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Bitcoin still makes no sense

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Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#141

Post by dmitriid »

leesalminen wrote: post #101
dmitriid wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As the parent poster mentioned, the US’ monetary policy is awful and many believe is on the brink of major problems. Ah yes, "the brink of major problems". That's the undying adage of USSR and later Russian news programs. "Dollar is on the brink of collapse". > So, yeah, some new alternative financial instrument seems attractive to me. How can one forget, that these crises are unique, are happening for the first ti…

I don’t think the USSR existed during a global pandemic. In fact, I would posit that the globalized nature of our economy adds a new twist to any pandemic that has come before. I don’t think the absoluteness of your position is warranted. As you mentioned in another reply- diversification of ones’ portfolio is important. I, and most people, would never put all their money into BTC or crypto in general. That would cle…

> I don’t think the USSR existed during a global pandemic.

The USSR existed during multiple global conflicts. The USSR existed during the oil crisis in the 70s. Russia existed during multiple global conflicts. Russia existed through multiple global economic crises including the one in 2008.

And through it all the fall f the US dollar was just around the corner. Within weeks. Well, months at most.

In 1998 I was an exchange student in the US. I read an editorial in some newspaper like The NY Timesthat argued that financial crisis that would kill the dollar was inevitable within at most two-three years. And yet, here we are.

So no, I don't buy "you sould put money in bitcoin because of course USD is going to deflate and is on the brink of major problems." as an argument for storing 10 million dollars in Bitcoin.

On top of that this entire argument ignores the actual reality of how people protected their assets before Bitcoin. Let me show you how: https://dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=BRK

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#142

Post by dmitriid »

ccortes wrote: post #108
dmitriid wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty useful for exactly one case of cross-border payments: into countries that are under international sanctions. For every other country literally anything else is more useful and convenient.

I can tell you have never experienced this problem before but it might surprise you to know that many counties not under international sanctions have big issues to send money to other countries

I've seen people send money even to Turkmenistan. So yeah, people will always find a way.

And for the vast majority of people bitcoin will be significany less convenient than sending money through Western Union or Moneygram.

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#143

Post by ccortes »

dmitriid wrote: post #142
ccortes wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you have never experienced this problem before but it might surprise you to know that many counties not under international sanctions have big issues to send money to other countries

I've seen people send money even to Turkmenistan. So yeah, people will always find a way. And for the vast majority of people bitcoin will be significany less convenient than sending money through Western Union or Moneygram.

Of course they find a way, they have to. Doesn't mean it is easy.

The vast majority of people don't even know about bitcoin or blockchian. But the use case is there and it is vastly superior to what western union and moneygram offer in such countries. I'm not telling you as a bitcoin enthusiast, I'm telling you as someone who uses crypto to send money abroad to my gf. I have friends who do the same because it is faster and cheaper than anything else.

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#144

Post by alkonaut »

siwatanejo wrote: post #124
tomerico wrote: post #4

The problem with Bitcoin and is that it creates real negative effects, with little positive effects to show for it. The most prominent negative effect is the huge energy waste, which doesn't help when we are trying to cut on our carbon footprint The second one is that it makes illegal activities easier, and at a larger scale. It's quite common right now for companies to be coerced pay millions of dollars to anonymous…

> The second one is that it makes illegal activities easier, and at a larger scale. It's quite common right now for companies to be coerced pay millions of dollars to anonymous criminals, all enabled with cryptocurrencies. For the vast majority of businesses/individuals, it is governments and banking cartels the ones stealing your money (via inflation and fractional reserve respectively) without recourse. Switching t…

I think if you consider normal (fractional reserve) banking “theft” it’s pretty easy to understand why you’d also consider BitCoin as a positive force.

If, on the other hand, you accept contemporary definitions of inflation and consider normal modern monetary systems as being the least bad - then it’s a pretty different picture.

These articles invariably attract the gold heads.

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#145

Post by dmitriid »

ccortes wrote: post #143
dmitriid wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen people send money even to Turkmenistan. So yeah, people will always find a way. And for the vast majority of people bitcoin will be significany less convenient than sending money through Western Union or Moneygram.

Of course they find a way, they have to. Doesn't mean it is easy. The vast majority of people don't even know about bitcoin or blockchian. But the use case is there and it is vastly superior to what western union and moneygram offer in such countries. I'm not telling you as a bitcoin enthusiast, I'm telling you as someone who uses crypto to send money abroad to my gf. I have friends who do the same because it is fast…

> The vast majority of people don't even know about bitcoin or blockchian

And that's the main reason why WU or MoneyGram are vasty more convenient for most people.

> I'm telling you as someone who uses crypto to send money abroad to my gf.

Because you:

- are a technical perso

- who knows about bitcoin

- can navigate the intricacies of setting up a wallet and buying bitcoin, and then

a)

- can find a person/org in the destination country who offers services to convert bitcoin to a real currency.

- can verify that this person/org can be trusted

or

b) explain the intricacies of setting up a wallet, accepting bitcoins and converting bitcoins to currency to people you send money to

> because it is faster and cheaper than anything else.

How do you account for bitcoin's volatility? Its price can rise or drop by any numbeof percents even in a single day. If you send 1k USD worth of bitcoins, the receiver can easily get just 800. That is not really cheap.

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#146

Post by bingbong123 »

dralley wrote: post #134
throw1234651234 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to source check you on that. To be honest, I never really looked into it and thought the numbers were sensationalized: "Bitcoin uses as much energy as the whole of Switzerland, a new online tool from the University of Cambridge shows." https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48853230 Anyway, the BTC-enthusiast argument to that is "Well, if BTC replace banks, imagine how much money that would save." That argument ho…

> Anyway, the BTC-enthusiast argument to that is "Well, if BTC replace banks, imagine how much money that would save." > That argument holds some ground - think of all the armored cars, shipping containers, and facilities that serve to move and store cash and gold, as well as all the labor involved in maintaining the system. There are very good counterarguments to that as well. The idea that the "banking system" func…

>To begin with, the "banking system" includes an enormous amount of services that Bitcoin doesn't provide (loans, mortgages, securities), and retail banks are part of that as well.

This may be a lack of imagination on your part....Many companies already offer loans/mortgages using Bitcoin as collateral (at much lower interest rates than traditional banks). Not having thousands of idle bank employees sitting around in brick and mortar banks makes the financial system a lot more efficient...

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#147

Post by bingbong123 »

mdoms wrote: post #99
immigration311 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making (certain) illegal activities easier is one of the primary positive effects.

Ah yes, nothing more positive than making the exchange of child pornography easier and safer for the peddlers involved.

"Think of the children" when all other arguments fail.

Kids would benefit if their parents' savings in USD wasnt debased at an accelerating rate aka 50% loss of purchasing power every 8-10 years (soon to be 5-10 years).

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#148

Post by bingbong123 »

whiskyant wrote: post #98
prohobo wrote: post #48

This seems more like it's questioning cryptocurrency itself, and putting it at odds with fiat currencies and states. As for states, they're rolling out their own cryptos. The Chinese have CryptoYuan, the EU central bank is releasing a currency likely by late 2021, and the Federal Reserve is also planning to create a new currency. That's how they beat Bitcoin. Fiat currency is likely going to be slowly phased out as c…

The whole point of Bitcoin is that it isn't controlled by any one country and that more can't be printed whenever the country wants. Any new currency or "coin" that a country develops completely misses the mark, and is literally no better vs Bitcoin than their standard currency.

Transparent monetary policy for 100+ years hard coded... No secret fed meetings about policy that give large banks a permanent information advantage while the rest of the population is left in the dark and forced to plan in 4 year(if your lucky) periods.

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#149

Post by bingbong123 »

root_axis wrote: post #76
toolz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bitcoin uses less resources than traditional banking. I think people should stop judging it in a vacuum and instead speak in relative terms. If energy use is a concern then fiat is the greater offender. https://bitcoinist.com/banks-consume-energy-bitcoin/ further crypto would be a much more flexible domain at working towards reducing carbon emission than deeply embedded and slow changing fiat systems

Bitcoin does not replace traditional banking even if you view it as a legitimate currency.

Why not? Do you think every financial service offered by traditional banks can't be coded and made more efficient using internet-native money (bitcoin)?

If so, what services can't? People already use BTC as collateral for loans/mortgages ...which are two of the riskiest activities traditional banks engage in.

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#150

Post by jerrymiller »

bawolff wrote: post #115
beaner wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because bitcoin requires substatial inputs... it will end up being controlled by whoever controls the most capital Huh? Whoever has the most capital has the most capital? I don't get it. > Citation needed The boom/bust cycle is caused by what we declare to be the solution: active management and printing of the money supply as desired to achieve short-term economic or political goals. > an anonymous market manipulat…

> The boom/bust cycle is caused by what we declare to be the solution: active management and printing of the money supply as desired to achieve short-term economic or political goals. That seems like quite an extraordinary claim without much evidence.

> extraordinary claim without much evidence

"Much evidence", smh. How about the work that won the Nobel prize on this exact topic? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_business_cycle_theory

It shows exactly how the boom/bust cycle is caused by the active management of money.

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