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Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

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Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#152
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to learn something about blockchain: the technology and its applications right now, means wading through masses of hype and parties anxious to 'get into it' before it's 'too late'. In healthcare IT the blockchain is hot right now. Government bureaus are pushing for adoption, care institute executives heard somewhere that this blockchain thing is the bee's knees and well suited for healthcare stuff like insuran…

I think it is the perfect storm formed by the combination of: - IT staff wanting to write "blockchain" on their CV (I have seen CVs driving technological choices so many times, hadoop used to store a 10MB csv file, etc) - Some senior management reading in Newsweek that blockchain is the new hot thing and asking his CTO to give him blockchain stuff. When such a storm forms, no objection from anyone in the organisation…

Ha! I love that hammer analogy. I'm definitely stealing that!

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#153
post #78
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So annoying to see triumphant declarations of victory of bitcoin, based solely on the price increasing. Speaking as a bitcoin owner and proponent, there is zero (actually negative) market uptake of bitcoin as a payment platform (which I happen to believe is bitcoin's primary use case). This is because no work has gone into scaling up transaction throughput, which has predictably suffered as a result of increased main…

There is a sense of victory because millions of people view Bitcoin as a good place to park their money over fiat currency. Unfortunately no one runs news stories on the growth of unique addresses in the bitcoin network

" because millions of people view Bitcoin as a good place to park their money over fiat currency."

This would be very unwise.

BTC is highly volatile, and could go to 0 tomorrow.

It could could be made useless by the stroke of the pen someone in any big government.

Nobody keeps most of their assets in cash.

Stocks, Bonds, real estate, a basket of commodities, a basket of currencies - or even a decent long-term-interest savings account ... are all considerably better than BTC as stores of value if you don't like fiat.

When considering the 'risk premium' - BTC is a speculative instrument only. Not a currency, and definitely not a store of value.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#154
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of what I read about how Warren Buffett thinks about gold [1]. His point is essentially that if you invest in gold, your return depends on the price swings until you get out, and nothing else. This is in contrast to investing in assets that actually produce something (e.g. pay dividend). I see bitcoin being very similar to gold in this respect. [1] http://business.time.com/2012/02/27/warren-buffett-on…

It's hard to disagree. Investments that don't pay dividends are essentially pyramid schemes, as they always require someone to buy them off you in order to realise their value. Stuff that pays dividends can provide you with ROI without you having to shift them on to someone else. However, since we live on a planet with unlimited resources capable of unlimited growth, the theoretical loss of being the "last investor"…

"Investments that don't pay dividends are essentially pyramid schemes"

No. 'Dividends' do not matter.

The cash going into the companies bank account belongs to the shareholders, and it's reflect in the stock price.

When a company gives out $1 in dividends, it's valuation goes down by $1.

Technically, dividends don't matter.

In reality it's a little different, and dividends mean certain things, mostly about the companies ability to generate returns with that cash than you, the investor.

And FYI - there can be 'unlimited growth' - as long as there is innovation, and 'stuff keeps getting better' - we will see growth.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#155
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So annoying to see triumphant declarations of victory of bitcoin, based solely on the price increasing. Speaking as a bitcoin owner and proponent, there is zero (actually negative) market uptake of bitcoin as a payment platform (which I happen to believe is bitcoin's primary use case). This is because no work has gone into scaling up transaction throughput, which has predictably suffered as a result of increased main…

It clearly seems to solve a much bigger problem and hence the increase in price: a store of value in a time where the Feds balance sheet increases with the same velocity as Bitcoins price. On the other hand - it is still being used for payments. Though I am not a friend of the settlement layer idea myself. Time will tell how BCH will fare.

BCH might be Bitcoin's only hope. The upcoming Segwit2x fork (Segregated Witness + 2x block size increase) would have been fine 2 years ago. If it succeeds now I'm afraid all of Bitcoin will suffer and only Ethereum will benefit. While I love all the developments happening on Ethereum, it's not the censorship proof money that I was promised.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#156
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of what I read about how Warren Buffett thinks about gold [1]. His point is essentially that if you invest in gold, your return depends on the price swings until you get out, and nothing else. This is in contrast to investing in assets that actually produce something (e.g. pay dividend). I see bitcoin being very similar to gold in this respect. [1] http://business.time.com/2012/02/27/warren-buffett-on…

It's hard to disagree. Investments that don't pay dividends are essentially pyramid schemes, as they always require someone to buy them off you in order to realise their value. Stuff that pays dividends can provide you with ROI without you having to shift them on to someone else. However, since we live on a planet with unlimited resources capable of unlimited growth, the theoretical loss of being the "last investor"…

Can't argue with that

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#157

Why does it seem like more and more sites are requesting permissions to send notifications...makes it hard to consider this a "trustworthy" site when the first thing you're trying to do is ask for permissions to send notifications.

I've noticed this trend as well, and it's accelerating fast. It's an unsolicited popup asking premission to send more popups. Thus I decided to completely turn off the notifications feature in my Chrome.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#158

My humble analysis why blockchains (and bitcoins on the blockchain) are like tulips. Like tulips you can always grow more and with blockchains you can always build / start your own blockchains. Building your own blockchain lets say in Ruby is about 20 lines of code. See the point? It's easy (not rocket sience ;-). See the [Awesome Blockchains]( https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-blockchains ) for more (about…

My humble analysis why paper currencies are like tulips. Like tulips you can always grow more, and with paper currencies you can always print/start your own. Creating a paper currency on say, paper, takes only 1 minute. See the point? It's easy (not rocket science ;).

My humble analysis of why startups are like tulips. Like tulips you can grow more, and with startups you can always build/start your own. Building your own startup is easy, just think of an idea, say Uber for toilet paper, and it takes only 1 minute. See the point? It's easy (not rocket science ;-).

Sorry but I had too, the easiness to create something has no barring on how hard it is to make it a globally used system. Whether you can create a new blockchain in minutes is completely irrelevant and offers nothing to the discussion.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#159
post #142

The sun has risen at least 166 times already, but it is not proof that the sun will rise tomorrow. My point is not to confirm or deny the bear or the bull, but to point out this is simply noise. When are market news reliable indicators of supply and demand?

> The sun has risen at least 166 times already, but it is not proof that the sun will rise tomorrow. If the sun has risen at least 166 times, the probability that it will rise tomorrow is at least 99.4% according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrise_problem

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It proves it's a desired one. Which is a very important quality for a currency.

I learned different things in economics than. I learned about, scarcity, fungibility, divisibility, durability and transferability to be the main properties of a currency, not a desired factor of any case, afaik thats just a quality of humans, called greed. Just because some people want something, doesn't make it a good currency. To stay in the same metaphor, I'd like to own the Nightwatch of rembrandt, just as many…

These properties are not mutually exclusive. But desirability is a required one for a good currency.

I agree that those other properties are important too.

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