[arcticfox]

> a very complex and innovative product.

The main point here is that there's absolutely nothing innovative about BTC anymore, if anything it's way behind. Which is why the valuation is so suspect; it's totally disconnected from the utility BTC provides compared to alts. Anything BTC does, alts do better, except for marketing.

[hndamien]

And universal acceptance, valuation and infrastructure support. Thats a big exception.

[JonnyNova]

Who accepts or prices things in bitcoin anymore?

[hndamien]

Crypto traders. Many people doing international trade.

[hossbeast]

And has by far the biggest hashrate, and is therefore most secure

[Frogolocalypse]

> The main point here is that there's absolutely nothing innovative about BTC anymore

That demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of what makes bitcoin valuable, and what separates it from all other competitors. Bitcoin node decentralization is what keeps it censorship resistant, and in bitcoin node decentralization, it is ahead of any and all competitors. It likely has more fully validating nodes than all other cryptos combined, and by some margin.

There are a lot of people that want to sell you on a great new thing. Until they can get 150,000+ fully validating nodes to support their technology, they will be nothing more than a mildly distributed inefficient database. What is innovative about bitcoin is that it is the only real cryptocurrency, because it is the only one that isn't controlled directly by its creators, and also maintains its decentralization. The only ones that are even close are ethereum and litecoin, and ethereum is beholden to a single person who dictates changes to the network. Litecoin is simply a clone of bitcoin with minor changes to its implementation, but has a fraction of the fully validating nodes.

[mikefallen]

150k full nodes? https://bitnodes.earn.com/ says ~11.5k full nodes

[Frogolocalypse]

That service only includes a subset of listening nodes. That variant of node is only a fraction of the full nodes used to validate the bitcoin blockchain.

http://luke.dashjr.org/programs/bitcoin/files/charts/softwar...

160K and counting.

[mikefallen]

150k full nodes source?

[Frogolocalypse]

http://luke.dashjr.org/programs/bitcoin/files/charts/softwar...

[mikefallen]

Ahh thanks frogo always enjoy your input on these crypto threads you really helped me have a deeper understanding of the consensus and game theory aspect of bitcoin that i never caught onto from the white paper.

Thanks!!

[Frogolocalypse]

It certainly took me some time to get my head around it, that's for sure. It wasn't even a 'penny drop' type of realization either.

It's why I'm sometimes so short with people who make statements with such confidence and finality. "Bitcoin IS this." without even really understanding the subject matter. I'm not thinking of one month/year timelines for its market penetration. I want to see what it is in another 10 years. I don't subscribe to the view that fiat is going to crash, or that type of apocalyptic talk. But I do think that we are in a 50-year-old debt-bubble, and I'm not sure it is going to be quite as difficult to 'shift', if that is even the correct word, from debt-fueled monetary instruments to credit-fueled monetary instruments. Most people don't even really understand the concept of a market-cap, and how the total value of the cap has no, or very little, relationship to the amount of capital that might be extracted from it. Bitcoin could easily be 10x or even 100x its current 'market-cap' and for it to still not really have any real relationship to monetary supply IMO. Bitcoin definitely has a relationship to gold, but more importantly, I believe bitcoin has a relationship to fixed-asset debt.

I wouldn't want to be entering a career in consumer banking though. Investment banking on the other hand... that is going to freak out over the next decade as the business of supplying debt for fixed assets that are depreciating in value reverses, and people start looking to place their investment dollars in industries that increase productivity.

Just remember bitcoin could lose 85% of its current value, and for it to only have doubled in value this year, and still be the best performing asset class in the market. Because a correction will happen. The only real question is when, and how deep.

[mikefallen]

Thanks again your insight is always refreshing. Also i don't think you saw my other comment what debit card service do you use that lets you keep balance in BTC and transfer to USD upon purchase? all the ones i have seen transfer to USD when you load them.

Thanks again!