Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say ‘Yes’

blogs.wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 238 posts

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

#41

Post by samastur »

KasianFranks wrote: post #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 th…

I would be more willing to believe this if among many other things bitcoin price didn't rise so much. As it is, it is clearly mostly bought and not "traded" which suggest it is used as a store of value (or investment) and not currency.

It might be that cryptocoins will perform that role some time in the future, but this is not what is happening now.

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

#42

Post by virgilp »

AaronHester wrote: post #31

Bitcoin is a bubble but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make money investing in it. All you need is someone else to be the “greater fool” to purchase it from you. Just don’t get stuck holding bitcoin when the bubble collapses.

Same thing could be said about sub-prime loans. Or really - anything. If you have this kind of "God-like knowledge", even gambling is a great idea.

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

#43

Post by zimablue »

lawlessone wrote: post #25
zimablue wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I see your point but even on that - there are alternative blockchains, we could all just swap to litecoins and send it to zero.

If it were the only feasible crypto it would have some sort of floor I agree but factor in altcoins and it actually doesn't have any.

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

#44

Post by dynofuz »

adamnemecek wrote: post #16

The one thing they aren't accounting for is that there really hasn't been anything like bitcoin. In most bubbles, eventually the whales start selling which triggers an avalanche, however bitcoin is distributed enough that this might not happen. Too many different people are interested in it doing well now. E.g. rich people in 3rd world countries, boy are they pumped for bitcoin. I've mentioned it before, and I was ki…

recently posted 1000 people who own 40% of the BTC market https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15877838

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

#45

Post by pasquinelli »

Akujin wrote: post #20
evanwise wrote: 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.

Tulipmania lasted 6 months. Bitcoin is now 8 years old. Stop comparing Bitcoin to flowers. It's not even close to the same thing.

tulips had existed for quite a long time before they became the object of a speculative bubble.

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

#46

Post by oli5679 »

donquichotte wrote: post #36

Oh dear. I don't own any bitcoins, but I sure af don't trust the judgement of people who invent fantasy signal processing strategies like fibonacci retracement [1], support and resistance levels [2] and Elliott Waves [3]. Sincerely, a dude who does actual signal processing for stuff that has to work. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_retracement [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_and_resistance [3] h…

None of those methods have mainstream credibility in the academic economics/finance community.

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

#47

Post by HHalvi »

If you think of it as a currency probably yes and i assume that is what most of these people are assuming it to be. But Bitcoin and other alt coins have suddenly become a way to hoard something digitally. Pretty sure if everyone wants to cash out their bitcoin "portfolio's" there is gonna be a lot of long term and short term plummets. Overvalued ? Over Hyped ? Over Sold ? Over Everything ? Sure , but a Bubble ? Lets wait till it all goes down shall we ?

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

#48

Post by merloen »

donquichotte wrote: post #36

Oh dear. I don't own any bitcoins, but I sure af don't trust the judgement of people who invent fantasy signal processing strategies like fibonacci retracement [1], support and resistance levels [2] and Elliott Waves [3]. Sincerely, a dude who does actual signal processing for stuff that has to work. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_retracement [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_and_resistance [3] h…

What makes you think that those fantasy signal processing strategies were invented by (respectable) economists? Because they weren't.

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

#49

Post by adamnemecek »

dynofuz wrote: post #44
adamnemecek wrote: post #16

The one thing they aren't accounting for is that there really hasn't been anything like bitcoin. In most bubbles, eventually the whales start selling which triggers an avalanche, however bitcoin is distributed enough that this might not happen. Too many different people are interested in it doing well now. E.g. rich people in 3rd world countries, boy are they pumped for bitcoin. I've mentioned it before, and I was ki…

recently posted 1000 people who own 40% of the BTC market https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15877838

The real question is how active are these people.

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

#50

Post by basedninja »

adamnemecek wrote: post #16

The one thing they aren't accounting for is that there really hasn't been anything like bitcoin. In most bubbles, eventually the whales start selling which triggers an avalanche, however bitcoin is distributed enough that this might not happen. Too many different people are interested in it doing well now. E.g. rich people in 3rd world countries, boy are they pumped for bitcoin. I've mentioned it before, and I was ki…

Curious what you mean by "tech company economics are different". Thanks
Post reply on HN