How the Winklevoss Twins Found Vindication in a Bitcoin Fortune • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by kaspm » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:12 AM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #150

stevenj wrote: post #80

I think the Winklevoss twins were rightly ridiculed for thinking they invented Facebook. However, they've made two prescient bets and deserve credit for those: (1) Getting Facebook stock instead of cash as part of their legal settlement; (2) Not only seeing bitcoin's future potential, but investing in it and sticking with it. While the final result on the second one is still TBD, they deserve credit for investing in…

The deserve credit for what? For getting lucky on FB settlement and BTC rise? I mean, it's not like they actually built something meaningful and productive... Not sure how much "credit" they deserve.

I think the poster meant they should get credit for the investment decisions they made both in facebook stock and bitcoin, not credit for the success of those things

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

#152

Post by olalonde » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:12 AM UTC

aplummer wrote: post #21

Does anyone know the actual value of the money put into bitcoin so far vs this market cap of recent sale price x count? I'm keen to know actually how many people could withdraw at similar sale prices to now before it evaporated. Because it's so exponential, I would imagine a rapid sale of 5% would remove 90% of the value, but I'd love to know the specifics.

There's no way to know for sure.

One thing we know is that the USD exchange volume for the last 30 days was about $295 billion [0] (or almost 100% of the market cap). However, a lot of this volume is due to the same group of traders circulating the same coins back and forth.

Ultimately and as other commenters pointed out, it doesn't really matter. It is possible that people who bought BTC with "hard earned cash" are statistically more unwilling to sell at a loss but that's about how much you could infer from that statistic in my opinion.

[0] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/volume/monthly/

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

#153

Post by ramphastidae » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:13 AM UTC

stevenj wrote: post #80

I think the Winklevoss twins were rightly ridiculed for thinking they invented Facebook. However, they've made two prescient bets and deserve credit for those: (1) Getting Facebook stock instead of cash as part of their legal settlement; (2) Not only seeing bitcoin's future potential, but investing in it and sticking with it. While the final result on the second one is still TBD, they deserve credit for investing in…

I don't really consider it "prescient" to take stock over cash when you're already wealthy. It's more of a privilege.

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

#154

Post by johnhenry » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:14 AM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #106

loceng wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one can steal it from you with 50%+1 CPU resources though.

The 51% attack allows you to double spend. It doesn't allow you to steal other people's coin.

Technically, a 51% attack would allow one to confirm non-standard transactions and pretty much do anything. Granted, this would immediately be apparent to any of the other 49% of nodes and cause a fork, but still...

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

#155

Post by perseusprime11 » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:17 AM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #148

stevenj wrote: post #80

I think the Winklevoss twins were rightly ridiculed for thinking they invented Facebook. However, they've made two prescient bets and deserve credit for those: (1) Getting Facebook stock instead of cash as part of their legal settlement; (2) Not only seeing bitcoin's future potential, but investing in it and sticking with it. While the final result on the second one is still TBD, they deserve credit for investing in…

Absolutely. The Social Network made them out to be moneygrubbing fools, but everything else I've read shows them to be actually quite intelligent and prescient.

I still can’t get my head around the fact that Mark stole their idea and ran with it, and it was the twins who were made to look evil. What if this happens to any of us?

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

#156

Post by Rmilb » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:19 AM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #134

chrisco255 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 51% attack allows you to double spend. It doesn't allow you to steal other people's coin.

By allowing you to double spend, it reduces confidence in coins you buy to zero, which reduces the value of all coins to zero. You still have your coins, but they aren't worth anything.

This is false, you just have to wait for more confirmations. And if miners are censoring transactions there will be a fork where you can use your coins.

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

#157

Post by wellboy » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:22 AM UTC

tuxxy wrote: post #114

loceng wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one can steal it from you with 50%+1 CPU resources though.

Have you seen how much processing power is in the Bitcoin network? Do you know how expensive an attack like this would be? By the way, you can only double spend with the 51% attack.

How expensive, $100M?

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

#158

Post by shostack » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:25 AM UTC

nathancahill wrote: post #100

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.

So rather than just assume ulterior motives here (which I agree should be considered as a possibility whenever a big stakeholder is discussing a major investment of theirs), I wonder if there's a different question to ask.

Specifically, how does the game theory play out for his comments? Does it point towards him being genuine? Or does it point to him trying to do something else?

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

#159

Post by jhall1468 » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:31 AM UTC

perseusprime11 wrote: post #155

jstanley wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. The Social Network made them out to be moneygrubbing fools, but everything else I've read shows them to be actually quite intelligent and prescient.

I still can’t get my head around the fact that Mark stole their idea and ran with it, and it was the twins who were made to look evil. What if this happens to any of us?

Ideas are worthless. Undoubtedly he took their concept, but I sincerely doubt he developed a complete copy of their idea. Whether or not their idea would have worked is up for debate. But it's a pointless debate, because ideas are worthless... Unless of course, they are patented.

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

#160

Post by saalweachter » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:31 AM UTC

21 wrote: post #133

CPLX wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is factually incorrect. Apple can and does issue stock and buy back shares.

Please explain how issuing/buying back shares destroys dollars.

AAPL buying/selling itself is a direct link between the assets inside AAPL and its stock price. Money can literally be "put into" and "taken out of" AAPL.