Most sites aren't really using USD. They're actually holding account numbers to merchant accounts which transfer transaction records backed by legal fiat instead of cryptography. It's possible to convert these fiat bits of data into USD at local exchanges called banks.
Well, even 25% is just fine if you bought a year ago and have 900% gains before the pop. You're still way outperforming the S&P 500 index. In general, BTC volatility is way down from the last bubble pop. When it does pop, it's likely to pop from above where it is now to above where it was 6 months ago. And it's likely going to take a couple weeks to do so.
Lending BTC is not that uncommon. Bitfinex allows you do it, for example. They provided short selling and corresponsing lending of BTC to short sellers. They have margin requirements, so as long as you trust Bitfinex (big if), you're money isn't at risk. If the borrower starts losing, Bitfinex will automatically close out their position and pay you back.
Interest rates are pretty low, though this is offset by the expected gains on that interest over time.
It's way better than a currency whose value has decreased to 10% of its starting value in less than a year, which is something real world fiat national currencies are known for on occasion.
Money laundering gets thrown around as a stereotypical use case for BTC, but I'm not sure it's very good at that, given the public ledger. Do enough money laundering in BTC, and you're likely to get caught. Even remixing services are subject to heuristic analysis attacks if your host nation decides it's worth it. Note how many of big BTC frauds have resulted in piles of BTC sitting in a wallet with no way to pull it out without risk of the BTC community tracking them down.
Avoiding capital controls... now THAT is a killer feature.
It should be pointed out that if the network drops rapidly down to a single 486, it will take a looooooooong time to start processing transactions at any reasonable rate. Block difficulty is recalculated when new blocks are created, so new blocks have to be created before the difficulty drops far enough for a 486 to be able to run the network. But the 486 will struggle to mine those first blocks. (it might be only one block; I don't remember. But that one block will still take a long time)
I think conservative analyses of BTC fundamentals are largely based on Metcalfe's law. This basically states that the value of a communications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users. So what "experts" are doing here is assuming historical BTC price has been largely reflective of Metcalfe's law, and are making reasoned projections of the future size of the BTC network. No one claims to "know" what the future price will be, but that doesn't mean they "have no idea".
Perhaps not, but C's standard calling convention is what makes it interoperable with so much other software. You write yourself into the C ghetto by changing the calling conventions.
You speak of the generation of BTC as a side effect of securing transactions, but you can just as easily and accurately frame it as securing transactions as a side effect of generating BTC. At this time, they are inextricably linked.
It's the retailer's responsibility to price their items accordingly. If you provide great products, you won't get costly returns and you can sell at low prices. If you have shit products or shit fulfilnment, you've gotta pay for your fuckups.
Businesses need to stop villifying cash reserves as lost opportunity. The growth model of entrepreneurship is damaging when everyone thinks finding new investors is the way to bootstrap a business or keep one running through tough times.
I've only read OF Rand, but I do believe you are conflating Rand's philosophies with her utopian fantasies. Philosophically, she seems largely in line with many modern humanists. It is her fantasies about how the economy works which are utopian. But you can say the same thing about many socialist writers. The philosophy of socialism is different from the utopian fantasy literature about socialist societies.
Why not just look at the price and stop worrying about everyone else and whether they got a better deal? Why do you care if an item is 20% off of $12.50 or it's $10? Is the product worth $10 to you? Buy it. Fuck the posted discount rate. Ignoring sales, coupons, discounts, et al, is part of being a responsible shopper.
Trying to serve the poorest people - who only shop at the places with the lowest prices - is part of the retail problem. If the store is focused on low prices, they can't afford to focus on anything else. This is how Wal Mart came to be reviled by anyone who can afford to not shop there.
Gold is inarguably a currency, and yet the same volatility concerns appy to gold. I may hold off on a purchase while it's low to realize some valuable gains in USD denomination. I may splurge spend when it's high. The primary thing differentiating BTC from gold is that BTC is still rising to its fundamental value of exchange. There are network effects and positive feedback loops. But until BTC actually begins to drop in price or stabilize over a period of more than a year or two, it's silly to claim it doesn't work as a currency. I use it as a currency. Others do too.
Yeah, they should fuck off. When dragging is the standard way to scroll - as it is on mobile - then you have no business adding draggable bullshit to the page that interferes with basic functionality.
The only time I've seen any issue is on ugly click baiting ad sites. They can go to hell.
BTC are divisible to something like 8-10 decimal places, so there is little risk of this happening any time soon. If BTC becomes a significant global currency, it might be a minor hurdle, but there are ways to upgrade to support more decimal precision, so those hurdles can be easily leaped.
Energy consumption is orthogonal to waste. The energy is almost completely dissipated as heat. If you are using mining rigs to heat your home or are otherwise reclaiming the heat for some purpose, then there is little to no waste.
Like any other industry, actors can be green or black.
Most people will never hook their TVs up to the Internet, and therefore any TV that required firmware out of the box would get returned to the stores en masse. Those TVs would not sell for long.
Equality of opportunity de jure, not de facto. It is impossible to suggest with a straight face that there is equality of opportunity between poor and wealthy, and impossible to ignore the racial component of wealth. And it is ridiculous to assert women are handed the same economic opportunities as men throughout society.
This could be a great exit strategy for small news organizations. Focus on digging up dirt on billionaires with the goal of getting acquired and shutdown by the billionaires. That way the billionaires are funding their own unwanted public attention.
Slashdot Mirror
Most sites aren't really using USD. They're actually holding account numbers to merchant accounts which transfer transaction records backed by legal fiat instead of cryptography. It's possible to convert these fiat bits of data into USD at local exchanges called banks.
Well, even 25% is just fine if you bought a year ago and have 900% gains before the pop. You're still way outperforming the S&P 500 index. In general, BTC volatility is way down from the last bubble pop. When it does pop, it's likely to pop from above where it is now to above where it was 6 months ago. And it's likely going to take a couple weeks to do so.
Lending BTC is not that uncommon. Bitfinex allows you do it, for example. They provided short selling and corresponsing lending of BTC to short sellers. They have margin requirements, so as long as you trust Bitfinex (big if), you're money isn't at risk. If the borrower starts losing, Bitfinex will automatically close out their position and pay you back.
Interest rates are pretty low, though this is offset by the expected gains on that interest over time.
It's way better than a currency whose value has decreased to 10% of its starting value in less than a year, which is something real world fiat national currencies are known for on occasion.
Money laundering gets thrown around as a stereotypical use case for BTC, but I'm not sure it's very good at that, given the public ledger. Do enough money laundering in BTC, and you're likely to get caught. Even remixing services are subject to heuristic analysis attacks if your host nation decides it's worth it. Note how many of big BTC frauds have resulted in piles of BTC sitting in a wallet with no way to pull it out without risk of the BTC community tracking them down.
Avoiding capital controls... now THAT is a killer feature.
It should be pointed out that if the network drops rapidly down to a single 486, it will take a looooooooong time to start processing transactions at any reasonable rate. Block difficulty is recalculated when new blocks are created, so new blocks have to be created before the difficulty drops far enough for a 486 to be able to run the network. But the 486 will struggle to mine those first blocks. (it might be only one block; I don't remember. But that one block will still take a long time)
I think conservative analyses of BTC fundamentals are largely based on Metcalfe's law. This basically states that the value of a communications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users. So what "experts" are doing here is assuming historical BTC price has been largely reflective of Metcalfe's law, and are making reasoned projections of the future size of the BTC network. No one claims to "know" what the future price will be, but that doesn't mean they "have no idea".
And now, over $100k...
Perhaps not, but C's standard calling convention is what makes it interoperable with so much other software. You write yourself into the C ghetto by changing the calling conventions.
You speak of the generation of BTC as a side effect of securing transactions, but you can just as easily and accurately frame it as securing transactions as a side effect of generating BTC. At this time, they are inextricably linked.
In the 23rd century, you will be correct.
It's the retailer's responsibility to price their items accordingly. If you provide great products, you won't get costly returns and you can sell at low prices. If you have shit products or shit fulfilnment, you've gotta pay for your fuckups.
Businesses need to stop villifying cash reserves as lost opportunity. The growth model of entrepreneurship is damaging when everyone thinks finding new investors is the way to bootstrap a business or keep one running through tough times.
A guy who served under Reagan and Bush I is a "leftist shill"?
I've only read OF Rand, but I do believe you are conflating Rand's philosophies with her utopian fantasies. Philosophically, she seems largely in line with many modern humanists. It is her fantasies about how the economy works which are utopian. But you can say the same thing about many socialist writers. The philosophy of socialism is different from the utopian fantasy literature about socialist societies.
Why not just look at the price and stop worrying about everyone else and whether they got a better deal? Why do you care if an item is 20% off of $12.50 or it's $10? Is the product worth $10 to you? Buy it. Fuck the posted discount rate. Ignoring sales, coupons, discounts, et al, is part of being a responsible shopper.
Trying to serve the poorest people - who only shop at the places with the lowest prices - is part of the retail problem. If the store is focused on low prices, they can't afford to focus on anything else. This is how Wal Mart came to be reviled by anyone who can afford to not shop there.
Gold is inarguably a currency, and yet the same volatility concerns appy to gold. I may hold off on a purchase while it's low to realize some valuable gains in USD denomination. I may splurge spend when it's high. The primary thing differentiating BTC from gold is that BTC is still rising to its fundamental value of exchange. There are network effects and positive feedback loops. But until BTC actually begins to drop in price or stabilize over a period of more than a year or two, it's silly to claim it doesn't work as a currency. I use it as a currency. Others do too.
Yeah, they should fuck off. When dragging is the standard way to scroll - as it is on mobile - then you have no business adding draggable bullshit to the page that interferes with basic functionality.
The only time I've seen any issue is on ugly click baiting ad sites. They can go to hell.
It's actually backed by debt. It's only backed by productivity inasmuch as debtors attempt to clear their debt with productive activity.
BTC are divisible to something like 8-10 decimal places, so there is little risk of this happening any time soon. If BTC becomes a significant global currency, it might be a minor hurdle, but there are ways to upgrade to support more decimal precision, so those hurdles can be easily leaped.
Energy consumption is orthogonal to waste. The energy is almost completely dissipated as heat. If you are using mining rigs to heat your home or are otherwise reclaiming the heat for some purpose, then there is little to no waste.
Like any other industry, actors can be green or black.
Most people will never hook their TVs up to the Internet, and therefore any TV that required firmware out of the box would get returned to the stores en masse. Those TVs would not sell for long.
Equality of opportunity de jure, not de facto. It is impossible to suggest with a straight face that there is equality of opportunity between poor and wealthy, and impossible to ignore the racial component of wealth. And it is ridiculous to assert women are handed the same economic opportunities as men throughout society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
This could be a great exit strategy for small news organizations. Focus on digging up dirt on billionaires with the goal of getting acquired and shutdown by the billionaires. That way the billionaires are funding their own unwanted public attention.