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Our Thoughts on Bitcoin

bridgewater.com

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Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin

#41

Post by notahacker »

thebean11 wrote: post #12
sebastien_b wrote: post #5

> while those who are against it (which are a few scared souls cowering in a corner) Way to win over your audience.

HN BTC skeptics are not the target audience. This is an ad targeting rich, nontechnical boomers who are unhappy they missed the ride up.

This. I mean, it's not even an ad for Bitcoin per se (it includes lines like "Bitcoin looks like a long-duration option on a highly unknown future that I could put an amount of money in that I wouldn’t mind losing about 80% of"!).

It's "look, you don't understand Bitcoin but you've heard it's doing well. We understand it very well including potential upsides and downsides, but won't make any specific predictions. Trust our quality insights into markets we're actually focused on"

Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin

#42

Post by meepmorp »

adflux wrote: post #32
anm89 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, surely these already billionaires whose entire business revolves around publishing analysis on assets, and who don't claim to be holding any major stake in BTC, could only be writing about it because they are shilling...

The only incentive to write articles like this is to convince others to buy, consequently making more money yourself. This is a pitch, not a fairly supported argument.

>The only incentive to write articles like this is to convince others to buy, consequently making more money yourself.

Given that you're not the author and so not privy to their motives, I don't see your support for your assertion that personal profit is the only possible incentive to have written the article.

Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin

#43

Post by nostrademons »

sebastien_b wrote: post #27
ericbarrett wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dalio and Bridgewater's internal culture are famously weird and confrontational[0], so your reaction is probably intended. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-01/bridge...

I stopped reading after that sentence, as I figured any such characterization immediately showed bias - your comment pretty much confirms my suspicions.

They do this for the selection bias effect: they want to weed out anyone whose emotional reaction to the content will prevent them from engaging with the data and the reasoning in it. The company culture is based around radical transparency (within the firm, at least): say anything you want, criticize anyone, don't get mad about the criticism but instead engage with the information content contained in it. It's basically selecting for autists. (Sure enough, I have a college classmate who I'm pretty sure is on the spectrum, and he's thrived at Bridgewater.)

This actually isn't a bad selection filter for an investment firm, since the #1 reason traders fail is investing on emotion.

Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin

#44

Post by jcampbell1 »

thebean11 wrote: post #14
tmerr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this was absent from the analysis. Bitcoins security derives from computer power which is currently paid by combination of fees and inflation (mining). We have yet to see what happens to the prices and security when mining dries out. It would also be interesting to see a large market event that causes many people to move bitcoin at once. (What happens to transaction costs? Does this affect perception of bitcoin…

Bitcoin will have to adapt in a big way before inflation stops. It needs to crank transaction volume way up, or otherwise collect fees (for example smart contracts) in order to keep mining profitable. Scaling only the price of transactions is NOT going to work, but it has quite a bit of runway to figure this out.

I imagine everyone holding bitcoin will wise up and agree to a fork in 2040 to stop the halvings. The people who use bitcoin as a store of value should be willing to pay a bit of inflation to maintain the network. As a bitcoin holder, I really don't want to rely on people transacting on the network to fund its security and existence.

Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin

#45

Post by hanniabu »

adflux wrote: post #17

Another company shilling a coin, hoping to convince many more greater fools. Only goal of this article is to convince you to buy, and to transfer a part of your wealth to them.

I love how people will always find a reason to remain cognitively dissonant. At first it was just people doing illicit activity, then it was only a tulip bubble, then it's just that retail investors are playing the greater fool. Not that there's financial professionals advocating for it you say that they just want your business. At what point do you consider you may be wrong? What will you say when banks start holding Bitcoin reserves? What will you say when countries are holding Bitcoin reserves? Serious question, because with the way people on HN are acting, it seems like your heads will remain in the sand for eternity.

Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin

#46

Post by sebastien_b »

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #36
sebastien_b wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped reading after that sentence, as I figured any such characterization immediately showed bias - your comment pretty much confirms my suspicions.

It shouldn't; they're very open to being shown to be wrong. That's a key feature in their company culture. They're just not shy about how they phrase their current beliefs.

Then they should really think about how they phrase their intentions.

To me, this read like someone at a congressional hearing asking "Why are you against protecting children from predators?" to a witness opposing something on totally different grounds (ie. being needlessly confrontational from the get-go).

Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin

#47

Post by solean »

fxtentacle wrote: post #37

Here's my personal Bitcoin prediction for 2021: 1. Some hedge fund will find a way to short Bitcoins. 2. Someone will inject a lot of illegal sh*t into the Blockchain. People already post images, e.g. https://cryptograffiti.info/ 3. Authorities have to intervene, the price goes down, the hedge fund gets rich. 4. Lots of whining from people who didn't understand how Bitcoin works. Shoulder shrugs from those "in the kn…

It's been trivial to short bitcoin for years

Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin

#48

Post by hanniabu »

solosoyokaze wrote: post #38
adflux wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only incentive to write articles like this is to convince others to buy, consequently making more money yourself. This is a pitch, not a fairly supported argument.

The incentive is to appear informed about an important trend in their industry. It's a pretty good analysis. Do you have a problem with a specific piece of his content?

The issue they have is that they weren't against bitcoin. Clearly their preconceived notions are preventing them from discussing and looking at it objectively.

Waiting for PragmaticPulp to join the conversation.....

Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin

#50

Post by swagonomixxx »

meepmorp wrote: post #42
adflux wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only incentive to write articles like this is to convince others to buy, consequently making more money yourself. This is a pitch, not a fairly supported argument.

>The only incentive to write articles like this is to convince others to buy, consequently making more money yourself. Given that you're not the author and so not privy to their motives, I don't see your support for your assertion that personal profit is the only possible incentive to have written the article.

I mean, they are an investment firm, whose goal is to make money. Personal profit is literally their only motive.

Another thing to note here is that these firms can shill any coin they like without any market manipulation accusations from the SEC, were they to do this for any other asset.

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