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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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What is bitcoin?
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Cascade Mountains and Monterey Bay
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so Bitcoin is a bubble and the Fed's petrodollar is not??
what an intriguing perspective
is anyone here paying attention to the BRICS?
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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I'm kind of astounded that this thread has focused so much on the reputation of bitcoin and what it's currently used for. With a few exceptions, most posters seem oblivious to, as Ed puts it, the broader applications of the underlying blockchain technology.
from https://www.raconteur.net/business/the-future-of-blockchain-in-8-charts
Canadian writers and researchers, Alex and Don Tapscott, authors of the new book Blockchain Revolution, explain that blockchain goes way beyond the second coming of the internet. The pair, like so many others, stumbled across blockchain via the bitcoin association, quickly realising the genie is out of the bottle.
For beginners, blockchain is essentially a database, a giant network, known as a distributed ledger, which records ownership and value, and allows anyone with access to view and take part. A network is updated and verified through consensus of all the parties involved. When something is added it cannot be altered and, if it looks valid to everyone, the update is approved.
“The first generation brought us the internet of information. The second generation, powered by blockchain, is bringing us the internet of value, a new, distributed platform that can help us reshape the world of business and transform the old order of human affairs for the better. But like the internet in the late-1980s and early-1990s, this is still early days.”
also https://econsultancy.com/blog/68693-the-importance-of-the-blockchain-the-second-generation-of-the-internet
But what does the blockchain mean for businesses outside of the financial sector? The answer lies in the areas of - privacy/information control, disintermediation, and business processes.
As mentioned above, the blockchain offers consumers opportunity to achieve greater control over their information. This will impact on most organisations, as they increasingly rely on the acquisition and application of customer data.
The importance of privacy is obviously a sensitive issue. One current solution for consumers is the selection of ephemeral applications like Snapchat and encrypted messaging, but the future might lie in the anonymity of blockchain technologies.
Another change will affect business sectors where there are many intermediaries, for example travel and tourism. Here, the blockchain’s ability to simplify and speed up interactions, will likely lead to a process of dis-intermediation.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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The US dollar and it's value is based broadly on the overall strength of the US economy and financial system. Not sure why you think it's strongly petro industry based. That sector is not that a big a slice of the US economy. Not like we're Saudi.
Pretty much all money is fiat currency. Even when we were on the gold standard, it's not as if gold is particularly useful compared to say iron. It just provides a tie to some fixed amount of thing. But that's really only useful when talking about inflation, which isn't really likely to be a significant issue any time soon.
Bitcoin isn't widely used and isn't really tied to anything of value. So I'd say to the extent that it has value, that's purely due to speculation.
All that aside, blockchain tech does potentially have real value for things like securing on-line voting, or secure exchange of medical records.
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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"Bitcoin must be good because blockchain" is logically equivalent to "A5 must be safe and easy because French free"
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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"Bitcoin must be good because blockchain"
Personally, I couldn't care less about bitcoin.
edit - some people can't see the forest for the trees....
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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All currency is just a placeholder until you piss it away on real estate, precious metals, cams, or blow.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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What network?
Specifically.
What database?
Specifically.
C'mon, Dingus, I thought once upon a time you researched all this, enough of it anyways.
For starters...
https://www.blockchain.com/
There IS a learning curve. Like algebra. Like climbing!
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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For now I will believe Reilly. He should know.
And it doesn't cost me anything.
?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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OK, Reilly.
Your measly liquidity, accountability, transparency, regulation, versus
Should I flip a coin?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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. . . platform [some innovation] that can help us reshape the world of business and transform the old order of human affairs for the better.
Oh, brother.
I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard this kind of declaration in the past 50 years.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard this kind of declaration in the past 50 years.
is this what you said about the internet, back in the day?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Ditto television and radio. Telegraph on the other hand did dramatically change the speed of business.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Bottom line with security on the internet is there is no real security until the day you can tie biometrics to transactions and trace them across all the CPU's and network devices from origination to destination. That would require a wholesale change in the way we design all computing and network devices.
The downside of such a system is it would also act as a de facto national identity program so that doesn't get people super excited. But there you have it, a choice between two evils: an internet with no anonymity or one rife with fraud - there is no in-between.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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The downside of such a system is it would also act as a de facto national identity program so that doesn't get people super excited.
that's the point of blockchain currency, it isn't centralized... no governments involved
so far the only major security problems with bitcoin are people blabbing about their wallets on social media and hackers taking over their cell phones which are used for multifactor identification and changing the passwords on all the victim's accounts... this is not a problem with the bitcoin security
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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I'm not talking about bitcoin, or blockchain, which is far too computationally expensive to use outside of securing high-value artifacts such as currencies and contracts. I'm talking about what it would require to secure the internet in general. Bitcoin and blockchain operate within a an inherently insecure ecosystem and securing that ecosystem would entail the rather draconian measures I mentioned.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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ecurity is elusive though, and in this stateless utopia who is going to protect the integrity of the system - whatever system, of money?
in a stateless utopia is there any money?
We can make all the interesting and intelligent speculations we want about the future. Passing judgment on this technology based on those speculations is to be expected, but I doubt any of us can see where it will go.
My feeling is that the utility of blockchain technology will find itself into the "logistics" sectors, including financial transfers.
If you think the computational resources for creating blockchain are large, what about mining, refining, storing and moving tonnes of gold around?
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