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Posted on 01/23/2014 7:59:41 AM PST by Errant
In a recent New York Times Dealbook post, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen argued that Bitcoin is here to stay because it provides a payment system better than the one we have now, particularly for online merchants and international transfers. He likened Bitcoin to other disruptive technologies such as the personal computer and the Internet.
These are great analogies. The personal computer has revolutionized the world, but Altair was not one of the winners. (Remember Altair? It was one of the many pioneers.) The Internet was not the first or even the only network for connecting computers. There were several other early networks including Bitnet (the "Because Its Time" network), which was started in 1981. It thrived for a while connecting university computers, but was eventually supplanted by the Internet as we know it today. I believe that Bitcoin will suffer the same fate as Bitnet: a technical advance that will soon be surpassed by even better advances.
Our payment system is undergoing an amazing technical revolution. In a few short years, we have evolved from a world in which most payments were made via paper to one in which most are made with electrons. This evolution has not finished and will continue. There is broad dissatisfaction with the fees involved in the Visa MasterCard duopoly, and definitely room for improvement. We will continue to see innovations that provide even better and more cost-effective payment solutions. Recent innovations include PayPal, Popmoney, and Square. Plenty more are still under development, as many innovators compete to come up with a "digital wallet" that people will actually use.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.cnet.com ...
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Bitcloud: We Will Decentralise and Revolutionise the Internet
A PC is tangible asset. A Bitcoin is a virtual currency.
He's just using the PC as an analogy and putting Bitcoin in the same category as a worldwide revolution.
Payment system, currency, or ponzi scheme?
Visa/MC control the majority of electronic transactions, and get to name their price, while having none of their own capital at risk in the process. “Progress” in that sphere is only tightening their grip and doing nothing for the consumer, as it is estimated that 1 in 168 CC transactions are fraudulent. With BC, it’s not an issue.
He's looking at it from an improvement in utility, not so much benefiting or empowering people. I do believe the latter to be the most important aspect, to be used as a tool to put government into cage and not people. To free us from the middlemen in commerce and to better control the purse the government depends upon for its unfettered growth. Governments now have reached the point in fiat creation where it simply tells the Fed to print more money to satisfy their exponentially increasing debt.
IMO, we've come to an intersection in this road we've been on for millennia.
Bitcoin has no backing from the living God. No sale.
It’s both a payment system and a medium of exchange (currency) but certainly not a Ponzi scheme by any definition I’ve ever seen.
In a couple of years AJ Angel will be kicking himself in the butt for “GETTING IT WRONG”!
I love my Coinbase Bitcoin Wallet, especially now I have something in it.
I was with him till that statement. The Gold Standard never "blew up". It was simply ignored; thus were recessions created.
No "flexibility", i.e., printing more money, is needed to deal with crises. It's that very flexibility that creates the crises in the first place.
Completely agree. It is the very act of a central authority stepping in and creating artificial markets which eventually lead to an unsustainable situation, and we are risk of the whole system collapsing from that very thing now.
I probably need to make that move. I’m still using a local wallet.
Please explain how it’s a ponzi scheme?
Just wanted to add that the "Gold Standard" would have been better served if it hadn't been for an arbitrary value assigned (i.e., $20). It should have been denominated by weights, IMO. But then the real problem is centralized control of the money supply, as we've seen in '65 when the government began debasing silver coins. The same would have happened to newly minted gold coins as well. The same happened in Roman times and every other time.
Indeed. If that happens, the Bitcoin will fail as people cash out in droves.
>>Payment system, currency, or ponzi scheme?<<
None of the above. It’s a speculative investment in something that few people understand at all. It can’t serve as a payment mechanism because it’s far too volatile. And it’s not a currency because it’s not generally accepted by everyone doing business in a country (and never will be due to it’s failure to maintain a stable value from one transaction to the next.)
It appears similar to a Ponzi scheme only because early holders are able to sell to new holders at significantly higher prices. But then so do holders of rare collectibles, and no one considers those Ponzi schemes.
Buy it, sell it, speculate in it all you want, but that’s all it is—a speculative investment. It will eventually go the way of carbon credits, toward zero over a short time span, as it’s utility is deemed worthless and the perceived risk of holding it becomes considerable.
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