Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#291

Post by bhupy » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 12:04 AM UTC

cwkoss wrote: post #256

bhupy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only just begun to wrap my head around all of this, and I tried playing with some of the DeFi lending platforms built on top of Ethereum. It has its kinks, but I think on the net it's a remarkably cool thing. I was able to lend $50 (overcollateralized) at 12% APY without any central institution. The only real wrinkle has been the insane transaction fees: it cost me about $80 to execute the "smart contract" for t…

Is the loan secured to anything? What is the incentive for the borrower to repay this loan?

Yeah it's "overcollateralized". The borrower has to put 150% of the principal into escrow (this is enforced by the smart contract). If the borrower decides to flake, the lender gets to take the collateral.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#292

Post by trident5000 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 12:05 AM UTC

incrudible wrote: post #277

trident5000 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average transaction fee is a bit disingenuous. Many people are not even using segwit and thats on them. You can also use lightning at this point in time but people dont know how to do it and wallets have not implemented yet. High fees usually prod people and services to adapt to the current tech to get costs down. I expect this to happen soon as high fees are somewhat recent. Also you can send a 50 cent tx fee an…

> One other thing - you cant even move BTC in or out of Robinhood. Robinhood for crypto is a complete scam right now. If you buy an option for a barrel of oil, Robinhood doesn't even deliver it to you. Same for wheat and gold. What a scam! In all seriousness, if you want to speculate on the price of Bitcoin, Robinhood may be better than using some of these more sketchy exchanges that offer decent amounts of leverage.…

"though that'll probably land you on some FBI watch list." I have no idea why you would think this.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#293

Post by guiomie » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 12:05 AM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #120

So it sounds like lemming group think. It seems like someone one should hold “just in case,” but no real valid reason to do so yet (that I’ve heard). We know transactions are slow and expensive, so it’s not a good replacement for ordinary commerce. It can be used to transfer across borders, but there often is asymmetry in capital movement that makes this difficult in the places you need it most (poor countries with r…

When I read a message like this, I conclude that bitcoin has another 10x to go since gold has a 10 trillion market cap. (Preemptively I'm going to say that gold market cap has almost nothing to do with its usage as a commodity, google it)

reply

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#294

Post by tshaddox » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 12:05 AM UTC

kungito wrote: post #42

superbcarrot wrote: post #28

Does anyone else feel like: - they've missed an opportunity to get rich with minimal effort from crypto - still have absolutely no interest in jumping in at this point?

What helps me sleep at night is that even had I entered all this time ago with BTC I would have exited 100 times by now. There have indeed been many 2x,3x,5x multipliers with BTC but there have been so many instances when it was unclear how everything is going to turn out which would personally prompt me to consider exiting with what I had. As my friend nicely put it: only way we could have gotten rich from BTC is ha…

Well, if you have the power to go back in time and change your decision to buy BTC, you might as well also go back in time and change your decision to then not sell it. :)

That's basically what the "hodl" meme is: just decide to not sell until you need the money or until the money could significantly change your life. Of course, that's not exactly a new "investment" idea: there's always been a big difference between day-trading and just buying stocks (and index funds, etc.) with the intention to hold essentially indefinitely.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#295

Post by guiomie » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 12:07 AM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #281

azinman2 wrote: post #120

So it sounds like lemming group think. It seems like someone one should hold “just in case,” but no real valid reason to do so yet (that I’ve heard). We know transactions are slow and expensive, so it’s not a good replacement for ordinary commerce. It can be used to transfer across borders, but there often is asymmetry in capital movement that makes this difficult in the places you need it most (poor countries with r…

I'm also still wrapping my head around this just like you, but I think I understand enough to answer some of your questions. > We know transactions are slow and expensive, so it’s not a good replacement for ordinary commerce. I don't think that this is obviously true. Digital transfer of the US Dollar is similarly slow and expensive (see: ACH, Wire, SWIFT). The response you'll hear the most frequently is that BTC (an…

The counter point to GME is to look at gold.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#296

Post by anon9001 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 12:07 AM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #253

osrec wrote: post #208

I believe Bitcoin is the experimental precursor to proper distributed money. For some reason, even though BTC was meant to be "money", it is now being treated as an asset (at a basic level, an asset is something you hold onto, as it produces additional value, unlike money, which tends to devalue if not put to work). It's almost as if the next big idea in distributed money will be around disincentivising "asset" like…

If we're just passing money around, why do we need a separate currency at all? Stablecoins already exist, but they're not popular because all of the speculative value has been removed. Bitcoin's real invention was censorship resistance, by incentivizing distributed miners to arrive at consensus about transactions in a way that no single miner could control. Sadly, that same distributed incentive is responsible for Bi…

Stablecoins aren't popular?

In the last 24 hours, there's been $108B traded.

https://www.coingecko.com/en/stablecoins

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#297

Post by adhoc32 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 12:08 AM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #266

adhoc32 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, a car for example devaluates over time.

Driving a car devalues it, because you're using up the utility and extracting value from it. If you buy a car and treat it like an investment (don't drive it, store it properly, keep it maintained) it behaves like an investment. Depending on the car and the market, the value goes up substantially. Here's an example of a 2000 Honda Civic selling for $50,000 USD : https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2000-honda-civic-27/…

Sure, but it costs money to store it and maintain it in a good shape. Also try sending the equivalent value of 100$ using a Honda Civic. Barter economy is impractical.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#298

Post by TheDurfAbides » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 12:10 AM UTC

paulpan wrote: post #241

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #83

It's a bit worrisome that we are inching towards the scenario where companies may be tempted at an economy wide scale to reduce investment in production in order to hoard cryptocoins instead. It caused the great depression when businesses switched to hoarding gold tied currency instead of producing in the 1930s. Now I'm not sure that crypto coins without being jacked up by central banks (like gold was during the grea…

I think the second order effect will be from companies that accumulate too much cryptocurrency - only to see its value vaporize. Impact could be systemic if companies start to essentially gamble with their treasure chests. Example: what happens if other companies followed the likes of Tesla and MicroStrategy? Sure the $1.5B Tesla invested is pittance in the context of their market capitalization, but if Bitcoin price…

I had been looking recently for a way to invest in companies doing interesting things with the blockchain. I came across the ETF called BLOK. It’s largest holding is with Microstrategy .... because they hold a lot of Bitcoin. It’s really unfortunate to see something like that. They aren’t doing anything with the blockchain (that I know of), yet are the largest holding in a blockchain ETF because they have a bunch of Bitcoin. Hopefully we don’t start seeing more and more companies hodling in hopes of making their balance sheets look better.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#299

Post by fwiwm2c » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 12:10 AM UTC

gibbonsrcool wrote: post #265

fwiwm2c wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time you understand Bitcoin/crypto, it will be too late for you to make profit from it. Get in now - lot more smarter people are in there and doing wonders for themselves. Look at your friends. Look at colleagues in your company. A lot of them are in. And here you are trying to make sense of it from your perspective. Even Ray Dalio is opening up and fair to say he knows a lot more things about finance and econ…

Is this sarcasm? Honestly can't tell.

No it is not sarcasm. You all are missing out on the train going right in front of you. The point here is that you all are not even trying to understand the advantages of crypto - with innovations such as DeFi, NFT and Store of Value. For you, it comes back to Bitcoin wasting energy and the fact that it is being used by criminals. Keep on believing your theories while the rest of us become rich.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#300

Post by incrudible » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 12:11 AM UTC

adhoc32 wrote: post #121

azinman2 wrote: post #120

So it sounds like lemming group think. It seems like someone one should hold “just in case,” but no real valid reason to do so yet (that I’ve heard). We know transactions are slow and expensive, so it’s not a good replacement for ordinary commerce. It can be used to transfer across borders, but there often is asymmetry in capital movement that makes this difficult in the places you need it most (poor countries with r…

That it is a hedge against inflation because of the network effect and vice versa.

Why would you hedge against something like inflation, which is relatively constant over a year, by putting your money into a highly speculative risk asset with absolutely insane volatility over that same timeframe? Like many arguments for Bitcoin, this one just doesn't make sense.