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

151–160 of 238 posts

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

#151

Post by billmalarky »

DennisP wrote: post #144
billmalarky wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 correcti…

It's not deus ex machina, because it's not unexpected. Lightning has a working alpha on Bitcoin, and Ethereum has something similar with Raiden, plus the Plasma paper and early code, a recently-published spec for the first version of sharding with a 100x throughput improvement, various special-purpose off-chain solutions like FunFair's fate channels, TrueBit for verifiable computation off chain, a simple multicore ha…

Yes I am a long term believer in the technology, my gut just says the next correction that comes will be a bloodbath. Accordingly, I'd prefer to wait until that occurs before getting more involved.

If I'm wrong and "lose money" (ie don't get the gains) I'm okay with that too, since I've thought about this a fair amount and I'm confident my position is the most reasonable at this time.

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

#152

Post by craigc »

VectorLock wrote: post #127
craigc wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Totally right. Tulips were a tangible asset with intrinsic value.

- Tulip mania was concentrated to specific parts of Europe vs. a global market.

- Tulip bulbs are perishable items that you have to repurchase when they go bad so they cannot store value.

- Tulip bulbs have an infinite supply since you can always grow more, Bitcoin has a maximum supply of 21 million and there will never be another.

- Anyone can plant seeds to grow a tulip bulb whereas mining a bitcoin has real costs associated with it ($800 to $2,000).

- Tulip bulbs cannot cure poverty and starvation in the world. Bitcoin has already been very useful in countries like Venezuela where inflation of their own currency is causing poverty. See https://mobile.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/12/13/world/america...

Also tulip mania itself is a poor comparison since it has spread like a game of telephone over the years. None of us were alive in the 1600s, and the actual events that unfolded were probably much less grand than the media plays it out to be: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-never-was-real-...

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

#153

Post by colorincorrect »

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.

"yes, bitcoin is overvalued, so if you want to invest in Blockchain Technology (TM), you should work with us instead"

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

#154

Post by trey-jones »

exceptione wrote: post #114
0xfeba wrote: post #82

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 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.

Exactly. The only experts that know what the next year will bring for bitcoin valuation are the liars and the fools.

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

#155

Post by billylindeman »

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…

Bitshares, STEEM, and the new project EOS all support them (EOS will have free transactions, and STEEM already does). Definitely check them out if you're interested in the space. Alot of people dismiss them because DPoS isn't proof of work, but if you dig into the philosophy behind it I feel like it makes alot of sense.

They've been lagging behind / undervalued for the last couple years IMO but the big money behind EOS is giving STEEM/BTS the attention they deserve.

https://steemit.com/dpos/@dantheman/dpos-consensus-algorithm...

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

#156

Post by dresstotheleft »

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…

Barely have toilets and telephones, yet unfettered access to the internet and Bitcoin exchanges?

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

#157

Post by monochromatic »

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.

Blockchain/cryptocurrency is going to be really useful and valuable. It would be an enormous coincidence if much of that value wound up being tied to bitcoin though.

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

#158

Post by vasilipupkin »

Unless you have any predictive insight about when a bubble going to burst, it's essentially a meaningless term. Specifically, I mean, it doesn't tell you anything about what you should do. Suppose Bitcoin is a bubble but it won't burst until 2152. Well, in that case, I should buy it. If it's about to burst in the next few months to few years, then perhaps I should sell it. If you can't tell me when, then you can call it whatever you want, it's not an informative term.

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

#159

Post by placeybordeaux »

billmalarky wrote: post #120
placeybordeaux wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 correcti…

In the worst case (1 tx per channel) LN would actually double the # of tx.

I am really looking forward to LN being really tested, but the thing that worries me is that the security model relies on txing before a certain block. If we see a large amount of the traffic move from on chain to LN then we could get ourselves into a situation where there is a run on the chain to close channels. If there is a large market maker that attempts to steal from a channel that is being used to route many others we could see a mass closing of channels which could push the fees high enough to make it cost prohibitive.

LN isn't a panacea it actually changes the security model.

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

#160

Post by mrb »

ceejayoz wrote: post #124
Akujin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you chart them, they're actually right on top of each other. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-12/its-official-bitcoi...

This chart shows nothing interesting and is hardly scientific. Of course by lining up price charts of various speculative bubbles they will roughly line up. The chart also intentially discards the first 4 years of Bitcoin trading data (2010-2013) where Bitcoin has actually gained the most. None of the other assets in the chart even remotely compare to Bitcoin's gains in these 4 years. Also, it should really use a log scale: http://bitcoin.zorinaq.com/price/
Post reply on HN