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Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

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Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#71

Post by kryptiskt »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

It will be interesting to see Bitcoin sentiment shift as newcomers realize that the bulk of Bitcoin value is held by a small handful of early adopters, and that the bulk of Bitcoin mining capacity is held by a small handful of large mining companies. Cryptocurrency proponents are trying to get ahead of this by reframing Bitcoin as the people's currency, or an opportunity for average people to get rich while sticking…

I wouldn't worry, in a world where Bitcoin takes over, the economic logic is such that no power can be used for non-Bitcoin purposes until profitable mining has been arbitraged away. This means that the vast majority of power generation will be dedicated to hashing while the oceans rise and the environment dies. The people with the bitcoin will not find a whole lot to buy for the coins in the wasteland when it all has played out.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#72

Post by errantmind »

dandanua wrote: post #60
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

It will be interesting to see Bitcoin sentiment shift as newcomers realize that the bulk of Bitcoin value is held by a small handful of early adopters, and that the bulk of Bitcoin mining capacity is held by a small handful of large mining companies. Cryptocurrency proponents are trying to get ahead of this by reframing Bitcoin as the people's currency, or an opportunity for average people to get rich while sticking…

> not to mention completely disconnecting wealth from societal value creation. You forget to mention that a lot of early adopters are actual criminals. Yeah, go make them the rulers of the world. Let's see how this ends.

Do you have a citation for this?

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#74

Post by bpodgursky »

627467 wrote: post #46
adhoc32 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? It's impossible to know if someone has lost his private keys or the address is dormant.

Probabilistically, you probably can estimate that. Is a permanently dormant address just dormant or is it "burnt"?

To a degree, but there are some real whale accounts in question. Satoshi alone may have access to 1.1mm coins — or maybe not.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#75

Post by tux1968 »

Jtsummers wrote: post #63
tux1968 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if it means anything, but the first thing I do when reading about the price of say some huge tunnel built in Europe is mentally convert the quoted Euro price to USD. Doesn't make the Euro any less real as a currency.

The fact that a European project was priced in Euros suggests that Euros are more of a currency than BTC. Converting to USD is a matter of convenience for you. But within the European economy that same project would have a near comparable EUR price in 12 months as it does today. That is not true for things priced in BTC as the value of the BTC is wildly fluctuating (though generally trending up). Please find a contem…

This is all new to me, and I don't have any interest in BTC at all. But volatility and crazy inflation does happen in the realm of real currencies. BTC is unique because it's happening at the start of its existence rather than in the traditional death-spiral. Nor is currency speculation unique to BTC, it happens every day with traditional currencies. But maybe BTC can be forgiven for its volatility since it's such a unique and new concept?

As I understand it at some point there will be no new bitcoin left to mine, and it will just be available as a store-of-value currency -- if I have the concept correct. And the early adopters will be financially rewarded for helping to get it off the ground as they spend their BTC away into circulation.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#76

Post by castlecrasher2 »

the_giraffe wrote: post #44

Call me old fashioned but I feel like bitcoin is similar to fiat currencies simply because it's not backed by anything. It has invented scarcity. If I just created giraffe coin and there were only 5 coins it doesn't mean it has any value. Would someone please explain why on earth I want to own bitcoin? I really don't understand the bull case for it.

I'm as skeptical as you are but the recent article by Ray Dalio explained well its value, which is still rather unconvincing to me. Still, I liken it to Monopoly money a group decided was worth actual money, obfuscated by technology, distributed systems, and other buzzwords.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#77

Post by chokeartist »

BurningFrog wrote: post #45
raziel2701 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because its proponents claim it's gonna make you rich. That you gotta board this rocket before it takes off to the moon. A lot of the propaganda I remember about bitcoin is that it was going to help bank the unbanked. What I see about btc is that people will tell you anything to get you to buy. The goalposts get moved and depending on who you talk to: "it's a store of value, no it's like a stock! No it's a currency!…

Never seek wisdom in comment sections.

One should frame this quote and hang it in a hallway.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#78

Post by rcoveson »

the_giraffe wrote: post #67
rcoveson wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have to want it, other people want it. You want to have a pile of lightweight, secure doodads that other people want, because that’s easier to exchange than terminal wants like cars and sheep. What’s really crazy is the only reason other people want it is this same reason; it’s circular. It takes coordination to bootstrap, but once it’s set up it can be stable. Like those circles of people all sitting on ea…

Yeah the greater fool theory doesn't sound too appealing to me.

It's not the "greater fool" theory. It's more like language. A new word doesn't have to have a real connection to its meaning. The word "cat" isn't structured like a cat, and when spoken aloud doesn't sound like one either. But we still like to be able to refer to cats without pointing, so we agree on something inherently meaningless and tie to to that.

Fiat currency is the same way. Rather than point a giant network of contracts together in order to create some monster transaction that satisfies a few hundred people evenly, we just agree to respect the unique-but-valueless papers produced by the crazy guy who will imprison anybody who tries to produce those same papers. It didn't have to be these papers; it didn't have to be bitcoin. It just had to be something that had the necessary properties: unique, scarce, lightweight, secure, and, most importantly, used by as many other people as possible.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#79

Post by justin_oaks »

GoldenMonkey wrote: post #35
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

It will be interesting to see Bitcoin sentiment shift as newcomers realize that the bulk of Bitcoin value is held by a small handful of early adopters, and that the bulk of Bitcoin mining capacity is held by a small handful of large mining companies. Cryptocurrency proponents are trying to get ahead of this by reframing Bitcoin as the people's currency, or an opportunity for average people to get rich while sticking…

Oh, it's a lot more than $1,000 to $1,300 in a week. If you had invested your $1,200 stimulus check in Bitcoin. It would now be worth $7,200. Where else can the average person make 6x's their money. And, it has already made plenty of average people. Millionaires.

It's only worth that much if you sell now.

Same thing with stocks. It kills me to hear of people talk about how they "lost money" when a stock they own comes down from a temporary high price. No, you only lost money relative to your hypothetical self who sold at the top of the stock's price.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#80

Post by hackernudes »

iso1210 wrote: post #55
the_giraffe wrote: post #44

Call me old fashioned but I feel like bitcoin is similar to fiat currencies simply because it's not backed by anything. It has invented scarcity. If I just created giraffe coin and there were only 5 coins it doesn't mean it has any value. Would someone please explain why on earth I want to own bitcoin? I really don't understand the bull case for it.

The US Dollar is backed by 20 aircraft carriers, thousands of nuclear weapons, 350 million Americans who think they have a manifest destiny, and a government with a long history of invading countries that threaten the dollar. What's bitcoin backed by?

Source code and miners.
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