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Originally Posted by Carl Johnson
Mt Gox might be just one exchange but it definitely did exposed the institutional weakness with bitcoin and the communities around it.
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And what is this weakness you're speaking of? People losing money with the Gox debacle had more to do with Gox's incompetence and the people's failure to recognize said incompetence than it does with Bitcoin itself. It's been known for long time that Gox carried a systemic risk and this latest incident wasn't the first time something's gone wrong within Gox. Is it Bitcoin's fault that the people who used Gox failed their due diligence to keep their money off a centralized exchange like Bitcoin 101 suggested? That's like getting a speeding ticket and turning around and suing your car manufacturer for making your car too fast.
If anything, I think this Gox incident will be good for Bitcoin and will help it grow. Once you weed out the bad apples and let the free market learn its lessons, it'll be hard pressed to repeat these type of operations again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl Johnson
However the important part with bitcoin is the volatility. If I send my friend some US dollar, that friend can be assured that the value of the US dollar will not change very much at all day-to-day or week-to-week. The same thing can't be said for bitcoin because ultimately you still have to convert it back real currency to make purchases.
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I only gave you that example because you said Fiat is so much more superior due to its transparency and ease of use. True, volatility is a concern right now. And again, I'll bring you back to the argument that Bitcoin has only been in the mainstream's attention for a bit over a year. Of course it's going to be volatile, but, as the market grows, this volatility will get smaller and smaller and the example I made earlier about the remittance advantage will come full circle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl Johnson
What is the future road map for bitcoin? Unless you have Google, Amazon, or someone who can throw their weight behind this, I can't see this thing take off in a major way. Currently, bitcoin is just a niche for the enthusiasts.
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I'm glad you asked because the road map is vast and complex.
Bitcoin, as the mainstream understands it, is just a currency. However, the more complex iceberg that's underneath, which is what people in the know are actually more excited about, is the Bitcoin protocol and network.
For example, with the protocol, Bitcoin has the ability to implement an escrow service directly into its transactions by requiring third-party keys in order to execute a certain transaction. You can also turn transactions into a trust by setting certain transactions to unlock for a specific person only after a certain amount of time has passed. For the network, people are leveraging off of it and building interesting applications such as notary services, uncensored domains, and secure messaging services.
And this is only the very beginning of what's possible. Like I mentioned before about Netflix, nobody really knows how far this rabbit hole will go. However, by leveraging the protocol and network, the possibilities are basically endless for programmers and entrepreneurs to play with and build things that weren't possible before.