841–850 of 1001 posts
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I agree. What's also absurd is that Tesla raised $5B and now is parking 30% of that in Bitcoin, which we all know has a unique history of volatility. This is not going to end well.
If the reports of BTC going to 100K by EOY are true, they just turned $1.5B into ~$4.5B.
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> I don't understand all the Crypto hate on this site. Since when have hackers become the luddites to new ways of finance? For me, it's because nobody can explain what the value offering of Bitcoin is - mainly the question 'what can I actualy do with a bitcoin?' . It's a bad currency because it is slow to exchange and costs lots of money to exchange - I can't use it to buy my coffee in the morning. It's a bad non-spe…
Bitcoin != Cryptocurrencies It's like using the term "COBOL" when you mean "programming languages", and then criticising COBOL's modern utility in that context. The parent comment was about crypto (short for "cryptocurrencies") in general, not Bitcoin, which is 12-year old technology, and broadly not fairly comparable to current cryptocurrencies or their applications. You are as correct that you can't do much with a…
Ah, people who disagree are uneducated on it. Nice! I actually understand the technology, but my view is as follows:
* As an investment I take the Warren Buffet approach - I will only invest in things where I can see fundamentals. Bitcoin has no fundamentals. There is no utility and it generates no income, therefore it is purely speculative. If people want to invest in pure speculation then go ahead.
* As a currency: I can't spend any of them anywhere I want to spend money without an intermediary, so it's a poor currency.
My main view on how Bitcoin (as an example) has sustained financial growth is: The price rises, people invest money because they see growth, this drives a higher price, people invest more money because they see growth, this pushes the price up, and so on and so on. The problem is that these sort of structures don't last for ever, and they are reliant on attracting new people at the 'bottom' to push more revenue into the ecosystem so that people who joined earlier can get more money. People who are 'in' are incentivised to promote it and get more people to join, because it pushes the price up further and new money is constantly needed to keep the growth going. Does this money making structure remind anyone of anything else?
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How exactly does bitcoin liberate you from the shit that went down in the last year, besides the fact that luck, manipulation, and celebrity shilling propelled it to new heights. Not to mention that your taxes will be astronomical, and it's easy for the federal government to regulate it into oblivion. As for me, I loved the original promise of bitcoin. A decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash. It's not that thoug…
> There are lots of fascinating blockchain projects though Do you have a list? Here [1] is a 2018 article from The Register titled "Blockchain study finds 0.00% success rate and vendors don't call back when asked for evidence", and here [2] is a 2021 article titled "IBM Blockchain Is a Shell of Its Former Self After Revenue Misses, Job Cuts: Sources" saying that > “There is not really going to be a blockchain team an…
Bitcoin is a mystery to me. Somehow it's hailed as revolutionising the economy, by replacing currency with a worse kind of currency. It feels like this is where all the "how to get rich quick" book writers and other hustle bros went and created one giant financial pyramid, which works in quite simple way: - buy bitcoin - tell everyone around how revolutionary it is, so they buy it and what you holding increases in va…
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For me the thing that soured me on him was his fixation on Tesla being the solution to all urban transportation problems and his loathing of public transportation. He lived and worked in the Bay Area and L.A. - he's intimately aware of how pathologically bad car-oriented low-density city planning is, which is why the most economically successful place in the world is so hilariously bad to travel in. But his hatred fo…
Tesla really should take over the electric bicycle market. I'd be a musk convert then. But seeing the Cyber Truck, I just can't see that as a real future for our cities.
The only big advantage I could see is their charging infrastructure.
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Bitcoin uses as much electricity as Chile and a single transaction has the same carbon footprint as ~700k Visa transactions. This may also be underestimated and account for around half of global data centre energy consumption as per a recent study. [1] [1] - https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/
« as much electricity as Chile » Or about as much as a single large hydroelectric dam. Fun fact: many miners are located in places with cheap hydro/wind electricity like Sichuan & Yunnan provinces in China. These provinces abandon 100+ TWh/year of hydropower. They literally run water through the dams without powering the turbines. 100 TWh/year is more than what Bitcoin consumes globally. « single transaction has the…
I'm not familiar with the intricacies of bitcoin, but another comment claimed that the block size is limited (without hardforking) and the number of transactions per block surly is limited by the block size?
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What you described is how a banking system in many countries works. I can send a wire transfer for free to any other person in Poland at 4am on saturday night, and they will get it instantly (some exceptions apply). I can even send them a direct code to withdraw a specific amount of money from most ATMs in the country, instantly and anonymously. (Could be to an unbanked person, but we don’t have those really - aside…
« how a banking system in many countries works » Recipient was unbanked (under severe financial hardship)
People keep arguing crypto when internal fiat is likely to end up as central bank digital wallets [2] and cross border transfers will be facilitated by fintechs like TransferWise, with central banks essentially assuming more and more of the cross border infra over time [3].
Anecdote: A friend needed financial help due to COVID, and I was able to get their Citi deposit account setup with Zelle in ~2 minutes and send them cash from our reserves. The transfer was effectively instantaneous. IMHO, the problem isn't the transfer mechanism, it's ensuring that everyone has a a bank account [4].
[1] https://www.zellepay.com/get-started
[2] https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/the-rise...
[3] https://asiatimes.com/2020/12/cross-border-payments-on-horiz...
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At least you can build useful things out of gold
a statement like this is exactly why people still don't understand the value of Bitcoin. The usefulness of a store of value has no relation to its actual value. The value comes from the network effect of others also agreeing that it has value. What usefulness does a $100 million painting have?
So basically fiat money, then.
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All global companies with cash reserves "Maximize returns on Cash" via currency and other investments and hedges.
The intention of cash management is hedging to facilitate commerce and protect the balance sheet, not speculation.
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Kinda solved https://www.wired.com/story/cypherpunks-bitcoin-ham-radio/
Well ham radio operation, in the USA at least, requires a license. Are you proposing that everyone get ham-radio-licensed as a prerequisite to participating in the new economy?