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Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

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Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#231

Post by brucephillips »

nkkollaw wrote: post #228
m3kw9 wrote: post #194

So let me get this straight. Gold can be compared to bitcoins in terms of scarcity and and store of value. But bitcoin itself is in practical term a proof of concept technology that is only useful when applied properly in another block chain. While gold actually has great uses. Can i say if you are investing in bitcoin, you are basically investing in equivalent a scarce physical paper with not a whole lot of use?

Comparing gold with Bitcoin is weird. People invest in gold because its values is very stable, obviously Bitcoin's isn't :-)

Gold is highly volatile.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#232

Post by rootusrootus »

brucephillips wrote: post #218
rootusrootus wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you clarify something for me that has been bothering me every time I see someone make an argument along these lines? Why does BTC === crypto? I see it over and over that people make arguments about the potential value of the cryptocurrency 'market' and then immediately use that to put a value on bitcoin . Aren't there hundreds of other cryptocurrencies already?

It's often just metonymy, just as your usage of "crypto" to refer to "cryptocurrency" is.

Yes, that absolutely could explain it, except for one detail -- only bitcoin has an arbitrary 21 million coin limit. So making the argument that bitcoin is kinda like gold is implying that bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency. Is there a good argument here that first-mover advantage will be enough to ensure that bitcoin remains the only viable cryptocurrency? Because if not, then the $1T theoretical market value has to be split amongst all the players, and then the argument for a $25K BTC 'value' is pretty thin.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#233

Post by slindz »

xur17 wrote: post #224
slindz wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a collection of everybody who made Bitcoin great to begin with. Great community. I believe it's a bunch of doers and not talkers. Fees are less than a penny. System works great, like Bitcoin used to.

I'm curious, and I haven't found the answer yet - what's the scaling plan if Bitcoin Cash runs out of block room? Just keep increasing the size? Is there an upper limit before the chain increases in size too quickly to be sustainable?

It's the usual combination.

Block size as much as makes sense, optimizations where possible, if lightning works (it won't) - use it.

Gavin Andresen has published about his latest work 'Graphene' which shrinks block sizes dramatically.

They'll take/use any good ideas so long as it doesn't cripple basic onchain functionality.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#234

Post by jstanley »

mancerayder wrote: post #210
komali2 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love bitcoin and cryptocurrency as potential solutions to problems with gov-controlled currencies (I've used crypto to buy drugs, for example). But I'm still confused why people refer to purchasing currency as an "investment." Obviously the rates are going up now, but doesn't everyone expect them to just come back down? I don't convert my USD to Yen and call it an "investment."

Might some argue that some of the capital being placed in these currencies, whether they're by clever millionaires who studied whitepapers, or Uber drivers (as the anecdote goes) who jumped in after taking out a line of credit on the house, is investment in some of the companies behind the tech? For example, BTC companies like Blockstream funded things like satellites, while the Ethereum founder has been donating mon…

No, by buying some cryptocurrency you're not investing in the company behind the tech (if there even is one) at all.

If the currency does well but the company does badly, you still win. If the currency does badly but the company does well, you still lose.

You're exposed to the fluctuations of the currency, and completely unexposed to the valuation of the company.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#235

Post by FabHK »

flick wrote: post #173
sytelus wrote: post #167

I have been trying to figure out eventual equilibrium price of BitCoin and here is one approach: Due to wealth inequality, we assume that majority of the crypto investment would be from ultra-rich. It might become quite normal for them to invest 1% of their wealth in crypto for uncorrelated diversification. In a way this is very similar to buying art which probably doesn't have much utility except among other wealthy…

That doesn't make any sense. Using this logic you could argue that basically anything should have an eventual market cap of ~$1 trillion.

Anything that the rich would want to put 1% of their wealth in.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#236

Post by brucephillips »

rootusrootus wrote: post #232
brucephillips wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's often just metonymy, just as your usage of "crypto" to refer to "cryptocurrency" is.

Yes, that absolutely could explain it, except for one detail -- only bitcoin has an arbitrary 21 million coin limit. So making the argument that bitcoin is kinda like gold is implying that bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency. Is there a good argument here that first-mover advantage will be enough to ensure that bitcoin remains the only viable cryptocurrency? Because if not, then the $1T theoretical market value has to…

I'm not sure, but I think it's possible that BTC runs away with it. The value of BTC, much like the value of gold, is due to network effects. That's the only reason AFAICT that gold is ~60x more valuable than silver.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#237

Post by eloff »

lsaferite wrote: post #225
philipov wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe strongly that the word 'invest' should be used to distinguish one's activities from speculation, rather than be a superclass of it. Discourse is poisoned when people promote semantic overlap and create ambiguity, rather than using words to create meaningful distinctions. Investing is what you do when you're not merely speculating on short-term returns, but are instead focused on long-term value creation. It…

Unless you are part of an IPO or are buying newly issued stock you are also speculating on stocks when you buy them. Note: Not a finance person, just a personal opinion.

It depends I guess on how you do your homework and how long you hold the stocks for. Warren Buffett style long-term value based investing vs speculative day trading for example.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#238

Post by jstanley »

slindz wrote: post #219
notsrg wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Bitcoin Cash will need GB or even TB sized blocks to scale to the size of Visa. If scaling the network was as easy as changing 1 variable it wouldn't be that hard to get consensus on a scaling solution.

GB blocks are basically ready with today's hardware though the need is years out. It won't be long before TB blocks can say the same, testing is underway. Current prevailing theory in BCH land is the block size is an unnecessary hinderance, and will likely be gone in the next 18 months. Exciting times!

> GB blocks are basically ready with today's hardware

What are you smoking? Even 1GB blocks would be 144GB per day of blockchain growth. You can't expect people to tolerate that kind of disk usage, let alone bandwidth.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#239

Post by philipov »

lsaferite wrote: post #225
philipov wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe strongly that the word 'invest' should be used to distinguish one's activities from speculation, rather than be a superclass of it. Discourse is poisoned when people promote semantic overlap and create ambiguity, rather than using words to create meaningful distinctions. Investing is what you do when you're not merely speculating on short-term returns, but are instead focused on long-term value creation. It…

Unless you are part of an IPO or are buying newly issued stock you are also speculating on stocks when you buy them. Note: Not a finance person, just a personal opinion.

In practice, it may not be possible to neatly classify any particular financial decision as being purely investment or purely speculation. This only increases the need to have these words mean clearly different things so that we may use them to analyze the different aspects of the ambiguous world in which we find ourselves. Blurring the meaning of the words effectively robs people of the ability to reason about their circumstances, and it is no wonder that many people feel invested in creating such confusion.

Re: Bitcoin Fall Extends to 25% as Fears of Crackdown Linger

#240

Post by slindz »

jstanley wrote: post #238
slindz wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GB blocks are basically ready with today's hardware though the need is years out. It won't be long before TB blocks can say the same, testing is underway. Current prevailing theory in BCH land is the block size is an unnecessary hinderance, and will likely be gone in the next 18 months. Exciting times!

> GB blocks are basically ready with today's hardware What are you smoking? Even 1GB blocks would be 144GB per day of blockchain growth. You can't expect people to tolerate that kind of disk usage, let alone bandwidth.

It is possible today, thankfully not necessary.

By the time they're necessary, it'll be a lot less demanding, relatively speaking....

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