Bitcoin will end late April.
Certainly there's the possibility that things will calm down and it will bounce back, but personally I'm pretty bearish.
Individuals can still transact without interference if they wish, and no one can arbitrarily issue new bitcoin at a whim, so the important properties of bitcoin are still intact. The vision never included anything about preventing middlemen from using the blockchain. Bitcoin is about adding degrees of freedom, not removing them.
This is exactly it. Just like with the Internet... you may choose to transact directly, but if you choose not to the fundamental capability of direct transaction (or direct IP) still remains. Choosing an institution to hold your coins leaves open the option to withdraw your coins and put them somewhere else, perhaps even your own personal wallet on your own personal node if you so wish.
The dream of a micro-payment platform remains to be realized, however. The gains in Bitcoin have been towards freedom, but not efficiency.
> and no one can arbitrarily issue new bitcoin at a whim
Anyone can fork it though. And the interesting part, as seen for bitcoin cash, is that the total market cap of the fork + original chain right after the fork was greater than the value pre-fork. You can technically argue that this doesn't amount to creating new bitcoins, but for all practical purposes the total amount of digital tokens did increase.
> In the Bitcoin community is that vision basically dead?
Not at all. The primary innovators of the protocol are pushing forward with privacy and scalability enhancements every day. The cypherpunk ethos is strong if you know where to look (hint: not CNBC).
Sure, there are lots of corporate-types pushing corporate-type stuff. But any industry will have that before too long, especially if there is profit to be made.
I was originally pretty open-minded; blockchains are a cool technology, and I like to see people try out-there experiments. But for me this stuff increasingly falls into the same bucket as 3D movies/TV: lots of excitement, cool tech, and a plausible story as to why it could amazing valuable. But in practice, I've seen little value actually demonstrated, so my eyes generally glaze over at this point.
That's part of why I'm curious to hear from people who were excited about the initial vision. Maybe there's a pony in there somewhere?
I own a small business in Venezuela. Nothing tech related, but in the food industry.
Bitcoin has been a godsend. We are able to save money again having it as hard currency. I do exchange some of my btc for dollars, using btc to help to make the transaction (Why change it? Because I respect that you shouldn't have on crypto more than you can't afford to lose).
I'm buying small amounts every day (As our currency depreciate every day as well), but it give us the chance to save and is easier and safer than buying usd in cash.
I do understand the benefits have yet to "trickle down" to the regular people (I'm after all, a business owner), but it will trickle down. Our business is safer, I can afford to raise wages and able to plan ahead (As much as you can plan ahead in a country like Venezuela).
Using localbitcoin to buy them. I either send them to a wallet for long term storage or use uphold to change to usd.
I'm only buying in btc "saving money". Local currency (which my business generates) is spent either in supplies, wages, or just living here. I have yet to change some btc back to local currency (Which I might do to make a large purcharse or some emergency), but will probably just change USD cash (it will be easier).
BTC is not being used for small purchases (So no bitcoin to pay for coffee). Is really just used as "store of wealth". Most business could take USD if you want to use it for payment and some even demand USD (car repairs, construction work, that kind of stuff). Most people DO know about bitcoin, but I wouldn't say is mainstream to own it. There's still fear about volatility.
I agree it's a farce. Save from speculators, nobody is going to buy Petro as nobody trust the Venezuelan goverment. It's probably a money laundering scheme.
Maybe the government will try to force it on the population (By making certain things only payable in Petro), but nobody has any reason to invest in Petro as it is now. The next goverment will surely not recognize it and it's value will drop to zero (Maybe even before a new government steps in)
This makes sense, but isn't there going to be upheaval shortly because the government of Venezuela can't print Bitcoin?
On the one hand, I don't see how creating the Petro helps the government any more than printing bolivars, and on the other hand, the fact that they are trying it indicates they are kind of responding in a cargo cult way to Bitcoin, which is a threat because it can't be printed by them.
Assuming ordinary people use Bitcoin that solves their problems in the short run, but what happens politically next? If it is seriously expected that the Petro will capture the cryptocurrency "magic", and that fails, it seems like a crackdown on Bitcoin might happen next.
They might try to crack it down. It will probably go the same way as the crack down of the dollar. Won't work. And is even easier to hide bitcoin that to hide USD cash.
The downside of dealing with local currency is too great, so people are willing to risk being caught dealing with USD or BTC.
Thanks for replying. In my long-ago time living in South America, it was pretty common for people to save money as hard currency. But they'd just do a single exchange, local currency for USD. Could you say more about what makes the two-step through Bitcoin easier and safer than going direct? And have you estimated the extra cost for the extra leg?
You probably aren't the intended audience. Ask someone in Zimbabwe or Venezuela how they feel about crypto. Ask a woman in Afghanistan where all her money is considered property of men. Ask a millennial that has no other way out of the class system they were born into. Ask someone tired of governments printing money to finance wars.
You'll get more positive answers.
Give me a break. Those are political and socioeconomic problems. None of them are solved by tech. You can't sprinkle Satoshi's fairy dust on Afghanistan women and expect them to have equal footing with their male counterparts. You can't just inject Satoshi's Revolutionary Blockchain into zimbabwe or venezuela and solve their political problems. Life just doesn't work that way.
> Ask a millennial that has no other way out of the class system they were born into.
I don't know that betting on cryptocurrencies is a desirable & admirable method to increase social mobility. Bitcoin lost > 60% of its value from mid-December to mid-February.
I don’t understand how it’s useful to poor farmer in Zimbabwe when crypto transaction takes hour and cost is equivalent to $20 which is their monthly income.
Sorry this line doesn't work for me. Previously I worked on Mifos, an open-source microfinance accounting system, and worked for Kiva.org, a microfinance broker. I have at least a passing familiarity with the financial needs in the third world.
I don't see Bitcoin as doing much there. The peer-to-peer aspect requires computing and connectivity requirements most people don't have. What has had mild uptake is new online financial institutions that use Bitcoin. But I don't see any real advantage there. Compare instead with M-Pesa, which has over approximately the same period gained millions and millions of users.
I'm not usually one to defend the parent in this kind of argument, but I think there's room for both. Social reform can take years or even decades. If Bitcoin acts as a band-aid while those reforms take their time to progress, it could be a net positive there. But I do remain skeptical that it's actually making much of a difference.
It costs $2.50 to have your transaction go through in the next 10 minutes. It costs 50c to have it go through in the next HOUR. Bitcoins fee structure is wholly antithetical to its use as currency but TPTB in the mining ecosystem are making fantastic profits milking the fee rates.
Nobody is really using it as a currency when having any amount change hands costs on average a fancy coffee drink from a fast food joint.
Sure. My question isn't about what's theoretically possible. It's about what people are actually doing, which seems to be very far from the original vision.
Last week I paid two online orders (not drugs, thanks for asking) with Bitcoin. I do that occasionally. Others do it too. Mostly people don't go around shouting "I bought something with Bitcoin" because, well, what's the point. Doesn't mean that it's not happening.
Nonsense. Multiple teams are developing Lightning Network implementations and anyone who desires to commit capital to operate a Lightning node can do so without asking permission from anyone.
How is that contradictory with blockstream's lightning network business model? Redhat's business model is around Linux even though anyone can commit capital to build their own Linux business.
Bitcoin itself has a laughably low transaction speed, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4/s. The main way around this appears to "trade" crypto in exchanges without most clients ever taking physical possession of their coins via the blockchain itself.
This is why exchanges getting their hot wallets hacked is a big deal, a shocking percentage of crypto "traders" leave their holdings with the exchange.
The Internet used to have laughably low speed as well. Are you old enough to have used a dial-up modem?
You are right that 4 tx/s is too low in the long-run. But people are innovating: DAG networks like Nano, BTC's Lightning Network, Ethereum's Plasma and sharding, etc.
Maybe those ideas will work, maybe they won't, but very smart people like Vitalik believe they will work, and they are putting serious time and effort into them. Happily, Lightning Network, sharding and other proposals are making serious pushes forward this year as a top priority, so we don't need to argue -- we'll soon see how well these upgrades work in practice.
I had a series of dial-up modems for many, many years. It was always good enough because it's not like we were watching Netflix on them.
Bitcoin is not good enough. Compare to alternatives that aren't cryptocurrency and it's just straight garbage. Saying that people are innovating is a pointless tautology, that's always true and doesn't change the fact that right now it is absolute garbage.
(I trade bitcoin futures. I don't in any way believe in or care for the tech, I'm just here to make money.)
False. You're referring to an adversarial situation where your payment channel counterparty tries to close the channel using an old state that gives them more of the money in the channel than they should own. The duration during which you can then post a breach remedy transaction to deprive them of ALL the channel value is configurable when you update the channel state, but the default is 1 week. Eventually the expectation is that you'll even be able to outsource this operation to third parties to monitor the blockchain on your behalf and post the breach remedy transaction if needed.
If I don't trust one person, I'm supposed to instead trust a tertiary entity to act in my best interests? What motivation could this third party have other than to simply make money?
It seems as though the lightning network is being marketed as a solution, but I don't understand how it isn't simply creating an even bigger problem by stripping me of any/all control.
>In the Bitcoin community is that vision basically dead?
No, and based on the question it seems like you don’t understand what’s going on very well. Robinhood is a fiat<>btc channel, has nothing to do with btc’s vision.
you are right in the sense that the percentage of such posts (focusing on financial instutions) are too high here.
A small percentage should be ok if you believe in the vision, because bitcoin is not just blockchain, it needs a coin with financial value to work, and for that matter it needs users that either trade or at least can enter the system with what they already have (fiat). Such institutions do the onboarding of users. Afterwrds, those users can then stay in the crypto(currency) world without using financial institutions if they wish...
"A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution." [1]
In the Bitcoin community is that vision basically dead? As here, all of the action seems to be through financial institutions.
[1] https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf