My thoughts on BTC, LTC, FTC and cryptocurrency in general
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Back in 2009, when BTC was first introduced, the unknown Satoshi believed in creating a single, globally valid decentralized currency.
For a while after I’ve read about BTC, I believed in the vision.
Then I completely forgot about it, until about 6 months ago.
Since then, I’ve had some time to mature, and I now believe that humanity can’t handle a single currency.
Or at least, we won’t be able to handle a single currency for at least until the end of this century.Just look at how the Euro handles itself, especially now that it’s obvious Greece can’t recover from it’s shit storm, and Cyprus went pretty much the same way.
Now, you can’t go a month without reading somewhere that Germany is planning on pulling out of the Euro bloc, basically taking with them roughly 30% of the cash in the bloc.And on the other hand, there’s BTC’s increasingly high price, which can be comparable to gold.
This slow but steady increase is actually slowly leading to BTCs demise in it’s current form of a trade commodity.
I think that once the dust on this new technology settles, 10, maybe 15 alt coins will remain in existence, each with varying values.
Multi currency wallets will help stabilize coin values over time though that would require a massive coordinated programming from several large teams, across several different platforms(POW, POS and POW/POS hybrids, along with anything else that might show up and survive).
Not to mention the shit storm developing a wallet that can be recognized by ALL blackchains, or at least by the ones that are invested in the multi wallet project.I think that some coins, like FTC, PPC, and maybe DGC will be the small currencies, used for day to day purchases(Groceries, movie tickets, gas money, etc), while some higher value coins(like BTC, LTC, and maybe a third high value coin) will become a way of storing wealth, and making large purchases(tuition, housing and cars, to name a few).
tbqh, I’ve played with the idea of some governmental body created by people who actually know what the fuck they are doing, monitoring exchanges for illicit and dangerous uses(say gun running, or stuff like that), and allows the financial body to know a rough estimate of a person’s wealth(it can be done quite easily with block crawler, and from that point, it’s all a matter of matching a wallet address to an actual person.
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The difference, though, is in the fact that you’re referring to 2 similar concepts as the same concept and trying to make a comparison. I’m not from Europe so I can’t use the Euro as an example but lets take for example the dollar. There are pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars and bills (1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100). These aren’t all different currencies but different denominations of the same ideal. The difference here is we’re looking at a future where each and every cryptocurrency is owned/created by a different source and is supported by its own community, which makes things volatile.
Cryptocurrencies interest me deeply and I think they have a place in our world but I don’t think they’re going to go much further outside of online transactions and some Brick and Mortars [as novelties of diehard enthusiasts] in their current form. Unfortunately as a decentralized currency where the user has to [b]always[/b] have their wallet full, and where you can lose everything in one fell swoop for any number of reasons I just don’t think it’ll catch on with the general public.
It may seem silly considering the idea behind is ‘no banks’ but I think that the fact that their is no “Safe Haven” to keep your money makes it very hard for the idea to grow to the mainstream outside of people looking to use it as a secondary stock market. If crypto had some sort of independent institution that was trusted in the way banks are trusted [because you don’t hear about banks being hacked everyday] and some sort of debit card type payment system it would likely catch on much quicker.
But now I’m rambling - I agree with you that there is likely room for several currencies, though, you have to keep in mind that any single cryptocurrency solves the problem of needing several denominations by allowing transactions to be handled in fractions of a coin.
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I disagree I think the block chain is the safe haven to store you money. Yes ok the value is in constant flux but no one can get access to you money unless you give it to them.
And with the current model I believe the value as compared to the self devaluing alternative i.e. FIAT that the value in the block chain will do nothing but increase. -
The entirety of a fortune can be lost simply by forgetting to backup the .dat file. This seems straight forward to the average current user because from what I’ve seen while looking at many forums is that mos people have some form of technical working knowledge of computers and technology - for crypto to take off this needs to be mainstreamed to the average “stupid” user that has no idea what they’re talking about.
Now I may be wrong on this next point, and if I am I fully would appreciate being told (as it would increase my understanding of the whole process) but from what I’ve read it seems as though even online wallets can be hacked fairly easily (by someone who knows that they’re doing) - or maybe many of these posts are referring to pools being hacked, not sure.
Anyway, for crypto to take off it needs to be stupid proof, and currently I don’t believe it is stupid proof.
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CC’s will come into the mainstream, but that time hasn’t arrived. Last week’s litecoin madness showed that the infrastructure is nowhere near consumer grade.
Imagine trying to buy an airline ticket at an airline desk at the airport with any cc. After hitting send (or scanning their QR code, or whatever), the cashier then tells you to go to the nearest hotel/motel, book a room for the night, and wait for confirmation :o
We’re a VERY long way off general acceptance. I’d say 18months before we even get close to a credit card transaction level of confirmation speed.
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I was wondering what I was up to last night…
I can’t believe I wrote something even somewhat comprehensible, considering how wasted/sleep deprived I was…(Keep in mind that I’m nearly in the same state at the moment, so I might actually do some sleep typing)
Egnar raised a valid point with the coin fractions, but still…
Currently, a bitcoin can be split down to a satoshi(0.0000001 btc).There are speculations that BTC might rise in value to hit up to 1000X the current price within a few years.
That would make the satoshi worth more than a dollar, assuming the current dollar circling down the drain trend continues…
How would you pay for your half dollar bottle of coke, if you can’t give half a satoshi?(I’m assuming that there’s future proofing in the case that that might happen…@Kris, I probably haven’t made myself clear enough…
I too think the block chain is the best place to store money, but that doesn’t mean no one knows how many ccoins you actuality have, since, again, the info on the block chain is readily accessible to anyone who cares enough to read the entire block chain… -
[quote]Egnar raised a valid point with the coin fractions, but still…
Currently, a bitcoin can be split down to a satoshi(0.0000001 btc).There are speculations that BTC might rise in value to hit up to 1000X the current price within a few years.
That would make the satoshi worth more than a dollar, assuming the current dollar circling down the drain trend continues…
How would you pay for your half dollar bottle of coke, if you can’t give half a satoshi?(I’m assuming that there’s future proofing in the case that that might happen…[/quote]
Is there a reason for this? Or is it possible that a bitcoin can be split lower if it needed to be split lower in the future? -
Posting in the Feathercoin forum about crypto currencies, chances are we can assume two things about each other: we think crypto currencies have a future of some significance and we’re not short term speculators. While these two statements are obviously linked, I’ll accept the former, a priori, for now and focus on the latter. I’ll freely admit to having no more hard data than my own observations and opinions, so take all of this as my speculation.
Speculation is the key word here: people are buying crypto currencies, BTC/LTC especially, speculatively, instead of as usable currency; this statement is neutral, and several possible conclusions can be drawn from it.
Negative: Tulip Bulbs, South Seas, Real Estate etc. People have thrown the word bubble around extensively as the crypto currency concept has reached mainstream critical mass. While I question if BTC really behaves like an unregulated stock, there is no doubt that even now with its mainstream exposure, it’s still dismissed by most people - something that can greatly affect it in its current state.
Positive: People are buying speculatively, but they’re buying, and with them comes the retailers. More goods can be bought than ever, and people lacking confidence in their own government are always seeking alternatives - Cyprus could not have been a better indicator of BTC’s appeal. I’ve observed the reaction of crypto currencies in general to be similar to dot-com era companies: some people are buying in to whatever they can get, and many are circling around, unsure about the lack of a ‘physical’ product.
Three Final Thoughts:
Not all coins will survive - Some may argue otherwise, but I agree with previous posters that a few coins will come out on top; I don’t feel confident about how they’ll coexist, but I think people downplay how regional norms might affect coin adoption. It wouldn’t be surprising that, through some strange social or corporate quirk, different coins are accepted more or less frequently in different regions.
Don’t underestimate investors - We don’t definitively know who owns X bitcoin, but hedge funds, VCs et al. have been investing in them. Q4, ending December 31st, and Q1, ending March 31st, may affect crypto prices in the short term. Hedge funds are notorious (as a recent Bloomberg piece pointed out) for manipulating their numbers towards the end of the year, so as to appear to have huge growth. I’m generally over anxious, so I may be blowing this out of proportion, but those dates are worth watching.
LTC as silver - LTC has exploded these past two months. The growth, coinciding with BTC (obviously), has made many people excited, but I feel a bit more cautious. Rather than LTC being silver (which , against gold, still has intrinsic and popular value), it can be seen as a spinoff of BTC (in the eyes of speculators). If LTC’s dramatic price increase is a function of the value of BTC (which seems to have a far deeper value in the present) then its price can be seen as a more pure form of hoarding or speculation. It will also be interesting to see if BTC price has an effect on LTC price, but not vice versa, in the long term.
Again, these are just (believe it or not the short version of) my thoughts on the subject. Feel free to accept, reject, or ignore, no hard feelings. :)
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Negative: Tulip Bulbs, South Seas, Real Estate etc. People have thrown the word bubble around extensively as the crypto currency concept has reached mainstream critical mass. While I question if BTC really behaves like an unregulated stock, there is no doubt that even now with its mainstream exposure, it’s still dismissed by most people - something that can greatly affect it in its current state.[/quote]
The term bubble is being thrown around by hardcore investors for the exact reason you state. Interest is being throw into Cryptos far ahead of retailer willingness to adapt the currency, this is typically what causes a bubble. The tech bubble for example was caused by thousands of IPOs being pushed way beyond their value [which for the most part was negative] based upon the speculative future growth - We’re seeing the same thing happening now with stocks like Twitter and Amazon, both which have [b]major[/b] potential but Amazon for one has never posted a positive growth quarter and Twitter which has never been profitable either [even as a private company].We’re seeing the same trend with crypto. . .Short-term speculators can be very scary, which is one of the reasons Berkshire Hathaway doesn’t split its Class-A stock, Warren Buffet believes that by not splitting and keeping values higher it keeps unpredictable short-term people who have no business investing from causing major shifts in his stock. Currently with crypto there are very few mainstream ways to use the coins outside of insider grown online stores and a few Die Harder franchisers - Which means people are buying something that has relatively no value with the expectation that it’ll have future value. . .Which causes it to skyrocket.
. . .Now while it shows the signs of being a bubble it doesn’t necessarily mean the bubble has to pop. If retailers start adopting it at a faster pace, and, transaction speeds are greatly sped up we will see VALUE catch up with COST and the bubble will shrink, because right now the COST is much higher than the actual value [if it were a stock the p/e would be very very high comparative to similar industries].
And while I don’t know much about transaction speeds or how to speed them up or why they’re slow [I actually just found out about this yesterday]. . .I can see this being the biggest hurdle to cryptos success.
