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

111–120 of 238 posts

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

#111

Post by burger_moon »

pep_guardiola wrote: post #51
AznHisoka wrote: post #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 ne…

I would advise you to read "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nassim Taleb if you haven't already. events

"Predictably Irrational" is also a good read. People aren't good at calculating value differences and will go out of their way to save $1. That's why litecoin and ethereum are skyrocketing. It's simply cheaper in total dollars per coin than bitcoin so people are buying that expecting to to rise to the same dollar value as bitcoin.

Coinbase announced they are planning to add more coins to their service next year. Besides dash and monero most of these trade at a fraction of even litecoin. Once that happens expect even more dumb money to flow in with people buying 'cheap' coins because they're 'only' a few dollar a piece.

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

#112

Post by hectorr1 »

billmalarky wrote: post #35

Both the founder and lead dev of Ethereum and Litecoin think they are both significantly overvalued. Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum): https://mobile.twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/94085013791... Charlie Lee (Litecoin): https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/940353265585160192 I've been bullish on crypto past few years but it's gone too far. I've flipped to bear until the tech catches up.

Bubble concerns worth listening to on crypto usually talk about the price getting to far ahead of the tech, network congestion, tx volume, scaling solutions, hard and soft forks, governance challenges, and regulatory uncertainty.

Bubble concerns not worth listening to talk about lack of transparency, the fact that not backed by anything, hacks, and of course tulips.

Since I can't view the WSJ Economist Survey crosstabs and filter on valid opinion vs hot take, I feel safe ignoring this result. While they're probably right, they're also probably right for the wrong reasons.

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

#114

Post by exceptione »

0xfeba wrote: post #82
AznHisoka wrote: post #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 ne…

> If there's 1 thing I've learned in the past 2 years, it's that experts can be deadly wrong But most of the time, they are in fact right. I don't know why a couple instances of wrong-ness proves that experts are unreliable. Other than selection/confirmation bias.

He makes a discrimination between informed/uninformed times. "They seem to be good at predicting things with known variables, but not with unknown unknowns."

Bitcoin is a big unknown, for experts and enthusiasts alike.

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

#116

Post by codebolt »

camillomiller wrote: post #37
AznHisoka wrote: post #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 ne…

Bitcoin might indeed be a bubble. But what about cryptocurrencies in general? I think that even these economist wouldn't be so sure if they'd been asked a broader question without pinpointing bitcoin.

In the grander scheme, it seems plausible that there will be one or a few cryptocurrencies of the current era that will withstand the test of time and emerge with large-scale adoption rates in various markets. But with BitCoins technical limitations I really don't see it being a mainstream medium of trade one or two decades down the line. With that conclusion in mind, it seems inevitable that the BTC market will cool off eventually. And my I would never put my money into something that I don't believe in over the long term. I would be more interested in an ETF or other derivative that tracked the value of a basket of viable cryptos.

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

#117

Post by craigc »

hectorr1 wrote: post #112
billmalarky wrote: post #35

Both the founder and lead dev of Ethereum and Litecoin think they are both significantly overvalued. Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum): https://mobile.twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/94085013791... Charlie Lee (Litecoin): https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/940353265585160192 I've been bullish on crypto past few years but it's gone too far. I've flipped to bear until the tech catches up.

Bubble concerns worth listening to on crypto usually talk about the price getting to far ahead of the tech, network congestion, tx volume, scaling solutions, hard and soft forks, governance challenges, and regulatory uncertainty. Bubble concerns not worth listening to talk about lack of transparency, the fact that not backed by anything, hacks, and of course tulips. Since I can't view the WSJ Economist Survey crossta…

I agree. As soon as anyone starts comparing crypto currencies and Bitcoin to tulips I tune out. It is a sign that they clearly do not understand what they are talking about.

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

#118

Post by ceejayoz »

Alex3917 wrote: post #73
pedrocr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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). Be very careful with those conclusions. In both cases the predictions were that the elections were very close. Trump winning the presidency when the best models we had gave him a 30% chance is not a failing of prediction at all.

> Trump winning the presidency when the best models we had gave him a 30% chance is not a failing of prediction at all. How accurate the "best models" were isn't really relevant to the accuracy of the predictions of experts as a whole. The media was running that Clinton had a 98% chance of winning the morning of the race.

> The media was running that Clinton had a 98% chance of winning the morning of the race.

Trump winning doesn't disprove that. The models could be correct and we wound up in the 2%.

The chances of me winning the Powerball are one in a hundred million, but me winning doesn't disprove those odds at all.

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

#119

Post by Jsarokin »

whiskyant wrote: post #86
RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's not currently possible to have a crypto with 0 fees that's both distributed/non-centralized as well as very secure against attacks. If there is, Bitcoin can easily incorporate the technology.

I'd say IOTA might fit your criteria, although it's still early stage.

I don't think bitcoin could integrate their tech since it's not a blockchain, but a DAG (what they call a tangle).

Interesting stuff.

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

#120

Post by billmalarky »

placeybordeaux wrote: post #66
billmalarky wrote: post #35

Both the founder and lead dev of Ethereum and Litecoin think they are both significantly overvalued. Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum): https://mobile.twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/94085013791... Charlie Lee (Litecoin): https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/940353265585160192 I've been bullish on crypto past few years but it's gone too far. I've flipped to bear until the tech catches up.

I was just reviewing the avg tx fee on major coins. Micropayments aren't possible on any widely accepted coin. BTC has hit 20 USD a tx (albeit without segwit). It's looking a little rough. Might be time for a draw back. EDIT: I was pulling together the avg tx fees from https://bitinfocharts.com/ $BTC: 24.4 USD $ETH: 1.07 USD $BCH: 0.17 USD $LTC: 0.632 USD $DASH: 0.62 USD $XMR: 5.49 USD My other thoughts on the subjec…

The one justification for skyhigh valuations is believing there will be a deus ex machina technology solution that comes out to solve the scalability problems of crypto. Honestly, it could happen (https://lightning.network/ or something else, ideally for on-chain transactions), but in _my_ opinion, betting on that outcome at this time is just not worth it. I believe a more likely scenario is we have a major correction, and then grow from there.
Post reply on HN