[hyko]

It’s so crazy that it might just be completely crazy. Behaviour that is grounds for an investigation by shareholders.

In a world where the governments can’t support their own currencies, nobody will give a shit about Bitcoin.

“I don’t trust the real hospitals because of medical negligence, better get my amputation done by that guy operating out of his garage just to be safe.”

[solotronics]

BTC is fully accountable while it's issuance is not in the hands of any certain group. Therefore it has a permanently predictable rate of inflation that is much lower than fiat currencies at the moment.

Nobody has to trust anyone, that's the whole point of bitcoin.

[xondono]

it has a permanently predictable rate of inflation

It’s volatility would suggest otherwise. As many others have commented here an in other places, the fact that supply is predictable is not enough, demand is a factor too.

[solotronics]

Inflation rate means the rate of issuance of new coin. Its price is related to whatever free market forces decide the price of anything scarce such as gold, silver, fiat currency, etc.

[hyko]

In economics the word inflation refers to the rate of change in the buying power of a currency.

What you’re talking about is the money supply (I guess the Bitcoin equivalent of M2) which in Bitcoin is for some reason increased at a hard coded (decreasing) rate.

[hyko]

Except you have to trust lots of people for Bitcoin to work, from DNS record holders to developers to intermediaries and beyond. The whole system is dripping with trust, so why not just use standard currencies?

[martinko]

False, you do not have to trust anyone. You decide what code you run, not developers. As far as DNS goes, you should study the bitcoin consensus protocol in more detail.

[hyko]

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/2027/how-does-th...

Do you trust whoever happens to own xf2.org more than you trust a central bank? Do you trust the domain name registrar more than you trust a central bank? Why?

You decide what code you run, not developers well, sure you can run whatever code you like on your machine...the Bitcoin devs get to decide whether your software counts as a Bitcoin client or not. They are in a position of power and you must trust them.

[xur17]

You should read more about how the Bitcoin consensus protocol works.

[hyko]

The consensus protocol doesn’t help in removing either of these trust requirements?

If I own the mechanism of root node discovery, I can mount an effective Sybil attack against a new network participant.

The history of Bitcoin is full of hard and soft forks and changes to the rules. That’s why your original Bitcoin client wouldn’t even let you join the Bitcoin network now. The people in control of the network are in a position of immense power with minimal oversight. So on what basis should I trust them with my life savings? What recourse do I have if they ruin my life?