Bitcoin breaks above $20k • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#111

Post by Entwickler » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

_sm6n wrote: post #94

It's kinda sad that the pricing or market capitalization is the only thing that is being talked about in the "cryptocurrency community", instead of focussing on how the technology can be useful for society. Like for example if you look at /r/Bitcoin, there's a sidebar with "Submit text/link NOT about price", yet virtually every post is about price, even if just indirectly (Paypal joins the cryptocurrency bandwagon an…

I'd suggest following ethereum and it's founder Vitalik. He's explicitly said things like, "If all that we accomplish is lambo memes and immature puns about "sharting", then I WILL leave.

Though I still have a lot of hope that the community can steer in the right direction."

He has worked with the UN world food program, and posts a lot of material on voting, economic fairness, and social aspects of blockchain in general. It seems like he is genuinely interested in using blockchain for general societal good, rather than just speculative price chasing.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#112

Post by epmaybe » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

arithma wrote: post #87

Just a question, isn't all criticism against bitcoin applicable to gold? Money/Currency/Value in general can't be reduced or derived from first principles. You always have to take into account human nature, economic activity, and most unfortunately: psychology. So all criticism about how bitcoin inherently being pointless, sounds like off-tune. I want good reasons to/NOT-to buy in. First-world country citizens kind o…

That’s literally more money than I have in my bank account lol

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#113

Post by agumonkey » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

mrlala wrote: post #90

JoshTko wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the single most important use case that most people miss. Bitcoin doesn't need to do anything else.

Sigh. I 100% understand what you are saying but I also 100% disagree with it. This is all greed with no substance. Wealthy people and those who desire to be wealthy are doing everything they can to arbitrarily prop up something which does not really have value. And they seem to be winning- which is everything that is wrong with the world right now.

You don't think "bitcoin as an inflation resistant storage" is a good theory ?

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#114

Post by jayd16 » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

arithma wrote: post #87

Just a question, isn't all criticism against bitcoin applicable to gold? Money/Currency/Value in general can't be reduced or derived from first principles. You always have to take into account human nature, economic activity, and most unfortunately: psychology. So all criticism about how bitcoin inherently being pointless, sounds like off-tune. I want good reasons to/NOT-to buy in. First-world country citizens kind o…

>Just a question, isn't all criticism against bitcoin applicable to gold?

Gold fluctuates a lot less. Its hard to swallow "ok ok bitcoin is useless but it can still be a stable currency/safe asset" when the price is booming and crashing every year.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#115

Post by dontTango » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

Entwickler wrote: post #111

_sm6n wrote: post #94

It's kinda sad that the pricing or market capitalization is the only thing that is being talked about in the "cryptocurrency community", instead of focussing on how the technology can be useful for society. Like for example if you look at /r/Bitcoin, there's a sidebar with "Submit text/link NOT about price", yet virtually every post is about price, even if just indirectly (Paypal joins the cryptocurrency bandwagon an…

I'd suggest following ethereum and it's founder Vitalik. He's explicitly said things like, "If all that we accomplish is lambo memes and immature puns about "sharting", then I WILL leave. Though I still have a lot of hope that the community can steer in the right direction." He has worked with the UN world food program, and posts a lot of material on voting, economic fairness, and social aspects of blockchain in gene…

Ethereum removed the 100M soft cap on EIP 669.

This was quietly slipped through with no debate. ETH shouldn't be trusted.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#116

Post by AnimalMuppet » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

hirako2000 wrote: post #97

syntaxing wrote: post #50

The appreciation and depreciation of Bitcoin is one of the things I don’t really understand. I get currency, capital flow, and asset to capital conversions. But for Bitcoin, where exactly is the value? Why is holding one Bitcoin appreciating so much faster compared to the USD? Is it because us as a society is perceiving the value of Bitcoin to appreciate (even though it’s illogical IMO to think so)?

There is arguably far less value for most fiat curencies, at least for future use, maybe we still have a working fiat system today. Let's assume bitcoin becomes the dominant currency for payments down the road. At its max supply, each bitcoin would be worth well over 10 million USD (in today's value of USD). And it would keep increasing in "value" because of its deflation scheme (unless of course conscencius vote for…

> Let's assume bitcoin becomes the dominant currency for payments down the road.

What if we don't assume that?

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#117

Post by mmastrac » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

joshuakelly wrote: post #105

Let's pay tribute to the very first Hacker News thread about Bitcoin back in May, 2009 with this classic comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852 > Well this is an exceptionally cute idea, but there is absolutely no way that anyone is going to have any faith in this currency.

In fairness, it's 10 years later and sentiment still swings back and forth.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#118

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #98

gruez wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why is holding one Bitcoin appreciating so much faster compared to the USD? Is it because us as a society is perceiving the value of Bitcoin to appreciate (even though it’s illogical IMO to think so)? Same reason why asset (stocks, housing) prices have skyrocketed even though there's a pandemic going on: money printing.

This doesn't make any sense to me or at least doesn't answer the question "why bitcoin?" Gold doesn't have the same curve as BTC. Neither does pretty much anything else. Why has Bitcoin alone gone up 20% in the last month?

I think it's easier to understand BTC valuation (and, indeed, many individual stocks, e.g. see what happened to Hertz earlier this year) if you think of it like an MMO game instead of an asset that is valued based on some analysis of discounted future cash flows. When an asset has so much volatility, many people are just gambling on when they can get in and get out, underlying fundamentals be damned.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#119

Post by three_seagrass » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

arithma wrote: post #87

Just a question, isn't all criticism against bitcoin applicable to gold? Money/Currency/Value in general can't be reduced or derived from first principles. You always have to take into account human nature, economic activity, and most unfortunately: psychology. So all criticism about how bitcoin inherently being pointless, sounds like off-tune. I want good reasons to/NOT-to buy in. First-world country citizens kind o…

Gold isn't controlled by a handful of miners in China, the way Bitcoin is.

The whole decentralization-as-design principle of Bitcoin has shown that, given few constraints, anything of value naturally centralizes on the select few with the means to control it anyways.

The block size debate, and the tragedy of the commons that it shines a light on, is a prime example of that.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#120

Post by tempsy » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

mrlala wrote: post #90

JoshTko wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the single most important use case that most people miss. Bitcoin doesn't need to do anything else.

Sigh. I 100% understand what you are saying but I also 100% disagree with it. This is all greed with no substance. Wealthy people and those who desire to be wealthy are doing everything they can to arbitrarily prop up something which does not really have value. And they seem to be winning- which is everything that is wrong with the world right now.

you can say the same thing about gold - it’s just a shiny rock.

it’s an inflation protected asset, perhaps even more so than gold since there’s a known quantity of it that will never change.