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

Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

davidgerard.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 271 posts

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#241

Post by firatsarlar »

It's getting more upset, day by day, to see that how intelligent people's mind tricked by talking about the energy cost of a trading tool. Same goes for "follow the money,... if you can't; force people to make their money be traceable"..

1.Why don't we try to find new energy sources. ( If I start to travel at light speed, will you still blame me -us, whoever- to use a lot of energy. ) Or should we stand in a state ,we curve dots on the rock, to keep track of our beloved money.

2.Why can't we find another way to fight with crime -or generally bad ,evil whatever you want to define -. If one of -ancient- way of fight fails.

Does constant observation of the subject, is a scientific method to control environment, that you responsible to keep at a peaceful state.

Will you blame god -or some other exterior source of what you believe to make that happen (luck,... )? If you lose one of your eyes, or ear -which is an interface -tool- to collect information around -what ever you believe exterior, external...) Or continue with other -what you have currently- to continue operating in a healthy state.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#242

Post by mitchellberry »

lagadu wrote: post #182
mitchellberry wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All it takes is a change in the media narrative. Every article I read in the media has huge negative sentiment already. Can you point to some positive articles about bitcoin? Seems to be very few going around, it's all bubbles, energy consumption, hackers, ransomware and terror funding. Wondering how the narrative can change for the worse from here.

The nearly weekly articles about btc hitting all-time high milestones would count as the positive articles about bitcoin in my opinion.

Fair enough though I'd contend such articles are the motivation for the bubble commentary.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#243

Post by mikeschmatz »

SippinLean wrote: post #235
mikeschmatz wrote: post #227

Bitcoin is just a dressed up pyramid scheme to enrich ones at the top. The lack of oversight and regulation is pretty much a welcome sign for every scammer in the world.

We don't need to make this general comment on every specific Bitcoin thread. A pyramid scheme requires a central actor to run the scheme, Bitcoin has none. This article is specifically about the author's opinion of what "price" and "market cap" mean in the context of Bitcoin.

> A pyramid scheme requires a central actor to run the scheme, Bitcoin has none.

No, once put in motion, a pyramid scheme doesn't require a central actor.

> We don't need to make this general comment on every specific Bitcoin thread.

OK, I'll check with you next time before commenting here.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#244

Post by CloudYeller »

notyourday wrote: post #185
omarforgotpwd wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scenario where the government makes crypto currencies completely impossible is unlikely, as that would mean that you essentially controlled all communication. There are many ways they can make it difficult, cumbersome and risky however, even on an individual basis. That could lead to a short term dampening effect on the global price until people figure out effective ways to get around the regulation in question.

No, the scenario is that the governments tell banks: "Deal with BTC and lose your license. Kay, bye!"

Yep. It would be like what happened after they made online poker illegal: anyone sufficiently committed will either have to cut their losses or leave the country.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#245

Post by SippinLean »

mikeschmatz wrote: post #243
SippinLean wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to make this general comment on every specific Bitcoin thread. A pyramid scheme requires a central actor to run the scheme, Bitcoin has none. This article is specifically about the author's opinion of what "price" and "market cap" mean in the context of Bitcoin.

> A pyramid scheme requires a central actor to run the scheme, Bitcoin has none. No, once put in motion, a pyramid scheme doesn't require a central actor. > We don't need to make this general comment on every specific Bitcoin thread. OK, I'll check with you next time before commenting here.

Yes they do, they require operators and recruiters, which have a specific meaning and do not exist in Bitcoin in any sense other than an abstract one. Your comment would not be out of place on a post titled "Is Bitcoin a pyramid scheme?" but it is a generic re-hashed comment that has little to do with the specific content here.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#246

Post by mikulas_florek »

pc86 wrote: post #236
celticninja wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exchange A price is $1000 Exchange B price is $1250 Makes sense to buy on A and sell on B for a nice profit. So I buy 3 coins on A and send them to Be, sell on B and have a nice $750 profit. Now you need to get fiat from B to A and this is where you hit your bottleneck.

Assuming you can legally operate on both A and B in your country, isn't it a matter of sending your $3750 from B to your bank then depositing $3750 from your bank to A? Obviously that step alone (fiat B => bank => fiat A => crypto A) could take well over a week before fiat in B is back to crypto in A. I know I'm missing something because a lot of people a lot smarter than me are in this space. I just don't know what…

Difference between exchanges is ~0% to 5%. Price can change 5% easily in an hour on a single exchange so if you take a day or more to transfer money from one exchange to another, it's very likely you would earn more just by holding BTC.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#247

Post by smokeyj »

adventured wrote: post #75
smokeyj wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a solved issue for equities? How do you know the shares you purchased are valid?

It's solved to an extraordinarily high degree. 99.999% or greater. There are fringe cases that pop up from time to time and make headlines; the reason they make headlines, is because trillions of dollars in equities trade hands every year in the US, and such cases are very rare. It's because there's an established system of trust, liability, responsibility, regulation and oversight in the network, assuming you're usi…

> It's because there's an established system of trust, liability, responsibility, regulation and oversight in the network

You can just admit you don’t know.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#248

Post by davidgerard »

healsjnr1 wrote: post #172
sytelus wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Article author actually makes a great point and it stands regardless of your ability to cash out within 1%. Big investors on current markets can whip out huge profits for themselves by using techniques such as front running, wash trades, willybot, spoofing etc. Exchanges are not even prohibited from doing their own secret trades and using their own internal database and full knowledge of all other players. If you are…

One thing in particular I dislike about this is that the author lumps all crypto currency into the same bucket. As the prime example of this, ethereum and Bitcoin could not be more different. Work done by groups such as 0x mean that these regulations can be enforced by public contacts. Sure, there is more work to be done, but the potential is to create decentralised exchanges that are safer and easier to regulate tha…

In practical terms, the main point of interest in Ethereum is the price of Ether.

The prime "decentralised" exchange is EtherDelta, which is completely decentralised except the absolute decentralisation of the website (deployable only as 2MB of minified JavaScript with the original source unavailable). I wrote about how well this approach works: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2017/09/28/etherdelta-h...

How decentralised can you make your "decentralised" exchange? There's not much point to "a bit decentralised".

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#249

Post by davidgerard »

DennisP wrote: post #39
davidgerard wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not being pitched to suburban mums and dads in the tabloids.

Then it sounds like your argument should just be "this is too risky for more than a tiny investment unless you're very secure," which I agree with. Where I part ways is in your claim that the price is somehow illusory and it's impossible to cash out. Until recently I worked for a company that was mostly paid in crypto, and had no trouble selling it off, moving the money into a bank, and meeting payroll. Crypto is new…

I'd definitely concur that your first paragraph holds. Having a flutter is one thing. Buy £5 of ether on Coinbase, see what happens! Investing seriously, OH DEAR GOD NO.

The motivation for this is that I keep hearing from friends asking "help, [relative] thinks bitcoins are a good idea! what do I do?" So instead of abstruse jargon-laden blockchain inside baseball posts, I tried to write something more accessible about the problems.

Re: Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional

#250

Post by davidgerard »

SippinLean wrote: post #235
mikeschmatz wrote: post #227

Bitcoin is just a dressed up pyramid scheme to enrich ones at the top. The lack of oversight and regulation is pretty much a welcome sign for every scammer in the world.

We don't need to make this general comment on every specific Bitcoin thread. A pyramid scheme requires a central actor to run the scheme, Bitcoin has none. This article is specifically about the author's opinion of what "price" and "market cap" mean in the context of Bitcoin.

It can reasonably be called a headless ponzi, I think.

https://prestonbyrne.com/2017/12/08/bitcoin_ponzi/

Post reply on HN