It can all go to zero • Hacker News Board

Re: It can all go to zero

#261

Post by tbabb » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 9:03 PM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #51

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these articles always pretend a 20% selloff is the beginning of the end There are individuals in this thread claiming "there will always be buyers" and that the probability of Bitcoin becoming worthless is zero. The point of the article isn't that Bitcoin is doomed. It's that there is a substantial non-zero probability it ends up worthless. That such an elementary claim about a volatile asset is controversial almos…

Ok can you talk more about your failure case then? What are the conditions like what exactly is the end result. There are 0 exchanges?

It absolutely boggles my mind that so many people in this thread cannot conceive of a run on crypto. I assume they probably don't even know what a "run" is.

And it boggles my mind that their only conception of failure is some kind of catastrophe or monumental event, like nuclear war, or quantum computing breaking cryptography. LITERALLY ALL THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN IS THAT PEOPLE SUDDENLY WANT IT LESS. Excuse my caps.

If people doubt the future of crypto, then the price goes down. If the price goes down, crypto looks less attractive, so the price goes down more. This can spiral arbitrarily close to zero. No nuclear war or quantum computers needed.

What is being traded is like MMORPG game money or game items. They're only valuable as long as people want them. Crypto makes them unfakeable, but that doesn't mean people will want them.

My jaw is on the floor that this is beyond so many peoples' imagination.

Re: It can all go to zero

#262

Post by MichaelGG » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 9:07 PM UTC

tbabb wrote: post #261

adamnemecek wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok can you talk more about your failure case then? What are the conditions like what exactly is the end result. There are 0 exchanges?

It absolutely boggles my mind that so many people in this thread cannot conceive of a run on crypto. I assume they probably don't even know what a "run" is . And it boggles my mind that their only conception of failure is some kind of catastrophe or monumental event, like nuclear war, or quantum computing breaking cryptography. LITERALLY ALL THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN IS THAT PEOPLE SUDDENLY WANT IT LESS . Excuse my caps.…

Not to zero. I'd personally pay $1, probably more, for even 10% of all Bitcoins, just for the novelty. If there were no miners, maybe not much more than that, and I'd want the current private keys.

I'm guessing there's at least someone that'd pay a few million for all of Bitcoin, so maybe a $0.10-1.0 floor, easily? Would be illiquid and hard for small holders to sell though.

Also, quantum computers do not break Bitcoin entirely as in previously unused addresses are safe. You'd need a way to quickly generate keys matching a certain hash. Otherwise you need a ton of hashing power, too, to rewrite the part of the chain created in the time a spend-of-interest was created and you generated matching keys with your attacking machine. Seems like something that can be upgraded assuming a QC-resistant crypto scheme exists.

Re: It can all go to zero

#263

Post by monort » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 9:08 PM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #156

adamnemecek wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok can you talk more about your failure case then? What are the conditions like what exactly is the end result. There are 0 exchanges?

Someone announces they have had a large quantum computer for a while and have cracked every public key on the blockchain. That'd probably do it. Quantum Jubilee, y'all. The year of decryption, all private keys revealed, all captive coins set free. It's just a matter of engineering at this point. Give it roughly 10 years.

This is not possible because public keys you want to crack are in hashed form RIPE-160(SHA256(public_key)). Grover's search algorithm can help with it, but speedup is much less, than with Shor's algorithm and won't be of much help with sha256.

Re: It can all go to zero

#264

Post by adamnemecek » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

tbabb wrote: post #261

adamnemecek wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok can you talk more about your failure case then? What are the conditions like what exactly is the end result. There are 0 exchanges?

It absolutely boggles my mind that so many people in this thread cannot conceive of a run on crypto. I assume they probably don't even know what a "run" is . And it boggles my mind that their only conception of failure is some kind of catastrophe or monumental event, like nuclear war, or quantum computing breaking cryptography. LITERALLY ALL THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN IS THAT PEOPLE SUDDENLY WANT IT LESS . Excuse my caps.…

Ok, who's doing this run? There are too many people at this point. There ins't a single entity that is currently capable of controlling all markets at all time. Or like predictably.

It's funny, in this thread you dont really see much crypto optimism despite this meme being around for some time now.

> What is being traded is like MMORPG game money or game items.

There's definitely that aspect to crypto but its naive to think it's a dominant one. It might be like 10% maybe even less.

Re: It can all go to zero

#265

Post by cableshaft » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 9:11 PM UTC

zer00eyz wrote: post #118

cableshaft wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's why it's common knowledge in the stock market to diversify your portfolio, and they call it a portfolio, not a single stock, and why so many people invest in mutuals. There's not an equivalent to mutuals in the cryptoverse yet, but there will be. I've made quite a few small bets on various alts. I'm taking the black swan approach to them. Quite a few could drop to zero in a couple years but I'm betting at…

Stocks are an investment, currency is a medium of exchange and hopefully a stable one. Something that you want me to use to buy things with should not be so volatile that it goes from pizza to luxury home in less than ten years years. If I had some bitcoin "lost in the cushions of my couch"from that era I would be a rich man today. Crypto currency has become a massive misnomer. To that end I'm not sure WHAT it is any…

Crypto is being treated as an asset, not a currency, by most major governments that have weighed in on the matter. Assets can be invested in, bought and sold, and traded for other assets.

And assets are worth whatever other people are willing to pay for it. My friend sold a digital-only World of Warcraft character to someone for over $2000 once, and for the longest time there was a sub-industry based around buildings of employees playing the game to get and sell World of Warcraft gold, so much so that it got its own term of 'goldfarming'.

Crypto has value because other people are willing to pay the asking price for it. If that ever becomes not the case, then it's no longer an asset. Could that ever happen? Possibly, and I'd say definitely for certain coins. But now that this idea exists in the world of programmable tokens that can be exchanged quickly and cheaply and decentralized public ledgers, I don't think it's ever going away, not totally.

Re: It can all go to zero

#266

Post by davidiach » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 9:14 PM UTC

tbabb wrote: post #261

adamnemecek wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok can you talk more about your failure case then? What are the conditions like what exactly is the end result. There are 0 exchanges?

It absolutely boggles my mind that so many people in this thread cannot conceive of a run on crypto. I assume they probably don't even know what a "run" is . And it boggles my mind that their only conception of failure is some kind of catastrophe or monumental event, like nuclear war, or quantum computing breaking cryptography. LITERALLY ALL THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN IS THAT PEOPLE SUDDENLY WANT IT LESS . Excuse my caps.…

That's like saying the price of the Mona Lisa can go to zero just because people suddenly want it less.

Things like that don't just suddenly happen for no reason.

Re: It can all go to zero

#267

Post by tbabb » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 9:15 PM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #264

tbabb wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely boggles my mind that so many people in this thread cannot conceive of a run on crypto. I assume they probably don't even know what a "run" is . And it boggles my mind that their only conception of failure is some kind of catastrophe or monumental event, like nuclear war, or quantum computing breaking cryptography. LITERALLY ALL THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN IS THAT PEOPLE SUDDENLY WANT IT LESS . Excuse my caps.…

Ok, who's doing this run? There are too many people at this point. There ins't a single entity that is currently capable of controlling all markets at all time. Or like predictably. It's funny, in this thread you dont really see much crypto optimism despite this meme being around for some time now. > What is being traded is like MMORPG game money or game items. There's definitely that aspect to crypto but its naive t…

> Ok, who's doing this run? There are too many people at this point. There ins't a single entity that is currently capable of controlling all markets at all time.

No offense, but I think this proves my point about commenters not having any clue what a run is or how markets work.

Explain to me what you think causes a run?

Re: It can all go to zero

#268

Post by tbabb » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 9:16 PM UTC

davidiach wrote: post #266

tbabb wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely boggles my mind that so many people in this thread cannot conceive of a run on crypto. I assume they probably don't even know what a "run" is . And it boggles my mind that their only conception of failure is some kind of catastrophe or monumental event, like nuclear war, or quantum computing breaking cryptography. LITERALLY ALL THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN IS THAT PEOPLE SUDDENLY WANT IT LESS . Excuse my caps.…

That's like saying the price of the Mona Lisa can go to zero just because people suddenly want it less. Things like that don't just suddenly happen for no reason.

Explain to me what you think a market run is and how it happens.

Re: It can all go to zero

#269

Post by maehwasu » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #231

tbabb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen comparisons to the .com boom/bubble, and I don't buy it. There was a lot of economic movement while the entire economy moved over to the internet. Those who didn't adapt failed. Those who tried models which didn't translate also failed. Lots of experimentation, and lots of reinventing things from scratch. So lots of failure and lots of speculation-- but ultimately around a real sea change. I don't see how…

I keep asking people this simple question, which goes something like this: Before the internet, I would wake up in the morning and have to go to a store and buy clothes, then the travel agent to book flights, then Blockbuster to get a movie to watch. After the internet I could wake up in the morning and do all that myself. That was valuable. Before smartphones I would wake up in the morning and print out my airline t…

An anti-pattern that I see on HN is very smart people spending lots of energy thinking of all the ways that something can't work. Whenever you have a tough problem, there are usually only a couple ways it can be solved, and infinite reasons it's hard to solve.

The fact that your imagination can't come up with killer use cases does not mean that those use cases don't exist. It means you haven't exercised your imagination very hard.

Further, if I think I know what crypto's killer use cases will be, also think that I can prove concept as to those use cases within 1-2 years, and I have enough money to fund that process, why would I explain those cases to you?

If you're constantly waiting for concepts to be proven, you'll always feel behind the curve and wondering why others have way more money than you, even though you're way smarter than they are. Imagination, vision, and the willingness to push beyond initial analysis are probably worth 20-40 IQ points in terms of lifetime earning potential.

Re: It can all go to zero

#270

Post by virgilp » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #245

softawre wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is so divisive you've managed to shit on his parents to win an argument. An argument that you then concede, saying that it doesn't matter whether BTC is legal or not because you can always sell it online. If it's illegal, doesn't it's value go way down? If you literally risk jailtime to sell it (or more accurate, to convert it to fiat eventually)

> Bitcoin is so divisive you've managed to shit on his parents to win an argument. Not really, I dislike the fact that he volunteers this information. Replace ivory with child pornography (ethically they aren't that different). Would you still defend op's parents? Also note, it was a side note, I didn't say it to win an argument. > If it's illegal, doesn't it's value go way down? If you literally risk jailtime to sel…

"Heavy regulation" is quite enough to take any particular coin to 0 value.

> Not really, I dislike the fact that he volunteers this information. Replace ivory with child pornography (ethically they aren't that different).

Well, they're quite different. Morally, legally, whatever, the society at large assigns larger value to a human than to an animal - any animal. Plus, they didn't do anything illegally - at the time they bought it, it was legal to buy it and sell it anywhere in the world.

You're now eating meat. It's quite conceivable that there might be a future where eating meat obtained through killing animals is considered as barbaric as you are now considering ivory trade. Different time, different people.

I only told you about ivory because it was __relevant__. It's a thing you can relate to - that people did in the past, without giving it much thought. Ponzi schemes are outlawed and considered imoral - do you consider _impossible_ a future where a marketing campaign convinces people that crypto is just a form of ponzi scheme, and participating in one is not just stupid and illegal, but also imoral?