Interesting Use Cases and News about Cryptos/Blockchain Technology

Duke of Marmalade said:
B/S you are not paying attention
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Granted, I give you that one!:oops:

But it all boils back down to the concept of decentralised money. A concept that is taking root. Currently manifesting itself in cryptocurrencies, of which bitcoin is the market leader.
I dont think it is going away anytime soon.
 
TheBigShort said:
Apologies to Negotiator, I feel I have inadvertently taken this topic off track.
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Don't worry Big Short it was inevitable. In hindsight the Peter Thiel story was going to attract the 'hot air brigade' to the conversation!

I'll post another news story about the tech side of things to try to reset the conversation! :)
 
Negotiator said:
Don't worry Big Short it was inevitable. In hindsight the Peter Thiel story was going to attract the 'hot air brigade' to the conversation!

I'll post another news story about the tech side of things to try to reset the conversation! :)
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Hot air? You posted the rubbish without even understanding what it said which says it all really. If you don't want people to point out how it doesn't make sense, then don't post it. Then we won't have any hot air. Actually most of your posts are just rehashes and links to what other people think. And you call others the 'hot air brigade' We can use the internet ourselves so save yourself the bother the next time you read some tripe after some vague google search and don't bother sharing it.
 
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Sunny said:
Hot air? You posted the rubbish without even understanding what it said which says it all really. If you don't want people to point out how it doesn't make sense, then don't post it. Then we won't have any hot air. Actually most of your posts are just rehashes and links to what other people think. And you call others the 'hot air brigade' We can use the internet ourselves so save yourself the bother the next time you read some tripe after some vague google search and don't bother sharing it.
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Fair enough Sunny but don't feel the need to participate in this thread if that's how you feel.
 
Sunny said:
Hot wair?
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In fairness Sunny, I read the Negotiators post not so much as your comments were hot-air, but that you, The Duke, BB, and others consider bitcoin to be hot-air, hence 'hot-air brigade'.

In the meantime, my Twitter feed is advertising 'IBM Blockchain'.
In not sure what it is all about, a glossy ad with swirly electric blue lighting etc.
Im thinking, are IBM losing the run of themselves with all this blockchain nonsense, or is one of the biggest, and best known computer companies adopting a new technology to suit its business needs.
And if they can do it for their business needs, why cant it be done for everyone elses business needs, including perhaps, but not restricted to, a payments system that requires no over-arching central authority to verify money?
Is this possible?
 
Firefly said:
You must be the most efficient civil servant in the country ;):p
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Why so?

Just so we are clear.

1) im not in work today, nor since last Wednesday.
2) My hours of work are variable encompassing 24/7 shift patterns.
3) Unsocial hours worked (7pm-7am) are creditable with time off in lieu.

After that, lets try keep on topic? Any opinion on IBM Blockchain?
 
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Duke of Marmalade said:
No
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Well at least its a pretty decisive answer from Duke without resorting to exaggerated claims of fanaticism or the 'flat-earth' arguement.
I would however like to point you to a concept called 'cryptocurrency' that currently works off blockchain and is probably best pronounced in 'bitcoin' as, at a very minimum, potentially evidence that such a system could emerge.
 
Gus1970 said:
I have a phd in maths, and worked in and around it for the last 24 years
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Ok but I still don't want to date you....:rolleyes:

How does what he said make sense then? There is a 50-80% chance that it will be worth zero. There is a 20-50%, it will increase in value. I don't have a PHD in maths and even I can spot some problems there.....You said it was straightforward maths so sorry if I am just being stupid here...
 
Are we sure it not the reporter's fault, cherry picking some lines for clickbait purposes and not realising it makes zero sense?
Because those quotes sound like drunken mumbling.

If I were to fill in the blanks, I would say Peter Thiel mentioned odds somewhere there, something along the lines:
"on the flip side, there is a 20 to 50 percent chance that it will increase X times in value."
Making it a fat-tail bet.
Or maybe he just said a bunch of silly stuff in front of a reporter.

In any case, the article makes no sense at all and it deserves to be made fun of!
 
Gus1970 said:
La donna e’ mobile

Beyond the spellchecking, do you have anything else?
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Well actually it goes a tad beyond spellchecking. It is about the meaning of words in the English language. "Store of value" does not allow for a non transcurabile possibility of having a future value of zero. That would be true in Italian or any language for that matter. How were your language skills at school?

As a professional mathematician I thought you would be appalled by the numerical diarrhoea that bitcoin miners churn out in search of easy riches.
 
Negotiator said:
"Peter Thiel has once again endorsed bitcoin, which he recently argued is tantamount to digital gold.

And much like gold, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal conjectures that the cryptocurrency is destined to be a store of value rather than a means of payment.

"It's like bars of gold in a vault that never move," he told a CNBC reporter during a conversation at the Economic Club of New York last week, adding:

"It's sort of hedge of sorts against the whole world falling apart."
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It has been easy to poke fun at this offering but there are interesting takeaways. I can now see three consituencies with wants. Quite distinct wants but each constituency is capable of convincing itself that bitcoin is the holy grail.

Constituency A. (a minority of) Billionaires. These guys have no possible financial worries from a personal point of view. Whilst the rest of us harbour various mundane fears on the financial security front the billionaire fears only the complete meltdown of everything. (They certainly don't want the complete meltdown of everything as some in Consituency C below might want.)

Constituency B. The criminal classes. These guys hanker for a store of value beyond the glare of the central authorities.

Consituency C. The disciples of Shortie Syndrome. These guys want an alternative to the corrupt central banking fiat.

Interesting that none of these constituencies are really interested in bitcoin as a medium of exchange or even of long distance transfer.

Of course, the price of bitcoin today is totally decided by a fourth constituency The Speculators. But when the bubble bursts The Speculators will melt away. That leaves the above three constituencies. Could it be the case that "they want it to be therefore it shall be".

With these thoughts in mind I am coming to the view that perhaps the price of bitcoin will not go to zero so I tend not to agree with Mr PayPal's 50% - 80% chance that it will.

I stick by my earlier prediction that the price of bitcoin will be around pi^.5 (1.77) by end year (are you impressed Gus1970?) but it might stay around that level.

Of course I have not altered my view that its value is zero, which I would have thought was obvious to any thinking person or mathematician for that matter.
 
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Duke of Marmalade said:
Consituency C. The disciples of Shortie Syndrome. These guys want an alternative to the corrupt central banking fiat.
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Far from wanting it to happen, just aware that it may happen, to lessor or greater degrees. Which probably brings us to Constituency D: The Comfortable Classes. These people are good hard-working educated people. They command good salaries, and in many respects are pillars of society. They heard of the Great Recession, but probably think the whole thing was over-blown, the media after all, love nothing more than good hardship stories.
For sure, they had to pay some more taxes, and business was tight for a period. They delayed upgrading the car for a year or two. Settled for just one two-week holiday and dropped the some of the Ryanair weekend breaks to Milan and Barcelona. They even discovered that when the dishwasher brokedown you could pay to get it fixed instead of buying a brand new one.
These are good people. They will never be in constituencey A, but that is not the aim, the aim is keep as far away from constituency B as possible. They know the system works for them in that way.
 
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