[HN Gopher] Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into ...
___________________________________________________________________
Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto
Author : koolba
Score : 69 points
Date : 2021-02-16 12:40 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| bobm_kite9 wrote:
| What about the 51% attack problem? Why doesn't this matter? Can
| someone explain how this currency is a good bet when there is
| this seemly huge gaping hole in the system. Honest question!
| noneeeed wrote:
| I only keep half an eye on bitcoin, so I'm a bit out of the loop.
|
| Was there some thing (or things) that happend in October/November
| that started the most recent growth in price? It seems to have
| bounced around $5-10k for over a year and then in early october
| just started to take off and is now 4-5x that and not showing any
| signs of stopping. I heard about the Tesla thing, but that was
| very recent. What did I miss?
| Geee wrote:
| There was halving event last spring, when the Bitcoin supply
| was cut in half, which happens every 4 years. Historically,
| Bitcoin price has been following the stock-to-flow model
| https://digitalik.net/btc/
|
| In the fall, Paypal adopted Bitcoin in their payment network.
| noneeeed wrote:
| Thanks, I'd missed the PayPal news.
| TeeWEE wrote:
| Bitcoin itself has its value, but the current price surge is a
| bubble, it can be easily explained why the growth is exponential:
|
| 1. BTC price increases
|
| 4. There is media attention about the price raise
|
| 5. More people buy BTC, because FOMO
|
| 6. Back to point 1, but now a bigger group
|
| This loop is a pump, increasing the price as long as the loop
| isn't broken.
|
| The same pump can reverse, very quickly. Once the loop is pumping
| there is no way out.
|
| 1. BTC price drops
|
| 2. There is news out that that the price drops
|
| 3. More people sell bitcoin
|
| 4. Back to point 2, but now a bigger group
|
| The fact that there is a limited supply will ensure the prices
| keeps raising, because nobody can "make more bitcoin"..
|
| But this part of the BTC system causes it volatility, it's
| inherently baked into the system.
|
| It's not the underlying performance of bitcoin, or the profit the
| system is making. Its pure viral loops logic that cause pumps and
| dumps.
|
| You can impact it, if you hold a lot of assets. Just PUMP or DUMP
| a lot. It triggers a pump in the direction of your choosing.
|
| Next to that, ETH is a factor better in design and utility, and
| still the price is lower. Why? Cause there is less news about it.
| Not because BTC is a better product.
| audunw wrote:
| > The fact that there is a limited supply will ensure the
| prices keeps raising, because nobody can "make more bitcoin"..
|
| This is a common claim, but nothing is ensured here.
|
| Almost everything else we put a value to has a more real
| underlying value that's also growing. Gold has uses in
| technology, with stocks most companies have real assets that
| could be sold off, even with art I think most people would be
| willing to buy an art-piece for the right price. The value of a
| Monet for me might be a tiny fraction of its valuation, but
| it's there. But nobody has any underlying interest in a
| Bitcoin. Its value as a currency for paying for products and
| services seems to be diminishing as well.
|
| You can't make more Bitcoin, but you can easily make more
| cryptocurrencies, all with the same limited supply (which
| according to some people means the value MUST increase). And
| they're all equally interesting. The one exception with Bitcoin
| is that it was first. You could say it has a tiny bit of
| underlying historical value.
|
| To me, I think it implies that it's inevitable that Bitcoin
| will have a crash that's very deep and very long lasting. It's
| impossible to predict when though. In the very long term it'll
| probably increase due to hits historical value. But by that
| point I doubt it'll significantly outperform other investments.
|
| I also think there's a very high likelihood that many
| governments will regulate cryptocurrency exchanges to death at
| some point. A rally against Bitcoin specifically can easily be
| justified as part of the fight against climate change, since it
| wastes so much energy.
| BenoitEssiambre wrote:
| It's a bit worrisome that we are inching towards the scenario
| where companies may be tempted at an economy wide scale to reduce
| investment in production in order to hoard cryptocoins instead.
| It caused the great depression when businesses switched to
| hoarding gold tied currency instead of producing in the 1930s.
|
| Now I'm not sure that crypto coins without being jacked up by
| central banks (like gold was during the great depression) are a
| powerful enough force to cause the type of havoc that gold did.
|
| Then again, the potentially stronger network/memetic effects of
| cryptocoins, along with the amplification factor from markets
| being synchronized through instant all-encompassing global
| communications nowadays might make them dangerous to the economy
| even without central bank involvement. We saw how much people can
| get hypnotized by these things during the Gamestop episode. I
| don't think unsophisticated investors' hoarding is enough to
| cause big problems but it is a bit unsettling that Tesla and
| other companies are jumping on the cryptocoin train. If enough
| businesses follow suit, you get into scary territory (It would
| also be worrisome if companies widely moved to add billions in
| gold to their balance sheet but I thought the lesson had been
| learned in the 1930s with gold).
|
| In theory, if central banks stay stimulative enough through all
| this, you can have growth in both crypto and businesses. As long
| as these central banks don't blink at the sight of what may look
| like crypto bubbles.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > It's a bit worrisome that we are inching towards the scenario
| where companies may be tempted at an economy wide scale to
| reduce investment in production
|
| Yes, fully agree. But then ask yourself: aside from COVID, who
| created the economic conditions that lead corporations to
| decide that stashing treasury as Bitcoin is better than
| investing in the "productive" part of the economy.
|
| QE, interests rates at near zero, corporate bonds near
| worthless, stock market at stratospheric 2000-like levels, real
| estate easily taxed to death ... how do you protect your
| treasury other than stashing it in hard assets (crypto, gold,
| commodities)?
| BenoitEssiambre wrote:
| The important thing for the aggregate economy is that when
| people want "hard assets", that these assets can tangibly
| support future consumption, not just something everybody
| hopes to trade later for consumption but real stuff such as
| businesses, inventory, production capacity etc. When too many
| people hoard pure financial promises or crypto tokens and all
| believe that it's true wealth, bad things happens. People
| indirectly owe each other all their savings.
| BenoitEssiambre wrote:
| >QE, interests rates at near zero, corporate bonds near
| worthless, stock market at stratospheric 2000-like
| levels...
|
| To be clear, the above is good, if interest rates on
| government paper were above risk adjusted market returns
| for new capital this would gridlock the economy. Stock
| market being high incentivizes creating new capital.
|
| > how do you protect your treasury other than stashing it
| in hard assets (crypto, gold, commodities)?
|
| The government should not create artificial assets that
| "protects" wealth from being subject to the real economy
| because people divesting from the economy destroys the
| economy.
|
| Now there is a question whether the market will choose to
| go into crypto and divest from the real economy anyways.
| The reason this is a question is that people have been
| known to pile into bubbles in the past, and this is the
| tricky part, on some level they are not totally irrational
| in doing so. To the individual, being early in a long
| running bubble is advantageous. When you do it, and do it
| first, you gain. Everybody doing it however, may cost you
| and your friends, family's and everybody's careers.
|
| It's a prisoner's dilemma, a bad Nash equilibrium. It's
| Moloch.
| esotericn wrote:
| Well, I don't know about where you are, but over in the UK the
| Government isn't doing us any favours on this front.
|
| We've just been through a year of businesses being forced to
| close whilst their landlords continue to collect rent, and
| everyone seems to think this is cool.
|
| In that sort of environment, it's far more logical for me to
| just buy hard assets and sit on them; it's been made very clear
| that we're going to just force that to be the winning side of
| the trade via legislation.
| seibelj wrote:
| Bitcoin still isn't worth $1 trillion, which is the value of one
| large tech company. I think bitcoin is useful and important
| enough to be worth several large tech companies. Therefore, not
| selling! Onward to 100k.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| It has been climbing pretty nicely: assetdash.com.
| orange_tee wrote:
| > I think bitcoin is useful and important enough to be worth
| several large tech companies.
|
| My thought experiment to verify this is simple: Tomorrow
| bitcoin disappears. What happens? Tomorrow FAANG disappears,
| what happens? I don't think it is controversial to say that
| Bitcoin is NOT as impactful as you are stating. Of course lots
| of money will be lost, but practically no industry is dependent
| on Bitcoin so the rest of the world will not notice. So then I
| am not sure how you can say Bitcoin is so valuable.
| warrenmiller wrote:
| When it hits around $54k it will be worth a trillion so give it
| a few minutes :)
| warrenmiller wrote:
| ...also worth more than Tesla currently
| eterm wrote:
| > many crypto investors to believe the latest bull run is
| different
|
| "This time it's different" isn't an argument I find compelling
| for why something that is known to have bubbles and manipulation
| isn't in a bubble.
| seibelj wrote:
| I agree, GME was bad enough but no way I'll touch TSLA.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| TSLA is high now, it might go higher but it's past peak hype
| at this point so even if you jump in now, you might end up
| with 2x your investment if it keeps going, but not 10 or
| 100x.
| sky_rw wrote:
| TSLA has been at peak hype for 5+ years.
| saalweachter wrote:
| I am as skeptical of TSLA as the next fellow, but at least
| the company can capitalize on its rising stock price to
| convert it into physical infrastructure that provides a
| certain floor to the company value.
| 1996 wrote:
| For 12 years, just bubbles? First it was over 1 cent, then over
| $1, over $1000, now over $50k.... when will you consider the
| possibility you may have been wrong? At $100k? At $1M? (which
| most models indicate as a plausible target price in 10 years)
|
| Let me give you my favorite quote, pulled from another HNer
| comment: "I enjoy reading comments about Bitcoin here because
| even without any venture backing, it achieved a bigger
| valuation than all of the Y Combinator companies COMBINED, yet
| people still think it is unstable and has no future."
| Ologn wrote:
| > First it was over 1 cent, then over $1, over $1000, now
| over $50k.... when will you consider the possibility you may
| have been wrong? At $100k? At $1M? (which most models
| indicate as a plausible target price in 10 years)
|
| This is the wrong metric. A million dollar market cap bubble
| is not hard to sustain, even a billion dollar market cap is a
| footnote to the rest of the economy. The entire worth of
| Bitcoin is still less than half of the worth of the market
| cap of one company such as Apple. At some point it becomes
| large enough that its real value has to be considered, which
| in my opinion is zero.
|
| Stocks like pets.com had long runs in 2000, subprime
| mortgages had long runs in 2008 and people were saying then
| what you are saying.
|
| Stocks and real estate are frothy now so Bitcoin and Dogecoin
| have company. I would rather own a house than 10 bitcoins
| though.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Plenty of venture dollars have been invested in bitcoin
| related services, or even just used to buy bitcoin directly.
|
| It's not really the same relationship as investment in a
| company, but it's not absent either.
| seibelj wrote:
| Traditional VC is a red flag for me to avoid a project
| given they are dumb money. Crypto VC is a different story
| though, they can be very helpful. And they are 100% nothing
| alike so if you are reading this thing crypto VC is just
| like traditional VC "except crypto!" you are very mistaken.
| seibelj wrote:
| My crypto friends have raised millions outside of VC and then
| became very rich once their projects launched basically over
| night. Liquid immediately and never paid a lawyer.
|
| Truly is a paradigm shift and I think a big problem on HN is
| that VC can't see they are being disrupted and have no way of
| avoiding it, plus they think they are untouchable geniuses,
| so being wrong this hard isn't pleasant for them.
| grapehut wrote:
| Another good example, one of the the then top HN users by
| karma:
|
| 2015: "Most advantages of Bitcoin which matter are captured
| by, and improved upon by, a LAMP app which simply holds
| account balances."
|
| 2019: "I acknowledge that when Bitcoin was $17 I said it had
| no use case, should be worthless, and likely would be at some
| point in the future. No evidence has come up which would make
| me change my view. (Though _my_ is it taking a while.) "
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _For 12 years, just bubbles?_
|
| Counterfactual: asset prices and incomes have been rising,
| almost uninterruptedly, for 12 years.
|
| Exhibit A is Tether being able to publicly admit that they
| don't have the cash they said they had and keep going.
| DSingularity wrote:
| Every time its something. Transaction malleability, segwit,
| tether, tether again. Something drummed up forcing people
| to fearfully sell their bitcoin.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| All the Y Combinator companies combined have created value.
|
| What has Bitcoin created?
|
| I struggle to come up with an answer which isn't
| overwhelmingly just a way to fund illicit activities, for
| which sure there's always been a market, but it's a far cry
| of it's origins. Who actually uses bitcoin for transactions
| today other than extortionists hackers and drug dealers?
| Everyone who owns is just planning to HODL and hope that it
| will become equivalent to an infinitely high fiat equivalent.
| Had bitcoin succeeded we wouldn't be talking about insane
| valuations. We would be using it every day no different from
| a credit card.
| r3dk1ng wrote:
| I am neither a drug dealer nor an extortionist. I used
| bitcoin to buy a router from Newegg a month ago.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| Then you're in the overwhelming minority of bitcoin
| users.
| akvadrako wrote:
| You paid a $20 transaction fee for a router?
| koolba wrote:
| > What has Bitcoin created?
|
| The biggest impact on the world from bitcoin's creation was
| not a democratization of finance, it was a widespread
| mechanism to facilitate payment of blackmail.
| marvin wrote:
| Bitcoin has pioneered a new asset class that can be
| transferred over the Internet and is not dependent on a
| central authority.
|
| I don't own any cryptocurrency and can't put a dollar
| valuation on such an achievement, but it's certainly not an
| everyday thing.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The value of a valuation may go down as well as up.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-valuation-
| falls-47-bi...
|
| (I don't think WeWork was YC, but it does drive home that
| achieving a valuation is primarily a reflection of your
| ability to convince investors to give you money)
| robjan wrote:
| Which models? The only thing I can find to support your claim
| is random people tweeting that they think it will be worth
| 1M. I guess when enough people say something it becomes a
| "fact"
| ur-whale wrote:
| >Which models
|
| Stock-to-flow is based on assumptions, but they're not
| unreasonable.
|
| The predictive power hasn't been half-bad either.
| intev wrote:
| Plan B's (in)famous model: https://digitalik.net/btc/
|
| Notice how the trend is eerily aligned? Just because you
| couldn't find it doesn't mean you have to be snarky about
| it.
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| What is payed for bitcoin has nothing to do with the value.
| When its worth $100k or 1M its just a bigger bubble.
| audunw wrote:
| > when will you consider the possibility you may have been
| wrong? At $100k? At $1M?
|
| Personally I think Bitcoin has at least two bubbles left
| before it pops permanently. So $1M price could be achievable.
|
| The real question is what happens when it does reach a
| ceiling. At some point there's not going to much more
| potential interest for Bitcoin, and what then? Are people
| gonna start moving their pension funds to Bitcoin? I think
| the governments will crack hard down on that, because you
| really want investments in building the economy, not in a
| pure investment/gambling scheme.
|
| If most people start thinking there's no one else interested
| in buying their Bitcoin down the line, it'll crash hard, and
| the crash will likely be permanent. Because there's no real
| value behind Bitcoin. The money you invested is already spent
| by someone on something else.
|
| The reason why it's interesting that Bitcoin keeps having
| bubbles is that there's not much reason to think that will
| stop. Yeah, the value keeps growing over longer time periods,
| but eventually a bubble will be so large that it'll seriously
| disrupt the economy, and that's when you'll start to see
| governments and peoples attitudes change.
|
| > I enjoy reading comments about Bitcoin here because even
| without any venture backing, it achieved a bigger valuation
| than all of the Y Combinator companies COMBINED, yet people
| still think it is unstable and has no future.
|
| The problem is that the valuation is more imaginary than the
| valuation of any company except for those that are just
| Ponzi-schemes.
|
| Most money put into Bitcoin has been cashed out or used for
| mining expenses. If everyone tried to cash out, the price
| would very quickly race back down to zero. If the same
| happened with a stocks in a corporation, at some price level
| someone would just buy up a controlling stake of the shares
| and liquidate all the assets for a profit.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > Because there's no real value behind Bitcoin
|
| You post was very interesting (what happens to Bitcoin when
| it becomes so big it's capable of tilting G7 type
| economies) up to the argument above, which is:
| a) wrong because Bitcoin does have some actual utility
| b) wrong because "value" is only something that carries any
| kind of meaning in a supply and demand framework c)
| parroting an argument that has been trumpeted on HN almost
| as much as "oooh, bad for the environment" and has also
| been thoroughly debunked.
| harporoeder wrote:
| This definitely seems like bubble territory, but on the other
| hand will the next crash follow the "this time it's different"
| line? Bitcoin has seen extreme price crashes many times and far
| exceeded the price later on. I doubt the likely next crash is
| somehow special.
| tomcooks wrote:
| If the phrase "diamond hands" became a meme is because those
| who just held their bags and ignored bubbles ended up with
| 40x gains in a couple of years
| 1996 wrote:
| I'm patiently waiting for the dismissals (it's just a fad like
| tulips or beanie babies), the negative permabulls (it's evil
| because people can use it to buy drugs / not pay taxes, it can't
| do as many TPS as Visa, it's bad for the environment...) while
| laughing all the way to the bank.
|
| Crypto is the HN equivalent of what the ipod was to Slashdot:
| "lame" to the people who think they are the typical user, who
| declare there is no product-market fit. Maybe after 12 years of
| being constantly proven wrong, it's time for the old guard to
| stop being luddites and concede it has been very wrong?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > while laughing all the way to the bank
|
| Cool. You got rich. Good for you.
|
| Why does that in any way make criticisms of environmental
| impact less legitimate? Loads of people have gotten rich off of
| systems that have unpriced negative externalities. You aren't
| the first.
|
| I hope that you use some of your newfound wealth to give to
| effective charities and help the world.
| seibelj wrote:
| Both nocoiners and coiners are locked into their positions so
| hard it's "I'll go down with the ship" at this point. At least
| one side gets to be rich though!
| kungito wrote:
| There is also my generation where we have only recently
| started earning money and thinking about these things,
| desperately leveraging FOMO and all the other factors, trying
| to enter the market a bit too late but still before the next
| crash, wondering whether we are already too late. You could
| say crypto is similar to GME, but with GME anyone
| knowledgeable could see that it's a pump and dump because the
| 300$ only made sense for a very short period of time because
| of the shorts, while the crypto future is unclear but very
| promising in many regards
| 1996 wrote:
| I know. I'm retired thanks to crypto. I'm glad I eventually
| saw how HN was wrong and learned from my mistakes. It did
| cost me bit of time-opportunity, but there's a point where
| you have "enough" and it's not worth chasing more money
| anymore.
| seibelj wrote:
| I considered retiring but it's too boring so I just keep
| working in crypto. I'm a workaholic by nature. Not having a
| boss is great though as it allows me true freedom and the
| ability to work strange hours.
| 1996 wrote:
| Same thing here: I don't have to work anymore but I chose
| to, with a bit of VC on the side. There are many
| interesting projects, and having full freedom is
| priceless!
|
| I try to favor project that only take crypto, not fiat,
| and price their products in crypto. I see that as an
| indicator of "understanding" the new wave.
| Drakim wrote:
| I kick myself over not putting more effort into getting
| bitcoins when I was first reading up on it. While I don't
| think I would retire, it would be nice to have the
| financial security to work on more meaningful but
| unprofitable projects rather than grinding my daily job.
| mrpopo wrote:
| > I'm retired thanks to crypto. I'm glad I eventually saw
| how HN was wrong
|
| I don't understand this argument. Becoming rich doesn't
| prove you right. A technology becoming popular doesn't make
| it good.
| DSingularity wrote:
| Really? Historically the consensus position on HN was
| that BTC and crypto is a short-term bubble for an asset
| class with no fundamental value. Seems to me that people
| becoming rich because the value of BTC has been going up
| forever is good enough proof that OP is right in swimming
| against the HN-current.
| mrpopo wrote:
| BTC going up doesn't mean it has fundamental value. It's
| a speculative asset with more and more people getting on
| board.
|
| Hedge fund managers are rich. TV personalities are rich.
| Many PhD students are poor.
|
| This is not people making the right decisions. This is
| concentration of money because of economy volatility.
| ur-whale wrote:
| Again, for the upteenth time: there is NO SUCH THING as
| "fundamental value".
|
| There is just one thing: supply and demand.
|
| The fact that demand might be powered by something some
| folks might consider "irrational" is _completely_
| irrelevant to the conversation.
| DSingularity wrote:
| What do you consider fundamental value? Seems to me that
| people are willing to pay 50,000$ a BTC and companies are
| willing to hoard it. How is that not evidence that it has
| value?
| mrpopo wrote:
| Regardless of whether you agree with all the evil stuff, the
| fact is that Bitcoin is generating a lot of noise, speculation,
| and wasting a bunch of energy for practically nothing.
|
| I know practically no one around me who has ever used Bitcoin
| for actual purchases other than buying drugs once. And I know
| literally no one who uses it in daily life. However I have a
| few dozen friends who bought Bitcoin because it's going to go
| to the moon or something.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > I know practically no one around me ...
|
| You need to travel and/or get out of your social bubble more.
|
| I've met folks who bought houses with Bitcoin and moved
| millions across "money transfer unfriendly" borders.
| mrpopo wrote:
| I've met folks who bought houses with fiat too. Moving
| millions across "money transfer unfriendly" borders sounds
| like money laundering to me.
| bhupy wrote:
| > ...for practically nothing
|
| > I know practically no one around me...
|
| I recommend reading a bit more about its use in countries
| with poor fiscal/monetary policy.
|
| https://qz.com/africa/1947769/nigeria-is-the-second-
| largest-...
| ur-whale wrote:
| Yeah, 100% with you here.
|
| I actually tremendously enjoy hearing a well constructed
| negative argument against Bitcoin/Crypto that presents a
| perspective I haven't heard a 100 times before and/or hasn't
| been debunked in depth.
|
| These are actually necessary given how new and different the
| whole shebang is.
|
| But that hasn't happened in a rather long time on HN, or if it
| has, it's buried 10 level of indent deep amongst HN randos
| parroting lame climate change arguments they've heard on reddit
| of FB.
| 1996 wrote:
| > I actually tremendously enjoy hearing a well constructed
| negative argument against Bitcoin/Crypto that presents a
| perspective I haven't heard a 100 times before and/or hasn't
| been debunked in depth.
|
| Me too! /r/Buttcoin is a nice place for that, but you must
| already know (as your nick looks familiar to me)
|
| My personal favorite well constructed new negative argument:
| like India and Nigeria, governments will try to ban crypto
| since it endangers their total control.
|
| It will come as a coordinated attack by OECD countries, who
| will need to inflate big time after Covid: they will ban all
| transactions to fiat accounts, and all exchanges on their
| territory.
|
| Counter argument: politicians (and the 1%) need to protect
| against inflation/taxations, so they may not all be in favor,
| and will leak the plan. It will cause a huge Streisand
| effect, as "there is no such thing as negative publicity":
| random Joes will buy crypto, making the plan politically
| undefensible.
| audunw wrote:
| > Counter argument: politicians (and the 1%) need to
| protect against inflation/taxations, so they may not all be
| in favor, and will leak the plan. It will cause a huge
| Streisand effect, as "there is no such thing as negative
| publicity": random Joes will buy crypto, making the plan
| politically undefensible.
|
| Uh, what? This makes zero sense. There is absolutely such a
| thing as negative publicity, especially if major
| governments threaten to effectively wipe out the value of
| Bitcoin.
|
| You could just as easily see a large fraction of the
| holders of Bitcoin try to cash out, to put into more safe
| investments while the situation stabilizes. This will
| probably create a crash, as Bitcoin is so prone to. More
| people will cash out. This will probably increase support
| for regulating or banning crypto exchanges. Some will
| already have cashed out, they're happy. Some of the ones
| that haven't will direct their anger against Bitcoin and
| support regulations. Some of the ones still holding will
| try to fight it, but they'll be in the minority. Most
| people who never invested will probably support bans ("I
| don't want to risk unwittingly getting hit by a crash like
| that in the future"). You'll probably have lots of
| emotional stories about grandpa losing all his savings in
| the media. I mean, we've seen this story over and over
| before in the stock markets. Someone figures out "get-rich-
| quick" schemes, they crash, people demand regulation. What
| makes anyone think that it'll be any different with
| cryptocurrencies once they become big enough?
|
| I think it'd be absolutely reasonable to require exchanges
| to guarantee that there's X% of reserves behind any
| cryptocurrency it trades. That'll probably kill Bitcoin,
| since you'd probably want to build such a requirement into
| the implementation of the currency. And it'll probably put
| a big damper on the growth of the conforming
| cryptocurrencies.
| Jochim wrote:
| I'm interested in what you find lame about the climate change
| arguments?
|
| They seem fairly appealing to me, cryptocurrency is a
| fraction of the size of current payment processors and is
| already consuming a small country's worth of power. How much
| more power will it consume if scaled further? How will power
| efficiency strategies affect the utility of the network?
|
| I think there are some reasonable arguments for mining farms
| that draw from excess power during periods of low
| utilisation, but even that power seems like it could be put
| to more productive use.
| matwood wrote:
| Personally, I'm neutral to slightly bullish on crypto. It's
| reached mainstream and it looks like many companies are going
| to put a portion of their cash in BTC as an inflation hedge.
| The price will definitely fluctuate, but it does seem like a
| floor is being put in because of this move to the mainstream.
|
| So my advice on owing crypto, is own enough that if it goes
| parabolic you aren't kicking yourself later, but not so much
| that it breaks you if it goes to zero.
| NhanH wrote:
| I hold some amount of cryptocurrency. I am living in a country
| where some of the premise for cryptocurrency makes sense
| (strong capital control, banking and financial sector is ...
| questionable). And my intution likes the idea of
| cryptocurrency.
|
| But by far and large, there is no product-market fit still. And
| people are rational in being against it for various reason,
| please don't call them luddite.
|
| Personally, I'd still support crypto in the same way I'd
| support FSF (though much less of a support, just for
| clarification!). Because I think there is something there with
| the idea, and I like the principles. But there is a high chance
| the detractors are correct in their assessment.
| Jochim wrote:
| That enough people have bought into the idea doesn't change the
| merits or issues that lead people to take their position on it
| in the first place. I didn't like the original iPod, I still
| don't, a lot of people did and do. I don't think either group
| is "wrong", just that we each value things differently.
|
| The same applies to Bitcoin. It doesn't offer me any tangible
| benefits over traditional currency and it has some major
| drawbacks in areas that I value. The only reason I would
| purchase is if I felt like gambling on speculation.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Whilst I think bitcoin will be around long term, it will be in
| somewhat of a precarious position once the proof of stake and
| high TPS blockchains start gathering steam.
|
| Sticking with PoW long term is my only concern about Bitcoins
| ability to remain relevant.
|
| I'm more bullish on Ethereum, pending successful transition to
| V2. Also bullish on some of the emerging competitors to
| Ethereum; heterogeneity provides a healthier ecosystem.
| exabrial wrote:
| Pretty hard to take "green" companies seriously when they're
| promoting the environmental disaster that is Bitcoin.
|
| At some point, someone needs to step in and say "no more mining".
| doggosphere wrote:
| 73% of mining is renewable energy
|
| https://pd.coinshares.com/EN-Mining-Whitepaper-December-2019
| Geee wrote:
| We're truly witnessing an extraordinary paradigm shift in human
| history.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Not really, crazy stock market events have been happening for a
| while now. like. nearly 400 years:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
| UncleMeat wrote:
| 99% of all news stories in major outlets written about BTC lead
| with "this is the price of BTC". Nothing about its use. BTC
| functions precisely as well if it is $10 per coin or $100,000
| per coin. Popular interest in BTC is almost entirely based on
| "I can get rich". That is certainly a thing. People have gotten
| rich and likely people will continue to get rich. But that's no
| paradigm shift.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| How so? Bitcoin's excitement comes entirely from its value in
| fiat, as opposed to regular usage in daily life.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Bitcoin as the gateway to Ethereum and the possibilities
| opened up by smart contacts such as the currently embryonic
| DeFi market.
|
| Paradigm shift isn't too strong a terminology.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| While ETH is cool technology, I haven't seen it impact my
| personal life in any way yet. That might just be my
| sheltered life though.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Even if you said Bitcoin hasn't affected your personal
| life you'd be in a vast majority, and Bitcoin has got a
| few years on Ethereum.
|
| It really is nascent; embryonic.
|
| Personally, I think it's future-defining technology
| that's being created, but it's a decade at least from
| reaching common acceptance and use. Cultural change is
| long and slow, it's one of those things that doesn't
| change until the status quo generations die off and are
| replaced, and there's a good couple of generations that
| don't even know of / care about / understand bitcoin
| nevermind smart contracts and decentralised finance. I
| don't understand the absolute fundamentals, but I
| understand the implications.
|
| Long term change, generationally slow migration.
| bhupy wrote:
| I've only just begun to wrap my head around all of this,
| and I tried playing with some of the DeFi lending
| platforms built on top of Ethereum.
|
| It has its kinks, but I think on the net it's a
| remarkably cool thing. I was able to lend $50
| (overcollateralized) at 12% APY without any central
| institution. The only real wrinkle has been the insane
| transaction fees: it cost me about $80 to execute the
| "smart contract" for the $50 12% APY loan. That said,
| this is a flat cost, and I can very much see the value in
| paying $80 in transaction costs to be able to lend
| $50,000 or $500,000 at 12% APY. It also very much feels
| like "mainframe" days of computing where everything was
| expensive and impractical, but it was just the beginning.
|
| For the time being, I continue to keep my money safely
| parked in index funds, but one can get a first hand look
| at the potential for Eth/DeFi by testing small(ish)
| transactions out.
| mrpopo wrote:
| That's so amazing to me. Most of the Bitcoin memes are about
| dudes who get rich selling half of their stash and buying a
| lambo with fiat.
|
| How is this gonna change human history more than dudes
| getting rich selling some stock?
| fogihujy wrote:
| This. Cryptocurrencies in general seem to have potential for
| being used in day-to-day transactions in the future, but
| Bitcoin itself mostly seem to be used to store value.
|
| The planned limit on the total amount of Bitcoin in
| circulation, transaction fees and long transaction times seem
| to be quite a blocker for using it to buy a cup of coffee.
| Geee wrote:
| Money has to be first established as a store of value,
| before it can be used as a medium of exchange. As Bitcoin
| finds a more stable price point, it will become more
| interesting as a medium of exchange and an unit of account.
| fogihujy wrote:
| Still, transaction times longer than a few seconds, and
| fees larger than a few cents puts Bitcoin in a worse
| position than regular Visa transactions/Bank transfers.
| Geee wrote:
| You can use Visa with Bitcoin:
| https://www.binance.com/en/cards
| tlb wrote:
| You could be excited about the purchasing power of 1 BTC
| being 100x what it was a few years ago. No fiat currency has
| ever deflated more than a tiny percentage in our lifetimes.
| [deleted]
| azinman2 wrote:
| So it sounds like lemming group think. It seems like someone one
| should hold "just in case," but no real valid reason to do so yet
| (that I've heard). We know transactions are slow and expensive,
| so it's not a good replacement for ordinary commerce. It can be
| used to transfer across borders, but there often is asymmetry in
| capital movement that makes this difficult in the places you need
| it most (poor countries with rapid inflation, who aren't buying
| Bitcoin but rather only selling), and it's often regulated such
| that it needs to be fully declared (removing the whole anti-gov
| part). It also lacks a lot of the controls that traditional banks
| have for good reasons, so fraud becomes harder to tackle, and
| things like refunds are just at the mercy of the other side of
| the transaction (making commerce even harder, as well as basic
| banking). So then it becomes a digital store of value, one that
| is only as valued as the market gives it, and typically markets
| eventually correct when there's no underlying true value
| proposition (as we can see with $GME). It also pushes only
| towards deflation, so it's terrible as a wide spread value store
| because it removes an important tool that governments have to
| handle the economy (dealt with debt via inflation aka printing
| money, which can be executed "well" (US) and really poorly
| (Zimbabwe)).
|
| What am I missing?
| adhoc32 wrote:
| That it is a hedge against inflation because of the network
| effect and vice versa.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Isn't everything other than cash a hedge against inflation?
| anm89 wrote:
| Yes but not equally.
| luxurytent wrote:
| How much of this Bitcoin wealth is centralized to the top %?
| majani wrote:
| Satoshi owns $54 billion worth of Bitcoin at this point.
| jordigh wrote:
| I just wanted internet money, not a speculative financial
| instrument. :(
| sphix0r wrote:
| Yeah, that's what bitcoin should have been. Too bad it also
| consumes an insane amount of energy and isn't able to process a
| lot of transactions per second. Hope that a good cryptocurrency
| gets more traction and will be the next decentralized "paypal /
| digital currency".
| bouncycastle wrote:
| DAI is your friend - always pegged to the USD, non-custodial
| stablecoin.
| srgpqt wrote:
| The only cryptocurrency that might one day become real
| "internet money" is _nano_ , because it has no fees and
| transactions are almost instant.
| tromp wrote:
| Speculation could be discouraged by having a fixed block
| reward, so that it takes all of a century to bring yearly
| inflation below rate 1%...
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| How would that discourage speculation?
| sprash wrote:
| It doesn't. Doge works that way and is highly volatile.
| [deleted]
| superbcarrot wrote:
| Does anyone else feel like:
|
| - they've missed an opportunity to get rich with minimal effort
| from crypto
|
| - still have absolutely no interest in jumping in at this point?
| sethammons wrote:
| Haha, yes. In 2011, a guy on my team was all about bitcoin and
| dogecoin and such. I think bitcoin was like 11 cents a coin, or
| maybe a dollar by that point. I just plain didn't get it. Still
| barely do. I could have easily picked up a few hundred dollars
| of coin or, if I was a believer, a grand or two. Had I held
| onto it, I would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
| However, if I got in at 10 cents, I would have sold at a
| dollar. And if I didn't sell there, I would have sold at 10
| dollars, 100, 1000, etc. I would never, ever have ridden it to
| 10k, 20k, 30k. Still not putting money on it.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Kind of. But it's a thing with a lot of investments; if one
| invested in Apple ten years ago their investment would have
| been 10x now. If one invested in Tesla ten years ago it would
| be worth 100x now (I think? there was a split at some point.
| Yahoo Finance's chart indicates it's gone up 10x in a year).
|
| Jumping in now is a bad idea because it's at peak hype; never
| buy at peak hype. It MIGHT go up a bit more, but it won't be a
| 10x increase at this point - you should've bought a year ago in
| that case.
|
| But a year ago, nobody could have predicted it would go up 10x.
| sky_rw wrote:
| Judging by the sentiment in this thread it is definitely not
| at peak hype.
|
| That's what everybody said when it was $17k and crashed to
| $5k. I loaded up on it, now its $50k. I bet there were a lot
| of similar comments saying that it would never be 10x. I also
| seem to recall a lot of people 10 years ago saying TSLA was
| overpriced and they would never hit their production goals.
| Time will tell.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Remember that pizza you bought in 2013? You could have invested
| that money into TSLA and it would be worth a heck of a lot more
| now. Opportunities like that exist today also. Does that make
| you not want to eat pizza?
|
| I bought BTC at $20. I sold at $1000. When I sold I had
| something like 1.95 BTC (had a bit of it stolen from poorly
| secured exchanges, lost some trying my hand at bot trading).
| Still happy with it because what I bought at the time with with
| it made me happy (Sonos speakers and photo gear). Would it have
| been nice to hold onto it until it was $50k? Maybe. But I have
| been enjoying the benefits of what I got for far longer.
|
| Having said that, I think XLM is in a good position to jump up
| in price and I still have their free initial allotment.
| [deleted]
| georgyo wrote:
| A long long time ago, I mined 3650 coins on a single cpu in a
| month. Bitcoin was worthless at the time, and I thought the
| idea was interesting. After a month, I went back to folding at
| home. A little over a year later bitcoin hit a dollar and I
| sold it all.
|
| On one hand I made a few thousand from nothing. However if I
| held it I would have been a pretty rich right now.
|
| I truly believe that bitcoin is something that cannot work, so
| I have not and will not reinvest in it. But the sting of it
| doing so much better does bother me at times.
| sperma wrote:
| Do you ever think that you losing out on tens of millions of
| dollars might have affected your desire to challenge your
| believes that "bitcoin is something that cannot work"? I know
| I'd probably cope in a similar manner
| loceng wrote:
| No more or no less than it is influencing people who are
| pro-Bitcoin, and in fact that bias may give them a clear,
| less biased view.
| Zhyl wrote:
| It's also a possible butterfly effect. Would Bitcoin have
| taken off without those specific few thousand coins in the
| economy?
|
| If even half of Bitcoin holders at the time thought they'd
| make it big and held, how could Bitcoin have had the
| liquidity to gain value?
| majani wrote:
| That's US $178m today for those who are curious
| rich_sasha wrote:
| To make meaningful amounts of money on BTC, you'd need to
| invest a significant amount. My feeling is, yes, maybe it go up
| 50%, or double, or whatnot, but mostly it can go down to 0 any
| time. If you want to bet a tiny bit and hope it tentuples, you
| still won't be rich.
|
| I'm always tempted to make some kind of agent simulation, where
| all agents know they are in a bubble, but hope they can get out
| before everyone else. Then eventually the price pops and, pop.
| syrgian wrote:
| I would have slept a lot worse if people thought that I held
| millions in an asset that can be easily stolen by invading my
| home and putting my family at risk. I would only be happy if I
| was very careful with not revealing who I was, ever (hard to do
| if a exchange gets compromised).
|
| It helps that I have all my necessities well covered.
| ur-whale wrote:
| >I would have slept a lot worse if people thought that I held
| millions in an asset
|
| That scenario only holds if you go around blabbing about your
| BTC holdings ... why would you ever do something like that?
| lazide wrote:
| I mean, that was a trend for a long time hah. Even in this
| thread we've got folks talking about the 3k+ Bitcoin they
| used to have.
|
| There were a number of robberies of people somewhat
| prominent in the early movement even on the assumption they
| still held some.
| luxurytent wrote:
| When _everything_ is going up, you can feel like everyone is
| winning but you. There 's many get-rich-quick-schemes available
| right now and if you put in the effort to know where to go, you
| can get "rich" quick too.
|
| Or, you can continue enjoying your life the way you are without
| worrying what others are doing. Many times, they are only
| projecting one side of the story.
| kungito wrote:
| What helps me sleep at night is that even had I entered all
| this time ago with BTC I would have exited 100 times by now.
| There have indeed been many 2x,3x,5x multipliers with BTC but
| there have been so many instances when it was unclear how
| everything is going to turn out which would personally prompt
| me to consider exiting with what I had.
|
| As my friend nicely put it: only way we could have gotten rich
| from BTC is had we bought it when it was pennies and forgotten
| about it up until last year
| petercooper wrote:
| That's exactly my attitude towards it too. But this has also
| given me a strong lesson for the future. If I get in on the
| ground floor of anything and decide to sell out, always keep
| a _little_ skin the game that you don 't touch.. because you
| never know if it'll go big.
|
| If the GP had sold 99% of his 3650 coins and kept 1% till
| now, that would still be $1.8m.
| ur-whale wrote:
| AKA : no risk, no rewards.
| belval wrote:
| Same thing here, I made a good profit a while back. To
| believe that I would be a millionaire today requires ignoring
| everything I know about my risk tolerance and while Bitcoin
| worked, it could've gone the Ponzi scheme way and crash to 0$
| overnight. There were risks of Chinese miners going for a 51%
| attack, regulation in the US to downright outlawing mining in
| Canada.
| dawnerd wrote:
| I gave up after multiple attempts to get in at the wrong time.
|
| I'm not exactly interested in risking enough money for it to be
| worth it long term anyways.
|
| Now if only I still had my original wallet...
| paulcole wrote:
| I've definitely missed the opportunity to get rich but I still
| jumped in.
|
| I started putting a small amount into BTC each month on
| Coinbase. It's money I can lose and that I would have spent on
| a vacation this year if not for COVID. I figure I'll pull it
| out at the end of the year and if it's gone up, then next
| year's vacation will be a bit better.
|
| I don't understand BTC at all and consider it gambling. But
| like Nick the Greek said, the next best thing to gambling and
| winning is gambling and losing.
| ur-whale wrote:
| Yours isn't an unreasonable attitude.
|
| Just like when you go to Vegas: put $500 cash in your pocket,
| leave all other means of payment at home.
|
| You'll either come back with $0 or more than $500.
|
| In both case, you'll definitely have had $500 worth of
| entertainment.
|
| Bitcoin is like that: only invest money you don't need
| (assuming you have any) and meantime, just enjoy the feeling
| of having your stomach crawl up to the back of your throat on
| the roller coaster.
|
| You're also obviously allowed to enjoy yourself when/if you
| become rich.
| bayesianbot wrote:
| Luckily I'm absolutely terrible with money. I was talking about
| bitcoin to everyone in 2011, but didn't invest myself as I
| thought I didn't have enough to put for it to matter.
|
| Had I invested, I'd have wasted the coins long time ago, and
| would be just kicking myself daily or on suicide watch.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Yup. That reminds me, I need to sell the free Stellar Lumens I
| got from Keybase. If I can work out how to do that without a
| scam or a disaster, I might consider touching the rest of the
| ecosystem.
| fullshark wrote:
| I imagine that's the majority of people who've heard of it.
| ur-whale wrote:
| Your feeling is IMO the norm for lots of folks.
|
| I have had this conversation with many a friend, who actually
| view Bitcoin as a Ponzi, and therefore decide not to play the
| game (a ponzi ca be lucrative if : a) you know it's a ponzi b)
| you're smart in your timing and not too greedy but it's still a
| crapshoot).
|
| The real questions are: - what if it isn't a
| Ponzi ? - how much will your "won't touch it with a 10
| feet pole" attidude cost you then ?
| pdimitar wrote:
| It hasn't costed me anything though since I never spent or
| gained a cent on/off of BTC.
| ur-whale wrote:
| Cost is probably not the right word.
|
| Opportunity cost is likely better.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Yep, that is true. I regret I haven't hopped on the hype
| train but oh well, I am not an oracle. -\\_(tsu)_/-
| wodenokoto wrote:
| When it reached 100, I thought, this is the apex, it is not
| gonna grow anymore, it is too late to jump on.
|
| And I've repeated that thought on 1.000, 10.000, 20.000 and
| again now.
|
| So yes, you are not alone in feeling this is a missed
| opportunity.
| akvadrako wrote:
| Why not just buy a small amount of bitcoins now, something
| you won't mind losing? If they increase 100 fold you won't
| feel like you're missing out. And if they don't just think of
| it as insurance.
|
| I personally hate the idea of bitcoin and avoided it for a
| long time, but I feel better having a little just to avoid
| the thought I let my personal feelings get in the way of an
| opportunity with a good risk/reward ratio.
| adamisom wrote:
| This doesn't necessarily mean you're invalid, but if BTC
| increased 100x, they'd exceed the world's GDP. So... yeah,
| though maybe you can't say that's _impossible_ , if by some
| miracle BTC became the dominant currency in a (much richer)
| future.
| ilkkao wrote:
| It helps to think that odds for not selling during the first
| peak are quite close to 0%, at least for me. Other outcome
| would have meant very stressful last years.
| pdimitar wrote:
| That's exactly how I feel. But is there a way to actually cash
| out? I mean, suppose you had 2 BTC for years. Can you literally
| get $100K right now in your bank account and can you actually
| exchange them easily for the fiat currency?
| superbcarrot wrote:
| Yes, this is very easy to do exactly in the way you describe.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Oh well, in that case I do feel a tinge of regret. :(
| matwood wrote:
| Easily cash out yes, but would have you kept track of that
| BTC for years is another question. There were plenty of
| gotchas along the way with BTC before it went completely
| mainstream. Buggy hardware wallets, scams, exchanges going
| bankrupt/stealing btc, people's hard drives dying, etc...
| mean for anyone to have held from $1 to $50k they were
| prescient and a bit lucky.
| akmarinov wrote:
| So does it make sense to put in some money that I'm okay with
| losing now or have I missed it?
| Geee wrote:
| It's never too late, because it's an deflationary asset. You
| are early if you invest now. The top of the current cycle is
| predicted to be about $250k. However, the long term value is
| much higher.
| tomcooks wrote:
| Put in some money you'd use for Netflix, Amazon prime and a few
| other extras you can happily do without.
|
| Mark the amount you paid and its BTC value on the calendar and
| completely forget about it for one year until some out of the
| loop person (i.e. uncle at Thanksgiving) asks you if it's a
| good time to put some money into it.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Put Netflix money in per month. Dollar cost averaging.
|
| (Not a financial planner, funny invest anything you're not
| willing to lose, do your own research, etc.)
| adhoc32 wrote:
| There is the hyperbitcoinization scenario. If this holds you'll
| be an early adopter.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| You probably missed it, since the hype around it has been going
| on for a while now.
|
| If the cycle continues like it has a few times now, there will
| be a big crash / correction, things will be very quiet around
| BTC / Crypto again for a few years, and then the next surge
| will happen.
|
| Not financial advice, but if you have BTC, sell now - or sell
| half, whatever. At least make sure you have your investment
| back. If you don't have BTC, don't expect to earn 10x your
| investment. I'd wait for things to settle again, buy, and hold
| for a few years. Then if things go crazy again, sell off a
| part.
|
| And of course, don't be hard on yourself if the price keeps
| going up; you cannot know if it will. Take what you can. Greed
| is what makes people lose all their money.
| ffggvv wrote:
| the saddest thing is people see it as a success because its price
| has gone up.
|
| But the entire idea behind it was to be a decentralized currency.
| Its absolutely failed at that. What its succeeded at is being a
| speculative gambling instrument like beanie babies or tulips.
|
| So yes, it's "successful" currently in that its price is going
| up, but no, no one actually uses or cares about using it as a
| currency or buys it for any other reason than they think they can
| sell it to a greater fool sometime later.
|
| wonder what satoshi would think
| [deleted]
| HelloFellowDevs wrote:
| Anyone know when transaction fees will get cheaper?
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| I have some satoshis and some ripple on an exchange, but the
| exchange seems to be gone?? I suppose I can write those off?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-02-16 23:01 UTC)