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Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

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141–150 of 173 posts

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#141

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 tone of this comment is harsh and inflammatory. But I agree with the sentiment. The tech is genuinely interesting and certainly doesn't lack hype. That is usually a formula for positive comments on Hacker News. So I'm genuinely curious why so many users here are against Bitcoin. Is it because they didn't buy in early and want to justify missing the boat? Does it make people feel their own startup is somehow less…

> Is it because they didn't buy in early and want to justify missing the boat?

Not one bit. It's because people are losing their heads over it, it's got classic bubble written all over it, and you've got people who've made money and think they're all the wiser for it.

They arrogantly carry a sentiment that detractors are just jealous. Human nature to do that--I get it.

There's a saying I heard, something like "Sure, you made a lot of money buying the stocks of tobacco companies. So what? You're still an asshole."

In my mind, buying Bitcoin is like shorting the US financial system with the idea that it sucks and should to hell anyway. But, our system with all it's flaws works pretty damn well. It shouldn't be taken for granted and bet against.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Yikes, turns out humor didn't really disarm the situation. On the contrary, if you're resorting to sockpuppet downvoting then we've hit pure freakout mode.

So... let's take a breath.

We all have assumptions about the world, there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes they're right and sometimes we're wrong.

What we want to do, is (1) recognize that blanket statements about an entire ethnic group can sometimes strike others as offensive or just comically antiquated, and therefore, (2) sanity check these generalizations against actual data.

I mean, it's one thing to offend a bunch of people if you're right, right? Maybe that's worth it... occasionally. But why waste the energy if you're going to be wrong? Or even just unsure?

Ok, I'm sure you're bursting with anecdotes already to defend the claim. I'll spare you some effort and try a few.

Like... the Chinese stock market is crazy! Well, yes, but actually a pretty normal level of crazy for a developing economy with some corruption and off-book efforts determining winners and losers.

Or... Macau is a huge gambling city! Sure, but lots of places have had a huge gambling hub before. They're often a symptom of other factors. A maturing hospitality sector... or restrictions on certain types of income. They make a great way to launder illegal money or support subtle capital flight.

Ok, what if we could look at gambling by country more broadly then, not focused on hubs but entire nations?

Well, gambling revenues track with GDP really well, countries with the most money are the ones that gamble the most. The US is way on top of the list. Go figure. Ok, so let's control for GDP...

If you run that check on the dozen or so countries big enough to matter, you'll find Italy and Australia topping the list with twice the proportionate losses as China. China muddles around the middle, squarely between the UK and the US, not much beyond France or Japan. It's perfectly boring.

Beyond this, levels of regulation seem to have a strong influence, so we'd want to control for the weird mixed status of Macau vs. the mainland (which has legal lotteries but not slots).

It's a project that could be done, possibly useful, but the data already screams other factors that matter more. Patterns aren't determined by culture so much as they're determined by all these simple exogenous factors that obviously require a control, like how much money is in people's pockets, how much access they have to games.

And speaking of controls... we're being generous here by not even controlling for population, which would tank China's rating.

There's a reason gambling isn't strongly tied to a certain nationality, why several regions have been gambling hubs over the ages. There's a similar reason speculative bubbles happen in markets around the world, not just in China.

Speculative affinity isn't a cultural characteristic, to the extent it's even measurable at all.

Ok, we can save time at this point. I'm pretty sure you still disagree.

If it makes you feel better, downvote this one too, they're just fake internet points.

But if you make sweeping generalizations disparaging an entire race based on archaic stereotypes, you should expect some pushback from time to time. It shouldn't strike you as a sudden unexpected shock to occasionally get called out on that sort of thing. Frankly I don't think it's a hill worth fighting and dying on, but everyone has to pick their own redlines I suppose.

Good luck with your Internetting.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#143
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The different hashing algorithms have different power requirements. Scrypt (LTC) and KECCAK-256 (ETH) are less power intensive than SHA-256 (BTC). Those are just proof-of-work. Proof-of-stake or proof-of-importance would have barely any power footprint, but there are still debates about whether they could replace PoW and offer similar security guarantees.

Proof of steak is basically the kind of system I was thinking of. Proof of work seems like a very good solution as long as people are relatively equal, but you could use proof of steak to ensure that. Of course that means that you need some way to set up the initial steaks and decide who gets them. And that means it isn't as democratic like bitcoin is, which I know is a big plus for many people.

Proof of steak sounds delicious and I would absolutely buy that coin.

(Sorry, couldn't help it.)

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

> if you're resorting to sockpuppet downvoting then we've hit pure freakout mode.

@brownbat, I can't downvote you since you're replying to my comment. I would guess the downvotes are because your original comments are snarky and lack an argument germane to the OP.

I don't have raw data and am basing my conclusions on the stock market you mention, that luck is a big component of chinese culture, and that the Chinese operate the largest bitcoin mining pools. My comments weren't meant to offend. I'm not implying there's anything wrong with speculators (so long as they don't call themselves investors).

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#145

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 buy…

> "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."

That's what the new Lighting network is for ( https://lightning.network/ )

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see why this would be the case. The utility in currency is not value, but stability; there’s little incentive to use Bitcoin if the value is not stable.

yeah who would ever want something that appreciated in value /s

Certainly not retailers in the context of a currency!

Things that rapidly appreciate in value also carry the risk of rapidly depreciating in value. That’s fine as an investment vehicle, but a much less attractive prospect in a currency.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#147
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?

According to some reports, the entirety of the world's current wealth is measured to be north of $240 trillion dollars. [1]

There will only be 21 million bitcoins ever.

Let's say we were to measure all of our wealth in bitcoins, and let's say we already have all the bitcoins ever to exist available now. Then each bitcoin could be the equivalent of what $11,428,571.43 is to us today.

[1] https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fi...

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#148
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

>instantly

This makes me think you haven't ever transferred bitcoins.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#149

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.

Does that belief change when your hard-earned money loses a few hundred/thousand dollars in value over a few hours, for no apparent reason?

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#150
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?

When more people are trying to buy bitcoins rather than sell there's no real limit. I could offer $1 of a millionth of a coin and lo the price would be $1m if that's what buyers hold out for. However when more people are selling than buying, which will happen from time to time then the price they fetch will be limited by the amount of money out there. If 1m bitcoin go on the market at $1 each it's not so hard to find people with $1m to buy. If 1m go on the market at $10k each that means you need buyers with $10bn knocking around which would be harder.
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