I think Bitcoin is “significant”. Do you?
Ping @happybeing
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Nice hyperbole. Ignoring the fact that MaidSafe funded their company in and on top of Bitcoin?
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???
I’ve bought stuff using Bitcoin before, and now I’m considering buying a Raspberry Pi here:
https://www.webhallen.com/se/product/328852-Raspberry-Pi-400-Personal-Computer-Kit-svensk-layout
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This after twelve years is to my mind ‘nothing’. Not literally, but nothing of any significance.
Yes, you can buy and sell it, and derivatives such as MAID. But that’s it, you can still get people to put money into it this has still not made an impact outside, and while people still pile in its usefulness is declining due to inefficiencies and limitations.
For something that was supposed to be as good as cash, and so bring massive change that’s very disappointing and one of the reasons Safe Network is going to be big.
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It took people thousands of years to discover iron that was perfected into steel, or to discover gold for that matter. Bitcoin as a technology may be lacking in many ways. But the idea is there, and technology is not static. Many may have been disappointed when the first iron tools appeared, especially if they were hyped up the way Bitcoin has been. But that doesn’t mean they were useless. There is no conflict between believing this and believing in the Safe Network as a result of further technological as well as ideological evolution.
EDIT: I will be neither disappointed nor surprised if the Safe Network hasn’t “conquered the world” twelve years from now. I’ll wait, and in the meantime, I’ll keep fishing and looking after my chickens.
The super rich, the ones who want to control everybody and everything are getting more powerful by the day. We must hurry, but we must hurry slowly. Impatience and greed can slow us down. “Festina lente.”
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You’ve left a big gap between “nothing of significance” for bitcoin after 12 years, and “conquered the world” for Safe after 12 years 
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Well, I think Bitcoin already is pretty significant. Let’s just agree to disagree.
EDIT: On the other hand, let’s not. How about a thread called “What’s wrong with Bitcoin (and can it be improved)?” You’re much more knowledgeable than I am when it comes to technology. Maybe I’m missing something fundamental.
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It doesn’t matter what the design intentions are. The only thing that matters is what the mass of people want to use the product for.
The social consensus has decided that Bitcoin is not cash, but digital gold. As digital gold, Bitcoin is totally successful, and I dare say that when the richest man on the planet buys $ 1.5 billion in bitcoin, it is a total success.
This is the fundamental problem we face as a human race - we have no reasonable money and bitcoin solves this problem. Of course it doesn’t solve it well. There may be better digital gold. Ethereum is on its way there. Maybe one day Safe tokens will be digital gold. Time will tell.
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It’s not though. Gold has been a store of value for thousands of years and continues to be. So bitcoin cannot claim to be digital gold. It’s being touted as that, people are buying that lie etc, but that doesn’t make it true.
Bitcoin is in technology terms in a death spiral. Not marketing wise, and it will continue to increase in value for the time being because people ignore the reality and pile in, but it isn’t sustainable. The only way it can continue is by becoming another centralised pseudo asset, which will be no better than hypothecated gold.
It can be replaced by better technology, and that’s fingers crossed, going to be Safe.
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What is gold is a social consensus. You will be surprised at what a small group of people who believe in Bitcoin and refuse to use gold can achieve. It is only a matter of time before Bitcoin surpasses gold in value. One or two more speculative cycles and Bitcoin will be the gold of the world…
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If bitcoin grinds to a halt technologically, it won’t ever be digital gold. If there was social concensus that bitcoin is digital gold, that doesn’t make it digital gold. It would need to retain that concensus for a long time, and for there to be a credible basis for it to remain so for much longer.
I won’t put numbers there because frankly, bitcoin wouldn’t have a chance in such a contest. I’ve seen what’s thought to be Agamemnon’s death mask in gold from 12,000 years ago and I think gold will retain this status long after I’m dead. Bitcoin, nah, not convinced however many people become convinced. The majority of people are often wrong IME, just look at elections.
Bitcoin has…
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Given millions access to a ‘bank account’ who don’t own a passport and/or are refugees who don’t have access to card, ATMs or any of their service providers.
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Allowed individuals to protect themselves from hyperinflation, e.g. Venezuela, Turkey, Argentine Peso, etc.
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2017/05/28/most-depreciated-currencies-world/ -
Become widely accepted as payment.
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Challenges the status quo in a healthy way and also forced oversea transfers to become cheaper and compete. E.g. WireTransfers (Slow + High Commission)
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Opened up a rich space of innovation. Question remains if Bitcoin can soft fork to keep up with the changes in technology and if there will be a fix for the ever increasing blockchain size (Doesn’t make sense to keep transactions beyond the oldest unspent UTXO’s).
Bitcoin’s technology is just okay for what the world needs, it is by no means perfect. The #1 quality that makes me trust BTC more than anything else is the vast network with its hashing power making it the most secure asset right now, which is still more flexible than paying with gold bars/coins.
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“Millions” lol
And is “digital gold”
This is nonsense.
And let’s see someone pick up and deny with a technical analysis, my contention that it is in a technological death spiral.
What bitcoin has achieved is seeding of an idea. But not yet an idea which is either realised technologically, nor widespread. The word is seeded.
I’m not negative about bitcoin or its achievements, I’m negative about what I judge to be unrealistic claims.
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That’s a perfectly fine viewpoint. I however have used it many times to send money from my account to my wife’s which would normally take a lot longer. I have also bought decent amount of things, like VPN subscriptions, paid my credit card bills and more using BTC. That people don’t know how to use it, doesn’t mean that it’s not useful.
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What’s wrong with Bitcoin?
It’s massively energy intensive
… which as well as the environmental destruction means centralisation of control in practice
It’s slow
It’s hard to use for people who are not tech savvy
Lose your private key, lose your coins
Compared with gold it’s hopeless where electricity supplies and internet connectivity are unreliable/non-existent
For people who don’t have their own computer (most of the world?) it’s unsafe
And can it be improved?
Top three definitely 
, if we can crack the bottom three we’ve made it.
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Agreed.
Agreed.
Agreed. But how can you dismiss Bitcoin after only 12 years in existence? Give it a few thousand years, and we’ll see what happens.
Agreed.
So am I. But those claims are not Bitcoin’s fault, are they.
This I would like to hear more about.
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Personally, I believe the Bitcoin naysayers here will be forced to eat humble pie as the next few years unfold.
The Safe Network Token is no “Bitcoin” and it isn’t supposed to be. What’s important is the decentralised data network that will birth a “new” internet.
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It doesn’t matter what the design intentions are. The success of Bitcoin comes from the freemium model. The success of Ethereum comes from the freemium model. Safe has a freemium model capable of bringing 30-40% of humanity into the game. Absolutely Safe can displace Bitcoin as digital gold.
Dimitar, 22.03.2020
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