[ExI] lotta splainin to do

Wed Nov 16 21:46:37 UTC 2022

By the way my model predict a BTC value of 1 M by 2030. Keep this as
evidence of my prediction so we can be back to in in 8 years from now.
Giovanni

On Wed, Nov 16, 2022 at 1:45 PM Giovanni Santostasi <gsantostasi at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Spike,
> All this has zero to do with BTC.
> To answer your doubts:
>
>
>    1. the value of the stuff depends on control of the quantity (BitCoin
>    does that, but there is no way to stop a dozen companies from starting
>    their own competing digital currencies, dragging down the value of all of
>    it)
>    Right, this why it was genius to have a finite number of BTC, this
>    makes it more like gold than cash.
>    I have models for BTC long time growth (it follows a power law in
>    time) that have been very reliable for the past 10 years (I started these
>    projections in 2012). There are 100s of competing currencies but
>    nothing comes close to the value of BTC. This is both because BTC brand
>    value but also because of the established network effect that is almost
>    impossible to beat. So this problem of competing cryptocurrencies is not a
>    problem at all because in the last 11 years nothing was able to beat BTC in
>    terms of dominance in the market. Besides the cryptomarket works more like
>    an ecosystem where other cryptos (in particular the stongest ones) give
>    value to each other instead of competing with each other.
>    2. there is a weak link in the chain if we need to swap digital
>    currency to fiat money and back, which looks to me like a demonstration of
>    that weakness just happened with FTX.
>    It is not much the idea of converting to FIAT currencies that is the
>    most risky point of failure but the fact most of the points of exchanges
>    are centralized instead of decentralized.
>    In theory people could exchange crypto in person and pay cash for it
>    but this is considered in most places illegal (there is a service called
>    LocalBitcoin that is considered illegal in the US). Attempts to create
>    decentralized exchanges were done and there are few places online where it
>    happens but these exchanges are not very liquid.
>    The long term solution to all this would be the full adoption of BTC
>    as a currency to buy almost anything you can imagine. In that case one
>    could completely bypass the conversion ot FIAT.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 16, 2022 at 12:19 PM Giovanni Santostasi <
> gsantostasi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Almost every single problem with crypto is that we fail in upholding
>> crypto promise: decentralization. I lost 32 BTC because they were sitting
>> in an exchange (while I was trading it) where the owner fled away with the
>> funds (the exchange was called Mintpal, one of the largest at that time).
>> Unfortunately when you deposit crypto in an exchange you lose control of it
>> in a sense because the wallet is owned by the exchange and not you. It is a
>> pretty stupid thing to do in particular when it happened to me that was
>> early on when exchanges were even less secure than now.  We need
>> decentralized exchanges. There are few but they are not very liquid. We
>> need to find solutions to this.
>> Giovanni
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 14, 2022 at 7:17 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> We have a lot of digital currency followers here, so perhaps some
>>> kindhearted hipster can offer me an explanation simple enough a rocket
>>> scientist can understand (one who never owned a bitcoin or was convinced
>>> the notion of digital currency could work.)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I keep hearing of this FTX digital money exchange, but I don’t
>>> understand it.  Some news agencies are reporting that it was looted by
>>> someone, possibly an insider, but that makes no sense because the main
>>> selling point of bitcoin was that ownership is maintained by blockchain,
>>> which is said to be inherently secure.  So… this looter, what did she
>>> steal?  Digital currency?  Or did FTX have a huge pile of paper currency,
>>> and if so, why did FXT have a huge pile of cash when inflation is at 8%?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> But if they did, was that cash in a safe, then some sneaky scoundrel
>>> with the combination hauled away the loot in the back of a very sturdy
>>> heavily-loaded delivery truck?  A USA bill has about 1g mass, so a million
>>> bills is a ton, so even if all that moola was in the largest American bill,
>>> the 100, we are still talking 4 tons of currency said to be missing and
>>> that just doesn’t sound like something that would be easily carted away.
>>> It would be a heeellll of a job just loading the truck.  But if it is
>>> digital currency which was stolen, how can they suppose the looter somehow
>>> got away with 400 megabucks?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This story makes no sense to me.  A puzzled rocket scientist I am.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Adrian or some of you other hep cats, do explain please.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> spike
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> extropy-chat mailing list
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>>
>>
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