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How the Winklevoss Twins Found Vindication in a Bitcoin Fortune

nytimes.com

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Re: How the Winklevoss Twins Found Vindication in a Bitcoin Fortune

#91

Post by milcron »

sytelus wrote: post #74
TheBiv wrote: post #3

>> They said they might look at selling when the value of all the Bitcoin in circulation approaches the value of all gold in the world — some $7 trillion or $8 trillion compared with the $310 billion value of all Bitcoin on Tuesday — given that they think Bitcoin is set to replace gold as a rare commodity. But then Tyler Winklevoss questioned even that, pointing out the ways that he believes Bitcoin is better than go…

That's quite a balony. - Both are in fixed quantity so none is more rare than other. - Gold has practical use in industry which puts lower bound on its value. BTC has no lower bound. - Gold is exchangeable virtually in any country and any culture regardless of how technologically advanced that society is. - Thousands of years of history has proven that humans have almost natural lust for this shiny metal and it gets…

> Both are in fixed quantity so none is more rare than other.

There is 80% more gold aboveground today than there was in 1980.

Re: How the Winklevoss Twins Found Vindication in a Bitcoin Fortune

#92

Post by tinkyada »

aiofgniaotnio wrote: post #65

A Bitcoin fortune on paper. It remains to be see if anyone will come out of this with real money. I'm sure they'll still be rich. But $1.65 billion rich? Probably not.

Plenty of people already have. Even if they come out with only 10% of the value of their holdings that is still a Huge return for what they initially put into it

Re: How the Winklevoss Twins Found Vindication in a Bitcoin Fortune

#94

Post by saalweachter »

aplummer wrote: post #45
frenchie14 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the question should be rephrased then as "how much have the current owners of bitcoin collectively exchanged for their coins?" This question also becomes more interesting when you factor in every coin that has been mined but not yet exchanged for money. I believe the GP is correct in guessing that the number will be much smaller than the current market cap of BTC

Yeap this is what I meant, using 'put into' like "putting money into stocks". Good point about bitcoins that have never been exchanged.

You do put money into a company when you buy its shares ... during an IPO. Meanwhile, owning shares of a company convey fractional ownership of it, its assets, and its future earnings. People will consider the stock price of a company relative to its assets and earnings (P/E) as an indicator of whether the company is overpriced or under-priced.

No one really notes the "total volume" of the trades of stocks, which is what you're asking for for Bitcoin; it isn't really a meaningful number. If people pass a stock - or a Bitcoin - back and forth for 10 trades for [$99, $101] or for 100 trades for [$99, $101], it isn't really meaningful.

The best you can do for Bitcoin is to try to gauge the "depth of the market" right now, ie, how many "buy" and "sell" orders are out at what prices, how much Bitcoin you could buy or sell right now and what the average price you could buy or sell a large quantity of Bitcoin at. (Eg, if you wanted to sell X Bitcoin, you might be able to sell X/2 Bitcoin at $PRICE and X/2 Bitcoin at $PRICE/2, for an average price of $PRICE*3/4.)

Re: How the Winklevoss Twins Found Vindication in a Bitcoin Fortune

#95

Post by pingec »

sytelus wrote: post #74
TheBiv wrote: post #3

>> They said they might look at selling when the value of all the Bitcoin in circulation approaches the value of all gold in the world — some $7 trillion or $8 trillion compared with the $310 billion value of all Bitcoin on Tuesday — given that they think Bitcoin is set to replace gold as a rare commodity. But then Tyler Winklevoss questioned even that, pointing out the ways that he believes Bitcoin is better than go…

That's quite a balony. - Both are in fixed quantity so none is more rare than other. - Gold has practical use in industry which puts lower bound on its value. BTC has no lower bound. - Gold is exchangeable virtually in any country and any culture regardless of how technologically advanced that society is. - Thousands of years of history has proven that humans have almost natural lust for this shiny metal and it gets…

One disadvantage of gold I can think of is you cannot hide it in your head.

Re: How the Winklevoss Twins Found Vindication in a Bitcoin Fortune

#96

Post by dahdum »

joe_the_user wrote: post #79
dahdum wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So I'd agree that the sum of all e-coins will surpass gold, but I see no reason for Bitcoin to do it alone." We could pick any number of gold-like commmodities, but like Bitcoin, gold has had a history of large expenditures to acquire it. Both are buoyed by that past. So many tokens and blockchains are coming out with incremental improvements or niche capabilities, but in the end I think consolidation of market cap…

Both are buoyed by that past. That bitcoin is a (sort-of) working cryptocurrency and that bitcoin has a history are basically the primary arguments for bitcoin's continued value. But it seems implausible to claim that this will allow bitcoin to become a store of value investment. I think it's clear those buying bitcoins today either are doing so with an eye to increase their investments through bitcoin's rise or are…

If you were in Venezuela you would certainly prefer to own Bitcoin if it had the same buying power in 6 months than keep local currency. Could be said of rubles and other currencies as well.

Even in the US, holding Bitcoin at the same buying power would be a hedge against inflation.

Of course the Bitcoin price in USD would still fluctuate, if it were pegged to USD there wouldn't be much use other than easier to move around.

Re: How the Winklevoss Twins Found Vindication in a Bitcoin Fortune

#97

Post by fastball »

jstanley wrote: post #72
saalweachter wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another critical difference is that there are commodity uses of gold. The price of gold will never go to zero ; it might go to $100 or $10 per oz if all speculation and hoarding were removed from the market but it wouldn't go to $0.

And what's that got to do with bitcoin? If you're going to assert that gold can't go to $0 and imply that bitcoin can, you need to also give a good reason why bitcoin can go to $0.

At one point in time, Bitcoin was worthless. Therefore it is provable that it can be worthless.

At no point in history has gold been worthless.

As far as you and I know, gold has had worth as long as society has had the capability to get it.

Re: How the Winklevoss Twins Found Vindication in a Bitcoin Fortune

#98

Post by sytelus »

milcron wrote: post #91
sytelus wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite a balony. - Both are in fixed quantity so none is more rare than other. - Gold has practical use in industry which puts lower bound on its value. BTC has no lower bound. - Gold is exchangeable virtually in any country and any culture regardless of how technologically advanced that society is. - Thousands of years of history has proven that humans have almost natural lust for this shiny metal and it gets…

> Both are in fixed quantity so none is more rare than other. There is 80% more gold aboveground today than there was in 1980.

Gold exploration had been going on for thousands of years which means every new piece of gold is being discovered at much higher cost. So while supply increases, prices don't go down.

Re: How the Winklevoss Twins Found Vindication in a Bitcoin Fortune

#99

Post by atwebb »

dahdum wrote: post #61
hyprCoin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respectfully disagree with your conclusion. There isn't one company for internet searches and there isn't one provider for online video content. Why should there be just a handful of currencies? The natural state of a healthy ecosystem includes competition and variety.

75% of all searches are Google, 10% Baidu, and 8% Bing. Youtube represents the vast majority of online video content. Netflix the vast majority of on demand television. I only mean to say a handful will capture the vast majority of market share/cap.

For now, those companies were different 10 years ago, Netflix has it's own issues if my viewing options are the same as everyone else's these days.

Re: How the Winklevoss Twins Found Vindication in a Bitcoin Fortune

#100

Post by nathancahill »

TheBiv wrote: post #3

>> They said they might look at selling when the value of all the Bitcoin in circulation approaches the value of all gold in the world — some $7 trillion or $8 trillion compared with the $310 billion value of all Bitcoin on Tuesday — given that they think Bitcoin is set to replace gold as a rare commodity. But then Tyler Winklevoss questioned even that, pointing out the ways that he believes Bitcoin is better than go…

Say the guys with a significant stake in BTC.
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