“People keep telling me it’s not a ponzi scheme and I guess they are right but I don’t like it so now I need a new name.”
People keep talking about this stuff as diff things to fit diff narratives. It’s the new $! No wait, it’s actually digital gold…
This happens because many disparate communities fall underneath the “Bitcoin supporter” umbrella. Some of them are far too optimistic for realistic applications of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin’s market cap just passed Visa’s.
Yeah, I wonder if that really makes sense. I think Bitcoin is fantastic but is it really worth more than Visa?
No, it makes no sense. Visa is a currency processor, bitcoin is a currency. Comparing them is as stupid as comparing the market cap of Coinbase and the US dollar.
It’s not entirely without merit. Bitcoin is not a currency, it’s a protocol for mediating transactions. Visa also provides a protocol for mediating transactions. Visa can mediate more transactions (many many more!) than Bitcoin.
Bitcoin rewards your participation in the network by logging transactions in your favor, and this provides its functions as a “currency”, but that’s more about book-keeping than anything else. It essentially turns CPU time into a tradeable good.
//As an aside, I feel like there should be a blockchain implementation that, instead of rewarding you with “coins”, simply rewards you with room to store data in the blockchain. Trickier to do (you have to limit the creation of IDs), but frankly, I think it’s more valuable.
It is totally and completely without merit to compare the market cap of Visa and bitcoin. You can only disagree if you have no idea what market cap is or means.
//As an aside, I feel like there should be a blockchain implementation that, instead of rewarding you with “coins”, simply rewards you with room to store data in the blockchain.
On the face of it, it makes sense. I’m providing utility - networked disk space - so I should be rewarded for it.
The problem is that plenty of people have a) huge hard drives, and b) fast internet, and they’re already providing decentralized storage (bittorrent) for nothing more than some vague altruistic sense that being reciprocal is a good idea. Trying to monetize that doesn’t seem like a great business plan.
There was also this crazy .com bubble. People threw money at things they didn’t understand. It kind of burst, but then a few companies figured out how to sell stuff online even though people said it was a stupid idea. But Amazon and Google seem to be doing really well.
Maybe Bitcoin is a stupid idea like beanie babies. Maybe it’s a dumb idea like e-commerce. I honestly don’t know. I live in Utah and my gym accepts Bitcoin. I don’t think they ever accepted beanie babies.
Baffling. Plenty of the ICOs seem to fit this pretty well, but surely even with those - and certainly with Bitcoin - people can quite easily just buy/“invest” coins/tokens without ever even telling anyone, let alone trying to “recruit” people, no? So how would anyone policing a coin as a “scheme” decide whether someone intended to recruit others? “They might not have done it yet, but they sure intend to! I can see it in their eyes!” Smh.
So how would anyone policing a coin as a “scheme” decide whether someone intended to recruit others? “They might not have done it yet, but they sure intend to! I can see it in their eyes!”
Policing doesn’t have much to do with actually being objective anyway, so I guess it would work the usual way? The Connected exploiting everyone else?
These arguments apply identically to gold.
“People keep telling me it’s not a ponzi scheme and I guess they are right but I don’t like it so now I need a new name.”
This happens because many disparate communities fall underneath the “Bitcoin supporter” umbrella. Some of them are far too optimistic for realistic applications of Bitcoin.
Yeah, I wonder if that really makes sense. I think Bitcoin is fantastic but is it really worth more than Visa?
No, it makes no sense. Visa is a currency processor, bitcoin is a currency. Comparing them is as stupid as comparing the market cap of Coinbase and the US dollar.
It’s not entirely without merit. Bitcoin is not a currency, it’s a protocol for mediating transactions. Visa also provides a protocol for mediating transactions. Visa can mediate more transactions (many many more!) than Bitcoin.
Bitcoin rewards your participation in the network by logging transactions in your favor, and this provides its functions as a “currency”, but that’s more about book-keeping than anything else. It essentially turns CPU time into a tradeable good.
//As an aside, I feel like there should be a blockchain implementation that, instead of rewarding you with “coins”, simply rewards you with room to store data in the blockchain. Trickier to do (you have to limit the creation of IDs), but frankly, I think it’s more valuable.
It is totally and completely without merit to compare the market cap of Visa and bitcoin. You can only disagree if you have no idea what market cap is or means.
I believe Storj wanted to implement this.
filecoin
Thanks, that was it.
On the face of it, it makes sense. I’m providing utility - networked disk space - so I should be rewarded for it.
The problem is that plenty of people have a) huge hard drives, and b) fast internet, and they’re already providing decentralized storage (bittorrent) for nothing more than some vague altruistic sense that being reciprocal is a good idea. Trying to monetize that doesn’t seem like a great business plan.
Is there a need to call it a scheme? What about the great beanie baby scheme of yore?
There was also this crazy .com bubble. People threw money at things they didn’t understand. It kind of burst, but then a few companies figured out how to sell stuff online even though people said it was a stupid idea. But Amazon and Google seem to be doing really well.
Maybe Bitcoin is a stupid idea like beanie babies. Maybe it’s a dumb idea like e-commerce. I honestly don’t know. I live in Utah and my gym accepts Bitcoin. I don’t think they ever accepted beanie babies.
I guess time will tell.
Baffling. Plenty of the ICOs seem to fit this pretty well, but surely even with those - and certainly with Bitcoin - people can quite easily just buy/“invest” coins/tokens without ever even telling anyone, let alone trying to “recruit” people, no? So how would anyone policing a coin as a “scheme” decide whether someone intended to recruit others? “They might not have done it yet, but they sure intend to! I can see it in their eyes!” Smh.
Policing doesn’t have much to do with actually being objective anyway, so I guess it would work the usual way? The Connected exploiting everyone else?
I’ve also seen the name “Satoshi scheme” on similar criticisms.