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The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

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Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#151

Post by spookthesunset »

aje403 wrote: post #121
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because - and everyone but the uninformed or idealists know this - it's an investment product. It's simply not suitable as a currency, because one, inflation / instability, and two, it can only do what, a dozen transactions a second, if that? That's not nearly enough to become a viable currency.

It's not an investment product, it's a ponzi scheme

> it's a ponzi scheme

The beauty of Bitcoin and the whole crypto "space" is that they are more than just mere ponzi schemes. Don't let the pedants get to you--the crypto space transcends the entire gamut of frauds, scams and schemes. They're not only ponzi schemes but pyramid schemes, MLM scams, a pump & dump scams, exit scams, exchange scams, securities fraud, and a bunch of other named and unnamed scams you'd find in wikipedia.

Often times these scams are deeply layered, with scammers scamming other scammers.

Sometimes just best to simplify the whole thing as "a scam" instead of iterate through every single sub-scam, sub-fraud and sub-scheme that exists within the entire ecosystem. The whole thing is really quite remarkable and would be much more enjoyable to watch if it wasn't such a massive drain on earth's resources.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#152

Post by mkirklions »

spookthesunset wrote: post #140
mkirklions wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coinbase Peer to Peer using email is free and instant. Shift card had like a 10$ fee for printing the card, but its free and instant. The only time I did an on-chain transaction in the last 3 years was moving money to another exchange to buy alt-coins.

> The only time I did an on-chain transaction in the last 3 years was moving money to another exchange to buy alt-coins. So you used a "totally not a bank, but really a bank" bank, eh?

Why are payment processors/banks bad again?

2FA > a piece of paper under my bed.

But also I keep my bitcoin in lots of places, a few bucks in coinbase for free transactions is like keeping cash in my wallet.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#153

Post by mikeash »

laglad wrote: post #64
pavlov wrote: post #22

According to its proponents, Bitcoin is digital gold. (Interestingly it’s not an “electronic currency” anymore even though that was the original title of the 2008 whitepaper. I suppose Lightning Network or something is supposed to fix that with new transaction layers backed by the Bitcoin gold.) One aspect of gold’s historical value is that it’s traditionally recognized even in societies in collapse. I’ve never under…

Your points are valid. IMO the key tradeoff b/w gold (analog) and bitcoin (digital) is extra resiliency vs usability. If there were a systemic collapse breaking governments, knocking off power and telecom networks etc, gold would be immediately most valuable. But more quickly than fiat, bitcoin would be useful. Power and telecom systems are more resilient to systemic collapse (& have more bouncebackability) than a fu…

Are miners still going to be operating in this post-collapse environment?

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#154

Post by mr_spothawk »

misja111 wrote: post #89
hapnin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be called "savings".

But there's a huge difference. With old fashioned "savings", the money was in a bank, which in turn would use it to invest it elsewhere. In other words, the money would still circulate in the economy. On the other hand, these bitcoins that are hoarded in a bunker are extracted from the economy as long as they are there. The implications are big: with the current trend of concentrating wealth to only a small fraction…

today's market cap for BTC is around 158 Billion$. so we're talking about something around 7% of the world supply, "locked in an underground bunker".

What's not clear to me: is this just the keys stored underground and clients have access? or is this "cold storage"?

I'd speculate that more than 7% of the world's gold is locked up in bunkers, where it can be accounted for and borrowed against.

Nobody is shocked to know that gold is stored in vaults. Nobody is shouting that the folks buying overpriced coins from stupid mints are going to decimate the world economy with their irresponsible hoarding.

We're all just totally comfortable that, yeah... in a situation where a-bombs start dropping, gold would probably be a functional store of value.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#155

Post by dmoy »

mkirklions wrote: post #125
raducu wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you're actually trusting coinbase, just like I trust my bank.

With 1000 USD? Sure, thats petty money if I lost it. I dont keep most of my bitcoin in coinbase.

What's the backup for various failure cases? House fire? I'd guess off-site backups. House fire that kills you? Do you stick recovery instructions to your backup in a will, or how do you leave money to your heirs? (Or just you don't?)

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#156

Post by mkirklions »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #147
mkirklions wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coinbase Peer to Peer using email is free and instant. Shift card had like a 10$ fee for printing the card, but its free and instant. The only time I did an on-chain transaction in the last 3 years was moving money to another exchange to buy alt-coins.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but the way you're using Bitcoin gives you no magical crypto guarantees the currency is supposed to offer? I increasingly feel that pro-crypto arguments are mostly motte and bailey. So Bitcoin is better than fiat because it's decentralized and censorship-resistant, with everything forever stored in the blockchain. It's also more convenient and efficient than fiat in daily use - when we dis…

> when we discard all the decentralization and anti-censorship guarantees, skip the blockchain and use it as a private-issued, unregulated fiat.

That is an option.

I dont care about 'trust' when I spend 2 dollars at taco bell on my shift card. I dont care about 'trust' when I give my friend 200 dollars with coinbase email.

5 bitcoin? Yeah I'll take that out of coinbase.

But this is a payment platform IMO. I use paypal and venmo too. They dont charge fees and I dont really care about decentralization magic.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#158

Post by jonknee »

mkirklions wrote: post #142
jonknee wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What makes you think deflation would be bad? Literally economics 101. Investment grinds to a halt and progress along with it.

>economics 101 I wouldnt use an entry level economics class to judge technology that eliminates risk of government hyperinflation and lowers/eliminates cost of transactions. The economic benefits of free/low cost transactions and money that can be saved/spent rather than invested may have its own benefits.

> I wouldnt use an entry level economics class to judge technology that eliminates risk of government hyperinflation and lowers/eliminates cost of transactions.

I didn't, the question was "What makes you think deflation would be bad?". That is entry level economics and has nothing to do with technology.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#159

Post by um_ya »

simias wrote: post #17

>the global currency of the future, that they need to buy some, and that he’s the man to safeguard it. Looks like in the future people hoard currency instead of spending and investing it then. That ought to be interesting. It also demonstrates the costs associated with non-reversible transactions, these vaults aren't storing gold ingots or priceless artifacts, just private keys. Banks around the world don't need to w…

The people hording bitcoin makes the value of the ones spending it more valuable. Without people hording it, you wouldn't have any of the profits regular people have been getting.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#160

Post by nunya213 »

simias wrote: post #17

>the global currency of the future, that they need to buy some, and that he’s the man to safeguard it. Looks like in the future people hoard currency instead of spending and investing it then. That ought to be interesting. It also demonstrates the costs associated with non-reversible transactions, these vaults aren't storing gold ingots or priceless artifacts, just private keys. Banks around the world don't need to w…

You are implying that the wealthy aren't already doing hoarding currency instead of spending? Seems like a strange statement to make.
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