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How the Winklevoss Twins Found Vindication in a Bitcoin Fortune

nytimes.com

261–270 of 309 posts

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

#261
post #254
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a scam?

Other than a currency, what gives it value? Artworks for example are unique, but that does not inherently make them valuable.

There are many outlier things that are only of a certain value because some group of people decide that they are: art, baseball cards, collectible postage stamps, brand label clothing goods ($3,000 purses or shoes), venture capital valuations, and so on.

Why is a new Ferrari so expensive? Ferrari could manufacture a lot more cars if they wanted to. They could also charge less, their margins are tremendous. It's an obvious function of supply and demand. The price is so high because people say it's worth paying that. It's that simple. If all of their customers suddenly decided it wasn't worth paying that, Ferrari would either lower their prices or go out of business.

Even bond ratings are often open to significant subjectivism that can swing their value considerably.

If enough people decide that a Bitcoin is worth $100,000, then that is what they will be worth. That is in fact how most things in the world are valued. Bitcoin's scarcity and the fact that in the near future it will become almost impossible to mine new coins, adds to the premise.

The question is: does Bitcoin's low utility value and ease of trading in proportion to its market cap, particularly open it up to dramatic whims of the mob? Yes, which you see in its volatility. That won't change until or unless it finds greater baselining usefulness.

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

#262
post #254
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a scam?

Other than a currency, what gives it value? Artworks for example are unique, but that does not inherently make them valuable.

> Other than a currency

You answered the question there is nothing more than that.

Which bring us back to the question, just because it's a currency, its a scam?

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

#263
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live in a world where the near-ish future could bring us asteroid mining. Something that could devastate the rarity of abundance of gold.

That is true, and this should really factor in the decline of gold in the future, but this does not help Bitcoin against it's e-coins rivals. And isn't Bitcoin hackable in a near-ish future with quantum computing?

Yes, in it’s current state it most certainly is. Though as I recall there are already proposed updates to address this threat.

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

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

False. At one point Mussolini was alive. Therefore it is provable that Mussolini could live again. Sorry, try again. At one point, these grains of sand were in this glass. Then I poured them into the ocean. But they were in the glass so they could be in there again. Except no, no they couldn’t. The 2nd law of thermodynamics makes many things non-repeatable.

You are making the opposite claim to mine, they are not comparable. Try these on for size:

  Before his birth, Mussolini was not alive. Therefore, it is possible that he could not be alive again.

  At one point, there were no grains of sand in this glass. Therefore it is possible that there will be no grains of sand in this glass again.
Thermodynamics is really not the tool you should bring to bear in this conversation. Entropy dictates that eventually everything will be worthless, and that includes Bitcoin. The price of Bitcoin is not an irreversible product of entropy, despite what some investors might wish.

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

#265
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…

Rich kids getting rich is an achievement how? That's expected. Rather, it means they didn't fail. I have more respect for someone like J. K. Rowling even though I despise Harry Potter series itself (not for religious reasons, FWIW, just a matter of taste I guess). Getting early in Bitcoin just means they're on the very top of the pyramid scheme. That's not an achievement either, and it remains to be seen if/when that bubble's gonna burst. For me, its just a proof of concept cryptocurrency, and the first. Nothing more. It has no value for me otherwise, just like a tulip.

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

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gold is far more unlikely to be made illegal by governments. Empirically this has not been the case, particularly in the US [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

That's a poor example, as it has in fact been the case that gold has been legal throughout the extreme majority of US history, including critically for the entire post gold standard era. Gold was partially illegal for only ~16% of US history, which fits very well with the term "unlikely."

> far more unlikely

> Empirically

Bitcoin has been legal for 100% of US history.

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

#267
post #265
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…

Rich kids getting rich is an achievement how? That's expected. Rather, it means they didn't fail . I have more respect for someone like J. K. Rowling even though I despise Harry Potter series itself (not for religious reasons, FWIW, just a matter of taste I guess). Getting early in Bitcoin just means they're on the very top of the pyramid scheme. That's not an achievement either, and it remains to be seen if/when tha…

While they started ahead of most, I think it's silly to dismiss their returns. They made significant money. Being early in Bitcoin with a significant investment even considering their wealth is very forward thinking.

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

#268
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.

They competed in the 2008 Olympics. In my book, that is, without a doubt, “proof of work”. You don’t get to the Olympics without a fantastic amount of work.

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

#269
post #262
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than a currency, what gives it value? Artworks for example are unique, but that does not inherently make them valuable.

> Other than a currency You answered the question there is nothing more than that. Which bring us back to the question, just because it's a currency, its a scam?

No, the 22+$ transaction fees are the problem. People are saying that it's no longer a currency because of them, but that just makes it a security. IMO it's currency or scam not currency or security, because there is no inherent value beyond currency.

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> No one really notes the "total volume" of the trades of stocks OP is asking about Market Cap not volume. The question at hand is - market cap vs. money invested by current owners of bitcoin. Hypothesis being that this ratio is high.

So you might be able to figure out the last price paid for each Bitcoin.

That total is almost certainly less than the "market cap".

What does that number tell you? It doesn't tell you the minimum value of a Bitcoin.

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