Bitcoin's Rally Masks Uncomfortable Fact: Almost Nobody Uses It • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by vasilipupkin » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

marliechiller wrote: post #55

mindfulplay wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

forget pokemon cards. Magic the Gathering cards are pretty valuable and you can definitely sell them for a bunch of money and buy a car or whatever. Ok, they have a use case because people play the game. But why do they play the game? because they feel like it - there is no "inherent value" to those cards either. Tomorrow, the game goes out of style for whatever reason and the cards are worthless. But today, while people like to play the game, they are valuable. Today, people shop on Amazon. Tomorrow, something changes and they stop shopping on Amazon and Amazon stock falls a lot. There is obviously a difference, but it's not as fundamental as people think.

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

#62

Post by sprash » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

jraedisch wrote: post #54

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?

You can't. What is more likely is that central banks that can print infinite amounts of their own money are buying up bitcoin in order to make it useless. Bitcoin is seen as competitor by central banks.

The same happened to gold. As soon as one entity controlled the vast majority of gold the price ceased to be stable. Central banks already essentially destroyed gold as payment method. If central banks only sell 1% of their gold assets they increase the supply on the actual tradeable market so much that the price can be vastly manipulated. It would be smart if they do the same with bitcoin.

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

#63

Post by thekyle » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:03 PM UTC

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…

> It's actually quite useful to be able to send large quantities of money anywhere in the world without needing a series of intermediaries.

The problem is that the vast majority of businesses do not accept Bitcoin and right now Bitcoin is too volatile to store value/buying power. This means that for all practical purposes you need to exchange your local currency for Bitcoin, send it somewhere, then convert it back to fiat currency.

That means you require at least 2 intermediaries. Not to mention I would have a hard time trusting any reasonable amount of money to most Bitcoin exchanges.

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

#64

Post by jraedisch » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:05 PM UTC

sprash wrote: post #62

jraedisch wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You can't. What is more likely is that central banks that can print infinite amounts of their own money are buying up bitcoin in order to make it useless. Bitcoin is seen as competitor by central banks. The same happened to gold. As soon as one entity controlled the vast majority of gold the price ceased to be stable. Central banks already essentially destroyed gold as payment method. If central banks only sell 1% of…

Why should all btc holders sell all their holdings, especially if price is steadily rising, since central banks are inflating money supply to buy more?

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

#65

Post by lostmsu » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:06 PM UTC

wickoff wrote: post #47

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.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/technology/own-your... Meanwhile Microsoft is building a distributed system on top of Bitcoin to help people get rid of passwords and take ownership of their data and identity. The protocol is blockchain agnostic, the only requirement is a public blockhain, they're using Bitcoin because it's the most secure one. They've calculated that when batching transactions they could giv…

Are you sure about Bitcoin? Last time I've been to some Microsoft talk about blockchain, they used ethereum.

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

#66

Post by jfengel » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:10 PM UTC

jraedisch wrote: post #54

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?

You can short it: borrow, sell, and then buy back when the price drops to pay back what you borrowed.

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

#67

Post by jraedisch » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

The reason why I think Bitcoin's success (read increasing in wealth infinitely against fiat, albeit slowing down over time) is more probable than its demise is not that it is some kind of replacement religion for me. It is just that I have so far not heard any good arguments why it would not succeed.

Of course opponents might say: why should it succeed if they see no reason for it to succeed.

That position is completely acceptable to me, but the risk of losing out seems too high for me, so I invest a little bit, just to hedge.

And because many people might do that, it could succeed. As long as there are no good arguments against holding a little bit. Which there aren't.

Except maybe the ecological footprint. As soon as someone finds a solution to that without sacrificing the other qualities, a hardfork will surely succeed.

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

#68

Post by sprash » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

jraedisch wrote: post #64

sprash wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't. What is more likely is that central banks that can print infinite amounts of their own money are buying up bitcoin in order to make it useless. Bitcoin is seen as competitor by central banks. The same happened to gold. As soon as one entity controlled the vast majority of gold the price ceased to be stable. Central banks already essentially destroyed gold as payment method. If central banks only sell 1% of…

Why should all btc holders sell all their holdings, especially if price is steadily rising, since central banks are inflating money supply to buy more?

Because there is an artificial eternal demand for fiat. Fiat is created as debt with interest. This means the total debt can never be payed except with more debt. As soon as the state ceases to use force to collect debt, fiat will be worthless.

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

#69

Post by wickoff » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

lostmsu wrote: post #65

wickoff wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/technology/own-your... Meanwhile Microsoft is building a distributed system on top of Bitcoin to help people get rid of passwords and take ownership of their data and identity. The protocol is blockchain agnostic, the only requirement is a public blockhain, they're using Bitcoin because it's the most secure one. They've calculated that when batching transactions they could giv…

Are you sure about Bitcoin? Last time I've been to some Microsoft talk about blockchain, they used ethereum.

This project is using Bitcoin.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Azure-Active-Director...

MS has an Azure service that allows people to spin up private Ethereum blockchains, but they don't have any projects that utilize public Ethereum network.

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

#70

Post by cryptica » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

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…

>> It's a speculation vehicle

So is everything else. Investors buy company shares to make a profit; they don't buy the shares for any other reason.

In a world where practically every person only cares about capturing value and almost none of them care about creating value, everything is speculation. Everything is just smoke and mirrors.