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Bitcoin’s Price Breaks All-Time High: Here’s Why It Happened

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Re: Bitcoin’s Price Breaks All-Time High: Here’s Why It Happened

#21
post #6

People are getting tired of banks and money printing

But they trust bitcoin more than plain old gold. That’s interesting.

I’ve never liked the idea of investing in gold, purely for the fact that I could see a big disruption happening to it in my lifetime. Asteroid mining, some advance in fusion that makes “alchemy” commercially viable, etc.

I don’t trust Bitcoin either, of course. If something were to happen to Coinbase or some attack on the network itself it could tank awfully quickly.

Re: Bitcoin’s Price Breaks All-Time High: Here’s Why It Happened

#22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they trust bitcoin more than plain old gold. That’s interesting.

I’ve never liked the idea of investing in gold, purely for the fact that I could see a big disruption happening to it in my lifetime. Asteroid mining, some advance in fusion that makes “alchemy” commercially viable, etc. I don’t trust Bitcoin either, of course. If something were to happen to Coinbase or some attack on the network itself it could tank awfully quickly.

Spread and regulations make gold less attractive

Re: Bitcoin’s Price Breaks All-Time High: Here’s Why It Happened

#23
post #4

Here is the easiest way I can explain it: Bitcoin is a social phenomena - no government or company backs it. The only reason it has value is if people value it. Bitcoin promoters have convinced people it's a store of value, like gold except digital. As the Cult of Bitcoin spreads, it doesn't take that many new enthusiasts to push the price up, as unlike literally all other commodities on earth, the supply of bitcoin…

This is my view exactly. I've been telling people I know who are trying to ride the crypto train that BTC has no fundamentals, by which I mean exactly that "the only reason it has value is if people value it."

Think about it: the way BTC is created is basically by expending energy to solve some contrived math problem. So what? Who should ever care at all that someone, at sometime in the past, happened to be running a computer that hit on the solution of a silly math problem? It gets even more absurd when you consider that mining pools became a thing, so that even if your particular computer hits on the solution, you didn't actually do all the work that goes into the so-called "proof of work." (Yes, I know, in this scenario, the new BTC is split among the pool members, but, that doesn't really matter very much.)

So, basically, BTC is the recording of the fact that someone, somewhere contributed to the solution of a math problem. Why should that have value at all, over and above the inherent value in solving said problem, which is essentially nil in this case? Well, it shouldn't. And, yet, it does, for the reason you've noted.

Although I hesitate to call BTC "money," there is an actual form of money that also has value for the same reason, is a true digital currency, which has a durable and distributed transaction record, and is much easier to manipulate for the purpose of managing an economy based on it. That would be the USD, and other such fiat currencies. And, the USD fundamentally is just the recording of the fact that a bank somewhere has managed to create $9 by turning $1 in reserve into $10 in loans out into the economy at large (or, whatever the ratio exactly is -- I forget.)

In other words, if you accept that BTC is a currency at all, it's little more than a worse version of the world's de facto reserve fiat currency, with the added bonus of generally not being able to transact using it, along with extreme volatility relative to the USD, which one actually can transact with.

That's not to say I don't wish I had bought some BTC back when I first heard of it and it was trading at under $1. Had I gambled even $500 on it back then, I would have somewhere in the neighborhood of $9M now, and, essentially be set for life. But, I was a poor graduate student who already realized most of what I previously mentioned and decided that I'd rather pay rent for a couple of months in the dorms than buy an expensive lottery ticket.

Re: Bitcoin’s Price Breaks All-Time High: Here’s Why It Happened

#24
post #4

Here is the easiest way I can explain it: Bitcoin is a social phenomena - no government or company backs it. The only reason it has value is if people value it. Bitcoin promoters have convinced people it's a store of value, like gold except digital. As the Cult of Bitcoin spreads, it doesn't take that many new enthusiasts to push the price up, as unlike literally all other commodities on earth, the supply of bitcoin…

This is my view exactly. I've been telling people I know who are trying to ride the crypto train that BTC has no fundamentals, by which I mean exactly that "the only reason it has value is if people value it." Think about it: the way BTC is created is basically by expending energy to solve some contrived math problem. So what ? Who should ever care at all that someone, at sometime in the past, happened to be running…

I would hesitate to call it "money" as well, as apart from its use in place of money, it has no value. Even paper currency is, at bottom, worth the paper it's printed on.

Re: Bitcoin’s Price Breaks All-Time High: Here’s Why It Happened

#25

That Michael Saylor tweet is hilarious: "#Bitcoin is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy." Certainly it's that, and not rampant Tether printing / fraud / lack of exit off-ramps / institutionaland retail investor ignorance

Ok, so I've heard that tether printing story over and over. Is there a reputable source for these claims?

Re: Bitcoin’s Price Breaks All-Time High: Here’s Why It Happened

#26
post #25

That Michael Saylor tweet is hilarious: "#Bitcoin is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy." Certainly it's that, and not rampant Tether printing / fraud / lack of exit off-ramps / institutionaland retail investor ignorance

Ok, so I've heard that tether printing story over and over. Is there a reputable source for these claims?

Any that isn't in the crypto press.

If you want Tether explained, this is the best article I've seen (I wish I'd written it).

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/10/28/tether-and-bitfinex/

This is a year old; it's only gotten more blatant since then.

The NYAG's inquiry has been slowed by COVID, but is grinding on.

Re: Bitcoin’s Price Breaks All-Time High: Here’s Why It Happened

#27
post #6

People are getting tired of banks and money printing

But they trust bitcoin more than plain old gold. That’s interesting.

Gold isn't easily divisible. You can't use gold for daily transactions. People do and have used Bitcoin to buy the proverbial cup of coffee.

Gold isn't easily transportable. If you had $100,000 in gold and wanted to leave the country with it, that would be quite a hassle.

A bitcoin wallet can live on your smartphone or a USB stick. Or you can memorize 12 words and gain access to your wallet anywhere there's an internet connection.

If you wanted to send $1000 of your gold somewhere, that's another hassle.

A bitcoin transaction can be sent in minutes anywhere in the world.

The supply of gold grows each year; the higher the price goes, the more gold is produced, therefore decreasing gold's buying power.

Bitcoin is on a fixed schedule that can't be changed. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoin, making each one that much more valuable.

Re: Bitcoin’s Price Breaks All-Time High: Here’s Why It Happened

#28
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good interview by Michael Saylor who was an early investor in FANG companies on what his thinking was for investing his companies reserve cash of $400mil in Bitcoin https://youtu.be/Cg10yYZjK94 His conclusion is that Bitcoin is a disruptive currency. It is equivalent to how Facebook disrupted and captured social, Amazon disrupted retail, Google disrupted info. Bitcoin is disrupting centralized contro…

Then why hasn't it done any of those yet? Bitcoin came out in 2009, Facebook opened its doors to the public in 2006. One achieved world dominance, the other still can't get out of being darknet money.

One achieved world dominance, the other still can't get out of being darknet money.

This is kinda silly. Bitcoin went from $0 to over $300 billion in market cap with no company or organization to market it. It's been the best performing asset for the past 5, 10 and 12 years.

Now that it's large enough for institutional investors, family offices, ETFs and hedge funds to get involved, that's happening. Yes, 401ks, IRAs, company treasuries now have bitcoin in them.

Meanwhile, every fiat currency (except two—the dollar and the pound) has failed at one time or another. Now that it's been 50 years since going off the gold standard, the dollar isn't looking so good for the long haul. Trillions of dollars have been printed this year; that erodes the buying power of the dollars we already had.

Re: Bitcoin’s Price Breaks All-Time High: Here’s Why It Happened

#29
post #15
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason anything has value is if people value it...value itself is a social phenomena, and this includes any type of monetary vehicle, whether a government backs it or not. And maybe I have been living in a fantasy world, but your comment about literally all other commodities on earth not being constrained is literally wrong. The study of economics and wealth is rooted in scarcity and the ability or inability…

I disagree on both points. The US government has deemed US dollars to be the only thing that can be used to pay taxes, so therefore it has some root value. On commodities, if there is strong demand for gold, uranium, corn, etc. the market can respond and invest more capital into creating them. Bitcoin - not so. No matter how much more capital is invested in mining, the rate of inflation is fixed, and the pie is just…

The US government has deemed US dollars to be the only thing that can be used to pay taxes, so therefore it has some root value.

This is incorrect. Just because we pay taxes in dollars doesn't give it any intrinsic value. It has been decreed by the US government that we do so but that doesn't change the underlying fact that the dollar is based on… nothing other than a promise of the government that it's useful.

Because more gold can be mined and more dollars can be printed, each block of gold and dollar loses value, because they're not scarce.

A dollar in 1913 had the same buying power as $26 in 2020 [1]. Bitcoin is hard money; it can't be deflated and it can't lose buying power like all fiat currencies do.

[1]: https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-value-of-a-dollar-tod...

Re: Bitcoin’s Price Breaks All-Time High: Here’s Why It Happened

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my view exactly. I've been telling people I know who are trying to ride the crypto train that BTC has no fundamentals, by which I mean exactly that "the only reason it has value is if people value it." Think about it: the way BTC is created is basically by expending energy to solve some contrived math problem. So what ? Who should ever care at all that someone, at sometime in the past, happened to be running…

I would hesitate to call it "money" as well, as apart from its use in place of money, it has no value. Even paper currency is, at bottom, worth the paper it's printed on.

Even paper currency is, at bottom, worth the paper it's printed on.

When Zimbabwe printed a $100,000,000,000,000 (one hundred trillion dollar bill) due to hyperinflation, the people used it for fire, because it wasn't useful for anything else.

So… no, paper money has been worthless many times.

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