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Bitcoin's Rally Masks Uncomfortable Fact: Almost Nobody Uses It

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Re: Bitcoin's Rally Masks Uncomfortable Fact: Almost Nobody Uses It

#51

Post by bdcravens »

rawrmaan wrote: post #38
seibelj wrote: post #35

HN is full of bitter commenters who have been predicting the death of cryptocurrency for a decade, and it hasn’t come true. A community that learned of Bitcoin right as it was invented, dismissed it, and missed out on huge fortunes. Well, some people here thought for themselves and analyzed the technology and ideas on its merits. Just not the people who comment on these posts.

You analyzed Bitcoin on its technologies and merits and concluded that it’s a useful currency? Yikes.

I don’t think that was the crux of the comment. “.... missed out on huge fortunes” tells you where the focus is.

Re: Bitcoin's Rally Masks Uncomfortable Fact: Almost Nobody Uses It

#52

Post by raesene9 »

nathanasmith wrote: post #49
raesene9 wrote: post #42

Even a quick look at CoinMarketCap shows you that there's something a little odd about the current rally. Look at the volume column and you'll see that Tether has more volume than bitcoin and has had for a little while. Tether has recently a) Admitted that they don't have 1:1 backing in USD b) They use customer funds for investment rather than just storing them and c) They're currently under investigation by the New…

>Even a quick look at CoinMarketCap shows you that there's something a little odd about the current rally. >Look at the volume column The really odd thing is getting your volume numbers from CoinMarketCap in the first place when according to this well argued deck[0], 95% of those numbers are fake. What you're looking at there is completely distorted as unregulated exchanges have a huge vested interest in inflating th…

It makes the point about relative volume, even if absolute levels are crap :) The volume point was around a stablecoin with issues having a higher relative volume than bitcoin itself.

Re: Bitcoin's Rally Masks Uncomfortable Fact: Almost Nobody Uses It

#53

Post by Frondo »

cal5k wrote: post #48
LiquidSky wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bitcoin has proved remarkably resilient over the last 10 years. What does that even mean? Resilient in what way? As this article notes, it hasn't been adopted for use in any meaningful or significant way. It's a speculation vehicle. I guess in the sense that it didn't literally disappear it's resilient, but beyond that the idea from its early days that it would fundamentally change the world and be widely adopted is…

Resilient as in despite 10 years of continuous doomsday prognostications, Bitcoin continues to be traded and used around the world. And 1 BTC, this thing that didn't exist 10 years ago, is now worth $8,422.40 USD. As for utility: I've used it to pay contractors in Europe, for example, without having to figure out which money transmittal service is going to rip me off the least. Tons of expats living in North America…

The problem I think a lot of people have with Bitcoin, at least that ends up producing articles like this, is that there's always a tremendous amount of goalpost-shifting in the Bitcoin/adjacent community.

At times it's been talked about as a replacement for cash in the sense of using it for lots of low-value transactions (it won't work), as a value store (it fluctuates a LOT for that), for sending money across borders (absolutely dwarfed by Western Union), for replacing Paypal/Venmo/Google Wallet/any other electronic payment system (absolutely dwarfed any of those), and so on.

It's not dead, of course, but the Bitcoin community has made a LOT of strong claims about widespread public adoption, yet still remains very much in the hands of speculators and hobbyists.

That's what, I think, a lot of the objections come from. Bitcoin's like the Segway in a sense; did it change the world? in some small way, yes. Are we building cities (or large-scale financial infrastructures) around it? Well, show me.

Re: Bitcoin's Rally Masks Uncomfortable Fact: Almost Nobody Uses It

#54

Post by jraedisch »

netwanderer3 wrote: post #50

I have little doubt BTC price is being manipulated. Its price was kept very low for the longest time so some very powerful organizations such as Bakkt (backed by the same people behind NYSE) could accumulate most of its market supply. At the moment the price is being artificially pumped up to build momentum until enough people from the public buy into it, then its price will once again start dropping faster than grav…

Could you elaborate on how one would keep an asset artificially low?

Re: Bitcoin's Rally Masks Uncomfortable Fact: Almost Nobody Uses It

#55

Post by marliechiller »

mindfulplay wrote: post #23
vasilipupkin wrote: post #14

People trading something back and forth is a form of usage. they are using it. The author just doesn't like what they are using it for.

Like Pokemon cards? It's fun. But does not carry any value. You can't buy a car or toilet paper with your precious Pokemon cards.

If you paid for the cards they inherently have value else they would be free... Despite what many people choose to ignore, bitcoin has value - at the very minimum for illicit transactions online - its just not an as widely accepted value. Whether that acceptance will increase remains to be seen but to write it off as worthless is disingenuous

Re: Bitcoin's Rally Masks Uncomfortable Fact: Almost Nobody Uses It

#56

Post by cal5k »

Frondo wrote: post #53
cal5k wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resilient as in despite 10 years of continuous doomsday prognostications, Bitcoin continues to be traded and used around the world. And 1 BTC, this thing that didn't exist 10 years ago, is now worth $8,422.40 USD. As for utility: I've used it to pay contractors in Europe, for example, without having to figure out which money transmittal service is going to rip me off the least. Tons of expats living in North America…

The problem I think a lot of people have with Bitcoin, at least that ends up producing articles like this, is that there's always a tremendous amount of goalpost-shifting in the Bitcoin/adjacent community. At times it's been talked about as a replacement for cash in the sense of using it for lots of low-value transactions (it won't work), as a value store (it fluctuates a LOT for that), for sending money across borde…

Well, I think nobody knows exactly what it is yet. It's an emerging technology, so even if there's a great deal of utility it's not surprising that predictions will be off the mark/downright wrong, and that opportunities will be missed that eventually seem obvious in retrospect.

And there is no cohesive "community" that's making predictions and measuring against them. It's just people speculating out loud, and then other people writing about the speculation.

It's a bit unusual because it started out as a cool technological curiosity vs. a product with a defined product/market fit. Sort of like desktop computing in the 70s.

Re: Bitcoin's Rally Masks Uncomfortable Fact: Almost Nobody Uses It

#58

Post by rchaud »

seibelj wrote: post #35

HN is full of bitter commenters who have been predicting the death of cryptocurrency for a decade, and it hasn’t come true. A community that learned of Bitcoin right as it was invented, dismissed it, and missed out on huge fortunes. Well, some people here thought for themselves and analyzed the technology and ideas on its merits. Just not the people who comment on these posts.

> and missed out on huge fortunes

So they missed out on a gold rush, so what? Another will appear in due time, be it Beanie Babies, Tamagotchis or Fidget Spinners.

> Well, some people here thought for themselves and analyzed the technology and ideas on its merits.

You are talking about buy low, sell high. The bitcoin boom was in 2017, what changed in the underlying technology?

Re: Bitcoin's Rally Masks Uncomfortable Fact: Almost Nobody Uses It

#59

Post by api »

LiquidSky wrote: post #44
cal5k wrote: post #43

I find it amusing that media doesn't give a crap about Bitcoin until there's price action. This was the exact same type of article that was dominating headlines back in the 2017 run-up. Bitcoin has proved remarkably resilient over the last 10 years. It's clear (to me, anyway) that this asset class/set of technologies is here to stay, it's really just a question of what comes of it. It's actually quite useful to be ab…

>Bitcoin has proved remarkably resilient over the last 10 years. What does that even mean? Resilient in what way? As this article notes, it hasn't been adopted for use in any meaningful or significant way. It's a speculation vehicle. I guess in the sense that it didn't literally disappear it's resilient, but beyond that the idea from its early days that it would fundamentally change the world and be widely adopted is…

There is a market for speculation, black and grey market finance, and gambling that will always give Bitcoin and other deflationary type cryptocurrencies value. People will "play" in these markets just like they play in casinos. The question is how much value and how realistic current numbers are. I have little doubt that if say 5% of BTC holders tried to cash in the price in USD would crash hard.

Cryptocurrency in a broader sense is an emerging technology and will probably find other areas of utility. I feel like we don't even know what it is yet.

Re: Bitcoin's Rally Masks Uncomfortable Fact: Almost Nobody Uses It

#60

Post by vasilipupkin »

mindfulplay wrote: post #23
vasilipupkin wrote: post #14

People trading something back and forth is a form of usage. they are using it. The author just doesn't like what they are using it for.

Like Pokemon cards? It's fun. But does not carry any value. You can't buy a car or toilet paper with your precious Pokemon cards.

what's the value of gold? gold has some use case, but its market value far outstrips that use case. The use case of gold is exactly this - that people trade it back and forth in the form of futures, etfs and spot gold.
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