S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021 • Hacker News Board

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#351

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #338

colejohnson66 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m enjoying sitting on the sidelines and watching people “invest” in a digital “currency” that you cannot spend, does not produce cash flow, and whose values are determined by other shmucks buying it from previous shmucks. Is that any different than a stock though? You can’t spend stocks, they don’t produce cash flow (ignoring dividends), and their value is what other’s are buying and selling it for. Just as I can…

If I buy a company, I literally can choose what to do with its earnings. That’s the point of valuing businesses. You’re not buying the stock. You’re buying a portion of the business. Say you have a drywall company in town. You and the owner are good friends and the owner wants to retire but doesn’t have a family member who is interested in the enterprise. He seeks out buyers. You mention to him you’re interested but…

Sure, voting is something different. I didn’t say they were the same. I said they were similar. Also, I know plenty of people who purchase stocks simply to make money: I don’t know anyone who does to vote.

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#352

Post by andrewmcwatters » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

vmception wrote: post #335

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dot-com bubble played out over a decade. Bitcoin’s price history has only been significant for 3 years. It otherwise looked like any other penny asset.

> It otherwise looked like any other penny asset. Before 3 years ago, it wouldn't have looked like "any other penny asset" it would have had a similar chart as now because its prior booms and busts 3 years prior to that all had similar degrees of amplitude. Just zoom in on a chart and pretend that it is summer 2017 with no future price history available, just like all the traders at the time had. Regarding "penny ass…

You’re seeking some deeper meaning here than one that exists.

It’s supposed to be a currency. And yet it’s not. It doesn’t exhibit any of the traits of a currency I’d want to spend at least. Maybe you’re OK with that, so have fun. It’s fundamental existence doesn’t work for me.

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#353

Post by misnamed » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

wsc981 wrote: post #147

misnamed wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to hedge against inflation, I suggest TIPS and maybe a bit of gold. I would also point out that the market expectation clearly isn't aligned with currencies being 'in trouble' - very low inflation in general right now.

> If you want to hedge against inflation, I suggest TIPS and maybe a bit of gold. I need to read up on TIPS, haven't heard about that before. Yes, gold is a decent option as well. However I view Bitcoin as digital gold and it has a few nice properties that gold doesn't have (of course gold has some good properties that Bitcoin doesn't have). One of the aspects of Bitcoin that I appreciate the most, is that it's very…

I won't get into the 'is the CPI accurate?' debate, but will just say I haven't seen a better metric. So I'll stick with: inflation is low.

As for the portability of Bitcoin ... OK, but then Bitcoin > Bitcoin ETF, if your goal is to transport and spend it outside of online brokerages.

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#354

Post by px43 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

iamspoilt wrote: post #79

nostrademons wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's analogous to investing money in USD or GBP before those countries were given a license to print as many USD and GBP as they wanted. Before then (1931 for the pound and 1933 for the dollar, though they maintained de-facto parity with gold until 1971), dollars and pounds were considered good investments. That's why we had bank runs: people thought their money would be safer under their mattress, and preferred to o…

It is fixed at 21M but technically, this can be changed through an Economic Majority [0][1]. [0] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Economic_majority [1] https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/3945/how-could-t...

It can also be changed if Mathematicians all decide to redefine what numbers mean, which has just about as much chance of happening.

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#355

Post by vmception » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #352

vmception wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It otherwise looked like any other penny asset. Before 3 years ago, it wouldn't have looked like "any other penny asset" it would have had a similar chart as now because its prior booms and busts 3 years prior to that all had similar degrees of amplitude. Just zoom in on a chart and pretend that it is summer 2017 with no future price history available, just like all the traders at the time had. Regarding "penny ass…

You’re seeking some deeper meaning here than one that exists. It’s supposed to be a currency. And yet it’s not. It doesn’t exhibit any of the traits of a currency I’d want to spend at least. Maybe you’re OK with that, so have fun. It’s fundamental existence doesn’t work for me.

> It’s supposed to be a currency. And yet it’s not. It doesn’t exhibit any of the traits of a currency I’d want to spend at least.

ah that argument, I read that recently, those are skeumorphs, here is a quote

> When it comes to this asset class, there are still people that argue against the concept of Bitcoin, mostly in reaction to one of its sales pitches without ever noticing what this really is. For example, people are likely to debate about the “coin” or “currency” nomenclature of “bitcoin” and “cryptocurrency” respectively. Ultimately, what we have is an asset with a fixed known supply, which has some attributes of all other asset classes, some improvements, is continually updated to have more attributes and improvements, in a world with massive inflation. This is the macro story of bitcoin, the big picture.

You might begin to notice that I use the term "digital asset" and "crypto" in its new asset-based context very reliably. It can be transferred peer to peer and I frequently do that, I don't use the term currency and I typically don't single bitcoin out specifically as I'm not usually talking about bitcoin specifically.

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#356

Post by nmlnn » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #327

nmlnn wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can be trivially changed if certain people decide that it should This is simply not the case - see 2017 bitcoin cash fork or Segwit2X push. At the end of the day money is a human invention, meant to facilitate value exchange between humans. So it requires consensus between the users of the money, if some fraction want to change the rules they are free to. We went for something we found in nature with properties tha…

It can be trivially changed in the sense that it's a computer program that simulates money. No amount of consensus can increase the gold supply.

Technological advances can increase the gold supply. Asteroid mining, extracting it from sea water, mining lower quality deposits, etc.

There still has to be consensus on using gold as money, if there isn't it will lose its monetary premium to something that has better monetary properties.

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#357

Post by FridgeSeal » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

centimeter wrote: post #316

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #276

I’m enjoying sitting on the sidelines and watching people “invest” in a digital “currency” that you cannot spend, does not produce cash flow, and whose values are determined by other shmucks buying it from previous shmucks. What a time to be alive. No wonder the S&P 500 CAPE ratio is beyond the 1929 high. No one has any idea of what the intrinsic value is of anything. Investing in companies that don’t make a profit,…

> that you cannot spend, You can spend it. > does not produce cash flow, Neither commodities nor currencies produce cash flow. People still reasonably invest in both. > and whose values are determined by other shmucks buying it from previous shmucks. The value of every other asset in existence is also determined by this process.

Bought any coffees (in person) with the crypto-currency of the week recently?

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#358

Post by misnamed » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

pashamur wrote: post #232

misnamed wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have fairly little data on gold as a freely available modern asset class (around 50 years), but yes, in small amounts it can limit volatility and potentially even increase returns (or at least: risk-adjusted returns). That said, over the long haul, independently, it has tended to roughly track inflation. I'm not against it, just see it as something of limited utility to an ordinary investor.

Technically, everyone in the U.S. was an investor in gold up until 1971 since USD was supposedly backed 1-1 by gold :)

It's a little trickier than that, but yes, that's why I mentioned 50 years. Before that gold was a different animal.

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#359

Post by misnamed » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

pashamur wrote: post #244

misnamed wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only 1 of the original companies of the Dow Jones is still in it today Small companies become bigger, driving returns. That's why you don't just buy the DJIA but rather index the whole market. Of course there will be turnover - the point isn't to lock into any one stock - don't look for the needle, buy the haystack (i.e. a broader-market index). If you want to include crypto in the haystack, sure, fine, whatever, b…

That depends on how good you are at finding needles :) The thing not many people seem to talk about is that the 20th century had unprecedented growth in terms of population around the world (which has slowed significantly in the last few decades, although the effects usually lag by quite a bit - when the children enter the workforce and such). We're making up for some of it with technological progress, but ultimately…

Statistically, everyone trading across all different asset classes evens out, so ... sure, if you're consistently good at finding needles, power to you. Most people aren't. Many people however think they are. I prefer not to worry about it either way.

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#360

Post by UShouldBWorking » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #276

I’m enjoying sitting on the sidelines and watching people “invest” in a digital “currency” that you cannot spend, does not produce cash flow, and whose values are determined by other shmucks buying it from previous shmucks. What a time to be alive. No wonder the S&P 500 CAPE ratio is beyond the 1929 high. No one has any idea of what the intrinsic value is of anything. Investing in companies that don’t make a profit,…

What a salty jerk.

1. How else are you going to transfer or store wealth across borders?

2. How do you know which business to start/invest in.

3. You are just more of the same, angry and lashing out because you missed the boat.