Ethereum, Bitcoin and Quatloos (or: How will Ethereum revolutionize the music industry?)
- Thread starter Johannes
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mjp
Founding member
Johannes
Founding member
Because price is volatile as hell. It's a logical consequence. Once (if) price remains relatively stable it might be used more as a currency. At the moment it more equals gold in that regard: scarce, appreciating in value compared to inflating fiat money, could pay with it but (still) sort of a pain in the ass.
Maybe in 10-15 years, when most of the existing supply will be mined it will have reached a relatively stable equilibrium wrt price. Also, it still needs the kind of "netscape-moment" the internet had, where it gets userfriendly and as a consequence can be used by everybodys grandparents off their phones.
Once (if) price remains relatively stable for a period of say, 10 years or so, AND it's possible to buy/store with one click off your phone it might get used more as the inventor (whoever that is) intended it: as digital currency. Up to then it will remain more of a speculative investment.
Maybe in 10-15 years, when most of the existing supply will be mined it will have reached a relatively stable equilibrium wrt price. Also, it still needs the kind of "netscape-moment" the internet had, where it gets userfriendly and as a consequence can be used by everybodys grandparents off their phones.
Once (if) price remains relatively stable for a period of say, 10 years or so, AND it's possible to buy/store with one click off your phone it might get used more as the inventor (whoever that is) intended it: as digital currency. Up to then it will remain more of a speculative investment.
mjp
Founding member
Yes. And I don't doubt that some cryptocurrency will have that moment, it seems inevitable, but it probably won't be Bitcoin. Bitcoin will be the Mosaic browser in the analogy. The first, yes, but overshadowed and long forgotten when crypto (Netscape) goes mainstream.
What I wonder is when all the Bitcoin is "mined," who is going to pay for those blockchain transactions? They are too expensive to maintain. Maybe in 15 years we'll have some futuristic processing power that makes the blockchain verifications lower cost, but by then the Bitcoin blockchain will be exponentially larger than it is now...it seems like a catch 22. But technology may still have some surprises up its sleeve.
In any event, this forum will still be here in 15 years (he predicts with impunity), so we'll be able to look back at this thread and see how dumb we were. Or I am. I'll be 74 years old, and still pontificating about things I don't really know anything about. Or I'll be dead and hoochmonkey9 (or his son) will be running it.
But I get the feeling that cryptocurrency, when it catches on and is easy to use, will likely be owned by banks. Just like the internet is "owned" by the handful of big companies that keep it up and running. If Amazon or Google (or any one of a dozen other companies whose names are not as widely known) turned off their servers tomorrow, the internet as we know it would cease to exist.
It started as anarchy, and that was fun for a minute, but then it became owned, just like everything of value does.
All I know is that Greta kid must hate Bitcoin.
Johannes
Founding member
That's certainly possible. However, the more I read about it and look into other coins, none has appeard yet that is truly decentralized like Bitcoin is. Which is Bitcoins strongest most important point. You can make other coins scarce, you can make them technically superior in any way. As soon as one guy or a team or a company is in control, all goes downhill in comparison. First because of trust-issues: then you have to trust the guy. Or the team. Or the company. Secondly, as soon as this coin becomes a real threat in an economic sense to centralized banking, there will likely be "repercussions" for the guy, the team, the company. Yet Bitcoin is like P2P/filesharing ... it's a protocol without a singular point of control.
Bitcoin is still a weird fringe internet nerd thing in the public eye. It isn't percieved as a threat (yet?) ... tho it is the most successful asset of the last 10 years. It went from zero to 20k per unit within 10 years. No other asset, company stock, bond, metal, whatever has done this. So, I don't know. Ethereum came almost close once to Bitcoin in terms of market cap tho, I believe.
I think the theory is that transaction fees will (have to) carry the network then.
That would defeat the very spirit of Bitcoin, but it's certainly possible. One way or another. We haven't even entered the threat/fight stage yet. The music industry was once a gargantuan global industry that fought teeth and claws (and much too late) against the changes brought by tech and the internet. Who could have imagined at the peak of say CDs and Michael Jackson in the late 80's/early 90's that the future of this industry would be mumble rap on spotify and youtube? ?
Yet as gargantuan as this industry is/was, the financial system is 1000x. The mind boggles imagining a disruptive tech coming in and stirring this fucker up. If you suscribe to the harder-money-replaces-softer-money theory and cryptocurrencies/bitcoin is the harder form of money, there are likely interesting times ahead. Bitcoin is sometimes called the silent revolution ... I hope it happens this way: silently, decentralized, grass-roots, slowly getting absorbed into the mainstream to benefit everybody in some way or another.
We made it from 2006-2019, we can do it!
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Johannes
Founding member
1. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell compares Bitcoin to gold: https://www.coindesk.com/fed-chairman-jerome-powell-compares-bitcoin-to-gold
2. Trump tweets about Bitcoin:
2. Trump tweets about Bitcoin:
Just an update on my crypto-fortune (or more accurately, Carol's fortune, since it was her stuff we initially traded for $149 worth of bitcoin), it's up to $462.92 at the moment.
So it's gone from doubling on August 20th to more than tripling today, a little more than three months later. Is this THE BIDEN EFFECT? Ha. I don't really keep up with the crypto market, so I don't know. The only reason I usually check the value of what we've got here is when I install a new app on my phone and see my crypto-wallet listed in the apps list and think, "Oh yeah, I wonder what that says today?"
Anyway, that's an overall increase of 210% in a little over 1,000 days, leaving us with $313.92 more than we started with.
And, of course, as always, tomorrow it could be $0. ?
So it's gone from doubling on August 20th to more than tripling today, a little more than three months later. Is this THE BIDEN EFFECT? Ha. I don't really keep up with the crypto market, so I don't know. The only reason I usually check the value of what we've got here is when I install a new app on my phone and see my crypto-wallet listed in the apps list and think, "Oh yeah, I wonder what that says today?"
Anyway, that's an overall increase of 210% in a little over 1,000 days, leaving us with $313.92 more than we started with.
And, of course, as always, tomorrow it could be $0. ?