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I can tell you my personal issues with bitcoin.

1) I'm still bitter I threw all mine away. I had a few hundred in the early days and thought, "this isnt going anywhere"....

2) I'm one of HN's resident conspiracy theorists, for lack of a better term, and bitcoin can be seen as a threat to freedom because for all the awesome things it is, it is not anonymous. This may seem innocuous at first, but if you subscribe to the globalist conspiracy view, one of the primary tenants of "their plan" involves cashless, digital only currecy easily tied to your personhood. In essence, I fear the future will be more totalitarian and dystopian than people realize, and digital currencies like bt seem ripe for abuse and use in such a system.

3) Along the same lines as 2, I feel like once banks start getting into bitcoin heavily, despite its theoretical mechanisms to prevent it, the banks will find a way to corrupt and control the system. The community has already experienced the first attempts in the form of the huge first price inflation.

4) Another problem with bitcoin is that it requires good cybersecurity, which we all know is much more rare than anyone wants to admit. It's ripe for mass thefts. Once that wallet is gone, not much can be done.

Ok, thats most of it, now I have to say that I understand there are many "ifs" in what I am saying, but to me the threats are real. I still will use bitcoin for the time being anyway, and there are many good things about it and other *coins, but you didnt ask what I liked, you asked what I dont like.

On that note, blockchain technology independent of bitcoin I expect to be a huuge hit. Blockchain all the things!




Can you recommend a good introductory book into the blockchain?


Although I haven't personally read it, everything Andreas Antonopoulos does is great and this seems to have received very favorable feedback from the bitcoin community. http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Unlocking-Digital-Cr...


There are no efficiencies to blockchain. That technology is 100% hype


Blockchain isn't about "effeciencies" anyway. It's about a verifiable record, and the key is that it's a decentralized verifiable record. I would appreciate further elaboration about this "hype".


I actually haven't read much more than academic papers, but I do plan on ordering this book: http://www.amazon.com/Blockchain-Revolution-Technology-Chang...


Both the developer guide and developer reference under https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-documentation. Deep reading but you will really understand the subject afterwards.




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