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Bitcoin Surpasses $4,000, Reaches Another Milestone

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51–60 of 92 posts

Re: Bitcoin Surpasses $4,000, Reaches Another Milestone

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unstable and unusable. next-gen pyramid scheme

I sure hope so for your sake, because if the real bubble is fiat money, and you have 0 cryptocurrency, you are basically screwed.

If it comes to pass that "Not having crypto" = "screwed", then the chaos will be such that everyone's screwed, anyway.

Re: Bitcoin Surpasses $4,000, Reaches Another Milestone

#53
post #33
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bypassing financial regulations, extortion, llicit substance trade and many other forms of small-time illegal activities. If you strip speculative value and all the technical gloss, what's left is essentially Liberty Reserve 2.0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Reserve P.S. Fees has actually got lower since the worst back in May, but there is no telling it won't happen again. Paying for anon hosting is not a…

Volume-wise, the biggest use case is speculation and store of wealth (just like gold in the physical world). By number of transactions it is gambling (eg poker), another one you forgot to list.

I will admit that I am not very familiar with the bitcoin gambling scene. It's hard to imagine that people will go through the trouble to bet with bitcoin when most places in the world with good infrastructure to support bitcoin also tend to have accessible gambling activities using fiat.

Re: Bitcoin Surpasses $4,000, Reaches Another Milestone

#54
post #47
post #7

What's Bitcoin use case besides speculation? Buying $10 worth of namecheap domain and pay $5 on fees no thanks!

Sending money is a good use case.

* would be * a good use case if it were reliable.

I don't want to say I'll transfer $1000 to someone and by the time the transfer is complete the vale has dropped/I need to wait 5 days for confirmation/ the bitcoin exchange has collapsed.

Re: Bitcoin Surpasses $4,000, Reaches Another Milestone

#55
post #16

Is it too late for the average joe Software Engineer to invest in Bitcoin?

There is an interesting discussion between Hal Finney and Satoshi in 2009 about the possible value of bitcoin. This is back when it was just a random software project, and had zero value: http://diswww.mit.edu/bloom-picayune/crypto/142207 As an amusing thought experiment, imagine that Bitcoin is successful and becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout the world. Then the total value of the currency should…

Does anyone think the current owners of capital are going to sit by and let their powers and wealth be destroyed? If bitcoin were ever likely to become close to being the dominant payment system it will be outlawed with "extreme prejudice".

Re: Bitcoin Surpasses $4,000, Reaches Another Milestone

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why, exactly, total value of currency should equal total amount of wealth? What exactly is the contradiction, arbitrage or other mechanism that sets total value of currency to total amount of wealth?

It's not, actually - the total value of all physical $USD (M0) is only about $3.8T, vs. the figure of $100-300T given for total wealth (which seems low to me, BTW). The actual truth is even weirder: if Bitcoin takes over as the world currency, its value in $USD will be infinite, but the question will be meaningless, as the dollar will be worthless. Currencies tend to be winner-take-all within a society; if one takes…

There are 164 national currencies in the world. The USD is the defaco world currency and the USD is not worth infinite of other currencies and the rest are certainty not worthless.

I think the US government tolerates crypocurrencies because realistically they are far more damaging to countries like Venezula and China who have much more restrictive economies and in those countries the flexibility of bitcoin is a huge advantage.

How many aircraft carries does bitcoin have? 0. Which (in my opinion) happens to be the exact same chance of bitcoin usurping the USD as a global currency short of some fundamental change in world power.

Re: Bitcoin Surpasses $4,000, Reaches Another Milestone

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sure hope so for your sake, because if the real bubble is fiat money, and you have 0 cryptocurrency, you are basically screwed.

If it comes to pass that "Not having crypto" = "screwed", then the chaos will be such that everyone's screwed, anyway.

Don't worry, people in hyperinflation countries also survive(d). So no need to worry.

As long as you have trust in your government for making the money, and the banks for multiplying it, you have nothing to worry about.

Re: Bitcoin Surpasses $4,000, Reaches Another Milestone

#58
post #39

Can you get an IRA portfolio based on cryptocurrency? It would be nice to be able to invest in btc with the same kind of tax benefits you get with a traditional stock based IRA.

You can buy gbtc, but it's at a premium to buying bitcoin directly.

Re: Bitcoin Surpasses $4,000, Reaches Another Milestone

#59
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an interesting discussion between Hal Finney and Satoshi in 2009 about the possible value of bitcoin. This is back when it was just a random software project, and had zero value: http://diswww.mit.edu/bloom-picayune/crypto/142207 As an amusing thought experiment, imagine that Bitcoin is successful and becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout the world. Then the total value of the currency should…

Does anyone think the current owners of capital are going to sit by and let their powers and wealth be destroyed? If bitcoin were ever likely to become close to being the dominant payment system it will be outlawed with "extreme prejudice".

Nah someone just needs to gift Donald Trump a fat stack of it and it'll be recognized as genuine legal tender in no time.

Re: Bitcoin Surpasses $4,000, Reaches Another Milestone

#60
post #7

What's Bitcoin use case besides speculation? Buying $10 worth of namecheap domain and pay $5 on fees no thanks!

i don't think we are close to general ai, but bitcoin is a key ingredient for AI being independent. Currently, electronic banking requires a human in the loop, even for corporations.
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