Live data from Hacker News

Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

cnbc.com

311–320 of 830 posts

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

#311
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is also a poor place to put your money. The long term average is both volatile and underperforms most indexes. https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-...

Gold is not in price discovery because its been around for so long and already had its ETF moment (which is why its stagnated since that massive run). But gold has always performed cyclically. Long term (very long term) its done quite well. Not my cup of tea but it had its place. Going forward I expect btc will disrupt it and flip its value (JPM making the same call).

Over the last 100 years, you'd have done significantly better by putting your money into an index fund -- and had less volatility. As far as I can tell, gold is just a lousy place to keep your money.

What kind of long term are you talking about?

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

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/s? That's a nonsensical statement. Use BTC to buy a car today, and then use it to buy the same value car in a year. BTC is, fundamentally, unstable at this point in time. Even when all BTC is mined and it is distributed across the globe to every human being and sentient AI and animal, it will likely continue to be highly unstable as a currency. Compare to the, relatively, stable USD as a currency. Prices for goods a…

things should be getting cheaper with innovation and technology growth

And many things are cheaper. Or they aren’t growing with inflation anymore. Most electronics, for instance, and many mechanical devices. Even food stuffs (some) have been more stable in price than inflation suggests they should be.

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

#313
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The counterpoint to that is that gold has an "intrinsic value"; it's a store of value because it happens to have some use outside of merely just being a store of value.

Of course, the counter-counter-point to that is that the Bitcoin network also has "intrinsic value", and it's that it enables trustless/permissionless transactions to people that might be engaging in illegal commerce or are trying to escape the currency of a regime with poor monetary policy (Venezuela, Bolivia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, etc).

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

#314

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?

Your feeling is IMO the norm for lots of folks. I have had this conversation with many a friend, who actually view Bitcoin as a Ponzi, and therefore decide not to play the game (a ponzi ca be lucrative if : a) you know it's a ponzi b) you're smart in your timing and not too greedy but it's still a crapshoot). The real questions are: - what if it isn't a Ponzi ? - how much will your "won't touch it with a 10 feet pole…

It is a ponzi scheme. I think eventually majority of investors will participate in it. At present, total stock + gold market is $100T. If you expect 5% of this diverted to BTC then upper bound on BTC market cap is $5T. This means upper bound on BTC price is $250K. When that price arrives, suddenly things will become stagnant. People will wait for few years in the hope something will happen and then sell out for more appreciating assets. This will eventually cause BTC prices to oscillate between $100K-$200K.

In addition, you have couple of major risks such as feds making it illegal or taxing it heavily or some other coin that Elon Musk starts preaching heavily. At this point, if you do have BTC, you should sell out at $70K-100K range just to be safe. If you keep holding after that then you are taking increasingly bigger risks but much less reward.

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

#315
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the hyperbitcoinization scenario. If this holds you'll be an early adopter.

That scenario makes no sense in the real world because the US government would just regulate/ban it before it got to that point. Once BTC even starts to threaten the sovereignty and power of the USD, it's game over for Bitcoin and the laissez-faire environment that helped it grow.

The fact that it can't be banned is one of the main selling points.

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

#316

So does it make sense to put in some money that I’m okay with losing now or have I missed it?

I believe it's still selling a major discount from it's true value, so you definitely didn't miss out. It makes sense to put a small % of your portfolio in as part of risky bets you should consider taking.

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

#317
post #42

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…

Yup, same. Hell if I put in money now and it did 2x and went to $100k, I'd get out, too.

There's just no way I see myself not getting out at $100k or say $200k. And I'm not risking my money on an investment that can 'only' do 2x or 4x. Bitcoin was cool as it could do 10x or 100x in the span of 1-2 years. But with the numbers where they're at and knowing myself, I'd cash out way before that.

In the end because bitcoin isn't being used by virtually anyone, and is only valuable because of the momentum/hype (i.e., the reason I'd buy it is only because other people buying it solely for the purpose of thinking even more others will buy it only for speculation and not use, and the price rises), it's just not an interesting investment for me long-term. Short-term it could be but I'd be as not surprised if it did -50% as if it did +50% in the next year. Not really interested in that kind of exposure, given that I don't think I'll ever hold enough to enjoy the extreme potential upside.

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

#318

How much of this Bitcoin wealth is centralized to the top %?

Lots of early holders have either sold at local maximums or lost their keys all together. It's estimated that 3-4M BTCs are permanently lost.

There's certainly some concentration, but I'm willing to bet it's much less than current fiat currencies.

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

#320
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of. But it's a thing with a lot of investments; if one invested in Apple ten years ago their investment would have been 10x now. If one invested in Tesla ten years ago it would be worth 100x now (I think? there was a split at some point. Yahoo Finance's chart indicates it's gone up 10x in a year). Jumping in now is a bad idea because it's at peak hype; never buy at peak hype. It MIGHT go up a bit more, but it wo…

Judging by the sentiment in this thread it is definitely not at peak hype. That's what everybody said when it was $17k and crashed to $5k. I loaded up on it, now its $50k. I bet there were a lot of similar comments saying that it would never be 10x. I also seem to recall a lot of people 10 years ago saying TSLA was overpriced and they would never hit their production goals. Time will tell.

If everyone agrees with an investment then it no longer has the potential for high returns as everyone is already in. You need to look at what others don’t and decide for yourself. No one can know the future, you need to have personal beliefs, ideals, and investment theses. Not listening to the HN groupthink helps for investment decisions. The people here are super smart about many things but money is not one of them.
Post reply on HN