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0 pointslend0006y ago0 comments

You seem to have completely missed the point that there have been severe currency exchange controls in Venezuela for over a decade. These Venezuelans aren't trading Bolivars outside the country; they are exporting BTC mined with a mismanaged electrical grid to get food, toiletries, etc. imported into the country.

Yes, you can buy things with BTC.

https://reason.com/2016/11/28/the-secret-dangerous-world-of/

> that's a symptom of a piss-poor government. No amount of magic beans will change that,

Did it solve their government problem? No. But it resulted in a little more food in the country then there would otherwise be by allowing citizens to subvert their government's financial controls. BTC provides a base level quality of money, that basically acts as an insurance system against the worst governments. Does it have a huge use case in a country with a healthy and functional financial system? No. But if things go to shit in a country, people can still use Bitcoin and safely transfer value online instead of reverting to trading gold coins in person.

I know you want all things BTC to be bad. But try to keep it intellectual, not emotional. What about the technology -- do you think it's fascinating that a relatively simple and elegant protocol of incentives and cryptography can result in a self sustaining financial system still running a decade after its release?

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arcticbull6y ago· 1 in thread

Of course it can address the needs of a few by stealing power and avoid the government nationalizing a few rigs. That's utterly useless for the general population.

> But if things go to shit in a country, people can still use Bitcoin and safely transfer value online instead of reverting to trading gold coins in person.

For a small handful of people. That doesn't address the problem on a broad scale. The bar isn't "can Bitcoin address the needs of a small handful of people in Venezuela." Of course it can.

> What about the technology -- do you think it's fascinating that a relatively simple and elegant protocol of incentives and cryptography can result in a self sustaining financial system still running a decade after its release?

I think it's fascinating a single transaction expends 700kWh (enough to drive a Model S from SF to New York) and produces 87 grams of e-waste -- and yet somehow costs less than $0.50, which is due to the socialization of costs in the form of block rewards, aka inflation. Each BTC transaction actually costs about $70.

I think it's fascinating a system brought in to free us from the tyranny of a single entity's ability to freely print currency has had it's pricing entirely subsumed by an entity with the ability to freely print a currency who's symbol is just one character off.

Just because something's simple doesn't make it good.

mtrower6y ago

> I think it's fascinating a single transaction expends 700kWh (enough to drive a Model S from SF to New York) and produces 87 grams of e-waste -- and yet somehow costs less than $0.50, which is due to the socialization of costs in the form of block rewards, aka inflation. Each BTC transaction actually costs about $70.

A transaction expends 700kWh of energy? Source?

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