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It can all go to zero

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Re: It can all go to zero

#281

Post by JumpCrisscross »

adamnemecek wrote: post #275
tbabb wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Describe to me how it's a run, I'll tell you why it's not. How about that. Is it really that unbelievable that bitcoin breaks certain economic rules and that some economic theory might have to be rethought? Is that what you are implying? That economics is like "science"?

> Is it really that unbelievable that bitcoin breaks certain economic rules and that some economic theory might have to be rethought?

Yes. Particularly when the basis of this rethinking is “there are so many people involved, how could it possibly crash.”

Re: It can all go to zero

#282

Post by virgilp »

adamnemecek wrote: post #277
virgilp wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

It would have to heavy regulation everywhere in the world.

Not "everywhere". Just a few countries. China, US, EU would probably suffice.

Re: It can all go to zero

#283

Post by Jtsummers »

adamnemecek wrote: post #275
tbabb wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Describe to me how it's a run, I'll tell you why it's not. How about that. Is it really that unbelievable that bitcoin breaks certain economic rules and that some economic theory might have to be rethought? Is that what you are implying? That economics is like "science"?

> Is it really that unbelievable that bitcoin breaks certain economic rules and that some economic theory might have to be rethought?

Yes, yes it is. It's incredibly remarkable that bitcoin could rewrite our economic theories so completely. It offers nothing novel in any way economically.

Re: It can all go to zero

#284

Post by danhak »

Cyberdog wrote: post #251
danhak wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While I fully agree that most cryptocurrencies are grossly overvalued... Could you please explain what “overvalued” even means in this context, and how one might go about determining fair value for cryptocurrency? I’ve yet to receive a straight answer on this.

"Overvalued" means "I don't think it should be worth this much" in this case. The fair value for cryptocurrency, just as with everything else, is determined by the market(s) (at least, when it is unadulterated by government obstruction and price-fixing and such). So to determine the fair value of a bitcoin, go to the exchange of your choice and look at the price. If you don't like that price, try a different exchange…

This is circular logic and not really what I was getting at. Productive assets are valued based on expectations of future cash flows, independent of market value. You’re incorrect in saying the value of everything is determined by the market.

To quote Warren Buffett, “price is what you pay, value is what you get.”

Re: It can all go to zero

#285

Post by cableshaft »

maehwasu wrote: post #269
CPLX wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 imaginat…

Very insightful. It's all too easy to assume there's no use for something because you haven't seen it yet. There was a time when it didn't seem like there was going to be any commercial use for the internet either.

In fact, I read a book written in back in 1914, about the history of aviation up to that point, that was talking about planes being used in WWI, and a sentence struck out at me that said something like "It's not determined yet what, or if, there is any commercial use to planes as of yet, but their use in warfare is clear."

Obviously in hindsight it's clear that there are tons of commercial uses for airplanes, but back then it wasn't proven yet, and the writer apparently didn't have the imagination to even make a prediction on it.

Re: It can all go to zero

#286

Post by overhang »

chrisco255 wrote: post #253
overhang wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know how much debt is tied to cryptocurrencies?

We don't know for sure, we only know that banks are not lending against crypto, for obvious reasons. What folks are putting on their credit cards, etc, well that is impossible to really track, but shouldn't be any different than retail sales, etc.

You've obviously left out the people who have taken seconds on their houses, home equity lines, student loans, payday loans, and all the other forms of debt that could finance a purchase. And credit card debt alone could easily explain all the value in all the cryptocurrencies combined.

Re: It can all go to zero

#287

Post by roma1n »

stale2002 wrote: post #232
logicallee wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What value does Bitcoin add to society? the value is that you can have anyone in the world murdered without it ever conceivably getting back to you.[1] (that value is obviously negative.) Therefore the appropriate value of bitcoin is $0 because literally all of society is set up for the exact and sole purpose of ensuring that the availability of bitcoin is $0. This is literally the only purpose for which the past 10…

What about the value of fighting financial censorship? There are lots of governments and people that attempted to censor perfectly moral and reasonable transactions. Just because it is "the law" doesn't make it right. Do you also dislike Tor because it allows political dissenters to hide from the government?

"censor" is a loaded term. Why not "forbid"? Also, what if the solution to an abusive government is not a technological tool but a plurality of governments, many of which promote (some vision of) human rights? Central power, authority is not inherently evil.

Re: It can all go to zero

#289

Post by Joeri »

throwawaymsft wrote: post #203
Joeri wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bug is discovered allowing fraudulent creation of bitcoins, and no easy or timely fix is possible. That or governments outlaw it entirely.

Drug prices don't dip when the government outlaws them. If anything, the need to outlaw crypto validates their utility.

Drugs have a purpose beyond trade, cryptocurrency doesn’t. Make it illegal to sell, and there’s no reason to buy it.

Re: It can all go to zero

#290

Post by twblalock »

adamnemecek wrote: post #246
twblalock wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because the value of the underlying company would plunge as well, due to loss of revenue. But it wouldn't hit zero. Google would still have other products than search, a lot of valuable IP and patents, real estate, etc.

I meant google as a company. Very little of Google's value is in real estate. Do they even own all of their offices?

> I meant google as a company.

I'm not sure what difference this makes.

As you can see here, Google has billions of assets, of which $19.7 billion are buildings.

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