Blockheads bork Bitcoin Foundation board election Those with doubts about Bitcoin's viability have some new ammunition, after the Bitcoin Foundation fluffed a board election it tried to run using its own technology. News of the election emerged last December and voting eventually generated the need for a run-off election to determine final winners. That election didn't get …
Yet another group of computer wizards finding out they need to hire competent professionals for a separate area of expertise. Always fear engineers who think that just because they can analyze the environmental forces, span requirements and loading calculations, create the plans and spec the materials for building a bridge, that knowledge confers on them the ability to do the ironwork, pour the concrete, run the crane or any other number of items necessary to create the finished work.
I'm not sure the term "wizards" applies here after looking over the board.... but have an upvote for understanding the process.
Let's add a step... just because you can draw a pretty building and have the "proper politics" doesn't confer knowledge of environmental forces, span requirements and loading calculations, create the plans and spec the materials for building a bridge. Then the engineers come into play..
Am I the only one that thinks Bitcoin has already had its day?
As a get-rich quick scheme it has worked for a few people and burnt the fingers of many more. The design itself is deeply flawed, for example the ever-growing blockchain, the computationally-intensive mining, the inbuilt deflationary supply restriction and poor liquidity in exchanges. It is destined to be no more than a technological curiosity.
Tim Brown 1,
I don't think you're the only one who doesn't see Bitcoin lasting. A quick check on Bitcoincharts.com suggests that the price has now fallen to about $250, from that brief insanity in December 2013, when they were trading at $1,100 odd.
Daily trading volume seems to be a bit down as well, but there are far more days where trading spikes, which I guess would explain the increased price volatility. 5,000 - 10,000 transactions a day still seems to be normal, though many of those are not even for single Bitcoins. I remember checking once, and one transaction for 0.1 BTC moved the global price by over $1. Thus the volatility of Bitcoins still exceeds the transaction costs of traditional payment methods.
However, it's survived a few medium-to-big scandals and a steady 2 year decline in price, and people still seem to use it. So I guess, like the euro, it's eventually doomed - but eventually could be a long time.
... and I said it to Orville: That thing will never get off the ground, so why bother trying in the first place?
Or perhaps "Some said that even the trees were a mistake and we should never have left the oceans".
We learn by *trying things*. Maybe they work, maybe they won't, but until we try we'll never know.
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