implications of bitcoin

[montecristo]

I was doing some contemplation about bitcoin and came to the conclusion that most of the people who would have become very rich as a result of bitcoin's run up must have been criminals engaging in darknet market illegal activities or criminal organizations accepting bitcoins back in the early days.

Money generally makes people more of what they already are, turning up the volume on their underlying pathologies in many ways.

So i wonder what the consequences are of large injections of capital resources into criminal organizations or criminal individuals. Who are these people and how have their lives changed after gaining control of potentiallly $100's of millions?

thoughts?

 

is it a net gain for a free and open society or mostly a negative the way many governments like to portray it?

[Average Investor]

A structure like Bitcoin is great for society. The actual money system is very broken and corrupt and will eventually collapse like all currencies. Government does not like it because it does not require a government. As the coins get more sophisticated they become more and more free of singular control. Basically all of the miners fill out a ledger and share it with each other to verify transactions and they get rewarded with new bitcoin. The bitcoin is set at an algorithm that will allow a flow of bitcoin to come into existence at a set rate and it does gradually get harder to mine.  I think the last bitcoin will be mined in 2144, but a quick google search would tell you. I think a big positive for society because there has never been a currency that existed like this and they just get better and better. Boarder less peer to peer currency is the future. Did you know only a very small percentage of people on earth have a proper bank? You can instantly be your own bank creating a bitcoin or crypto currency wallet. No discrimination whatsoever on the network. Even a cheap cellphone could be used for applications that can move and send bitcoin with just cell service no internet.  

A lot of the really early people were just nerds to be fair lol. But a few things like SR and what not did generate massive amounts of bitcoin. Almost no criminal would even want to use bitcoin anymore because it is not nearly as private or untraceable as other coins. There is much better coins for committing crimes anymore. Ironically things like SR would actually cause a decrease in violence and bad drugs because from what I have heard a site like that would work like ebay. 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Average Investor

[TrynaBeTurquoise]

8 hours ago, Average Investor said:

A structure like Bitcoin is great for society. The actual money system is very broken and corrupt and will eventually collapse like all currencies. Government does not like it because it does not require a government. As the coins get more sophisticated they become more and more free of singular control. Basically all of the miners fill out a ledger and share it with each other to verify transactions and they get rewarded with new bitcoin. The bitcoin is set at an algorithm that will allow a flow of bitcoin to come into existence at a set rate and it does gradually get harder to mine.  I think the last bitcoin will be mined in 2144, but a quick google search would tell you. I think a big positive for society because there has never been a currency that existed like this and they just get better and better. Boarder less peer to peer currency is the future. Did you know only a very small percentage of people on earth have a proper bank? You can instantly be your own bank creating a bitcoin or crypto currency wallet. No discrimination whatsoever on the network. Even a cheap cellphone could be used for applications that can move and send bitcoin with just cell service no internet.  

A lot of the really early people were just nerds to be fair lol. But a few things like SR and what not did generate massive amounts of bitcoin. Almost no criminal would even want to use bitcoin anymore because it is not nearly as private or untraceable as other coins. There is much better coins for committing crimes anymore. Ironically things like SR would actually cause a decrease in violence and bad drugs because from what I have heard a site like that would work like ebay. 

Have you heard any of the latest on the issues behind people randomly losing their coins, for whatever reason they can't access them or they disappear? In which case you're fucked. 

[Average Investor]

@TrynaBeTurquoise No depends on the storage method really. Always best to keep them in cold storage. I switched to cold storage a few years ago and have had no need to check on them. They are offline, but can be recovered by the 24 word phase. Which it has to be put into the exact order. Any sort of online wallet or desktop wallet opens you up to massive risk. Simply losing your recovery phase can be the end of the coins too lol. It's hard to say since I am not sure how people are losing them. But there is always someone losing them lol. That is one thing that does make it hard for the mainstream to use it. 

[Average Investor]

@TrynaBeTurquoise I can't really say mine is cold storage exactly. I use a hardware wallet. Which is quite secure, but for maximum security you would want a computer and printer that have never touched the internet, then you could generate a paper wallet where they could be stored at. A hardware wallet is nice because it can interact with a computer even if it is infected and not give over the private keys. It only acts to give a signature. 

Different levels of security are effective depending on the value and use of your coins. There is other layers of the bitcoin network that offer less security (still really secure) called the lightening network. Most are on segwit 2x which, is not the bitcoin core. Lightening would aid better in buying coffee or something like that. The recipient can actually confirm they will receive the coins before it ever arrives. Which is especially ideal for something like buying coffee not a mansion. Remember a merchant would wait days for a credit card transaction and bank transfer could take a week. A bitcoin transaction without a clogged network is much much faster. 

I actually have .155 btc on my old computer I deleted from the wallet. I made some efforts to recover it, but have not really committed enough time to getting it's recovery. When I deleted that it was only worth maybe $25 lol. I will get around to trying to recover it again. I recovered some and put it on the hardware wallet from another old wallet. It actually sat on my desktop for years without a password on it. Which if it had one I would have just forgot it. But if I were infected all someone would need to do it just literally take the .wallet file from my computer. I was just using it for actual money at the time. I probably spent .5 btc on actual stuff. I was pretty broke, but I did have a time I wanted to buy a whole bitcoin at $200. I never actually bought any though just received it as payments. 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Average Investor

[TrynaBeTurquoise]

@Average Investor Interesting. What exactly do you mean by cold storage? Not even downloaded on a computer hard drive but stored in an external device? 

[Average Investor]

@TrynaBeTurquoise I'm a little rusty, but here is what it means. Hot storage would be somewhere the wallet is easily exposed like a downloadable desktop wallet or an online wallet like coinbase. 

Cold is exactly what you mean by off of the pc. You can actually generate a wallet without using the internet and store the coins in it. Actually, you can even send bitcoin with just radio waves if you needed to. In my case I have a ledger nano. The ledger is great for ease of spending and security. There wasn't anything like that when I first got started, but a paper wallet was around. But like I mentioned for someone not very tech savy these things would be hard to understand and use. So it makes it hard for society to adapt to them, so people losing coins is unfortunately part of the evolution. But I believe this is just the start, future money will most likely be based off of these. 

https://www.youtube.com/user/aantonop

This guy is probably the best possible source to learn how it actually functions and the use of it. I own all of his books besides the etherum book. The mastering bitcoin is super tech like though, internet of money is more ideal. There is an insane amount of knowledge around these though. It is not just bitcoin there is almost 5000 different coins. 

[Tanz]

Bitcoin or crypto will only work if humanity changes from the inside out.  If we dont develop ourselves, the blockchain idea will just create the same problems as the system it replaces...

[Average Investor]

@Tanz Yeah, mostly there is just greed around the coins, which is fair. A lot of scams and garbage. I think we will evolve with it over time. Would be interesting to see at least one country have its own coin. 

[TrynaBeTurquoise]

@Average Investor Thanks for sharing. I've been interested in bitcoin but don't want to make those beginner mistakes of losing coins or not going about it in the most optimal way. It isn't a super high priority in my life right now to start doing deep research about it, would take time away from a lot of my other pursuits but its something I want to incrementally learn about so I can one day use it. I used to be more or less tech savy but fell off the wagon a bit. 

[Average Investor]

@TrynaBeTurquoise You can purchase "shares" where a company holds it for you too. Something like robinhood for example. But ultimately that defeats the entire purpose of it. No problem.

[Leo Gura]

Like all technology it can be used for good or for evil, depending on the level of consciousness of the user.

Technology itself is always just a mechanical thing. What matters is the intent of the user.

Of course powerful technologies must always be regulated because devils will want to abuse it.

There is a lot of potential for abuse within BitCoin. Which is why devils gravitate towards it.

No crypto currency will ever be allowed to go unregulated because it would be too dangerous to society. There are good reasons that banks and large transactions are regulated. Too many people would otherwise get exploited.

[Commodent]

IMO, Bitcoin is irrelevant, and it's never going to have any major implications on the world as you can't really build anything on it. Now, blockchain in general, that's a more interesting topic. I particularly like the Ethereum platform, where developers can develop their own dezentralized apps and run them on the chain for a small fee. I see that this could have major implications in many areas such as bureacracy, logistics and automation in general. Just think about it. You could in theory run fully automated companies or even entire governments on the blockchain (using smart contracts). The Aragon project is developing a solution for the former, and it's powered by Ethereum.

[Average Investor]

@Commodent Btc is suppose to just be simple. Has no need to be built on. It is just government resistant, boarder less currency.  Which it does that very well. But yeah, much more exciting things are being built with smart contracts. 

[Commodent]

@Average Investor From the research I've done Bitcoin seems very slow and expensive, with outdated technology.

A mere "store of value" is nothing new and is not going to change the world. Its "store of value" properties are not very impressive either, as its value is constantly fluctuating. Also, Bitcoin's presumably largest industry, the banking industry, does not seem eager to adopt it either. They seem to have developed a preference for Ripple.

So really, what does Bitcoin bring to the table, other than being a fancy slot machine?

[Average Investor]

@Commodent If you read up on my earlier replies it is actually faster than a bank transfer or credit card payment.  Expensive really depends on network load and how you send it. Have you ever sent money to your family in another country? A lot of immigrants would have a massive savings just using it to send their payments back to their family. If you were to travel to another country it would  make switching currencies actually easier. Of course banks do not want to adopt it because they cannot control or manipulate it.

Store of value works much better with more users and that takes time. How it is structured is much better than current stores of value like gold. It's structure is FAR superior to the US dollar too in terms of inflation it actually deflates over time and becomes more scarce. There is an exact amount and users know how fast it is distributed. There could be so much more gold we are not even aware of. I am sure there is plenty of people holding mass amounts as well. I bet below the oceans there could be a huge quantity found of gold as well. 

It only gets better as it ages. If you made another coin with better processing it features you can easily adapt that tech to bitcoin. Look at the adoption of segwit 2x. And the beginning adoption of the lighting network. It takes time though for the community to move to it. So you have all of this other stuff being the test coins. 

1 hour ago, Average Investor said:

It is just government resistant, boarder less currency.

It seems useless to you because you have a traditional bank account, but billions of people do not. Having something like ripple does not solve issues for people with bad governments. As well as if you have someone who can control it you open a huge can of worms for corruption.  It's infant technology at this point and it has the most secure network of any of those coins. I'm not going to tell you I sit here and spend it everyday or use it. It's going to take some time. 

Edited November 29, 2019 by Average Investor

[Leo Gura]

7 hours ago, Average Investor said:

It is just government resistant, boarder less currency.

It is not government resistant at all. Government now regulates most of the exchanges and access points, and government is fully capable of tracking your BitCoin transactions through the public blockchain. So watch out.

Governments are never going to allow an unregulated currency. They will regulate all the access points to it.

[integral]

Check out Democracy Earth .

[Average Investor]

@Leo Gura I mean the structure itself cannot be modified by a single party or entity. The government cannot seize it from you without having access to your private keys even if you did buy it from one of those.  There is much better coins for private transactions though for sure. A lot of it comes down to what the user values in the coins they decide to use. Most people could not care less about their privacy with most things they do it seems. 

Edited November 30, 2019 by Average Investor

[Average Investor]

@integral That looks exciting. I had been thinking we might see something form like that years ago. Not sure when this started though. But I had seen even in the government systems for the coins that we could in the future have some big enhancements. I really do believe some great things will come from this tech. Now I don't know about making everyone rich with it, but society could get better. 

Edited November 30, 2019 by Average Investor