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Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

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Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#81

Post by 0xfaded »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #17
justicezyx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, it's not unusual to see comments being contradicting each other by switching the side in the distance of one smartphone's screen. You cannot just state one thing from the side of later comer, and later switch to the side of early comer. That way you are saying 2 things...

I am aware that they are two separate thoughts but they don't, to me, conflict with each other. The main theme of both of them was to not worry about what others get from their parents. The first was recognizing that that inheritance mostly came from the labors of someone and they have a right to do with their money as they see fit. The second is acknowledging that the person who didn't work for their wealth usually…

I want to put this out as a thought experiment. Given that current taxation policy is primarily derived from incomes, and an inheritance is by strict definition an income, then wouldn't it make sense for all incomes to be taxed equally?

I'd be more sympathetic to inheritance if the primary source of taxation was wealth.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#83

Post by yrral »

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 first question to ask is what is money? Money is just an efficient means of transferring value between strangers and storing value over time (second point could be debated, since the value of fiat currencies have almost always degraded over time due to inflation).

Why do we give USD value? Because most the population trusts the US government to keep the value of USD stable and we know it is widely used and accepted.

What has happened recently? Most fiat currency supplies have ballooned tremendously. This has undermined the collective view of the storing value over time argument. Bitcoin adoption has increased, which means more and more people recognize it as money and that it has value. Also since the supply is capped, it becomes more apparent that it will be a better store of value than USD.

If you have excess USD, why would you not want at least some exposure to bitcoin over USD?

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#84

Post by dandanua »

errantmind wrote: post #72
dandanua wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Silk Road is just one example, there a lot more. Though, you can use logic. Money transfers without governments control is what criminals want the most.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#85

Post by creepto »

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.

Not a millionaire till you sell. I don't care about a crypto millionaire, show me the FIAT baby.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#86

Post by creepto »

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?

Bitcoin is backed by the printer called Tether.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#87

Post by hntrader »

jonathanaird wrote: post #59
hntrader wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to know, appreciate the explanation. So these estimates that it uses about the same energy as Argentina are probably based on a rather old price and we could get to many multiples of that if the price keeps increasing?

It also depends on the available market for asics. In bear markets, asics are very affordable as miners go out of business but the price can go up quite a lot in bull markets which affects the profitability of buying new machines.

I wonder what the observed relationship is if we were to plot energy usage vs price over the last 3 years

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#88

Post by hahahahe »

api wrote: post #51

Is there any good information on what set off this current bull run? The timing with the US election seems odd, but I can't see any causal mechanism that could link the two. Is it Robinhood adding crypto?

Second US stimulus package plus inflation fears in recent weeks. A lot of it is speculation to be fair. As gold didn’t perform and lagged bitcoin, most institutional players bet on bitcoin instead.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#89

Post by dmtroyer »

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?

carbon emissions.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#90

Post by CarelessExpert »

raziel2701 wrote: post #65
api wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of those are exchange wallets, and the wealth distribution of fiat currency in many societies is not much better. There are tons of valid criticisms of Bitcoin but this one doesn't amount to much.

Let's zoom out a bit. Is btc a currency or a stock or a store of value? Because depending on what you believe it is it will change how the discussion goes from here. As a currency, which is what you mentioned, btc is awful. It's deflationary so nobody wants to spend it, it's volatile so you can get fucked in a transaction by the time it settles, and if you do spend it you have to pay a transaction fee. And where's th…

> If it's a store of value or a stock, then you should be absolutely worried about how it's distributed. Because based on that, it looks a lot like a ponzi scheme to me.

I don't follow this logic.

A ponzi scheme requires new entrants to pay out the previous ones at a higher rate so as to generate promised returns.

I'd expect this to spread out bitcoin ownership as previous whales ducked out while leaving the new entrants to holding the bag.

A high level of BTC concentration, then, would seem to be a counter-argument to the claim it's a ponzi.

What am I missing?

(BTW, I also think the basic analysis is incorrect--a large reason why BTC is concentrated in a small number of addresses is because most people don't hold their own BTC, but rather allow an exchange to hold it for them)

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