Slashdot Mirror

Bitcoin and others, by design apparently, reject that this is something that applies to them. Because they're special and smeared themselves with unicorn poop, and therefore exempt.

Actually...
Bitcoin et al. were created to fill a gap, to fulfill a need in the world. It is the need to free oneself from the mostly unnecessary regulation. Now, this is at least what the theory is. In practice, the whole cryptocurrency thing is not yet mature. There are doors wide open for abuse, indeed, and there's risk, of course. It's a Wild West kind of thing.

The good news is the market is slowly maturing and stabilizes. Most shitcoins are doing badly, their value dropping steadily, which is expected because they bring little-to-no value to the market. Bitcoin itself is amazingly stable, if you look at last 30 days valuation. I'd venture to say 2018 is the year of cryptocurrency maturation and interesting things will happen.

Now, I generally see lots and lots of people talking out of their collective asses about cryptocurrencies, and they consistently have little to no clue what the fuck they are talking about. Their information comes from crappy mainstream news aggregators and they never bothered to properly investigate the subject; as such, invalid information is being propagated. I'll briefly address some of the most widely peddled:

- "cryptocurrencies are used for illegal transaction" - used to be mostly true, nowadays it's mostly false. There are literally tens of thousands stores which legally accept Bitcoin, here's how you can look them up: https://coinmap.org/
- "tulip bulbs" - there's very little overlap between a classic bubble and cryptobubble. Yes, I still believe there is a cryptobubble right now, and that Bitcoin and by extension all other coins are over-valuated as of now, but the overvaluation is far from being in the tens of thousands percent, as most people imply. My take, based on studying the market for the last year or so, is that BTC should stabilize at around 6K to 6.5K USD a piece, and then slowly creep up over time. Its value can't fall to zero by design: the fewer miners, the easier it is to mine, and the other way around. Most mineable coins are designed the same way, it's just some of them don't add any value for now.
- "it's risky" - yeah, you bet it is. So is answering to a Nigerian Prince, or any other thing in life, really: if you don't keep your eyes peeled, you can become a victim. Taking a loan from the bank can do that to you just as well, only the bank loan has no chance of making you rich :)

Alternatives to the establishment are always welcome in my opinion: they rock the boat and disturb the status quo. Revolution? Maybe, maybe not, but the world was built by those who weren't happy with the status quo.

I can't go somewhere and pay for my coffee by directly handing over 20 shares of BigCorp. I can go places and pay directly using crypto.

Where can you buy coffee directly with cryptocoins?

Check for yourself: https://coinmap.org/welcome/

My landlord knows I work in IT and offered to take my rent in bitcoin. I told him I don't own any.
Amazon doesn't accept bitcoin but many other online stores do. Coinmap will help you: https://coinmap.org/welcome/

It's accepted in almost no legitimate business establishment.

Try again.

According to that map, my wealthy American metro area of 3.5 million people has 27 establishments that accept Bitcoin. My city of 300,000 has exactly one. I'd say that qualifies as "almost no legitimate businesses establishments."

Its only purpose is to avoid detection in order to purchase illegal goods and services.

You really don't have a clue.

It's accepted in almost no legitimate business establishment.

Try again.

Its "value" fluctuates wildly for no reason.

The value fluctuates wildly because it's being bought and sold by people, who don't always act logically. It crashed a bit after reaching $10K because a lot of people had sell orders for that price. It's already back up to $11K.

Once lost it cannot be recovered. At least cash can be found and used.

Not cash stored in computers. If someone attacked the country with EMP bombs, they'd wipe a lot of "regular cash" too.

hardly anyone accepts btc for legal products or services

Oh, more FUD from an AC.

https://coinmap.org/#/world/21...

You were saying?

too many do write down... check it yourself just for kicks http://coinmap.org/