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Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

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

#381

Post by FFRefresh »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #345
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…

>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). Honestly what more do most people have? You could work your entire life but even all the earnings and scrimping and saving isn't even be a tiny fraction to what you would have if you had been the one to fulfil the order for the bitcoin pizza and just held. Think a lot…

I personally think that the huge increase in the money supply and all of the stimulus money that has went out to people is the primary fuel to speculative investing (like GME and Crypto). Savings rates in the pandemic have never been higher.

I see it less as desperation and more of 'whoa, i have more money now, i want to put it into things that go up in value!'. I haven't seen the data (so do correct me), but I would suspect that less sophisticated retail investing is on the rise over the last year, correlating with increased savings.

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

#382

Post by seibelj »

aphextron wrote: post #363
r32a_ wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people on HN who talk down against Bitcoin are indoctrinated into the current ideology. Anything that goes against the current ideology is refuted, ignored, dismissed as fads, bubbles, scams..etc Ideology is a powerful thing and it's hard to break out of it. If you want to learn more about this concept, you should research about Slavoj Zizek's work on ideology. Bitcoin is not just technology, but a multi-faceted…

>Bitcoin is not just technology, but a multi-faceted ideology founded around cypherpunks ideas, liberty, sovereignty, austrian economic system, free markets. This is the narrative that people use to make it seem more savory. But it's just about the money. No one cares enough about any of those ideals for them to be a meaningful part of what Bitcoin is. Those ideas have existed forever in the back channels of the web,…

It’s about money to me in-so-far it is an enormously profitable way to earn a living given we are at the earliest of days in a ground breaking technology. That’s the same logic as internet entrepreneurs in the 90s.

The main difference between myself and HN groupthink is I believe crypto and blockchain have inherent value and revolutionary potential. There is a loud group here that says all of blockchain is a scam, refuse to look into it deeply, parrot the same bullshit, and when they are proven wrong by the market they just say “Well wait 5 more years and you’ll see!” which is impossible to prove as the crash can always be in the future. It’s so exhausting and the only thing that makes me feel better is the fact I was super right they were super wrong and I’m rich and don’t need to spend my life building some stupid middleware that powers the middleware that powers the privacy-violation pipeline for some SV dweeb or megacorp. I just keep delivering value that frees people from the corrupt state and earn insane money because few talented people know how to do it or grasp how useful it is.

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

#383

Post by trident5000 »

elliottinvent wrote: post #359
kerng wrote: post #336

Bitcoin has been around for a while now and it has been down talked quite a bit on HN whenever it comes up. It now has a larger market cap as Facebook - so the market sees more value in Bitcoin than Facebook. The sentiment on HN seem still be mostly against it whenever it comes up. I wonder why that is? I'd imagine 10 years from now Bitcoin will still be around and likely much larger than today - I'm less positive ab…

Facebook has been down talked plenty here too so I’m not sure it’s a good comparator. A lot of the proponents of Bitcoin are pushing it in the same way people push MLM and ponzi schemes and for the same reasons, which is unfortunate. For many, including me, it seems a great shame to be consuming so much computing power (and energy) to solve increasingly difficult mathematical problems for no human benefit when the sa…

People waste their entire lives working for the govt to print away everything they have saved for - wasted energy. I think its worth it and still a noble cause.

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

#385

Post by Wowfunhappy »

aphextron wrote: post #374
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion of Bitcoin will change when it stops using more electricity than entire countries, for something Visa can do for comparatively nothing. I would hold the same opinion of any technology which used so much energy when there was a less wasteful alternative. I also happen to be skeptical of Bitcoin's long-term outlook, but that's not why I'm actively against it as a technology. If it wasn't for the planet, I'd…

>My opinion of Bitcoin will change when it stops using more electricity than entire countries, for something Visa can do for comparatively nothing. To be fair, Bitcoin does not do what Visa does. Visa uses trust in existing institutions to accomplish transactions. Bitcoin mining creates trust out of electricity. And trust is a valuable resource, no different than any other form of value creation.

There are plenty of other stores of trust. You could buy index funds or government bonds or any number of other things, and the price will be less volatile than Bitcoin to boot. I know a lot of Bitcoin enthusiasts are skeptical of traditional institutions, but really, if all the world's governments go bankrupt you're going to have bigger problems. Heck, if you must use a cryptocurrency, at least pick one of the newer ones which aren't as inefficient as Bitcoin!

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

#386

Post by AnimalMuppet »

TeeWEE wrote: post #73

Bitcoin itself has its value, but the current price surge is a bubble, it can be easily explained why the growth is exponential: 1. BTC price increases 4. There is media attention about the price raise 5. More people buy BTC, because FOMO 6. Back to point 1, but now a bigger group This loop is a pump, increasing the price as long as the loop isn't broken. The same pump can reverse, very quickly. Once the loop is pump…

It can get worse. When the price is going up, up, up, people borrow money to buy. That makes the bubble blow even faster - it's not limited to peoples' cash on hand. But when the price dips, and people bought with borrowed money, they sprint for the exit. The crash is much faster than it would be if "I could lose some of my gains" is the motivation.

Even worse: If people can't get out fast enough, and the banks didn't judge the risk properly, it can threaten banks - see 2008 for how this works.

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

#387

Post by I_am_tiberius »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #355
kerng wrote: post #336

Bitcoin has been around for a while now and it has been down talked quite a bit on HN whenever it comes up. It now has a larger market cap as Facebook - so the market sees more value in Bitcoin than Facebook. The sentiment on HN seem still be mostly against it whenever it comes up. I wonder why that is? I'd imagine 10 years from now Bitcoin will still be around and likely much larger than today - I'm less positive ab…

My opinion of Bitcoin will change when it stops using more electricity than entire countries, for something Visa can do for comparatively nothing. I would hold the same opinion of any technology which used so much energy when there was a less wasteful alternative. I also happen to be skeptical of Bitcoin's long-term outlook, but that's not why I'm actively against it as a technology. If it wasn't for the planet, I'd…

Visa is no medium of exchange - only a payment network. CO2 emissions are bad for sure. CO2 tax would help with the migration to green energy. Energy consumption however also has a reason -> security. I don't think there is a secure alternative and I don't think anyone wants to continue staying in central banking hell.

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

#388

Post by solomonb »

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?

I mined in 2011 and sold at $5500. It was enough for a down payment on a house in a major metropolitan area but had I kept holding I would be a millionaire now. :(

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

#389

Post by fwiwm2c »

choward wrote: post #337
fwiwm2c wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As they say - have fun staying poor. Think about it - if you had invested at any point in Bitcoin before today, you would have made money. But keep on resisting.

> Think about it - if you had invested at any point in Bitcoin before today, you would have made money. But keep on resisting. That's irrelevant to me. It's not all about "getting rich". It's not like everyone can become rich off of bitcoin. The only way you make money is taking it from someone else. At the end of the day, real work needs to be done in the world.

Lets assume it is a ponzi scheme and then make judgments based on that assumption.

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

#390

Post by DennisP »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #355
kerng wrote: post #336

Bitcoin has been around for a while now and it has been down talked quite a bit on HN whenever it comes up. It now has a larger market cap as Facebook - so the market sees more value in Bitcoin than Facebook. The sentiment on HN seem still be mostly against it whenever it comes up. I wonder why that is? I'd imagine 10 years from now Bitcoin will still be around and likely much larger than today - I'm less positive ab…

My opinion of Bitcoin will change when it stops using more electricity than entire countries, for something Visa can do for comparatively nothing. I would hold the same opinion of any technology which used so much energy when there was a less wasteful alternative. I also happen to be skeptical of Bitcoin's long-term outlook, but that's not why I'm actively against it as a technology. If it wasn't for the planet, I'd…

A carbon price wouldn't damage Bitcoin. Electricity costs for some miners would go up, some would drop out, hash rate goes down, difficulty adjusts to keep blocks coming out every ten minutes, and everything continues as before.

(Still think proof-of-stake is big improvement though.)

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