Economist Thinks Bitcoin Could Be A Scam

teh_chem said:
But the fundamental goal of cryptocurrency isn't as an investment, it's not to be a closed-system, but on the contrary, an open way to easily transfer money, without the need for big banks when all the big banks do is communicate 1's and 0's and tack on a fee based on the amount of money being moved (which is absurd when you think about it).
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The Bitcoin Utopia you described is an impossibility. The credit card companies have to charge fees in order to offer the services they do. Do you think the ability to process credit cards and have payments coming and going almost instantly should be a free service under the guise of neckbeards with zero financial knowledge? Good luck with that.

And back on topic, of course BTC and coins in general are a scam.

Step 1: Create Bitcoin protocol.

Step 2: Mine one million of coins.

Step 3: Convince paranoids and other financially retarded people how Bitcoin will change the world currency structure.

Step 4: Wait for price to hit $100.

Step 5: Start dumping coins in small enough batches not to expose identity, but sell quick enough before bottom falls out.

Step 6: Laugh all the way to the bank.
 
weuntouchable said:
The Bitcoin Utopia you described is an impossibility. The credit card companies have to charge fees in order to offer the services they do. Do you think the ability to process credit cards and have payments coming and going almost instantly should be a free service under the guise of neckbeards with zero financial knowledge? Good luck with that.

And back on topic, of course BTC and coins in general are a scam.

Step 1: Create Bitcoin protocol.

Step 2: Mine one million of coins.

Step 3: Convince paranoids and other financially retarded people how Bitcoin will change the world currency structure.

Step 4: Wait for price to hit $100.

Step 5: Start dumping coins in small enough batches not to expose identity, but sell quick enough before bottom falls out.

Step 6: Laugh all the way to the bank.
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if this were true then it would have crashed to nothing a long time ago. The creator of the protocol is said to have tons of bitcoin,but hasnt spent any. You can look up the wallet and check the blockchain.
 
Still not a currency, it's nothing more than a commodity essentially something to be hoarded and speculated on except this commodity has no intrinsic value.

Bitcoin changing nothing except allowing criminals to funnel money in new ways! A dupes to be had.
 
weuntouchable said:
The Bitcoin Utopia you described is an impossibility. The credit card companies have to charge fees in order to offer the services they do. Do you think the ability to process credit cards and have payments coming and going almost instantly should be a free service under the guise of neckbeards with zero financial knowledge? Good luck with that.
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Are you under the belief that its free to transfer bitcoin? It isn't.
 
weuntouchable said:
The Bitcoin Utopia you described is an impossibility. The credit card companies have to charge fees in order to offer the services they do. Do you think the ability to process credit cards and have payments coming and going almost instantly should be a free service under the guise of neckbeards with zero financial knowledge? Good luck with that.
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I never implied that transferring money via cryptocurrency should be free. Nor did I say that the current state of crypto is ideal or even what an end-user iteration of it would be. There's no reason to disregard that things progress from their inception. Otherwise, we'd all be riding in horse-drawn buggies instead of driving cars.

But you have to ask yourself what utility banks have in the actual transfer of money? No one is operating forklifts moving bags of cash, so why should they be paid a % of a transaction amount when there is no more service overhead if you transfer a penny or a million dollars? What the banks do is verification of payer and payee. Right now, cryptocurrency is not user-friendly in that regard, and is quite confusing for novices that just want to send or receive money. Things like public key, key wallet, encryption/decryption, etc. are all unfamiliar to the 'general public' in terms of managing them yourself, but virtually everyone who uses the internet uses those things everyday without knowing because a system/service has been made to easily handle those things behind the scene. That's what Crypto is in need of. No one said that crypto should be free, but it can provide the service that banks do, and completely cut out the middleman whose only real purpose is to take a cut of the money being transferred and allow true peer-to-peer transactions.
 
nvgrim said:
if this were true then it would have crashed to nothing a long time ago. The creator of the protocol is said to have tons of bitcoin,but hasnt spent any. You can look up the wallet and check the blockchain.
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Except that's exactly what it is, a pyramid scheme with a saturation point. A smart man wouldn't use account 0 to do this, he would use account 2, or 6, or 11, so as to not cause alarm. It costs him hardly anything to create a flagship participant to build confidence in joining parties. What's that old saying? You have to spend money to make money?

Dedicate batch 1 to mine for wallet 0.
Dedicate batch 2 to mine for wallet 8.
Dedicate batch 3 to mine for wallet 21.

Leave the primary untouched, sell the rest, laugh to the bank after the pyramid saturates.

Start new pyramid.

How many cryto-currencies are there now?

Granted if it can hold it's value it has some advantages over FIAT money, but there are no governments who will do everything in their power to keep it afloat if it decides to implode, which is why FIAT money is considered to be "real" by a lot of people.

Personally I'll stick with gold, seeds, and bullets as my doomsday currency.
 
its not a 'doomsday currency', its about the next step in human civilization. its a disruptive technology.

its to banks as netflix is to cable.
 
aardvark sandwich said:
its not a 'doomsday currency', its about the next step in human civilization. its a disruptive technology.

its to banks as netflix is to cable.
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electronic mail? Yeah that will never catch on. Shopping online? Yeah id rather just drive to the store. The interent? Sounds like a nerdy neckbeard thing that will never be mainstream.

Thats what people were saying about those things back then and look at them now. Some people just cant grasp that. Its almost impossible to reason with someone who refuses to listen about anything you have to say about bitcoin,i have a friend like that.
 
aardvark sandwich said:
its not a 'doomsday currency', its about the next step in human civilization. its a disruptive technology.

its to banks as netflix is to cable.
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The "next step in human civilization" is likely extinction. If you can't use bitcoin during that event what good is it?

Ask the AGW folks a few threads down, they'll fill you in. Jokes on them though, they think solar power can suddenly make it possible to support a limitless human population in a limited ecosystem.

Governments will never allow crypto-currencies to supplant currency that can be manipulated. Ask the people in jail right now for trying to replace the dollar with gold certs 5 years ago. They'd shut down the internet before they allowed control to be taken from them. The only scenario where governments don't exist is total societal collapse, at which point electronic currency will likely be worth absolutely nothing.
 
nvgrim said:
electronic mail? Yeah that will never catch on. Shopping online? Yeah id rather just drive to the store. The interent? Sounds like a nerdy neckbeard thing that will never be mainstream.

Thats what people were saying about those things back then and look at them now. Some people just cant grasp that. Its almost impossible to reason with someone who refuses to listen about anything you have to say about bitcoin,i have a friend like that.
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These are all good points. And as someone who was staunchly against the idea of Bitcoin, as it existed as a commodity that people were mining buying and hoarding for its value vs. as a means of payment (and hence caused the wild fluctuations in exchange rates), I was turned around a lot after listening to Andreas Antonopolous on a podcast talking about the general idea of cryptocurrency. And it all started to make sense. I do think, however, Bitcoing, MTGOX, and a few other high-profile examples have made it a very uphill battle for cryptocurrency.
 
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