skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> The sorts of sharp, catastrophic deflations that took hold in 2008 (or 1929 for that matter) are always caused by the bursting of a preceding credit bubble, usually created by central bank policy. I don't see how that kind of bubble can happen in Bitcoin. So the argument that "Bitcoin is deflationary" is true as far as it goes, but that doesn't mean that a Bitcoin-based economy would necessarily look exactly like, say, the Depression-era U.S.

Bitcoin has already had catastrophic deflations: factors of two in less than a week and factors of three in less than a month. And equally spectacular speculative crashes. The reason for this is really very simple: there's no one at the tiller, printing money to tamp down the speculation.

The kind of deflation I'm talking about -- and I think everyone on HN is talking about -- is the kind associated with speculation. If Bitcoin can't discourage speculation, and it appears by design it cannot, it is dead in the water.
Us technobabblers need to unite on why Bitcoin is valuable. I've been hammering on the part where the Bitcoin network is doing 7 quadrillion hashes a second right now. All of that work/energy is going into securing the coin for current and future transactions.

It is, simply put, a platform of trust powered by the most massive compute engine humanity has ever built.
People should have the freedom to make those security choices for themselves. People who are scared by the security issues of Bitcoin can avoid it, or only use it when the efficiency benefits are advantageous to them.
Fair enough, there are exceptions, but I feel my comment accurately reflects my own as well as many others' experiences trying to find competitive pay on sites like this.
It's obvious that the internet should have an analog to cash. Bitcoin fits that bill perfectly. If it fails something else will become the cash of the internet. The vision of how to make that happen is now very well known, so it's uncontrollable and inevitable. All this hand wringing is just the noise of the early days.
Then you can just create a new, younger start-up and acquire the older one. Taxes fixed at 0.

Is NY trying to race to the bottom?
I never get it - probably because my default volume is 0 (which is overridden nicely when I choose an alternate output source - like BT headphones or the headphone jack).
People don't just tolerate government, or think it's necessary, or even appreciate government. Most people in the world love government, and respond passionately against any perceived threat to the existence or steady growth of government. Government is in first place, ahead of organized religion, in the race to obtain the most passionate, unquestioning, dedicated followers.
Bitcoin is a fad and will have a similar fate to beanie-babies? It is over valued at the moment? Does the author really want to stake his reputation on the fact that cryptocurrencies are nothing more than 'an intellectual sinkhole?'

yes yes and yes
Nifty trick: use `git stash --keep-index save` to leave the staged changes around while stashing the unstaged ones. Then run your tests, muddle around and fix things as necessary, and commit. Then `git stash pop` and you have all your changes back. It seems obvious to me that this behavior should be the default for `git stash` but it isn't. Thank goodness for aliases.
It says css 3d, which those browsers doesn't support.
I wonder where the balance of good things vs bad things that've happened due to software-enableable laptop cameras currently sits?

I strongly suspect that the number of stolen laptops recovered thanks to the owner being able to use the camera to "invade the privacy and potentially take creep-shots" of the unauthorized current user, is way way smaller than the number of people who've had their privacy invaded and potentially had creepshots taken by their laptops unauthorized "p0wners".
Claiming that the NSA scandal is the primary reason for the Saab win is an overly US-centric view.

While there's evidence that Boeing's chances were hurt by the NSA revelations, it's not true that Boeing was a clear favourite. Both Saab and Dassault had presented strong bids and were considered serious contenders, particularly as both offered much higher industrial participation and technology sharing than Boeing and as such had the support of Brazil's aviation industry. That cannot be underestimated, and it's why Boeing was at a disadvantage even before the NSA story broke.

The Saab Gripen met Brazil's FX-2 requirements, it has a lower operating cost than the Rafale or Super Hornet, Saab has agreed to transfer a massive amount of technology and Sweden has committed to investigate a quid pro quo acquisition of Brazilian KC-390 tanker transports. Boeing could not match all that.
It would be a fallacy if the only connection between the events were timing with no reason to suspect a causative link. Claiming that talking movies caused the Great Depression would be an example of post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Bitcoin is a "mathematical fact" just like what we currently believe are unbreakable cryptography systems. The two are strongly related. Can't have one without the other, and can't avoid having cryptocurrencies if you have strong encryption.

So Stross's argument quickly moves from economics to freedom of speech: The only way to really eradicate cryptocurrencies is to make use of strong encryption outside of government-supervised uses a crime.
Maybe Saab won because they had a better offer. And maybe Boing usually wins these deals because they have the backing of large intelligence agencies. Who knows.
This is $200,000 in bitcoins, not actually $200,000.
Watch: So. Illinois coach unleashes epic rant
First they ignore you.

Then they laugh at you.

Then they fight you. <-- You are here.

Then you win.
Wow, what a disgraceful way to treat people. Certainly a company to steer clear of then.
Is it just me, or are both the pro-Bitcoin and anti-Bitcoin crowds broadly guilty of religion-esque levels of "critical thinking"? Way too many people in these discussions are defending their existing viewpoints, not debating the issues.
The thing I can't get past with Bitcoin is that it privileges the people who bought into it early, or who bought into it large: the only folks making real money on it now seem to be the speculators now that mining is too difficult for anyone not running a custom FPGA warehouse cooled with Fluorinert.

Worse, the traditional droves of biz and finance folks are noticing it enough to start the normal games, except without any meaningful oversight or regulation--and if we as cryptopunks think that our presumably vast experience in libertarianism and software is a competitive advantage over those fuckers, we're delusional.

I can't buy bread with it, I can't pay rent with it, I can't be payed in it, and the market is so volatile and unregulated that I'd be hesitant to try and convert any USD into BTC.

There's no middle class in the bitconomy, it seems; only vultures and fools.
> Where are the articles about BTC adoption?

Here's 8 of them https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=accept...
Yup, conduit is adware.
Even the media is complicit in this. NPR had a short story on Bitcoin this morning and made a point to say transactions were untraceable. One of the KEY points of Bitcoin is the public ledger. I'm amazed that as a journalist, you can get that so badly wrong.

Having said that, I think there are serious hurdles to overcome with Bitcoin, and the hype cycle and speculators are doing very little for the credibility of Bitcoin.
NSA should stop undermining encryption standards, Obama panel says
Here in Cambodia, a developer with 3-5 years experience(which is hard to find) is looking at around $300-500 a month. And yes, it's considered a lot.
> A person’s sincere interest in Bitcoin is evidence that they are disconnected from the financial problems most people face while lacking a fundamental understanding of the role and function of central banking.

I am not disconnected from or ignorant of the mainstream economic view that central planning of monetary systems and economies are necessary or preferable. I simply disagree, on a fundamental level, with this mainstream economic view.
Do you have any examples?

The "10x more users" thing sounds suspiciously like social network sites, but the expert opinions I've heard on those have suggested that the failure wasn't a lack of traction but bad policy.

And that's before the complete lack of monetization, a business model that didn't seem to really take off until Google figured out how to do it well.
In this context, (the techno-crypto-libertarians he so readily dismisses) any state regulation is inherently coercive. There's no such thing as non-coercive intervention by government. It doesn't have anything to do with military intervention.
While clearly looks are subjective, and Lian Li cases are better looking than many of their competitors, I really doubt the linked case is going to find itself in any design museums.

As for sales numbers, I've no idea how many units of this case they will be selling. If it's more than ~300,000 units a year then that would indeed be more than the Mac Pro from a couple of years ago. Of course we might expect the new model to sell better.
>We're dealing with humans, so it sort of by definition of the term requires a humane approach.

This argument is wrong. Let me rephrase it to make that more evident.

>We're dealing with humans, so it sort of by definition of the term requires [we treat them well].

or maybe

>We're dealing with humans, so it sort of by definition of the term requires [we don't reduce them to a statistic].

It clearly does not follow by definition.

>is far more shocking than

>their reaction to it in person was markedly different to their reaction

Yes. But is that better?
nice! I think these type of applications are where bitcoin will really shine!
Travel to russia, get big wrench and hit Durov with it until he gives up his password. Win 200k.

In all seriousness, im interested to see if anyone can crack this.
>They use name calling tactics... It cuts out parasitic elements of the financial system that have grown like a giant parasite over the entire society.

I like your style, calling out the other side for using biased and loaded vocabulary and then you turn around and do exactly the same.

As the original article states, what some people view as a parasite on the system some people view as necessarily regulation and consumer protection. Just look at one of the other Coinbase stories currently on the front page [1]. Due to a mistake by Coinbase a customer was potentially looking at a loss in the five figures USD. The point of regulation is to make sure things like that don't happen and to have a course of action to correct them if they do happen. It isn't about "if people gain economic freedom, they will hurt themselves". It is about "if people gain too much economic freedom, they will hurt others".

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6929705
The protocol should have been to reverse the USD charge(not to the bank but the OPs coinbase account), and let the OP decide if they want to buy BTC now, wait or withdraw the funds in its entirety.

The reason for this is, they failed to deliver, that is not under debate. But they are assuming that someone who was long on BTC as a speculator, is still long on BTC.

In the latest edit Brian from coinbase mentioned that they are now honoring today's rate, which is a step in the right direction, and has subsequently save the OP substantial losses, but this does not absolve them of the original screw-up.

I doubt the OP will complain. If I were in his shoes I would personally request a complete reversal even if I wanted to buy at today's prices, and manually make a new request.

Any seasoned/experienced business would do this.

Example: If amazon fails to deliver/the shipped item is lost in transit, they reverse the credit card transaction and request you to re-order if you still want to purchase.
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake's interview about the TEDx video is interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAuxXvNVhgA
Suddenly, your grandmother does not live in the same country as you.

Have fun sending money to grandma.
And what if not?
um...silicon valley already has this covered: you only pay taxes on revenues. (badam CHING).
Dreamers will dream, the grounded will copy and implement the best of their ideas, and some people will just look for something to claim is broken and stupid and pointless and doomed.
Bitcoin is the most promising of derivatives to come into the market in recent years. And as far as derivatives go, something that has no formal structure controlling or regulating is a godsend for actors who can move the markets. And considering the entire size of the Bitcoin world, it is one of the most juicy derivatives out there.

Does that mean it is not innovative? No. It is certainly innovative, especially in how it has been marketed. Alternative currencies are a dime-a-dozen in communities that are interested in currencies and communities that want to subvert existing currencies. But none of the others have gotten as far as Bitcoin has, in terms of both usage and how seriously it is taken.

Does that mean you cannot make money off it. No. You can certainly make money off it. That said, you can make money off how a bunch of horses are going to run on a given day too.

Does that mean you cannot pay for things with it? No. You can certainly pay for many things using it. Does that mean it is as good as the USD. No, it is not.

The true genius in Bitcoins lie in tapping into the Matrix-esque narrative that you are empowering every wannabe-Neo out there; which almost every nerd secretly aspires to be.

What that narrative misses out on is that, at a global level, any abstraction (currency, political boundaries, taxation) is already mainstream. By the time you make something niche acceptable by everyone, you have already inherited all the good and bad of something that is mainstream.
Does he own any stock of Simple?
He is in US now.
Most people neither love nor hate "government" particularly, rather, they take it for granted as an essential feature of society and have preference for what it does and does not do.

There are some people who are genuinely anti-government, and more people who are against government doing particular, broadly popular things and find it easier to adopt a rhetorical "anti-government" stance in advocating against these function than to advocate against them specifically.

On the other side, people rarely -- either honestly or as rhetorical cover for another position -- advocate for government qua government, rather than for particular government action. This suggests that people tend to have a, if any opinion on government as a general thing, a negative opinion, which can be more positive when it comes to particular government actions.
so the winner is allowed to remain completely anonymous, receiving 200k usd payment in btc?
IMO, what gets people raging against bitcoin (me included), is that it has "that smell".

By this I mean a certain likeness to many other speculative schemes that came before. I remember reading somewhere that Groucho Marx had lost a significant portion of his assets in the stock market in the 20s, because he had invested without knowing what he was doing at a time when everybody was investing without knowing what they were doing.

The tone of much of the writings these days that push Bitcoins leads me to believe that we might be heading in a similar direction with Bitcoin. Now imagine yourself in the position of a person that thinks as I do. Wouldn't you say that some of the hurrah-praise of Bitcoin in technology corner to me might reek of hubris?

Too many people wanting to get rich quick. Too much fluctuation. Too much speculation.
Some super computer says cool.
Central banks can and do protect people from disasters. Since the inception of the Federal Reserve in the US, there have been three really disruptive crises: The Great Depression, 1970s stagflation, and the 2008 collapse. Action by the Fed cured stagflation (with a short-term induced recession - thanks to Paul Volcker's leadership and Reagan's support of him in the face of a hostile Congress), and the Fed's short-term intervention into the unsecured loans market kept the capital contraction of the CDO collapse from taking countless other businesses down with it.
I'm sure you are right and I didn't mean any disrespect. Just a casual observation.
Show me the legal sectors powered by the bitconomy. Show me the heavy industry, the agriculture, the medicine, the consumer.

Show me the percent of BTC transactions used for actual business that a middle-class or poor person would conduct.

As it stands, the impression is just of a huge virtual casino, where you are at the table with either crazies or sharks from investing firms.
At least they'll put their money where their mouth is. I'm excited to see someone call out the naysaying masses on HN and stand by their product in this regard.
I think it's a very interesting question to ask how a community as smart as the SV hacker crowd can be so fundamentally blind about basic economics that we have known for centuries

Oh, it happens all the time. Smart people are blinded by ego & overconfidence in their own intelligence. It's sort of like Dunning-Kruger for smart people.
Step 4 is not guaranteed. Progress often ends at step 3.
It's really interesting, funny and ironic that in a liberal, pro-tax-the-hell-out-of-everyone, government-knows-best state the best tool they can think of to entice businesses to set roots in the state is the elimination of income tax. Friggin hilarious. I almost got happy thinking that they started to understand but quickly realized it's a bait-and-switch. They are going to shaft these businesses one way or the other eventually and most-certainly after the ten year mark passes.
I thought ideas are worthless? Why would you take the time to write that question out. it's like asking if you can breathe air - GO AHEAD. when something is worthless, it's impossibly unspeakably stupid to do a search for it.
> Bittorrent is certainly ubiquitous but its major use is still an illegal one; the analogous outcome for bitcoin would be one where its primary transactional value is on SilkRoad-like sites.

That's not a good analogy, at least for me, because I think that copyright protection should not exist and that all drugs should be legal to buy, sell, consume, and manufacture.
I know.
Doesn't mean I have to like it though.
"how dare any Bitcoin advocate take moral ground against a system that, whatever its flaws, protects its community from the disasters Bitcoin repeatedly faces?"

Until bitcoin stops being opt-in, I don't see the problem.

Bitcoin is too unstable for me, and I am not interested in using it as a way to invest my money (either high risk, or as a hypothetical low-risk investment). Therefore, I do not own any bitcoin, and never have^. Nevertheless, it is no skin off my back if others decide that they do want to use bitcoin.

^ Actually, I think I may have gotten a tenth of one from a facet a few years ago... can't really remember. Can't be arsed to look around to see if I did.
I suppose the intensity is interesting, but I'm not crazy about focusing fully on the tone of an argument. You didn't set aside the contents of the article for a moment, you completely set them aside to make a point about tone.
The Great Depression was caused by a 40% reduction in the money supply following a decade of easy money fed policies (the "roaring 20s"). It is no coincidence that shortly after the federal reserve was created we had the biggest bubble/crash in American financial history.

In any case, regulation is force. What if some people want to take on greater risk (as you see it) and engage in unstable speculative investment? They should have that right.
There currently seems to be no shortage of startups in NYC, even without these tax breaks. And if a company only comes to NY because of the tax breaks, they might leave when the tax breaks expire.
Bitcoin was never meant to be an investment vehicle. Anyone who has paid any attention to Bitcoin should be worried about its high "valuation" and high volatility.

I've always thought the biggest problem (long term) with Bitcoin is the hard limit of the number of coins out there. This encourages hoarding. Which in itself causes all kinds of structural problems. A vibrant economy hoarding does not make.
yeah whoever figures out how to have brokers not be sleaze balls is gonna make money. My view on the have/have not of a broker is that if you are buying you wanna make sure your property will increase in value so you need someone that really knows the area OR do a truckload of research yourself. Also the seller will probably pay the broker so it is a win-win for the buyer...
HN is run by YC. While it may feel like a public forum, it is owned by a private entity. I'm OK with a benevolent dictator taking care of matters here, and trust PG to do the right thing by all of us.
Fixed issue quickly?? Let's do an experiment -- I setup a page somewhere online and you transfer $35,000 of your own dollars. Then you wait 5 days for me to transfer them back (maybe). Will see how your stomach will handle that...

You clearly have some agenda for saying things you say. Noone is that stupid.
Elance and oDesk Team Up to Dominate Freelancer Market.
Banking is the most heavily regulated industry there is. Regulators have offices inside banks, yet it didn't prevent 2008, HSBC and every other billion-dollar scandal.
I've seen something along this line before - but this article is dated for Yesterday.

https://github.com/iafan/Hacksby found via hnsearch.com but I don't think that's where I saw the details last time.

There's this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4984100 too - about open-source furby-like projects.
Certainly you also can't assume that a recording of a sound played via crappy laptop speakers will even closely resemble the original waveform. Playing back (distortion by differing air pressure etc) and recording (environment & A/D noise anyone?) will completely distort it.
Bitcoin doesn't need credibility. It just needs to work. Hype and speculators are a natural product of the energy gathering around the massive technical innovation and corresponding social movement that is Bitcoin.
I just want to point out that there are large portions of New York that are not New York City
I don't think they are intentionally trying to mislead people to favour Bitcoin.
Hey Brian. Appreciate your response and explanation. When you come up for air, would love to see a blog post about the issue and some thoughts on monitoring for such failures. I've run into this type of problem before in architecture.
You are really thanking them for that?
Why Chaz Wears Cheetah Print
Is that $200,000 in BTC valued at the time that the award will be given, or valued now? With the way things are going, not sure which would be better...
wow. easy money certainly didn't help, but wow. banks that are too big too fail are a natural outcome of the free-market. It takes government regulation to prevent their formation, or that failing, to at least limit their risk-taking behavior once they become vital to the world economy. you twice cite the moral hazard that allowed them to over-leverage, but completely ignore that regulations were removed or relaxed that prevented this, and then state lack of regulation as a minor part of the problem.
Claiming that the NSA scandal is the primary reason for the Saab win is an overly US-centric view.

From TFA: "Until earlier this year, Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet had been considered the front runner... "The NSA problem ruined it for the Americans," a Brazilian government source said on condition of anonymity."

Does it remain a "US-centric view" when Brazil is the party saying, "Because NSA"?
Quick comment on Edit2: very nice of Coinbase to do this; and I can be almost certain that it would NEVER happen with a normal bank. Brian, well played. Keep up the good work.
Do I need to quote their homepage? "Hook up your bank account to start buying and selling bitcoin in minutes. It’s that easy."