Quote from: traderCJ on December 03, 2014, 08:18:40 PM

Quote from: rocks on December 03, 2014, 06:00:36 PM

Quote from: Adrian-x on December 03, 2014, 12:39:12 AM

I don't understand the fear of alts. I'm into Bitcoin because it's better money, in our history it's the best yet.
Competition is what will make it better. Alts can out innovate Bitcoin on every metric except one, the Network Effect, and this is what makes it useful as a SoV.

I think this significantly underestimates the threat of alt coins and why Bitcoin is not a given (I'm saying this as someone who believes/hopes in the project)

For example what if the US government created a USDollarCoin that:
1) has all of the benefits of programmable money, you can have your own wallet and spend it through computing devices
2) has the _perceived_ benefits of centralized control including the ability to "recover" lost coins and "reverse fraudulent" transactions (possibility a majority of people prefer this based on Bitcoin's detractors' views). This could be accomplished with forced use of multisig where the FED has co-control.
3) has significantly easier tax implications to deal with (meaning no tax implications) compared to bitcoin where EVERY transaction is a taxable event
4) launches with mass adoption through automatic bank account conversion
5) was legislated as the only legal currency

Maybe that doesn't scare you, but it scares me.

The first wave of alts were simple clones, it was almost a given that network effects would hold them back here. However the next wave of alts are going to
a) come with real innovations and then
b) come with government sanctioned force

Network effects & Bitcoin's programmable nature will probably keep a) at bay, however network effect might actually work against Bitcoin if b) ever came to pass.

I'm not saying this will happend, and it may seem far fetched today, but it is in the realm of possibilities. The US government lives off of the inflation tax and if Bitcoin ever becomes a real threat, the state will definitely try more and more attempts to maintain control of the money supply. It's possible the proposal above would be a last ditch attempt to save itself.

This is basically where I see Bitcoin going. The coin itself will be (more or less) irrelevant, but the technology (or something like it) will play center stage. The U.S. government isn't concerned about Bitcoin as a threat to the dollar. The IRS has already made it impossible to use as a traditional currency without running afoul of tax code. Report capital gains on every transaction? Yeah right. They knew exactly what they were doing .. marginalizing Bitcoin. Digital currency has been here ever since banks established electronic lines of intrabank credit. This technology will likely be adopted in some form by governments, with their own strings attached (100% oversight). People will go along with it. Middle/upper class Americans simply don't have the stomach for dissent. They've too much to lose. Credit cards work fine for now, and when the time comes, a shift will be made to something a bit more streamlined, all the big players will be right there at the trough, make no mistake.

You just found yourself a lot of enemies here with that statement Cheesy

Technology solves problems. Bitcoin is digital. Soon my hot wallet is gonna do all of the accounting for me and I should have no problem reporting and conforming with the tax code.

That's absolutely not a problem.

As we've been saying, maybe it is true that middle/upper class Americans don't have the stomach for dissent when there is nothing tangible or immediate to gain but if there is money to be made then greed overcomes fear almost everytime.

As for governements adopting the technology, this gentleman here pretty much nails it :

Quote from: jmw74 on December 03, 2014, 07:41:28 PM

Let's be clear here. Taking the existing banking system, add in lower fees and faster transactions, is nothing like bitcoin. It's just the same old shit, but not quite as stuck in the dark ages as it is now.

The concept of a government-controlled blockchain is complete nonsense. Those two things are mutually exclusive, as soon as a central authority has control of the blockchain, the entire thing becomes a waste of resources. You'd get the same effect from the government just running a centralized database, except it's much more efficient.