I already said everything that needs to be said. If you don't understand then feel free to go back and reread my comment. It's not my job to make sure you understand everything I say perfectly
Completely false. With fiat money, you need someone to initiate the transfer. Its not automatic. You can even go to court, have assets freeze, etc. I suppose if you try and set up some sort of escrow service, with clearly outlined rules about what goes into the contract, and both parties deposit the full amount into escrow, then you are close. But then you have to ensure the escrow service actually carries out the transfer as per guidelines, and I'm sure if one party isn't happy, they can always go to court and now all the funds will be frozen. And lets not forget how expensive of an option this is. So no, there is no such thing as a smart contract with fiat.
Although you are right that name calling goes nowhere, when the guy said "I'm an engineer", he essentially is saying "you have to listen to me". And I'm not exactly sure who gives him this high authority. I see lot of buildings and bridges collapse.... I wonder if those engineers were somehow less omnipotent, and how can we tell in advance which engineer has the super power to always be right?
I'd add that I'm still waiting for a clear use case for "Blockchain!!!!!". Competing with Western Union for the remittance/small transfer market is somewhat useful, I guess. All the blather about putting mortgages or health records on the blockchain is just impractical or useless hot air.
Go back and read the post I replied to. It specifically said " Engineers who really understand blockchain..." As an engineer who does understand the Blockchain, I do not support his argument and I do not want to be associated with it. The post I replied to was attempting to invoke an "argument from authority" and I jumped in to spoil it. If you don't want to lend my opinion extra weight, I'm cool with that. My arguments can stand on their own. Certain people seem extremely sensitive to any commentary that questions their crypto get rich quick ideas. As far as buildings and bridges collapsing it is actually extremely rare, especially when you eliminate issues like lack of proper maintenance, improper construction, and disaster scenarios.
Great, lets just focus on the content. You said "Instantaneous unrevocable transfers are great if you're a heroin dealer or kidnapper, not so much if you're just a run of the mill person trying to accomplish a normal financial transaction." Your entire thesis for why blockchain is bad is because it can't be undone. It seems extremely short sighted to assume that this feature is of no benefit to anyone. Don't get me wrong, I like that if I see a charge on my credit card that isn't mine, I can contest it, but don't you see real world cases of frozen assets to be a major problem? Look at Russia. They thought they had a bunch of USD parked in the US, until the US decided to just freeze it. Poof, the money is gone just like the original poster losing $1700. Gold has been an incredible store of value because the person with the gold has the asset, has the wealth. There is no counter party risk. Clearly in this digital world, a new form of gold without the pesky weight and storage limitations is needed. Putting an intermediary between transactions is sometimes a benefit, and sometimes a major headache. How do you pick an impartial intermediary? How do you ensure this person makes the right decision? The issues for the original poster are very easy to fix, and future user interfaces will I'm sure make this occurrence much less likely. But if you build a system that has the "feature" of being always malleable, its not a system anyone can trust. When it comes to money, we have to trust that nobody has the power to take it away. Tell me, what is the greater sin, losing your own money because of a stupid mistake you made, or losing it because someone has the power to take it way at will?
First, I don't think it's accurate to call Bitcoin a "bearer asset". I would define that as something like a bearer bond or a gold depository receipt. Something that actually entitles the bearer to something else. Bitcoin is what it is, with no specific guarantee of convertibility to anything else. I do believe that something else can be a "digital bearer asset" and that could definitely have value. There seems to be some interesting discussion of "digital bearer assets" for things like network services. As far as Bitcoin's value in executing financial transactions, I think that is overshadowed by a few items 1) Its feature set which seems almost purpose built for criminal enterprise with little thought given to the needs of a typical honest person. 2) Extreme volatility, which makes it unattractive for those who would use it for something besides a vehicle for speculation 3) Inherent privacy issues 4) Network control issues. I don't want my money at the mercy of whomever can get control of 51% of the distributed network. I'd rather have a trustworthy board of directors explicitly approving who gets to play an important role, with advance notice before any changes are implmented. 5) Wastefulness. I'm not a big believer in AGW, but that doesn't mean I want to see energy resources wasted computing useless math problems to satisfy whatever popular delusion is in vogue. Imagine a digital bearer asset with convertibilty to shares in an SPY index fund. Imagine that it would optionally allow you to designate a trusted third party to mediate transactions. Imagine it is controlled by a board of directors who have distinguished themselves as trustworthy, and managed in accordance with a public set of by-laws. Imagine those people enforcing security, data retention and privacy standards on all processing of transactions. As someone not looking for a get rich quick scheme, I would find that scenario much more interesting and useful. I think it's only a matter of time until someone comes along with a better idea.
Absolutely. Look at what happened up in Canada with the truckers. Support then or not, what Trudeau did was straight up third world, banana republic nonsense. I don't think the entire concept of blockchain or crypto is bad, but I think Bitcoin is doomed by its poor feature set. I think an idea that feels like it came right off the original cypherpunks listserv, has been doomed by a combination of poor design choices and speculative mania. Besides just delivering the money, there are so many other important funtions that go along with payment: revocability (or not), ability to prove payment to a 3rd party (or not), time for the transaction to clear (or not), protection/exposure to legal system of a particular country (or not), involvement of a 3rd party mediator or "smart contract", ability to impose transfer amount or rate limits, anti-kidnap/duress features, leins, escrow, key recovery, inheritance, etc. Bitcoin maybe be the first big success, but IMO that will be its undoing. It will be too hard to change enough going forward.
Perfect, this is what we want, that it can't change. Many things are being upgraded to be honest, and the only type that I think are worthy is along the lines of cost per transaction and security. Other blockchains can be good for doing everything else. Lets face it, bitcoin only has to be good at doing one thing, a store of value. Why do we want it to do anything else? Real estate used to be great of putting a roof over your head, but now its also a store of value. So it means most can't afford a roof over their head, and that store of value might plummet. The fact that bitcoin is gonna be boring and unchangeable makes it the hardest form or money. We don't want a feature set beyond what it already does. Maybe in the future something else comes along, but the sooner we destroy fiat currency and the ability of governments to manipulate it, the better off we will be.