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Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

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Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#101

Post by alwillis »

iamben wrote: post #39
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…

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…

The Satoshi Standard: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/536xl9/satoshi_the...

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#102

Post by dwaltrip »

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?

One likely factor is that the block reward cut in half recently, which lowers the inflation rate.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#103

Post by tromp »

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…

> Bitcoin is reproducing the same type of wealth distribution we see in real life.

That would be the best it can hope for. But it's very far from that. Just consider that one person (Satoshi) holds ~10% of all bitcoin. Or 2 other people (Winklevii) holding a few %.

The poor distribution is amplified by bitcoin being deflationary and emitting half in just the first 4 years (3/4 in the first 8, etc). A coin with a pure linear emission would at least keep eroding any wealth inequalities.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#104

Post by pedrmsilva »

tux1968 wrote: post #94
SpelingBeeChamp wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Excuse me?

Well, you see, you actually can pay taxes with Euros. In Europe. The USA isn't the only country in the world.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#105

Post by tux1968 »

pedrmsilva wrote: post #104
tux1968 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Excuse me? Well, you see, you actually can pay taxes with Euros. In Europe. The USA isn't the only country in the world.

What point are you trying to make? The question was about paying taxes to the IRS, which is the American tax collection agency. The assertion was that Euro's were acceptable to the IRS while BTC was not, but that actually is incorrect.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#106

Post by jonathanaird »

hntrader wrote: post #87
jonathanaird wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In case you’re interested the two bitcoin forks BCH and BSV have unlimited block size and so energy/transaction validated can scale very well. Eventually all forks will have to rely on transaction fees as the block reward has a halving schedule. If something like BSV succeeds the hash rate and thus energy consumption will be a complicated combination of transaction volume, and variable transaction fees. It will essentially be a race to the bottom to see who can provide the cheapest transactions while still being profitable. I think one should expect much higher energy efficiency than something like Visa just from pure scale and the intense competition.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#107

Post by throwawayyy1986 »

kryptiskt wrote: post #71
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 ha…

> This means that the vast majority of power generation will be dedicated to hashing while the oceans rise and the environment dies.

You have no evidence for this claim, it's just a profusely fantastic image that cleaves to your political bias.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#108

Post by iso1210 »

icedchai wrote: post #68
mosseater wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're defining "self made" to fit a very narrow definition. All the things you say are true to an extent, but it's not black-and-white. Would you consider Bill Gates self made, considering the magnitude of his achievements, etc?

Not only did he have the advantages that access to a computer in the 70s had, his dad's lawyer helped him with a good contract, and his mom set him up with the chairman of IBM

But the key thing is if he'd failed, he had a cushion to fall back on. Had Microsoft gone the same way as many other computer companies, he could be confident he wouldn't end up on the streets.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#109

Post by iso1210 »

adhoc32 wrote: post #5
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…

You assume that early adopters still hold their Bitcoins. You are (mostly) wrong.

Take this guy

https://mobile.twitter.com/GregSchoen/status/702616488117616...

Who lamented making $400 instead of $13k back in 2011. Those coins would today be worth about $95m, but there's no way he'd have kept them -- same as the buy who bought the pizzas (or the guy who sold them)

This guy was bored of $14/coin, it wasn't moving

https://twitter.com/rockerest/status/91885405368098816?lang=...

So he took the loss (in July 2011 they were at a peak, jumping from 77 cents to $15 in 3 months)

Had someone found an old laptop with the coins, they'd have been looking for it in the 2017 craze (ala Big Bang Theory) and sold then.

Bitcoin is currently 3 times the peak in December 2017.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#110

Post by iso1210 »

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.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/global-wealth-concentration...

0.7% own 45.9%

8.5% own 85.6%

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