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Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

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Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#121

Post by wakeywakeywakey »

forthefuture wrote: post #93
drizzzler wrote: post #76

It's funny how thick HNers are about Bitcoin. I believe it's evidence of the sort of passive conservatism of the tech community. Bitcoin is some utopian shit, the decentralized technology dream that has a ton of traction, yet many of you just can't seem to get behind it. Is it because YC is an ultra capitalistic investment fund and Bitcoin is just too anarchist for its fanboys? For all the people out there saying, "I…

The best case scenario for Bitcoin is reaching a consistent price for the rest of its lifetime. That scenario means there's no reason to "invest" in it because ideally it would never change in value. Only people trying to cash out need people buying in. If you were really invested in the long term you'd rather people not buy in so you can buy more at a lower price. Bitcoin also has fees. The only reason the fees are…

The reason to want people to buy in is to grow the space and incentivise vendors to build sophisticated services for it. Like with self-driving cars, a large herd benefits all members.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#122

Post by GhostVII »

drizzzler wrote: post #76

It's funny how thick HNers are about Bitcoin. I believe it's evidence of the sort of passive conservatism of the tech community. Bitcoin is some utopian shit, the decentralized technology dream that has a ton of traction, yet many of you just can't seem to get behind it. Is it because YC is an ultra capitalistic investment fund and Bitcoin is just too anarchist for its fanboys? For all the people out there saying, "I…

I just don't see what benefits Bitcoin gives to me over a regular bank.

First of all because it is decentralised, it is much less scalable than the current system, so I don't think it is going to be able to replace regular banking anytime soon (although I don't know a tonne about the scalability issues).

Also I like to have a centralised system, because if my bitcoin gets stolen/I screw up and lose it, it is gone forever. If my money gets stolen somehow, I call up the bank and they reverse the charges. Having a central authority is also pretty nice because they also give me lots of other benefits like credit card rewards, making it really easy to move my money around into different savings accounts or investments, etc. And regular currencies are also backed by the government, so are incredibly stable, unlike Bitcoin which changes values very quickly.

Bitcoin is also deflationary, which is a bad trait for a currency to have, as it discourages investment, and encourages people to hoard money instead of spending it.

I'm sure there are use cases for Bitcoin, but I don't think it is "some utopian shit", since the current system works super well for most people.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#123

Post by MicroBerto »

drizzzler wrote: post #76

It's funny how thick HNers are about Bitcoin. I believe it's evidence of the sort of passive conservatism of the tech community. Bitcoin is some utopian shit, the decentralized technology dream that has a ton of traction, yet many of you just can't seem to get behind it. Is it because YC is an ultra capitalistic investment fund and Bitcoin is just too anarchist for its fanboys? For all the people out there saying, "I…

It's because I can't use it to do business with anyone in my market, I can't buy anything I want with it, it's volatile, and it's an absurd waste of energy.

Enjoy the run, but sell at the right times because ultimately it will end in some form of tragedy.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#124

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #108
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't go up forever because the knowledge of that trend would make more and more people invest in them. At some point this would cause people to build stashes of tokens instead of investing in real businesses with real production capacity. When this trend would become widespread enough, it would eventually cause global production capacity to drop. That's right, when enough people do it, token hoarding displaces in…

This is the soundest commentary I have encountered regarding the Bitcoin phenomenon since 2008. Sure, a lot of people will denounce Bitcoin, even central bankers will assign doom to it, but never assert why. Is your background in economics? What literature or resource do you recommend I read to understand more of what you understand? May I contact you?

My background is not in economics but the financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath kept me interested on the subject long enough to develop a general understanding of macro.

I would say the economists who most shape my views would be Nick Rowe ( http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/nick... ), David Beckworth ( http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.ca/ ) and sometimes the more controversial but always entertaining Scott Sumner ( http://www.themoneyillusion.com/ ) .

A while back, I wanted to do as a side project, a game with a realistic macro economy but I got stuck at the learning phase and never got around to do the game (the rabbit hole went deeper than I had imagined). While I was researching, I put some of my musings about what I was learning in a few posts here: http://bessiambre.tumblr.com/ then later kind of summarized the views that I had formed in the following medium post: https://medium.com/@b.essiambre/the-world-deserves-a-pay-rai...

I'm sure my conclusions are simplistic and over-general compared to those of real economists.

My email is b.essiambre@gmail.com. Don't hesitate to write if you have questions.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#125

Post by MicroBerto »

xutopia wrote: post #36

I see so many people dissing the technology and rehashing old arguments. You shouldn't consider Bitcoin as a currency but as a better form of Gold. Like gold it has a limited amount available: ~180k tons of gold and eventually 21 million bitcoins. Like gold it is a good store of value (especially as more people are dropping their gold to purchase BTC). Unlike Gold you can send it to someone else online and that means…

Gold and silver can't be "forked"

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#126

Post by johnwheeler »

brownbat wrote: post #112
johnwheeler wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese speculate more

My mistake, it's not like you were saying all Irish are drunks, or the Irish are the only drunks, just that the Irish like their whiskey more. Since there are only 1.4 Billion Chinese, these sort of sweeping generalizations are perfectly reasonable.

No, it's like I'm saying "College graduates earn more income" or even "Men like football more than women do".

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#127

Post by tradersam »

tunetine wrote: post #78
johnwheeler wrote: post #56

It's 100% bubble. It could go up to $6,000, $50,000, or even $1M. It's not localized like tulips, and it's connected to the internet, so the universe of people available to fuel the speculation is enormous. That the Chinese are highly speculative is what's mainly driving the current price. It has no intrinsic value. It's like gold in that it's not a productive asset. It doesn't yield anything like stocks or bonds. Th…

I don't see any arguments from the commenters here that convince me in the slightest. It's like magic to them. As long as they believe, it has value.

> As long as they believe, it has value.

Yup, just like every other currency ever to exist.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#128

Post by c0nducktr »

drizzzler wrote: post #65
MBCook wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't make them wrong. I find the idea of crypto currency, especially bitcoin, very interesting. I just have a very hard time seeing how it's actually useful. It can't handle very many transactions per minute. And the thing that supposed to make it so great is that no one controls it. But if bitcoin becomes really important then people will want to control a lot of the mining power. Pretty soon you end up with a gr…

>I just have a very hard time seeing how it's actually useful Why is it so hard to see? Whenever you send money somewhere electronically, a middleman takes a cut. With Bitcoin there is no middleman. It's that easy.

With bitcoin you pay transfer fees. The network effectively becomes the middleman.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#129

Post by gigatexal »

tgtweak wrote: post #32
gigatexal wrote: post #18

I think I had a coin once in a wallet long since deleted. What I could do with 5k now.

I got one better... I traded 30 bitcoins for Diablo 3 gold when Diablo 3 launched, 1m gold was about $5 and bitcoins were about $7. Was just after linode wallets got hacked. I'll let you do the over/under on that one.

Yikes. 150k is a lot of cash

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#130

Post by gigatexal »

kwelstr wrote: post #74
solotronics wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I threw away hundreds of Bitcoin on formatting a drive many years ago. never thought they would be worth more than a few cents. I revisited in 2014 and have been accumulating ever since.

You still have that old drive?

I wouldn’t know. I likely don’t. Which is why I’m kicking myself now.
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