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Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

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Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#91

Post by jhanschoo »

young_unixer wrote: post #15
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…

> 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. Yes. So what? I don't think the typical Bitcoin proponent is the kind of person to get outraged at Pareto distributions. They are against governments, they don't hate wealthy people just for being wealthy. > The problem with that hypothetical endgame is that…

> Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) does bring value to our society as a store of wealth that's not easy for governments to control.

My personal take on this is that it's a temporary state of affairs. You might draw an analogy to the wild west of the Internet in the past, or e-mail. As Bitcoin goes mainstream, if it does, you will see familiar institutions built on it including fractional reserve banking that honor all the comfortable consumer things if you remain within their system.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#92

Post by ratsmack »

notwedtm wrote: post #32
t0mbstone wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But bitcoin has been "pumped and dumped" so many times now that most of the people who were early investors have already cashed out long ago. What you are left with now is all the people who bought the bitcoin after it had already been pumped and dumped, and they aren't willing to sell it for less than they bought it for. This means that the perceived value of the asset is now based on the notions held by millions of…

How does this track with the fact that it's at the ATH right now, and has been steadily going up for some time?

Irrational exuberance is an amazing phenomenon... I've seen this before.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#93

Post by SpelingBeeChamp »

tux1968 wrote: post #53
iamben wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the "what if" is always pegged to another currency. I don't know anyone that prices anything in just BTC (it's all BTC converted from USD or whatever, because anything else would be madness) - and I don't know anyone that doesn't peg their bitcoin to what they'd get if they sold it for "real money". Which makes me think any endgame isn't going to be the utopian, governmentless, money-freedom future I keep hearing…

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.

What makes BTC 'less real' is that you can't use it to pay the IRS.

It's all fun and games until you don't pay taxes, or you try to pay taxes using currency not recognized by the government.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#94

Post by tux1968 »

SpelingBeeChamp wrote: post #93
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.

What makes BTC 'less real' is that you can't use it to pay the IRS. It's all fun and games until you don't pay taxes, or you try to pay taxes using currency not recognized by the government.

I don't think you can pay in Euros either, you'd have to convert them to good ole USD first, just like BTC.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#95

Post by garkin »

mosseater wrote: post #13
DamnYuppie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I as a parent from the fruit of my labors have no right to help my children through life? Also please note most millionaires in the world are self made, with over 80%. Of the other 20% most made it to millionaire status before receiving an inheritance. Also note the people you most worry about, the ones who get money young, usually plow through it and leave nothing for their children.

The notion that over 80% of millionaires in the world are self made is completely ridiculous. Just because you didn't receive large swathes of money doesn't make you self made. Growing up in a secure environment, where you don't have to worry about having a job while you finish high school, where you don't have to worry about not being able to go to college. Where you don't have to worry much at all about anything as…

Being middle class is not a crime and never was.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#96

Post by luckman212 »

627467 wrote: post #34
raziel2701 wrote: post #19

~2.3% of addresses own ~95% of all bitcoins. [1] How is a cryptocurrency with this type of wealth inequality supposed to help the common person? It's already centralized, thus easy to manipulate. Bitcoin is reproducing the same type of wealth distribution we see in real life. What exactly does btc offer? I don't understand how one can look at this distribution of bitcoins, where essentially the 1% owns most of it and…

I'm wondering what is the wealth distribution of Fiat, using the criteria you set.

I was thinking the same thing. They do call them 1%-ers after all...

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#97

Post by belltaco »

627467 wrote: post #34
raziel2701 wrote: post #19

~2.3% of addresses own ~95% of all bitcoins. [1] How is a cryptocurrency with this type of wealth inequality supposed to help the common person? It's already centralized, thus easy to manipulate. Bitcoin is reproducing the same type of wealth distribution we see in real life. What exactly does btc offer? I don't understand how one can look at this distribution of bitcoins, where essentially the 1% owns most of it and…

I'm wondering what is the wealth distribution of Fiat, using the criteria you set.

Governments and central banks can and do make it a lot better by being able to print money and run social welfare programs off them, apart from taxation and other revenue. That's the reason that even gold producing countries have moved off the gold standard. Runaway deflation is as scary and catastrophic as runaway inflation seen in Zimbabwe.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#98

Post by [deleted] »

young_unixer wrote: post #15
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…

> 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. Yes. So what? I don't think the typical Bitcoin proponent is the kind of person to get outraged at Pareto distributions. They are against governments, they don't hate wealthy people just for being wealthy. > The problem with that hypothetical endgame is that…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#99

Post by Rury »

young_unixer wrote: post #15
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…

> 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. Yes. So what? I don't think the typical Bitcoin proponent is the kind of person to get outraged at Pareto distributions. They are against governments, they don't hate wealthy people just for being wealthy. > The problem with that hypothetical endgame is that…

>Yes. So what? I don't think the typical Bitcoin proponent is the kind of person to get outraged at Pareto distributions. They are against governments..

The problem here is equality. People invented and see bitcoin as a "store value" because they want to protect themselves from the inequality being forced upon them from governments printing fiat. As so, your idea that people:

>don't get outraged at Pareto distributions

is in contradiction to

>Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) does bring value to our society as a store of wealth

After all, if people weren't outraged at Pareto distributions why would it matter to them to store their wealth?

To reiterate, the greater point being made is that bitcoin ultimately won't solve anything regarding inequality. Adopting bitcoin isn't going against the man, it's just shifting who the man is from being "the government/FED" to "crypto exchanges/peddlers/other earlier hoarding crypto entities". With time people will come to hate such authorities just as they've come to hate the government. I mean just look at how people hate on mature big corps like Google these days, when many gave it fonder thoughts during it's earlier days... Bitcoin will be no different.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#100

Post by alwillis »

ratsmack wrote: post #92
notwedtm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this track with the fact that it's at the ATH right now, and has been steadily going up for some time?

Irrational exuberance is an amazing phenomenon... I've seen this before.

You haven’t seen a new form of money (not currency) go from $0 to $1 trillion before.

You haven’t seen something in the process of overtaking the market cap of gold—approximately $10 trillion.

The first trillion takes the longest; the next trillion will probably happen in far less time.

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