"Bitcoins," Internet nerd libertarian monopoly money, crashes, no one surprised

[Vosem]

So the prices are rising again due to Musk working on providing less energy-intensive transactions. Why this was not done or thought about previously, and why he made a quick and careless decision in the first place wiping off millions of speculation is a testament to his poor management style.

Functioning blockchains using proof of stake rather than proof of work date back all the way to 2012; none of this is new information.

[PSOL]

So the prices are rising again due to Musk working on providing less energy-intensive transactions. Why this was not done or thought about previously, and why he made a quick and careless decision in the first place wiping off millions of speculation is a testament to his poor management style.

Functioning blockchains using proof of stake rather than proof of work date back all the way to 2012; none of this is new information.

I was referring to Musk approving Bitcoin transactions then abruptly cancelling them.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I suspect E-currency of all kinds is going to be more prominent in the future, but Bitcoin won’t be prominent in the future unless it updates its source code to work out the kinks that it has preventing it from being commercially viable.

Bitcoin is not, never has been, and never can be a currency.  It's model prevents it from ever handling the volume of transactions necessary to function as a currency.

Cryptocurrencies are commodities (currently) but there’s been some talk and initial development of actual e-currencies lately.

Yes the limiting factor of Bitcoin in particular of having a set limit of units in circulation is one aspect hindering its growth, but if the source code is updated that could change, as unlikely as it is. With other cryptocurrencies though it could be possible, especially if a group finds a way to not yield most of its value in being so closely tied or needing to be exchanged with a current recognized currency, or a cryptocurrency or e-currency being said recognized currency.

Considering that fractional Bitcoins can be traded, the limit on the number of Bitcoins isn't a problem. Bitcoin's problem is that it cannot handle a high enuf transaction rate to be a currency.

Well yea, that’s why one option is to update the source code.

If not Bitcoin, it will be another cryptocurrency or a nationally recognized e-currency

Updating the source code won't affect the speed issues of the distributed database systems that are at the core of blockchain "cryptocurrencies" that prevent any of them from ever replacing currencies. CDBCs are more an official alternative to fintech payment systems such as Alipay or Venmo than to crypto.

Let me introduce you to the lightning network, a layer 2 solution already being used.

https://twitter.com/PeterMcCormack/status/1404472405549060100

It is truly concerning to see lefties seething at the bottom 70% of El Salvador's population getting access to transferring and receiving money, as they don't have bank accounts.

At the absolute worst, this allows that bottom 70% to receive payments from the diaspora via Bitcoin, which is instantly converted at the time of sending to USD (the Govt is opening a clearing house for that purpose), thus losing no money to volatility, while not paying 20-30% fees to banks/transfer services, as they are doing right now.

As it is, rural populations need to make hard and long journeys to pick up any money being sent from the diaspora, and this allows them to simply receive any payment with their phones instantly.

As for CDBC, yeah, I'm not really comfortable with Big Brother having the ability to see literally every single transaction and purchase I make. Plus, authoritarian Big Brothers (like China) have so much control precisely because of that reason.

It's very easy to control the populace when you have the ability to literally freeze and seize 100% of someone's net worth within minutes. The only thing they can't seize (barring keylogging or extracting the private key), are cryptocurrencies.

So the solution to the problems of the blockchain is to move transactions off the blockchain itself? Sort of defeats the raison d'être for the blockchain.

[Spark]

This is pretty disappointing but not surprising as the cryptocurrency industry has not been the most stable nor credible. Since China has been cracking down on crypto, it's unlikely that it will maintain its traction. The comments by Janet Yellen saying to steer clear of this don't help either.