That four-year-old submission has just two comments: one expressing doubt, one expressing optimism.<p>Interestingly, despite growing worldwide adoption of Bitcoin, comments about it on HN continue to be more or less evenly split between doubters and optimists. And I wouldn't be surprised if comments to <i>this</i> submission are evenly split between those same two camps.<p>No amount of evidence or reasoning seems to persuade either camp to change its views!
Here's the first popular post (with 20+ comments) referencing Bitcoin on HN:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1532670" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1532670</a> - <i>Bitcoin P2P Cryptocurrency | 1217 days ago | 24 comments</i><p>Some other early, popular posts about Bitcoin:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1942708" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1942708</a> - <i>Imagine your computer as a wallet full of Bitcoins| 1088 days ago | 36 comments</i><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1998144" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1998144</a> - <i>How to Get Started with Bitcoins | 1072 days ago | 47 comments</i>
"Why did you buy a bitcoin?" "Because I don't want to enter too late!"<p>The absolute problem with bitcoin is, is that it cannot be used as a currency. If one bitcoin can buy you one "x" today, two "x" tomorrow and in a week only half an "x", what is the point of spending it? Its value fluctuates way too much and that's why so many people are getting on board. They want to be in the elevation towards another all time high.<p>I am not saying that Bitcoin does not have a future, but key in this future is that all those investors and startups on the get-rich-quick-with-a-very-high-potential-to-loose-a-lot-scheme have to abandon ship. The value of Bitcoin has to <i>stabilize</i> because at this point it is not a viable currency. Currently it is just an asset so many people are interested in, which drives the price only further up.<p>As soon as it stabilizes or drops we will see what it will d o with Bitcoin its popularity and acceptance for other goods and services.
It's really not fair to dig these things up and call people haters for doubting it.<p>I bet the list of failed companies and "haters" who called it accurately is much much bigger.<p>Although I do like the nostalgic value of these posts.
Can someone explain how the idea that every single transaction has to be stored in the ledger is scalable? Won't wider adoption mean that the ledger grows even quicker, to the point where it makes using btc harder and harder?
and let's revisit this discussion 5 years from now.<p>right now there is so much fluctutation within BC it might as well be tulips. maybe it will become a stable currency, maybe it won't.
It just shows that many people are quick to be negative and for some reason unwilling to consider alternative possibilities.<p>Remember that negative and critical viewpoints are normally perceived to be from the the more intelligent person. Unfortunately people who are more accepting of new and novel ideas can at first seem like the less intelligent of the group. (Probably because they are not quick to dismiss and put down a thing, and thus have less to say at first glance)<p>The only solution is to think for yourselves and research the positions presented.
Mark my words: The US regulators will do to Bitcoin what they have done to the Internet ecommerce, i.e. providing strong incentives like reduced taxes and simplified rules.<p>There are plenty of new bitcoin merchant and users every day and the USA won't stand while the rest of the world adopts THE next store of value/currency/commodity/new category.
Perhaps it was posted during wrong time of the day or was crowd power pointed to front page.<p>It is also possible that people here on HN do not have enough intuition about ideas, which could possibly change the world just like bitcoin is doing it right now. It's fun to read retrospective posts here on HN, but apparently innovation starts elsewhere..
jdoliner's comment is interesting, because it's almost true. At the time, hardly anyone could find faith in the currency. But what he failed to understand that if "someone" could find faith in the currency, then others would follow.<p>It's an interesting property of markets that they can seemingly boostrap themselves, just so long as there is support during the initial growth stage. You don't have to believe in Bitcoins to trade in them, you just have to believe someone wants them. This might be why black markets and transaction privacy are so essential to making the currency work. Since there are a large number of people who need to make their payments private, the rest of the market believes that the currency has intrinsic value in its exclusivity in certain transactions.
What google-fu did you use to find the first post on bitcoin on HN?<p>I am asking, because I tried to find the first post on reddit.com (obviously before /r/bitcoin was created) and couldn't really retrieve anything useful.<p>I was searching by date ranges on site:reddit.com and was getting user profiles not posts.
How many people had the slightest clue that books would be replaced by Kindles, CDs by iPODs, tablets selling as much as laptops. The comments show that people underestimated the impact bitcoin would make.<p>I still believe its just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Bitcoin.
Very telling, a reply of a sceptic and of a dreamer, everyone else just ignored.<p>I wish I could be such a dreamer, capable to understand the idea and its potential and have a bit of drive and courage to give it a try.
This one has a more interesting discussion: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1532670" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1532670</a>
> jdoliner 1655 days ago | link<p>>Well this is an exceptionally cute idea, but there is absolutely no way that anyone is going to have any faith in this currency.<p>> joedoliner.com jdoliner@gmail.com <a href="https://twitter.com/jdoliner" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/jdoliner</a>