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Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

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Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#51

Post by dmingod666 »

random5634 wrote: post #49
dmingod666 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone cannot think about a topic without classifying the genitals of the discussed people irrespective of what they are talking about, you'd probably not be wrong to take notice of that. Not that it matters, but, expecting the whole world to share the same perversion is a bit too much..

What is the fixation on “genitals” here? This comes up surprisingly often in this type of conversation. “Hey guys, anyone want to get coffee?” “Sure” Random SJW: “why are you focused on genitals? What a weird perversion” Everyone else: “Huh?” Is this a projection thing? Half the time the lazy pronoun use appears to be the exact opposite of this claim - the writer hasn’t stopped to think and classify readers by their…

You are repeating my point.. My point was, why do you want to attribute gender to things where it isn't directly relevant..

How does the author know the gender breakdown of a currency where we can't even figure out who the person behind the bitcoin address is...

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#52

Post by rualca »

riffraff wrote: post #31
Traster wrote: post #21

It is kind of funny that exchanges have become so successful for Bitcoin- since they lose 100% of the stuff that made BTC attractive in the first place. They’re centralised, regulated and transactions don’t even go on the blockchain. The result is that the number 1 way people get into Bitcoin is through a mechanism that has none of the attributes of Bitcoin.

as it's been pointed out by many people in many circumstances, the whole cryptocurrency story so far has been a progressive reinvention of the modern financial system, including many of the intermediary steps.

I wouldn't go as far as calling it a reinvention of the modern financial system, but I would call it a reinvention of the Dutch tulip mania[1], with the notable exception that tulips do have some tangible value.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#53

Post by shawnz »

WJW wrote: post #42
shawnz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making it easier to speculate should in theory decrease volatility and make market manipulation harder, since having more speculators should mean that the price is driven to its fair value more quickly.

This gets back to the "gambling vs investing" debate we had on the front page yesterday. What is the fair value of bitcoin? It will never provide dividends or other types of future cashflows, so that aspect of its fair value is zero. The remaining part is purely speculative in that it is based on what other people will pay for it. It is not at all clear to me that having more (relatively uninformed) speculators will…

Bitcoin isn't a stock. Most kinds of assets don't provide dividends or other cashflows -- that is certainly not the only determiner of the value of an asset. It would indeed be a bad idea to construct an investment portfolio out of only Bitcoins and no stocks, but that doesn't mean it is without value (for example, as a monetary technology or an inflation hedge)

> It is not at all clear to me that having more (relatively uninformed) speculators will lead to less volatility for such an instrument.

I am not sure how we can judge the informedness of the speculators or what we are comparing them against. But, each additional speculator improves the informedness of the market overall.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#54

Post by ur-whale »

gnrlst wrote: post #13

Remember when BTC used to be fun and exciting? Stupid projects being created, tipping widespread all over the internet. It was created to be a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system" (quoting from the whitepaper title)... oh how far it has strayed.

I agree, except for the fact that the exact same things can be said of anything that becomes wildly successful.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#55

Post by viraptor »

vbezhenar wrote: post #38
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re centralised, regulated and transactions don’t even go on the blockchain. Of course. All of that is kind of unavoidable if you want to interface with fiat.

Not really. I can buy bitcoins on localbitcoins and it's pretty decentralized.

The fact you got to the localbitcoins service and tell it who you do the exchange with makes it at least a centralised place of information.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#56

Post by viraptor »

dmingod666 wrote: post #51
random5634 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the fixation on “genitals” here? This comes up surprisingly often in this type of conversation. “Hey guys, anyone want to get coffee?” “Sure” Random SJW: “why are you focused on genitals? What a weird perversion” Everyone else: “Huh?” Is this a projection thing? Half the time the lazy pronoun use appears to be the exact opposite of this claim - the writer hasn’t stopped to think and classify readers by their…

You are repeating my point.. My point was, why do you want to attribute gender to things where it isn't directly relevant.. How does the author know the gender breakdown of a currency where we can't even figure out who the person behind the bitcoin address is...

> How does the author know the gender breakdown of a currency where we can't even figure out who the person behind the bitcoin address is...

A large number of whales holding BTC is known / very public and vocal - as the article itself discusses. You can also do a survey of Bitcoin related conferences. You can look at large datasets like the public list of MtGox debts. At this point you'd need some good supporting data to claim BTC holders and traders are not a male-dominated group.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#57

Post by shawnz »

55555 wrote: post #23
ur-whale wrote: post #16

Any article that uses the sentence "mostly men" in the first paragraph is highly likely not worth reading.

These says, if you write "men" instead of "mostly men", you get attacked my SJWs. My favorite form is when they write "men (and they are almost entirely men)." But as is becoming clear to many, you cant please everyone all of the time, and, especially these days, there are some people you cant please any of the time. What phrasing would you prefer? "Humans" or just "men"?

I think "people" would be the typical language to use in such a situation.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#58

Post by mrfinn »

superbcarrot wrote: post #4
mrfinn wrote: post #3

Blockchain technology is doomed, and somebody will be, eventually, the last link of the ponzi scheme.

I don't get why people's thinking swings to these wild extremes. Why does it have to be either a societal disruptor that changes everything or a doomed ponzi scheme? Can't it be something like "oh we tried to have cool internet money, turned out that it's not that great, some people are still into it I guess".

It becomes a Ponzi scheme the moment you realize that the idea is intrinsically broken, but still you keep shilling it and making grow the value exponentially, (value that somebody has to pay). BTW, flagged, really mods??

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#59

Post by mrfinn »

ur-whale wrote: post #19
mrfinn wrote: post #3

Blockchain technology is doomed, and somebody will be, eventually, the last link of the ponzi scheme.

And all the tin-foil wearing weirdos who had been hollering about it from their mum's basement will be vindicated. That will be quite a day!

Actually some of us are really interested in cryptocurrencies as tool to liberate people from a corrupt system, and we leaved our mum's basement a long time ago.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#60

Post by WJW »

shawnz wrote: post #53
WJW wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gets back to the "gambling vs investing" debate we had on the front page yesterday. What is the fair value of bitcoin? It will never provide dividends or other types of future cashflows, so that aspect of its fair value is zero. The remaining part is purely speculative in that it is based on what other people will pay for it. It is not at all clear to me that having more (relatively uninformed) speculators will…

Bitcoin isn't a stock. Most kinds of assets don't provide dividends or other cashflows -- that is certainly not the only determiner of the value of an asset. It would indeed be a bad idea to construct an investment portfolio out of only Bitcoins and no stocks, but that doesn't mean it is without value (for example, as a monetary technology or an inflation hedge) > It is not at all clear to me that having more (relati…

> each additional speculator improves the informedness of the market overall

I don't think that can be true. Leaving bitcoin aside for a moment, if a new speculator comes into the stock market who truly believes (perhaps due to misleading marketing) that "stocks only go up". This is clearly not the case from an objective standpoint. How would the entrance of such a speculator improve the informedness of the market as a whole?

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