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The World's Biggest Wealth Manager Won't Touch Bitcoin

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Re: The World's Biggest Wealth Manager Won't Touch Bitcoin

#31

Post by wickawic »

samsonradu wrote: post #24
Snackchez wrote: post #7

>“All it would take would be one terrorist incident in the U.S. funded by bitcoin for the U.S. regulator to much more seriously step in and take action, he said. “That’s a risk, an unquantifiable risk, bitcoin has that another currency doesn’t." You can't make this up... or maybe I'm not understanding something. So, what's currently funding terrorist attacks?

I think the point is that bitcoin is very fragile and any powerful enough state-actor can bash it to the ground. There are various ways to achieve this, from shorting to propaganda, to attacking (hacking) large exchanges or miner networks and so on. Only time will tell of course, maybe that is already priced in.

Easier: make exchanging bitcoin for real money illegal.

Re: The World's Biggest Wealth Manager Won't Touch Bitcoin

#32

Post by samsonradu »

adamnemecek wrote: post #30
samsonradu wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that bitcoin is very fragile and any powerful enough state-actor can bash it to the ground. There are various ways to achieve this, from shorting to propaganda, to attacking (hacking) large exchanges or miner networks and so on. Only time will tell of course, maybe that is already priced in.

The same thing could be/could have been said about the internet as a whole.

Sure, but the internet serves the economic purposes of most of the world. Nobody wants it to go away. Can't say the same about bitcoin however.

Re: The World's Biggest Wealth Manager Won't Touch Bitcoin

#33

Post by rahulkapil »

samsonradu wrote: post #24
Snackchez wrote: post #7

>“All it would take would be one terrorist incident in the U.S. funded by bitcoin for the U.S. regulator to much more seriously step in and take action, he said. “That’s a risk, an unquantifiable risk, bitcoin has that another currency doesn’t." You can't make this up... or maybe I'm not understanding something. So, what's currently funding terrorist attacks?

I think the point is that bitcoin is very fragile and any powerful enough state-actor can bash it to the ground. There are various ways to achieve this, from shorting to propaganda, to attacking (hacking) large exchanges or miner networks and so on. Only time will tell of course, maybe that is already priced in.

Fail to see how is Bitcoin fragile. It has been running non stop for past 8 years churning out a block every 10 minutes without fail while being under constant attack from hackers, governments, it has its own internal governance issues, hard forks, technical issues, scaling debates. And yet it is growing in liquidity and scale. I doubt state actors can do anything about it.

Re: The World's Biggest Wealth Manager Won't Touch Bitcoin

#34

Post by sodafountan »

samsonradu wrote: post #32
adamnemecek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing could be/could have been said about the internet as a whole.

Sure, but the internet serves the economic purposes of most of the world. Nobody wants it to go away. Can't say the same about bitcoin however.

And that sentiment towards Bitcoin is changing every single day.

Re: The World's Biggest Wealth Manager Won't Touch Bitcoin

#35

Post by paulhodge »

adamnemecek wrote: post #30
samsonradu wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that bitcoin is very fragile and any powerful enough state-actor can bash it to the ground. There are various ways to achieve this, from shorting to propaganda, to attacking (hacking) large exchanges or miner networks and so on. Only time will tell of course, maybe that is already priced in.

The same thing could be/could have been said about the internet as a whole.

Big difference is that Bitcoin has all the right conditions for a bubble pop. If someone did a 51% attack, this would cause people to lose trust in the currency, everyone would cash out, creating a bank run, which would be a self-accelerating process that drives the price even lower. So even if the network recovered the next day, it would take a long long time to rebuild that trust.

Whereas with the internet, if someone is able to knock out critical infrastructure one day, engineers would figure out a way to fix/reroute it, get it working a few days later, and everyone would happily log back on as soon as it's working. Although maybe they would throw out their "smart" coffee machines and etc.

Re: The World's Biggest Wealth Manager Won't Touch Bitcoin

#36

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rahulkapil wrote: post #33
samsonradu wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that bitcoin is very fragile and any powerful enough state-actor can bash it to the ground. There are various ways to achieve this, from shorting to propaganda, to attacking (hacking) large exchanges or miner networks and so on. Only time will tell of course, maybe that is already priced in.

Fail to see how is Bitcoin fragile. It has been running non stop for past 8 years churning out a block every 10 minutes without fail while being under constant attack from hackers, governments, it has its own internal governance issues, hard forks, technical issues, scaling debates. And yet it is growing in liquidity and scale. I doubt state actors can do anything about it.

> I doubt state actors can do anything about it

This attitude is what I see as Bitcoin's primary risk factory. It's a culture of arrogance that reminds me of pre-crisis finance, when it was popular to say things like "the Federal Reserve chairman is more powerful than the U.S President."

Re: The World's Biggest Wealth Manager Won't Touch Bitcoin

#37

Post by Klathmon »

paulhodge wrote: post #35
adamnemecek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing could be/could have been said about the internet as a whole.

Big difference is that Bitcoin has all the right conditions for a bubble pop. If someone did a 51% attack, this would cause people to lose trust in the currency, everyone would cash out, creating a bank run, which would be a self-accelerating process that drives the price even lower. So even if the network recovered the next day, it would take a long long time to rebuild that trust. Whereas with the internet, if some…

I disagree that everyone would cash out.

There have been crashes of bitcoin before. None "to zero" but pretty substantial, and not everyone "cashes out" right away.

Re: The World's Biggest Wealth Manager Won't Touch Bitcoin

#38

Post by oleganza »

biot wrote: post #10
imustbeevil wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the best case scenario is Bitcoin hits $1,000,000 per coin and never moves again, why would anyone ever put more money into it? The only value Bitcoin has is appreciation. If it ever becomes stable it will necessarily be worthless.

If Bitcoin hits $1M per coin, then Satoshi Nakamoto will be the world’s first trillionaire. Not a bad return for 10 days of mining.

10 days of mining alone = 1440 blocks = 72K BTC at 50 BTC/block. $1M per coin gives $72B, not $1000B.

Re: The World's Biggest Wealth Manager Won't Touch Bitcoin

#39

Post by kown223 »

It is a fair point but you can't buy bitcoin these days without kyc, not to say the IP trace, if they can break tor/proxies and access exchanges records they can "follow the bitcoins", but then again how much funding you need, in EU recently there were quite a few attacks where they just rented a big truck and ran over people, also the bomb in the airport, they made it from some cheap chemicals, and then took a cab.

Re: The World's Biggest Wealth Manager Won't Touch Bitcoin

#40

Post by ftlio »

JamesBarney wrote: post #28
nxsynonym wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the comment either. It's not like terrorist groups are currently un-funded. Cash is still king around illegal activities of all kinds. Why is using bitcoin for illegal activity any different than untraceable cash?

He's not arguing that Bitcoin would be responsible for the terrorist action. He's arguing that hysteria would hold Bitcoin accountable. And this would create pressure to pass legislation that would crack down on it. And deserved or not Bitcoin is perceived differently than cash. Its seen as something nefarious, and strange. Where cash is something familiar.

The irony of course being that the US has even bombed USD cash reserves of ISIS. The USD network funds plenty of unscrupulous acts. It's a shame that people won't be able to see that equivalency though. When regulators come after Bitcoin, it will be from a conflict of interest, not a moral high ground.
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