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Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

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Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#131

Post by leereeves »

tradersam wrote: post #111
forthefuture wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't agree. The best case scenario for bitcoin is it becoming the de facto monetary standard, meaning there would be no reason to buy or cash out, as everything would be priced in bitcoin.

And that will never happen for the reason just stated: you can't pay taxes in Bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#132

Post by MBCook »

tradersam wrote: post #116
tunetine wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually less useful. You already have banks doing the exact same thing for free, while insuring your money, you don't get hit 3% for transferring it into the bank, and there's interest accrued, not wildly shifting value where you might lose half in a few hours.

> You already have banks doing the exact same thing for free, while insuring your money, you don't get hit 3% for transferring it into the bank, and there's interest accrued So much wrong with this statement. First, not many banks in the U.S. do "the exact same thing for free", actually almost none do. Most ACH transfers take 1-5 days, instead of ~10 minutes with Bitcoin or ~15 seconds with Ethereum. Yes, I know abou…

Just for the record on September 15 most ACH transactions are supposed to start taking a day instead of the multiple days we have now.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#133

Post by [deleted] »

tradersam wrote: post #111
forthefuture wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't agree. The best case scenario for bitcoin is it becoming the de facto monetary standard, meaning there would be no reason to buy or cash out, as everything would be priced in bitcoin.

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#134

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #103
mrb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin has indeed appreciated more than any other investment in human history. In 7.5 years it went from $0.003 to $4900: a growth 1,600,000×. Imagine investing ten bucks and a few years later it is worth $16 million! For comparison: the founders seed round of Uber grew their investment 65,000×, tulip prices increased by at most 5,000× during tulip mania, some "best performing stocks" over the last century are repor…

It's contemplating these returns and seeing the price still going up that leads people to continue jumping in to buy at any price level. Is there an upper limit to this?

Of course there is an upper limit. But because there are more people available it's higher than in smaller bubbles.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#135

Post by programmarchy »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #107
mixedCase wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once a semblance of civilization establishes again? Then yes, it's likely. During times of true hardship where the general population is at risk of dying of starvation, disease or being murdered by a once upstanding citizen, and there's no way to readily exchange that gold for needed supplies? No. You would consider yourself lucky to be able to exchange a bar of solid gold for a few cans of food.

True, it would by necessity be a barter economy.

Or similarly, an informal debt economy. If I give Bob a pair of boots, he'll be more obliged to give me one of his pigs when I tell him how nice and fat they look a month later. Informal debt economies really only work within tribal communities where social pressure has more leverage, but it does solve the double coincidence of wants problem.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#136

Post by billions »

tradersam wrote: post #127
tunetine wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This. Gold has value like Nike has value. It's a brand. Like the word 'Mom', it's about the strength of the wirings in people's heads. If Bitcoin was around for 1000 years, with less than 1% fluctuations, and accepted everywhere, who wouldn't "believe" in it? So the question is how far down that path are we? Will there be volatility early on? Did the guy that founded the first bank ever get robbed?

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#137

Post by aussieguy1234 »

leereeves wrote: post #131
tradersam wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree. The best case scenario for bitcoin is it becoming the de facto monetary standard, meaning there would be no reason to buy or cash out, as everything would be priced in bitcoin.

And that will never happen for the reason just stated: you can't pay taxes in Bitcoin.

At the moment. Surely govts will accept cryptocurrency for paying taxes at some point.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#138

Post by prostoalex »

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…

> did you notice that there wasn't a middleman taking a cut when you sent the money? I mean, do you have any fucking idea how much money businesses pay to the credit card companies

This guy noticed https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-you-wont-be-buying-a-coffee...

"High fees make it impractical to use bitcoin as a day-to-day currency. Paying a $5 fee to send $10,000 bitcoin isn’t a big deal, but it’s hard to justify buying a cup of coffee with bitcoin if the transaction costs more than the coffee."

Realistically, though, from the consumer standpoint Bitcoin is an electronic payments network analogous to credit cards that

1) Takes longer time to confirm (great news when you're standing in a checkout line).

2) Does not have a third party to resolve conflicts and disputes between the consumer and unscrupulous merchant or a straight out scammer.

3) Does not have a rollback mechanism in case of an unauthorized or fraudulent transaction.

4) Does not offer consumer-side rewards - cashback, airline miles, points - for usage.

Where do I sign up?

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#139

Post by prostoalex »

solotronics wrote: post #50
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…

why is it useful? you can store and instantly send any arbitrary amount of money anywhere on the planet and it is the hardest (impossible?) for a government to steal it from you

You're sending integers. To do anything useful you'd need to convert those integers to actual fiat money, and to do that you either go through a government-licensed conversion channel such as an exchange, or a third party willing to assume the conversion risk that usually comes wih high fees or highly unfavorable exchange rate.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#140

Post by prostoalex »

tradersam wrote: post #116
tunetine wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually less useful. You already have banks doing the exact same thing for free, while insuring your money, you don't get hit 3% for transferring it into the bank, and there's interest accrued, not wildly shifting value where you might lose half in a few hours.

> You already have banks doing the exact same thing for free, while insuring your money, you don't get hit 3% for transferring it into the bank, and there's interest accrued So much wrong with this statement. First, not many banks in the U.S. do "the exact same thing for free", actually almost none do. Most ACH transfers take 1-5 days, instead of ~10 minutes with Bitcoin or ~15 seconds with Ethereum. Yes, I know abou…

Is 10-minute ACH a kind of problem a lot of people face?

Seems like instant liquidity confirmation has been solved with credit cards or Paypal for trivial amounts (third party willing to act as an intermediary) or wire transfers for larger amounts (banks engaging their backchannel comfirmation protocols for a measly $25 fee).

There are also debit card payments, admittedly not as widespread, but impressively fast when used through Square Cash or Facebook Messenger.

None of the existing solutions are perfect, but all seem to be "good enough".

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