Coinbase valued above $100B, ahead of direct listing • Hacker News Board

Re: Coinbase valued above $100B, ahead of direct listing

#201

Post by graeme » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 6:28 PM UTC

csomar wrote: post #195

graeme wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That calculus doesn’t work as a store of value. For the substantial minority of people earnings ~$2 per day, $24 per year is a sizeable fraction of wealth. As far as currency goes, it bitcoin transactions rise, does that have no impact on price? I realized my price thinking makes no mention of them and I don’t know how they affect things.

$24 is not a sizeable fraction of wealth by any measure. And here we are talking averages. The average per capita GDP is $18k. $24 is a very small number to that.

The median wealth per adult in africa is $1600.

And the cost per adult would be over $24. At least a quarter of people in africa are under 18 I think, though I couldn’t find great stats. So the correct number would be more like $32. 2% of wealth per year.

Re: Coinbase valued above $100B, ahead of direct listing

#202

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

redact207 wrote: post #59

We're just at a point in the economy where it doesn't make sense to hold on to cash. It's just completely losing its value thanks to a long sustained QE. People are just putting their money into anything as a hedge - real estate, stocks, crypto, gold. Until the value of the at can be sustained and inflation comes back, it's unlikely much else will change.

> We're just at a point in the economy where it doesn't make sense to hold on to cash.

One of the whole purposes of conversion to pure fiat is to eliminate any reason to hold cash other than short-term liquidity in order to encourage investment in productive assets, driving production.

> It's just completely losing its value thanks to a long sustained QE.

Except...it's not, the quantity of direct, utility-producing goods and services you can get for a given number of dollars is declining much slower than the long-term average rate. Easy-money policies aren’t driving significant inflation, probably because we’d be seeing significant deflation without those policies given other conditions.

Re: Coinbase valued above $100B, ahead of direct listing

#203

Post by TheBlight » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

hiq wrote: post #151

linsurance wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet it takes an extraordinary move of adding ~$2 trillion in market cap for Bitcoin to get there. The risk vs reward in Bitcoin at these levels is like a lot of absurdly overvalued stocks presently. Bitcoin is not a stock, it's a deflationary asset. There are not just a limited amount of bitcoin, but a constantly decreasing amount and a constantly increasing amount of people wishing to use them. People sounded very…

> a constantly increasing amount of people wishing to use them I find this hard to believe, at least not to the extent you're implying. People don't actually use Bitcoins that much, they mostly speculate on it. Bitcoin was created after the last financial crisis. I'm genuinely curious to see what will happen when the next one hits.

Holding bitcoin as a hedge is use.

Re: Coinbase valued above $100B, ahead of direct listing

#204

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

solosoyokaze wrote: post #186

graeme wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $5 million, at current mining rates, it would cost $1.7 trillion dollars per year in energy and equipment costs to run the network. That is fresh capital that needs to be shovelled in and burned each and every year. Not to increase the price, just to maintain the network. What is the network doing that would justify that investment? After halving the cost would drop to $850 billion a year but still.

It doesn't really make sense to measure this in USD if one of the major hypothesis driving Bitcoin is that USD is being hyper inflated. Yeah, it might cost $1.7 trillion dollars but at that point a 3bd house might cost $5M. If you're going to pin BTC to USD, you need to use inflation adjusted numbers.

> It doesn't really make sense to measure this in USD if one of the major hypothesis driving Bitcoin is that USD is being hyper inflated

“USD is being hyperinflated” is an easily falsiable (and obviously false) statement, so basing anything on it is nonsense.

(That it is imminently going to slide into hyperinflation is less easily falsified, which is why that is actually the perennial cry of cryptobugs, as it was for goldbugs—sometimes, the exact same people—before then.)

Re: Coinbase valued above $100B, ahead of direct listing

#205

Post by wcoenen » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

giarc wrote: post #163

sailingparrot wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a Bitcoin etf on the TSX since this week, both in CAD and USD

So when markets closed on Friday, BTC was at about $55,000 and BTCC-B closed at $10.83. BTC continues to trade over the weekend obviously and is now at $57,000. Given this inbalance in trading times, should we see BTCC-B pop on Monday morning to catch up to BTC? Could one not buy/sell BTCC-B each morning depending on overnight activity of BTC?

> Could one not buy/sell BTCC-B each morning depending on overnight activity of BTC?

If the price went up, the sellers also know this and will adjust their offers though, so you won't be able to buy underpriced BTCC shares in the morning. You can bid at the previous day's closing price but good luck getting your bid filled.

Re: Coinbase valued above $100B, ahead of direct listing

#206

Post by solosoyokaze » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #204

solosoyokaze wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really make sense to measure this in USD if one of the major hypothesis driving Bitcoin is that USD is being hyper inflated. Yeah, it might cost $1.7 trillion dollars but at that point a 3bd house might cost $5M. If you're going to pin BTC to USD, you need to use inflation adjusted numbers.

> It doesn't really make sense to measure this in USD if one of the major hypothesis driving Bitcoin is that USD is being hyper inflated “USD is being hyperinflated” is an easily falsiable (and obviously false) statement, so basing anything on it is nonsense. (That it is imminently going to slide into hyperinflation is less easily falsified, which is why that is actually the perennial cry of cryptobugs, as it was for…

Isn’t it easy to verify? How much did a house cost 20 years ago? A 4 year college degree? How much were you paying per month for health insurance in the 90s? Salaries have not kept up. They’ve been amazingly static my entire life.

Re: Coinbase valued above $100B, ahead of direct listing

#207

Post by badjeans » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

solosoyokaze wrote: post #192

badjeans wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People need and want something like that to exist where they have complete control over their assets without any worries about government or institutions. The government can always just make a law and take whatever it wants from you (or imprison you). Doesn't matter if it's from a bank account or bitcoin cold storage on planet Musk.

> Doesn't matter if it's from a bank account or bitcoin cold storage on planet Musk. It's a lot easier for the government to pilfer your bank account, than for them to torture you to hand over your seed phrase (that is if they even know your real identity). Decentralization absolutely takes power away from the state. That's not even touching the truly anonymous crypto like zCash.

They don't have to torture you, just hold you in contempt of court until you give it up. e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Beatty_Chadwick

Works the same as with bank accounts or scamcoins.

Re: Coinbase valued above $100B, ahead of direct listing

#208

Post by solosoyokaze » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

badjeans wrote: post #207

solosoyokaze wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't matter if it's from a bank account or bitcoin cold storage on planet Musk. It's a lot easier for the government to pilfer your bank account, than for them to torture you to hand over your seed phrase (that is if they even know your real identity). Decentralization absolutely takes power away from the state. That's not even touching the truly anonymous crypto like zCash.

They don't have to torture you, just hold you in contempt of court until you give it up. e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Beatty_Chadwick Works the same as with bank accounts or scamcoins.

They can’t take the money from me though. They can hold you in contempt and access your funds without your permission with USD in a bank.

Re: Coinbase valued above $100B, ahead of direct listing

#209

Post by lottin » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

redact207 wrote: post #59

We're just at a point in the economy where it doesn't make sense to hold on to cash. It's just completely losing its value thanks to a long sustained QE. People are just putting their money into anything as a hedge - real estate, stocks, crypto, gold. Until the value of the at can be sustained and inflation comes back, it's unlikely much else will change.

It has never made sense to hold on to cash, and it has absolutely nothing to do with QE. Read Keynes' theory of demand for money.

Re: Coinbase valued above $100B, ahead of direct listing

#210

Post by skybrian » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

skeeter2020 wrote: post #177

raiyu wrote: post #98

One important thing to note is that these are secondary transactions and not where the stock may potentially trade. Secondly, Coinbase doesn’t allow any secondary transactions, this was a company sponsored (approved) secondary. As a result this created immense scarcity so you can see how much the price changes just in these limited sales. Third, as we saw with the last bull run of Bitcoin everything with blockchain i…

>> When you look at the old staples like Coca-Cola they haven’t appreciated during this time. Pretty tough to eat appreciation; meanwhile Coca-Cola (and all those other old, boring companies) pays ~ 3.5% dividends annually. I'm sick of companies using my money for free to only fund their own growth.

Yes, dividends count as a valid source of income and that’s a reason to own Coca-Cola. However, appreciation of a publicly traded stock is fine too, better even. When a publicly traded stock goes up, you can sell some stock and the money is just as good. Furthermore you’re paying less income tax since it’s capital gains, and you get to decide when to pay taxes on the gains.

This is why stock buybacks are better in some ways than dividends for returning money to shareholders.