While it's not obvious to people now, in the long-run, the permissionless innovation that Bitcoin enables will ultimately improve the lives of billions of people.
The Internet will continue to be valuable so long as it is the most efficient mechanism for transferring data. Bitcoin's value is the same: It will remain as long as it is the most efficient mechanism for transferring ownership.
People wanted Bitcoin to live so much, they basically willed it back into existence. That showed me how passionate this community was about it.
Bitcoin has so much potential, and that's why the believers are trying to facilitate its use as a currency, so people use to buy things and spread it around more.
I don't think it's any sort of stretch of the imagination to say that, very, very realistically, each single bitcoin, if bitcoin becomes popular, will have to be worth at least tens of thousands of dollars.
Isn't the purpose of bitcoin mining simply to get rich - or not, as the case may be? Well, at 21, we are less concerned with bitcoin as a financial instrument and more interested in bitcoin as a protocol - and particularly in the industrial uses of bitcoin enabled by embedded mining.
A new product, technology, or innovation - such as Bitcoin - has the potential to give rise both to frauds and high-risk investment opportunities. Potential investors can be easily enticed with the promise of high returns in a new investment space and also may be less skeptical when assessing something novel, new, and cutting-edge.
What's really happening is that every bank in the country is experimenting with the blockchain and experimenting with bitcoin to figure out where the value is. For the first time ever, they're working hand in hand with startups. Banks are asking startups for help to build products.
Assess Bitcoins? All you can do is examine the trading patterns, which do not provide a real analysis of any underlying economic value. The economics of investments are not solely based on supply and demand, and that is all that goes into Bitcoin prices.
I saw Bitcoin as an actual market opportunity: as a trillion-dollar marketplace with long-term potential.
It is possible that Bitcoin will fork at some point. The question is whether or not it'll be a contentious fork. This process is a good thing in the long term, though potentially disruptive in the short term.
The main event isn't bitcoin. It's using the blockchain to disrupt other industries and Wall Street.
Taxes have been complicated. Every single time I spend a Bitcoin, it's a taxable event. It's like I bought and sold an asset. It counts as an investment, with a short- or long-term capital gain or loss.
Most people hoard their money - just keep it in the bank. Bitcoin will really take off when people start spending it, creating a velocity of money.
Bitcoin has been described as a decentralized, peer-to-peer virtual currency that is used like money - it can be exchanged for traditional currencies such as the U.S. dollar or used to purchase goods or services, usually online. Unlike traditional currencies, Bitcoin operates without central authority or banks and is not backed by any government.
Tokenization applies to scarce assets. Today, the most appropriate thing to tokenize is something that's purely digital. Bitcoin and ethereum are the canonical.
We want enough people adopting Bitcoin for a robust infrastructure. It's an act of patriotism. It gives the country a robust parallel system.