To think a lot of folk are going to get their fingers burnt by Bitcoin

[Viviennemary]

I can't see this Bitcoin phenomena going on for much longer. I don't really understand it but isn't it a bit like the South Sea Bubble which has to burst eventually. Because it isn't actually based on anything tangible from what I can see.

[huha]

I can't understand why banks are putting money into cryptocurrency if it's a con. I don't think bitcoin is a con per se, but it's quite volatile. DH has money in bitcoin but also several other types of currencies on the block chain. He bought a coin for $3000 in early summer. It's worth $18k now. Not that I understand what any of that means.

[PersianCatLady]

You can buy as little as £20 worth of BTC through Localbitcoins but the fees may make that pointless.

You can probably buy even less but I would think that it would be hard to find a seller who can be bothered to sell you say £5 worth and then there are the fees

[Viviennemary]

I can't see how it can be anything else but a complicated con. It isn't based on anything tangible. It's just somebody buying something imaginary and then selling it as far as I can see. Like a chain letter asking you to send ten people £10 each and they send it on to 10 people. So the ones at the end get nothing. It's not different from selling people bags of hot air. IMHO.

[Evelynismyformerspyname]

Vivian in the limited sense that that's true, it's true of most currencies. I assume you use barter and gold?

[Evelynismyformerspyname]

It's volotile and very high risk, absolutely. However your point at the beginning of the thread is the same as the point you make at the end - if Vivian doesn't understand something, then anyone who thinks they do understand can't possibly, and must be being conned. It's very self confident of you to believe that nobody could possibly understand anything that you don't, but that doesn't make it true...

[Firesuit]

I've come across two interesting bitcoin skeptic articles today.

First brought up something called the governance paradox: a payment system needs a way to enforce rules, and (possibly even more important) a way to make them, bitcoin only really has the first. Because of the anti-establishment ideals on which it was founded, it's governance is a bit random. The paradox is that if there were a trusted institution making the rules, they could enforce them, and you'd no longer need the blockchain. (Though I think I have an answer to this: use blockchain to implement a voting system that elects a board of directors to make the rules...)

The second one is actually saying blockchain isn't of much use, so it's not just an attack on bitcoin. (Although I'm a bitcoin skeptic I think I can see some uses for blockchain.)

hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100

Some quotes:-

In the end, the advantages of the existing human and software systems surrounding transactions — from verifying identity with a driver’s license to calling and clarifying the statements made in a credit disputed transaction to automatically billing your credit card for a newspaper subscription — outweigh the purported benefits, as well as hidden costs, of irrevocable, automated execution. Blockchain enthusiasts often act as if the hard part is getting money from A to B or keeping a record of what happened. In each case, moving money and recording the transaction is actually the cheap, easy, highly-automated part of a much more complex system.

and

In conversations with bitcoin entrepreneurs and investors and consultants, there was often a lack of knowledge or even interest in how the jobs were being done today or what the value to the end user was. With all the money spent on bitcoin cash registers, nobody went out and did a survey about whether most credit card users would be willing to give up their frequent flyer miles in return for also losing the ability to dispute a transaction. Presumably, they thought, the reason IPOs are so expensive or venture fund formation paperwork is so onerous is because all those lawyers and accountants are just getting rich sitting around pushing paper… a bunch of smart engineers in their 20s with no industry experience could certainly do their jobs, automatically, in a matter of months, with just a few million bucks of venture capital.

[Viviennemary]

I certainly don't believe that nobody can understand something if I don't. at the thought. It seems to me like those women investing in that crackpot company a few years back. Most sensible people knew it was a con. This seems much the same though more mysterious and lots of people thinking it's a great thing. What's the bet it will crash to next to nothing in the next month. Or even before then.

[Viviennemary]

Interesting post Firesuit. Didn't see it before I replied. I will be reading it carefully.

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

I think bitcoin is speculation and people are buying into an idea rather than a genuinely useful currency. That said, I do think it is a sign of how money is changing. If you consider the advent of contactless payment where you can buy a coffee and get on the tube by waving your phone, I think it is increasingly the case that currencies and money will be dematerialised. Most financial transactions are just electronic messages and entries on computer systems now. However, in my view, no country will willingly give up control of the legal tender used within its borders to a bunch of random people sitting behind computer screens so cryptocurrencies with either become mainstream controlled by central banks or remain very niche.

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

will either not with either

[GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER]

I don't understand it, but at the same time I sometimes wish I'd put £50 in when it kicked off!

Seems to me a bit like the CDOs that eventually helped to cause the Big Crash. Though at least they did, as I understand it, consist of packages of sliced up, mixed up mortgages, sold on.
I don't see that Bitcoins consist of anything. If they do, perhaps someone will enlighten me.

[crisscrosscranky]

I wish I'd read this a moment ago- have just posted about husband buying us BitCoin as an investment with our Xmas money; he's convinced he'll make a fortune...

[Noofly]

It probably will crash someday and other cryptos will surpass it. That doesn’t mean it was a con. . It’s a system which is being developed. Old holders like me bought into a vision of the future, recent frenzied purchasers seem to be buying into the potential of getting rich quick (which is not what Bitcoin is about).

I highly doubt it will crash to next to nothing in the next month. Within the next 24 months, if the Lightening Network hasn’t delivered and there’s still no scaling solution, then yes, it probably will collapse 90ish%.

I’d suggest you read the white paper and if you still don’t understand, pop over to reddit and chat with any of the many developers who will happily tell you what they are working on.

[Evelynismyformerspyname]

It's probably too late to make much money on it now crisscross - I suspect that the big profits are only available to those who purchased/ received/ mined bitcoin when it was worth very little early on. You can still actually use it to buy stuff online though, if your husband has made sure he knows how!