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

#441

Post by personlurking » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 12:38 AM UTC

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #318

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not asking why, because anyone can find instances of mania in history such as this. Beanie babies. Tulips. The law of large numbers, in this case—the speculative experiment of seeking returns from assets that do not produce value, will iron this out. History does not repeat, but it rhymes often enough for those who know the tune to sing along.

The tulip derivative bubble lasted for a few months; beanie babies were a year or two at most. Bitcoin is over ten years old. Do you have any examples of a bubble which - lasted more than 5 years - recovered from previous drops in value of more than 50 %? What kind of evidence would convince you that bitcoin were different from these past bubbles?

>Bitcoin is over ten years old.

Plus the Lindy effect. If it's lasted 10 yrs, it's likely to last another 10.

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

#442

Post by itsoktocry » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 12:59 AM UTC

doggosphere wrote: post #399

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,…

I'm enjoying sitting on the sidelines and watching people "save" in a fiat "currency" whose value is not linked to anything intrinsic, whose supply can magically be increased at the discretion of a few powerful individuals, and whose value has been declining relative to almost any tradeable assets. What a time to be alive. No wonder the M2 money supply is at an all time high. No one has any idea of what the intrinsic…

>I'm enjoying sitting on the sidelines and watching people "save" in a fiat "currency" whose value is not linked to anything intrinsic

I'm pro crypto, but this is ridiculous.

No intrinsic value? I can spend my dollars anywhere in the world with no input or reliance on any other entity. They might be the most valuable asset on the planet.

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

#443

Post by occamrazor » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 1:01 AM UTC

cgriswald wrote: post #52

bluedevil2k wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it’s time we stop pushing words like “cacti” and just accept the inevitable English-ication of words and say “cactuses”. This is a tangent to the article, but along these lines people love correcting “octopuses” as “octopi”, but “octopus” isn’t a Latin word, it’s Greek, so the “-i” ending isn’t correct.

I think it’s fine to say or write -es or -I in general usage. I think it’s also fine to prefer one or the other in contextual usage. And I think it’s fair to roll ones eyes at people making a big deal of it. But it’s incorrect to say octopus is not a Latin word. That’s like saying utensil isn’t a French word. It is, and it came to English from Latin through French. Octopus came to English through Latin from Greek. It…

But, at least in classical Latin, Greek words used the original Greek plural (transliterated into the Lstin alphabet) rather than the Latinized one.

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

#444

Post by itsoktocry » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 1:02 AM UTC

colejohnson66 wrote: post #334

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,…

> 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…

>Is that any different than a stock though?

Nobody is claiming that stocks will replace fiat currency, though. In fact, it makes no sense.

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

#445

Post by imgabe » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 1:02 AM 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,…

I'm glad you're enjoying the sidelines. I'm enjoying that the $1000 I've invested in crypto has returned about $20,000 so far. Maybe it will still go to zero, who knows. I've already taken out more than I put in, so I don't care.

> You’d literally make more money today taking your cash and starting a business than dumping it in some of these worthless pursuits.

Yes, this incredibly vague statement is almost tautologically true. You can definitely think of a business that will make more money than some cherry-picked example of an investment that lost money. Bravo.

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

#446

Post by itsoktocry » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 1:06 AM UTC

ur-whale wrote: post #214

iamspoilt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

"Could" being the operative word here. But then, this is where Bitcoin is genius: the code isn't everything. There's a whole bunch of built-in economic incentive feedback loops. And getting to an "Economic Majority" is very unlikely to happen because none of the participants have to gain from that change. Also: since a bitcoin is divisible to 10e-8, it's going to be a very long while before there's an actual shortage…

>There's a whole bunch of built-in economic incentive feedback loops.

Is the implication that monetary and fiscal policy also not driven by economic feedback loops? Of course they are; just different ones.

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

#447

Post by itsoktocry » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 1:08 AM UTC

nofunphil wrote: post #229

iamspoilt wrote: post #30

Someone please explain this to me: How is any cryptocurrency even considered an investment vehicle? I would classify myself as Boglehead and I believe in the fundamentals of investing in stocks because in all it's technicality (and given the buy-and-hold strategy), you are investing in a business by owning a part of it which naturally means that you will and do get the returns on it, both in terms of profits (dividen…

Buying Bitcoin is becoming similar to buying gold. It’s a Store of Value. Why is gold an investment? Because it’s scarce and we have, as a society, decided it’s an investment. There may be nuances here, but that’s the basic idea. Bitcoin is digital gold. Most other tokens are similar buying fiat currencies which can help if you local fiat currency is hyper-inflating. But then some tokens give access to de-fi which a…

>It’s a Store of Value

A 10 year old asset that has wild price fluctuations is a "store of value"? By what measure?

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

#448

Post by itsoktocry » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 1:10 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #273

root_axis wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrency isn't actually scarce though, it may be "scarce-like" but the scarcity is an artificial property that can be arbitrarily changed, unlike gold's scarcity which is an unalterable property of reality.

Bitcoin is scarce; the consensus mechanism makes it prohibitively difficult to change the supply. It's barely even possible to do widely desired protocol upgrades; anything more is simply out of the question. The scarcity is far more secure than any fiat currency. I think it would actually be easier to increase the supply of gold via asteroid mining than to increase the Bitcoin supply. That doesn't require consensus…

>Bitcoin is scarce; the consensus mechanism makes it prohibitively difficult to change the supply.

A single bitcoin is infinitely divisible, unlike most physical assets. How does that affect scarcity?

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

#449

Post by staplers » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 1:10 AM UTC

chki wrote: post #337

pradn wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the value of a cryptocurrency is dependent on the community of the faithful, it's possible to "start the engines of faith", and keep it going for a long time. Fine art has been a large component of generational wealth in the West for the past six centuries. Of course, art has value as aesthetic objects; the same can be said for the potential use of cryptocurrency, however nebulous it may be. Religions, too, demand…

That's a good point, also described in the book Sapiens by Harari: In a way Religion, currency and contract law (and many other things) are all "made up". They have institutions (priests, central banks, lawyers) with magic words (amen, price stability, due diligence) and a certain combination of magic words creates a new reality out of thin air. Think about how weird it is to "sign" an important contract and thereby…

You've made the first step towards the deep dive of realizing cryptocurrency is a world changer. Good luck!

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

#450

Post by doggosphere » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 1:12 AM UTC

itsoktocry wrote: post #442

doggosphere wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm enjoying sitting on the sidelines and watching people "save" in a fiat "currency" whose value is not linked to anything intrinsic, whose supply can magically be increased at the discretion of a few powerful individuals, and whose value has been declining relative to almost any tradeable assets. What a time to be alive. No wonder the M2 money supply is at an all time high. No one has any idea of what the intrinsic…

> I'm enjoying sitting on the sidelines and watching people "save" in a fiat "currency" whose value is not linked to anything intrinsic I'm pro crypto, but this is ridiculous. No intrinsic value? I can spend my dollars anywhere in the world with no input or reliance on any other entity. They might be the most valuable asset on the planet.

As a means of trade, yes, they are powerful because they are widely trusted and preferred.

However once you have them, you get rid of them. Good assets don't lose value over time. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1032048/value-us-dollar-...