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Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’

blogs.wsj.com

21–30 of 238 posts

Re: Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’

#21
post #3

In the end Bitcoin is so similar to Gold. It is a means of storing wealth and is valued on a shared belief of finite quantities and that it is an effective/secure means of storing wealth. It is hard for me to call a shared belief a bubble, because there is a clear understanding I think now that there is no underlying fundamental asset value.

> transfer wealth

It works really well for that, for those cashing out.

Re: Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’

#22
If there's 1 thing I've learned in the past 2 years, it's that experts can be deadly wrong (Trump being president, Brexit). They seem to be good at predicting things with known variables, but not with unknown unknowns.

I'm making a contrarian bet that experts are wrong this time as well (at least in the near term). People are jumping the gun, trying to look smart and predict the right outcome. The same people that never predicted bitcoin would be this popular. If I'm wrong, so be it, I'll lose a few % of my net wealth.

Re: Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’

#24
I really don't think cryptocurrency in general is a going anywhere; I don't think this is even the tip of the iceberg in terms of where this is going to lead. There are reason however, why bitcoin specifically might bubble and collapse. The main issue being the fact that at the moment its not reasonable to use bitcoin as if it were money, with the prime cause (in my eyes) being the cost of transactions. I do think bitcoin will collapse (not any time soon), but I think the contents of that bubble will find themselves in other, technically more useful cryptos. Not being able to move bitcoin around with out these ridiculous transaction fees is why bitcoin will eventually collapse. Its not (as) useful as a store of value in its current form than a store of value that doesn't have acost for its use.

Re: Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’

#25
post #3

In the end Bitcoin is so similar to Gold. It is a means of storing wealth and is valued on a shared belief of finite quantities and that it is an effective/secure means of storing wealth. It is hard for me to call a shared belief a bubble, because there is a clear understanding I think now that there is no underlying fundamental asset value.

Gold has a floor value though, sure it has a value above that based on being used as a store of wealth but the whole thing is predicated on the fact that gold is actually useful and has thousands of years of human history of being valued.

bitcoin will still have a sort of floor value for the various illegal things it was and is still use for.

Obviously though that is far far lower than what it is now.

Re: Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’

#26
Gotta love how the negative crypto articles rise to the top on HN immediately. What's not understood is that crypto is a way for the un-banked (1/3 of the people on earth who barely have clean water, toilets or telephones, yes telephones and that make $1/day) now have access and participation in a global trading platform. Disruption for the first time is happening to both VCs and traditional investment bankers and they are rekt. Be a contrarian.

Re: Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’

#27
post #6

I'm committing the cardinal sin of commenting before I'm done with the article, but whenever this discussion comes up, I feel like asking: why not both? Could it be that Bitcoin is currently overvalued and in a "bubble", but it or something like it still may have huge value and utility in the long run? The idea that the Bitcoin bubble is something more like the Dot Com bubble than Tulipomania seems plausible to me.

[deleted]

Re: Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’

#28
post #6

I'm committing the cardinal sin of commenting before I'm done with the article, but whenever this discussion comes up, I feel like asking: why not both? Could it be that Bitcoin is currently overvalued and in a "bubble", but it or something like it still may have huge value and utility in the long run? The idea that the Bitcoin bubble is something more like the Dot Com bubble than Tulipomania seems plausible to me.

Yes. Internet stocks were in a bubble in the late 90's. It burst but the Internet turned out just fine. The question is, when the crypto bubble bursts, will Bitcoin recover, or will it be something else?

I think the contents of that bubble will fill another, more technically useful crypto. Something with 0 cost transaction fees.
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