Live data from Hacker News

If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

wsj.com

71–80 of 184 posts

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#71
post #56
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning network comes up just about every discussion involving bitcoin transactions, but because it requires the bitcoin network to make confirmations, Lightning only scales with the number of transactions, not users. This is still a problem. Example of the problem: * For 2 users to make 10,000,000 transactions between each other, it would take 10 minutes on the lightning network. * For 10,000,000 users to make jus…

Where can I read more about how you came up with those numbers? I didn't knew that side of lightning.

[deleted]

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as a "market cap" for Bitcoin - seriously, give me a definition of "market cap" for Bitcoin that makes any sense at all compared to something like the future value of cash flows from UNH equity.

Not my definition but the accepted one is price times number of bitcoins mined so far. Of course by selling 1% of all bitcoins you would clean all order books. However, George Soros used only a few billions to bet against the British pound.

> Not my definition but the accepted one is price times number of bitcoins mined so far.

Right, but that's essentially a lazy re-definition of the term. I get that it's a bit wordy to always say, "the current total value of all bitcoins is $X billion", but market cap is specifically about the total value of a security's outstanding shares. If people want bitcoin to be treated seriously as a currency, they should stop using terms that explicitly refer to non-currencies.

To put it another way, no one would reasonably talk about something like the "market cap of the Euro"[0], so why would you do that for something else claimed to be a currency?

[0] Entertainingly, when I search "euro currency market cap", most of the results that come up are related to cryptocurrency.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#74

Bitcoin has about $133 bil marketcap. NYSE symbols with the twice (2X) this marketcaps according to Yahoo Finance: UNH (UnitedHealth Group) mcap: $262 bil, trading volume: $1.2 bil KO (COCA-COLA) mcap: $231 bil, trading volume: $0.6 bil MRK (MERCK) mcap: $225 bil trading volume: $0.7 bil Therefore, for Bitcoin to be tradeable as similar stocks it has to show $0.25-0.5 bil for $133 bil mcap or $0.5-1.0 bil for $250 bi…

There's no such thing as a "market cap" for Bitcoin - seriously, give me a definition of "market cap" for Bitcoin that makes any sense at all compared to something like the future value of cash flows from UNH equity.

(number of bitcoin) * (price per coin).

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#75
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MZM velocity of money of USD is 1.3

Today, Bitcoin has little to no adoption as a currency, that is true.

Yeah it's not the digital cash we were promised.

But it's great as a store of value, censorship-resistant money, and one of the fastest and cheapest ways to do cross-border remittances.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think that Binance is wash-trading Given most of these exchanges are completely unregulated and typically go to great lengths to conceal their identities.... you know they aren't wash-trading how exactly?

I don't say I know, I say that I think. It remains a possibility that they are wash-trading.

> It remains a possibility that they are wash-trading.

I'd say they all have every single incentive to wash-trade, front-run, and otherwise cheat the hell out of their system to their advantage. After all, they are completely unregulated and almost always operate well outside any jurisdiction who would care to go after them. I'd say you'd be silly to assume they aren't doing ultra-shady crap.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#77
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning network comes up just about every discussion involving bitcoin transactions, but because it requires the bitcoin network to make confirmations, Lightning only scales with the number of transactions, not users. This is still a problem. Example of the problem: * For 2 users to make 10,000,000 transactions between each other, it would take 10 minutes on the lightning network. * For 10,000,000 users to make jus…

>but because it requires the bitcoin network to make confirmation It doesn't require the Bitcoin network to make confirmation at all. Two users could do millions of txn/s between each other. The only limitation is their internet speed. The bitcoin network does not need to confirm or even know about anything other than the initial deposits. It could even happen entirely offline in a closed network, though that would b…

>... Lightning only scales with the number of transactions, not users.

Is the rest of the sentence that you quoted out of context. Did you not see the example?

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't say I know, I say that I think. It remains a possibility that they are wash-trading.

> It remains a possibility that they are wash-trading. I'd say they all have every single incentive to wash-trade, front-run, and otherwise cheat the hell out of their system to their advantage. After all, they are completely unregulated and almost always operate well outside any jurisdiction who would care to go after them. I'd say you'd be silly to assume they aren't doing ultra-shady crap.

The trade-off is the following. If serious traders don't make any profit on a platform but make it on another one, they will leave. That is the primarily reason for an exchange to steal money at a reasonable rate instead of doing some super greedy stuff.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#79
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MZM velocity of money of USD is 1.3

Today, Bitcoin has little to no adoption as a currency, that is true.

Correct. Bitcoin is mainly a hoarding and speculation asset.
Post reply on HN