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Bitcoin is a disaster

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Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#321

Post by echelon »

Barrin92 wrote: post #3

>The scarcity of block chain space has led people to re-invent every last feature of the banks they thought they were going to be escaping. This is a pretty funny point because every time I go on twitter and see people talk about crypto, what they're essentially having is a discussion about public policy, and often they seem to try to reinvent institutions that already exist without even knowing it. From market-maker…

> re-invent every last feature of the banks they thought they were going to be escaping.

> centralized mining activity in a country where centralization means it's effectively owned by exactly the kind of government most people thought they DIDN'T want looking up their butts and where the people who that government allows to "own" this whole business work together as a cartel.

It looks to me like an attack on the reserve currency status of the USD. It's not a sure bet, but China is willing to tolerate it in the event it succeeds. Chins holds the mining power, so they effectively win if Bitcoin takes over. It's easy for them to clamp down and control.

> This is a pretty funny point because every time I go on twitter and see people talk about crypto, what they're essentially having is a discussion about public policy, and often they seem to try to reinvent institutions that already exist

The Bitcoin early adopters want to replace the incumbent systems with their own so that they can enrich themselves.

Now that Bitcoin has had time to play out, it feels like an attack on USD with way too many downsides.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#322

Post by thelittleone »

ashtonkem wrote: post #242
thelittleone wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. It’s treated as an investment vehicle." I, for one, have and will continue to use it as a currency in some cases. I'm quite sure I'm not the only one.

To a first order approximation, nobody uses bitcoin as a currency. There are a handful of enthusiasts who might use it such as yourself, but you are in the absolute minority of bitcoin holders. HODL would not be the meme it was if the goal was to actually use bitcoin in day to day transactions.

This is an opinion presented as a fact. A source would be helpful.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#323

Post by xapata »

louwrentius wrote: post #225
Barrin92 wrote: post #3

>The scarcity of block chain space has led people to re-invent every last feature of the banks they thought they were going to be escaping. This is a pretty funny point because every time I go on twitter and see people talk about crypto, what they're essentially having is a discussion about public policy, and often they seem to try to reinvent institutions that already exist without even knowing it. From market-maker…

Yes, I see the irony. So much talk about the benefit of crypto currencies seems - in my eyes at least - based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how societies work. And most of all: you can’t replace trust with tech.

> fundamental understanding

From the tone of your statement, I think you meant mis-understanding. I'll add also a misunderstanding of macroeconomics and a rejection of empiricism. The cryptocurrency folks read a bit too much of von Mises.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#324

Post by rkagerer »

I bought my smartphone from Hong Kong, in part because I wanted a specific variant that would be more likely to work with open-source ROM's.

The seller initially requested payment via Transferwise, who sought crazy amounts of personal information and bullied me into a privacy-hostile customer agreement. Days went by and they still hadn't activated my account.

Growing frustrated, I convinced the seller to accept Bitcoin, which was comparatively instant. The phone arrived a few days later, meanwhile the Transferwise morons still had their heads up their arses with no movement and no good explanation. I'm not a financial risk; I'm a good little citizen with no red flags. Reading between the lines my sense was their staff were overloaded or their onboarding system was simply broken.

Bitcoin was incredibly helpful for me that day, and my favorite feature about the phone is the way I paid. In addition to a great story, I've got to admit there was something liberating and empowering about giving what felt like a big middle finger to the slow, decrepit, old-fashioned institution who couldn't even deliver on their core business proposition. Like saying "screw you, I don't need you and your crappy service anymore, come back when you can compete on merits".

Whatever else you criticize about Bitcoin, it's still "cash you can email", and even if that's all it ever amounts to I still find it a bloody useful innovation.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#325

Post by konjin »

Finnucane wrote: post #45
rmason wrote: post #14

I was real excited the first time that Bitcoin was explained to me. I saw it as the first real alternative to paper money. But what I soon learned is that most of the people associated with Bitcoin saw it as digital gold and were only interested in seeing the value rise and cashing out. I've seen a few positive developments every once in a while that fail to get much adoption. So I keep waiting and waiting. It increa…

> "But what I soon learned is that most of the people associated with Bitcoin saw it as digital gold " Since it was basically designed to work like a pseudo-physical commodity, and most of the rhetoric to support its existence is warmed-over goldbuggery, why should this be surprising?

Because you could easily tweak the algorithms to make it act like stockpiling cheese. If you use a value time pair adding inflation that reduces the value of old coins is trivial.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#326

Post by ur-whale »

Bitcoin has demonstrated the existence of a deep, pent-up need for a financial instrument that:

    - can preserves value over the long term (implemented in this case via demonstrably finite supply)

    - isn't easily manipulated by governments trying to finance their mismanagement of public money
In this by itself, it is already not a disaster.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#327

Post by wcoenen »

acover wrote: post #307
wcoenen wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've injected trillions of dollars of fiat into the economy this year When the government issues debt and then uses the money to send out cheques, that money had to come from investors in the first place. So the money was reallocated, not created. (New assets did get created: someone is going to hold those bonds and count them as part of their assets. But they can't use these bonds directly to buy groceries.)

I think quantiative easing added trillions of dollars during covid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing

When the government issues bonds, they sell them for commercial bank money, the same type of money in your bank account.

When the central bank later buys those bonds from banks (they never buy them directly), something different happens: the bonds are exchanged for "bank reserves", a different type of digital money that only exists as numbers in the central bank's database. This "money" cannot be used to buy groceries.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#328

Post by pjlegato »

brianobush wrote: post #75
loeg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTC prices have approximately zero relation to inflation in the real economy (for whatever definition of that you want to use). Rising BTC prices are driven by pyramid scams, fraud, and speculation. There is no useful signal here related to anything else.

Is there a useful signal in the dollar price? Price of silver? They are all used in hedging bets. Same for BTC, people with a lot of cash are looking for a safe spot while we have the possibility of hyper inflation.

The entire BTC market cap is minuscule -- about 600bn as of this writing.

That seems like a lot, but compare it to Apple -- the market cap of just this one company's stock is currently ~2,238bn.

The market cap of gold, US dollars, Euros, etc. are all many times more than Apple. The value of all BTC is a tiny microscopic speck compared to the amount of USD or gold in the world.

This means (among other things) a few small players (with tiny capital relative to, say, the size of all USD) can swing the BTC market either way with a comparatively tiny amount of value moving around.

That would seem to greatly limit BTC's usefulness as any kind of inflation gauge for the broader economy.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#329

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

tekkk wrote: post #302
option wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Ukraine where my parents were earning and spending hryvna (local currency, high inflation) while saving in USD (much more stable). And a big value prop in favor of US dollar was its immunity to local country’s politics. Bitcoin has a potential to serve as that kind of saving “currency” a lot of people actually need.

Not to burst your bubble but assets with extreme volatility, like bitcoin, are not suitable for saving purposes. Investment maybe, but not saving. I assume "saving" purpose in this case means that it withholds its value while being easily liquidable. If you on the other hand have a long saving window so you can tolerate huge swings in the price of the bitcoin (or other cryptocurrency) then the question arises why not…

Despite the crazy year, bitcoin still has less extreme volatility than some actual country's currencies. So for that small percentage of the world, bitcoin is a better "currency" too - besides for obvious things like local brick and mortar acceptance.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#330

Post by konjin »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #13

Completely agreeable, albeit it misses a point: Governments can't print more of it. That's it really, everything else is noise. I can sympathize with btc (I wish we still had a gold standard, or a standard based on the price of common goods) but I don't see much the other benefits. On top of this, governments could ban btc.

Government forks bitcoin, adds the ability for a trusted address to add more coins. Kills anyone who doesn't switch.

Welcome to China, you just lost the majority of your mining pool.

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