Is Bitcoin the Future?

Economics
#1

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmauldin/2014/12/01/is-bitcoin-the-future/

#2

No.

#3

:smiley: solved!

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#4

…for some people out there Bitcoin might still look like the future!

…until they stumble upon Peercoin, Nu, Counterparty, Bitshares, Darkcoin, Ethereum, etc. - each of them with interesting features and trying to solve one problem of Bitcoin or the other…

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#5

blockchains and programmable money are the future.

#6

Bitcoin will live forever in our memories at least.

#7

Without Bitcoin nothing of all this would have started - at least not this way :wink:
So I’ll be forever thankful that Bitcoin was invented!

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#8

If we agree upon that BTC = digital Gold, this should consitute a basis that is indispensable.

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#9

I tend to disagree - maintaining Bitcoin’s value is costly in difference to maintaining the value of Peercoin.
The mining is costly for both Bitcoin and Peercoin.
You need nothing to keep the value of gold. That description doesn’t fit Bitcoin, but Peercoin.

Peercoin is the digital gold!

#10

Absolutely - I see Bitcoin as having a clear future in the crypto-currency world, and ‘digital gold’ explains it well.

Bitcoin will never do what NuBits, MaidSafe, Ethereum & others do, but as the pioneer of crypto-currency, it may become the default ‘reserve currency’ of the crypto-currency world.

#11

I see Peercoin, at least as the primary back bone commodity accompanying Nu system to efficiently distribute dividends -
Truth be told, ppl are beginning to experience issues with the BTC blockchain : http://www.reddit.com/r/peercoin/comments/2o4w49/bitcoin_blockchain_too_big_for_digital_ocean/

When would be the the tipping point?

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#12

blockchains are the future. bitcoin is the first one.

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#13

Up until now, Peercoin role was unclear - it’s starting to get clearer.
Peercoin is a backbone commodity that efficiently distributes Nushares dividends - PPC are then exchangable for Bitcoins (which are the digital gold?)

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#14

@masterofdisaster well i think it costs to maintain the value of gold actually. first of all you need vaults guarded by humans. second you need to bribe a lot of bad people to manipulate its price. look at the following: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/12/banks-forex-settlement-gold-idUSL6N0T22Z420141112
. the manipulators are fined billions of usd. i am sure they are still in the black even if they need to pay that fine. what does it means? it means that setting up a gold market costs since the money made by manipulation should have gone somewhere else. it is a cost by loss of opportunity or profit, i would argue.

#15

Manipulating the price might happen to gold, but it’s not what necessarily needs to happen.
Gold has a quite long tradition and what you write seems to be true for these days, but hasn’t been true for most of its existence.

Gold needs to be mined. That costs money.
It needs to be secured. That requires some effort.

But although you can’t eat, drink or breathe gold it has a lot of value, because people believe that they can buy food, water (and maybe even air) if need be for that gold.
To maintain the value of gold you need nothing more than the common belief in its value.

I still think that Peercoin is closer to gold that Bitcoin is.

  1. It has to be mined for some effort (like Bitcoin).
  • It can be secured with some effort (completely unlike Bitcoin).
  • The effort that is used for mining creates a feedback for amount that is left to be mined. (unlike Bitcoin).

Allow me to explain the last point.
If you aim a lot of hashing power towards Peercoin’s PoW process you create a reverse feedback for the amount of Peercoin that is paid as coinbase reward. Assuming that you put high efforts into mining Peercoin (=high hash rate) this reduces the number of Peercoins that are left to be mined. This is because each of the following PoW blocks produces less coinbase reward that it’d produce with a lower hash rate in the PoW process.
This is more like mining gold: if you put a high effort in mining gold, you deplete the reserves faster that you’d deplete them when mining with less effort.

#16

Why is the last point different for Bitcoin?

#17

Because at Bitcoin the total supply is fixed (21 million units) and depending on different hash rates the remaining supply is only distributed differently between miners.
but the number of Peercoins increases slower the more hash rate is aimed at the PoW process. That means that the (not fixed remaining) Peercoin supply is smaller the more hash rate is mining Peercoin.
This a bit like “super gold”: the more passionate you mine, the less is to mine in total :wink:

#18

Since we are talking bitcoin and economics, maybe someone is interested in reading this : http://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/docs/economics-of-bitcoin.pdf

#19

Hey, have you managed to stop time and read all those documents and web pages listed there? :wink:

#20

hehehe lol! Unfortunately not but I added some readings to instapaper so I can read them while commuting!