Posted on 12/22/2017 2:10:34 AM PST by cba123
Ripple briefly retook its place as the third-largest cryptocurrency, with a market value of $47 billion, a milestone it reached earlier this month.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
FYI
Ripple ? When did cheap rot gut wine become a crypto-currency?
Ripple is “Banksta’ Coin”...like the wine not appreciated by connoisseurs.
At least that would be something real
How can this not be stopped now? The original argument for bitcoin was that it's limited. Yet these innovators keep getting more machines and more things like bitcoin but not bitcoin. Now there's blockchain, which is made from lots of bitcoins so they can be used more easily in transactions. Are governments really going to let that happen?
I'm wondering if gold and silver, the real deal in ones possession, will increase in value. This cybercon could cause chaos when it collapses. JMHO, I know nothing except what I read.
Glad I only invested in “unobtanium” in that case.
Why not define bitcoin's intrinsic value? Why not explain how the economy is now pricing everything in bitcoin? Why not show us the historical record of bitcoin's use as a currency? Why not show us where a majority of the population is willing to accept it as pay for goods/services?
Meh! I'll stick with investing in tangible assets. Gold and Silver have a real history of all those things and then some, going for them.
Wow. I don’t even know where to start....
Nearly everything you said right there is wrong.
1.) They can create different TYPES of cryptocurrency (alt-coins) but they can’t create more Bitcoin than the mining process will allow. The mining process creates a few Bitcoins every 10 minutes or so and will continue to create less and less for the next hundred years. Once 21 million are created (around 2100) there will be no more. Just like there are different types of metal that can be traded - gold, silver, copper, nickle, aluminum, platinum, etc... There can be different types of cryptocurrency. If Bitcoin is the digital version of gold, LiteCoin could be silver, DASH could be nickle, etc... The value of the new coins is decided by the market and how much people think they are worth. If people believe they are useful for a purpose they will value them higher and pay more for them.
2.) Blockchain is the technology that allows Bitcoin to work. It is a public distributed ledger that can be used for many purposes but in Bitcoin’s case it keeps track of the Bitcoin transactions. Think of “blockchain” like “database”. A database can be used to keep track of your bank balance, a baseball card inventory, user information at Facebook, etc... It is the technology that is used to allow some activity to happen. A blockchain can be used to keep track of crypto transactions, it could be used to verify contracts, it could be used for secure, verifiable voting systems, etc....We are just now starting to scratch the surface of what can be done with blockchain.
Bitcoin may continue to hold it’s value or it may crash and go away. I don’t know. The blockchain technology that it runs on is not going away and will be the future of computing in 10 years.
I don’t think you said anything that contradicts my impressions. When you say the competitors aren’t Bitcoin, that’s not exactly true. They are other forms of cryptocurrency that compete with bitcoin. Who’s going to decide what’s real fake money?
At a very high level, a crypto currency is just a digital asset that I can prove I own and cannot be taken away from me (without force, deception, fraud, etc...) It's value is derived by other people wanting ownership over the digital asset. The more they want it, the more Federal Reserve notes they are willing to trade for it.
Why not define bitcoin's intrinsic value?
Along with what I just said, part of it's intrinsic value is it's scarcity. It is guaranteed to be limited to 21 Million. Unlike Federal Reserve notes and even unlike gold. If a meteor crashed tomorrow that contained 100 tons of gold, the value of gold would immediately tank. (not that that is very likely)
Why not explain how the economy is now pricing everything in bitcoin?
Not sure what you mean here.
Why not show us the historical record of bitcoin's use as a currency? Why not show us where a majority of the population is willing to accept it as pay for goods/services?
I don't think Bitcoin will ever be able to be used as currency. Maybe an alt-coin will but I'm not too sure about that. I think Bitcoin's true calling will be as a store of value.
That is like saying CNN is the same as Fox News because they are both cable news channels. They are not the same thing.
Who is going to decide what's real fake news?
At it's fundamental level, it's a line of computer code, I grant you it's a line of computer code that has been monetized, but still just a line of computer code.
part of it's intrinsic value is it's scarcity.
Not so scarce when you can just hard fork it and start a whole new bitcoin.
It has hard forked 7 times just in 2017, and that's with them purposely slowing it down.
BTC Coin Splits:
Bitcoin Cash (Forked at Block 478559[1], 1 August 2017)
Bitcoin Gold (Forked at Block 491407[2], 24 October 2017)
Bitcoin Diamond (Forked at Block 495866[3], 24 November 2017)
UnitedBitcoin (Forked at Block 498777[4], 12 December 2017)
BITCOIN HOT (Forked at Block 498848[5], 12 December 2017)
BitcoinX (Forked at Block 498888[6], 12 December 2017)
Super Bitcoin (Forked at Block 498888[7], 12 December 2017)
Not sure what you mean here.
When bitcoin was launched it was to be the new currency that people are going to use to buy and sell. Now, it's no longer that. Now all of a sudden were to believe it's really just a place to store your wealth. But there is counter-party risk even to that.
Similar to the way that gold is really "just a piece of metal", you are right it is just a line of code. Like a single piece of gold, a bitcoin is unique and separate from all others of it's kind. Like gold, a bitcoin can be owned and completely controlled by individual. It's crytographic security ensures that only the owner can claim it, control it and spend it. If you have the private keys to a wallet containing bitcoin (or fractions of bitcoin) you OWN the contents....just like gold. There is one difference however. Gold can be physically taken from you. Men with guns (either in hoodies or uniforms) can take it from you. If you are on a plane, crossing a border, driving in your car, asleep in your house, sitting in a court room, etc...and you have gold in your possession, men with guns from a gang or the government can come and take it from you. Bitcoin cannot be taken like this. You could theoretically walk right through customs with a million dollars in Bitcoin inside your brain and nobody could ever be the wiser.
Not so scarce when you can just hard fork it and start a whole new bitcoin.
You are completely misunderstanding what a fork is. It is not creating a "whole new bitcoin" as you say. It is creating a whole new other type of coin and using the existing public Bitcoin ledger to determine where the starting point of the new type of coin begins. BCH is not the same as BTC which is not the same as BCX. That is why one is valued at $2500, one is valued at $16,000 and one is valued at $0.06. If they were the same thing why would they have different values? Some of the alt-coins created in forks have no value, some have a little value and some are quite valuable. This is dependent on the characteristics of the various coins and whether people think they have potential to be beneficial.
I agree with your last statement. I am disappointed that the fees are so high and the transactions take so long that it is impractical to be used for day to day currency. That does not negate the other positive attributes. The purpose of many of the forks is to try and create a new type of coin that will be able to be used as day to day currency. I envision a time 10 or 15 years down the road where crypto users will have 2 main wallets. A BTC wallet that acts as a "savings account" and some alt-coin wallet that acts as a "checking account". This may be BCH or LTC or DASH or something else. You might make monthly or bi-weekly transfers or exchanges from Bitcoin(BTC) to alt-coin to fund your day to day needs. A $5 or $10 fee to keep your alt-coin wallet (checking account) funded with money you paid 1% of the current value for 10 years ago does not seem like a bad deal to me!
I could be completely wrong and it all might fall apart tomorrow but instead of taking $50 every now and then to the slots or to a card game, I put it in BTC and see what happens. I just won my fantasy football league this past weekend. Guess where that money is going....
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