161–170 of 201 posts
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Don't put all your eggs in a basket you know nothing about.
How about we stop investing with eggs, eh? How about that?
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Well, as long as not all nations ban trading bitcoins for official state currency it doesn't completely screw things over. I simply trade my bitcoins for Vietnamese dongs or whatever and then exchange my dongs for dollars. No, the collapse is more likely to happen on its own. At some point the massive increase in value must draw to a close. What happens then? Big bitcoin holders no longer have an incentive to hold on…
Right, but then you are operating on a black market basis, because you're laundering money. If the problem gets bad enough the US starts banning dongs, or applying pressure on their government or what not. Worse yet, laundering money on this basis will almost certainly come with an increased cost to trade through another currency, especially if there is legal risk to the parties doing the laundering. It's not like la…
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BitCoin doesn't promise any returns, and doesn't distribute anything to new people who sign up. It is only a Ponzi scheme if the real world's economy is a Ponzi scheme. I don't know if it is.
You're right. While bitcoin has certain similarities to Ponzi schemes (i.e. the fact that the people who start the scheme get rich while the folks who come later lose their money) I think it's really more accurately described simply as an asset bubble. Except, y'know, without any actual underlying asset. I don't think I've ever seen an asset bubble in something that was literally worthless before. Even the tulip bulb…
-Because the demand to buy bitcoin is low, the likelihood being able to sell the bitcoin whenever he wants (ideally at height of bitcoins worth) is also low. This is the same reason that penny stocks are difficult to make a profit it. While the value may go up significantly, you can't realize this profit until you find someone to sell it to (and in order for them to buy it, they have to think it's going to go up even further).
-Currently there aren't too many companies that accept bitcoin for products or services.
-Any currency is only as valuable as the people using it believe it is (ie. the dollar is only a piece of paper, but because the seller believes that its worth is equivalent to a candybar, he will trade it).
-Once people realize that they cannot use bitcoin for goods or services, the likelihood is that there will be a mass exodus, and the price will fall rapidly as people want to sell their un-useable bitcoin for a currency that still has value. With so few buyers, the discount will likely have to be pretty hefty in order to attract other buyers into a falling investment.
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>Gold is intrinsically similarly useless as bitcoin. That is incorrect on many levels. Gold has applications in MANY things. I bet the device you used to type out that comment has a bit of gold in it. The comparison to BitCoin and paper money makes more sense, but it doesn't. This is because BitCoin has no one backing it. If the dollar drops, well the US is backing it; and they will be forced to deal with the consequ…
> That is incorrect on many levels. Gold has applications in MANY things. We still have a more gold that it is put productive uses. Gold reserves/production ratio is 60. No other commodity comes even close. So most of the world's gold is similarly useless as bitcoin, and more will be if some day gold will be re-monetized. But, maybe, a better analogy would have been, dollar (outside of USA) is similarly useless as bi…
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gold is used in jewellery because it's valuable, not because it looks any prettier than other metals I'm not so sure about that. Gold is used in jewelry because (a) it looks cooler than silver/tin/copper/etc.; and (b) because it is really rare. So I'm proposing the chain is: Looks good & rare -> Valuable I think if you were missing either "looks good for jewelry" OR "rare", it wouldn't be valuable and it wouldn't wor…
Gold is used in jewelry because: * It is malleable * It is resistant to corrosion/tarnish
It's easy to make jewelry out of wood, glass, and lots of other things.
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You're right. While bitcoin has certain similarities to Ponzi schemes (i.e. the fact that the people who start the scheme get rich while the folks who come later lose their money) I think it's really more accurately described simply as an asset bubble. Except, y'know, without any actual underlying asset. I don't think I've ever seen an asset bubble in something that was literally worthless before. Even the tulip bulb…
Money is just a tool, and BitCoin is a particular variant of that tool. It has unique properties that can be used for lots of things. Therefore I wouldn't say that they are worthless.
Well, no, it doesn't have any unique properties. For instance, as I've said before, I'm running an alternative currency called "bitcoin prime" which has these two properties:
1. Every string of bits that is a bitcoin is also a bitcoin prime, and
2. Every bitcoin prime extant as of April 1, 2011 belongs to me (all subsequently mined bitcoins prime belong to whoever mined the relevant bitcoin).
Mathematically there's no difference between bitcoin and bitcoin prime. And that's just one of an infinite number of possible bitcoin alternatives which can be arbitrarily declared, at any time, to exist.
"They built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men. On the roads it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the h…
Where's that quote from?
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> That is incorrect on many levels. Gold has applications in MANY things. We still have a more gold that it is put productive uses. Gold reserves/production ratio is 60. No other commodity comes even close. So most of the world's gold is similarly useless as bitcoin, and more will be if some day gold will be re-monetized. But, maybe, a better analogy would have been, dollar (outside of USA) is similarly useless as bi…
There are a lot of raw resources that we have excess of; some call it reserve. To try and explain the reason gold is so much is a ridiculous task. Practical uses(better than copper in some applications) and non-practical uses(it looks good on me). To compare BitCoins to gold is a horrible analogy to even begin with.
So?
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Bernard Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme, not a pyramid scheme, and Bitcoin cannot be classed as either.
You're right, Bitcoin is actually more like a penny stock pump-and-dump scheme.