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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

#271

Post by Fnoord »

mcmacintosh wrote: post #267
Fnoord wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Compared to whom? The other rich people, or all the poor who are the vast majority of this world who cannot even try this? If you compare it to other rich people you're going to need to provide some kind of in depth analysis.

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

#272

Post by Retric »

adventured wrote: post #261
Retric wrote: 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.

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 ob…

Ferrari cars charge a premium, much like Apple does but they are a hell of a lot faster than a Honda Civic. Baseball cards started as a thing outside of rarity, they had information and a picture which was more valuable pre Internet.

Now you can argue that Antiques should not gain value from age, but old junk is not valueable, old pristine stuff is. So your argument is people overvalue something they have a rational reason to value, which is different than placing clause on something without inherent value.

I am not saying Bitcoins shpuld be worth zero today, I am saying they will be worth zero in 100 years after the fad ends unless they fix the inherent problems with the protocol so it can be used as a medium of exchange.

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

#273

Post by usrusr »

dmitriid wrote: post #256
usrusr wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time, did you (not) expect bitcoin to succeed in becoming a payment method, displacing paypal and credit cards, or did you (not) expect bitcoin to become "digital gold", of little use except for being something that most of the time more people want to buy than sell? If it was the former, there is very little to beat yourself up about.

> did you (not) expect bitcoin to succeed in becoming a payment method, displacing paypal and credit cards And it hasn't displaced anything, has it? I still don't expect it to do anything of the sort.

Kind of my point: I never heard of a bitcoin early adopter who started out saying "sucks for payment, but I'll happily bet on it becoming a self-sustaining rally", but many who initially expected a currency seem to have unknowingly pivoted to the nice feeling of owning ever increasing virtual riches (that will only grow bigger and bigger as long as almost everybody sticks to the program of not touching that wealth, "just one more turn"), with no payment function at all.

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

#274

Post by sumedh »

Retric wrote: post #269
sumedh wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So its a scam because there are transaction fees?

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

#275

Post by ameister14 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #170
perseusprime11 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So tomorrow if you hire couple of engineers to build a gaming app, are you saying you will fine if those engineers launch the app by themselves?

That's the risk you take in software in general. What stopped Instagram from copying Snapchat? Nothing. Micrsoft used to snuff out competitors in the office suite space all the time. MSN copied AIM. IE copied Netscape. It happens. You either work with founders you can trust or you don't.

Sure, but that doesn't mean that if you hire engineers who then screw you over you're a bad person and they're heroes.

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

#276

Post by bogomipz »

drewvolpe wrote: post #204
bogomipz wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how "prescient" not accepting the first settlement offer is. Also I'm not sure how "prescient" their seeing the potential of bitcoin was. They were literally sitting on a beach in Ibiza when a stranger approached them and told them about investing in bitcoin. This same stranger fom the beach them puts them in the touch with the Bitinstant folks. When the brother meet Charlie Shrem and Erik Voorhes from B…

Early bitcoiners met with a lot of people with the means to invest. Almost all of them passed. Committing to investing and sticking with it through the ups and downs takes good judgement, courage, and healthy dose of luck. It's no different from startups. A lot of investors were pitched by AirBnB and almost all of them passed. Fred Wilson from USV even had PaulG badgering him with emails telling him to invest and he…

Please reread my comment. I was refuting this insistence that these two people were "prescient" when they weren't. They didn't have their finger on the pulse of crypto currencies and their potential. It was their dumb luck that some stranger talked up bitcoin to them while they sitting on a beach in Spain.

All this talk about how "prescient" they are and how they have now been "vindicated" is all pretty ridiculous. This is revisionist history. The NYTimes piece reads like a press release.

There 's a fair amount of luck involved in investing. They've been lucky twice. You notice there is no mention in this fluff piece about the investments they have made that have gone south because.

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

#277

Post by mindentropy »

sverige wrote: post #57
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean gold is rare on its own kind? Aren't there tons of other pretty metals? There doesn't seem to be any unique property of gold (other than sociological) that would help it defend against competitors like bitcoin or any other new asset.

Gold is rare in several senses: In addition to being a rare element, it is the most ductile metal, the most malleable metal, and one of the best conductors of heat and electricity. It is very stable and doesn't oxidize. It is easy to alloy and easy to refine back to pure state. It is one of three metals that naturally occurs in its elemental state. It is the easiest metal to work for jewelry and other purposes. It is…

If a government pulls the plug on the internet won't the value of Bitcoin go to zero?

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

#278

Post by Retric »

sumedh wrote: post #274
Retric wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So its a scam because there are transaction fees?

It's become a scam because of the incentive structure. The miners control the currency and are trying to maximize the money they extract not grow the usage of Bitcoin.

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

#279

Post by pythonaut_16 »

aphextron wrote: post #6
walshemj wrote: post #5

is it liquid in the way gold is ?

Liquidity problems are an issue with exchanges, not Bitcoin itself. I can email you a Bitcoin instantly. Good luck doing that with a gold bar.

What's the difference between emailing it instantly, and doing a transaction that takes time and costs a transaction fee?

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

#280

Post by koonsolo »

mcmacintosh wrote: post #267
Fnoord wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here's why you are getting downvoted:

1. I'm jealous because they were born rich

2. I'm jealous because they made a lot of money with betting correctly on Facebook

3. I'm jealous because they also made a lot of money on correctly betting on Bitcoin

4. I'm jealous because they made the news and are probably getting all the hottest chicks.

So let's all agree to only say negative stuff about them, and blame all their luck on them being born rich.

We are not rich, so therefore are excused for not buying bitcoin at <$10.

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