[nosuchthing]

Mining pool operators are in a position to manipulate the markets.

Given the extremely low liquidity of all the exchanges (large holders often move their funds off-line), the markets rates are trivially manipulated. This in turn manipulates miner incentives.

Social media is a shit show of shills and propaganda from all angles. So really only time will tell.

[shanusmagnus]

The truth of this statement cannot be emphasized enough. I think one of the real weaknesses of the crypto world is the complete absence of a community where people whose mouths are not connected directly to their brainstems can talk and discuss issues related to crypto -- and I mean not just about investment (I'm not very interested in that) but about relevant technological and social issues. There is literally no place to have a sane discussion on any of this that I've found -- would _love_ to be corrected if someone knows better.

[saalweachter]

I think the larger problem is that most anyone talking about cryptocurrencies has a financial interest in them, and indeed, people without a financial interest are considered biased against them and not worth listening to.

[ktta]

>Social media is a shit show of shills and propaganda from all angles. So really only time will tell.

The r/bitcoin and r/btc sub-reddits really went to trash recently. Everyone's been bickering about their own opinions. Worst of all, constant front page vitriol about each other.

[1_player]

I read /r/BitcoinMarkets. It's more centred around day trading, they are very optimistic about the future (i.e. bullish, "to the moon!"), so take their opinions with salt, but it's a good, up-to-date source of information.

[topmonk]

> Mining pool operators are in a position to manipulate the markets.

I don't know what this fixation is on hashrate. As long as it doesn't drop to low enough a level for someone who wants to attack it to be successful, it doesn't make any difference to the coin's functionality.

Anyone with the ability to buy or sell a large amount of crypt can manipulate the markets. This holds doubly true in the middle of the night on a weekend.

[shanusmagnus]

It makes a giant difference in the amount of time it takes to mine blocks, especially during hashrate fluctuations, where a currency without a responsive difficulty adjustment algorithm (e.g., Bitcoin) can be 'stranded' with a too-hard difficulty, which means transactions don't get processed, which means there's a giant lag in money movement and fee escalation, etc. etc.

The interplay between hashrate, difficulty, txs, fees, price, and sentiment is pretty complicated and definitely important. See http://www.fork.lol to see this illustrated.

[_jal]

> Social media is a shit show of shills and propaganda from all angles. So really only time will tell.

I'm curious about historic precedents - I really don't know much about the history of currency. There must have been analogues in the past - I know Isaac Newton famously went to war with counterfeiters, but that (and vague memories of hearing about bank currency in the US) about the only instance of currency competition I know of.

Anyone want to recommend a quality book on the topic?

[hackinthebochs]

Which is a good argument for off-chain scaling (i.e. Segwit). As it is miners have way too much power and their incentives are not aligned with the holders of the currency. Off chain scaling massively reduces their ability to hold the network hostage: value can still be transferred even if transactions slow to a crawl.