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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

#151

Post by wtf_is_up »

mamon wrote: post #123
wtf_is_up wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>crashes to hell Zoom out.

"Past performance is not indicative of future results" EDIT: it might be a lawyerspeak, but it is still a good advice: there's a reason why Bitcoin has been down $14k this week and that reason is the settlement with NYAG in the Tether lawsuit. Situation has changed, there's one fewer scam company there to artificially inflate Bitcoin price, so expect downward trend for at least the next few months.

I fail to see the relevance of the cliche you've posted here. BTC has 'crashed to hell' all the way down to where it was 07 Feb 2021 after doubling a few times and the parent post is spitefully spiking the football by 'drinking salty tears'. Has nothing to do with predicting the future.

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

#152

Post by mcguire »

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…

Assets similar to bitcoin are somewhat rare on the ground. Art, antiquities, maybe a few other things. (Precious metals are typically useful for other things.) Few people regard those assets as useful investments, in anything other than a diversification sense. No one regards them as economically productive.

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

#153

Post by mcguire »

andrewtbham wrote: post #105
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.

I think the fixed supply is what attracts people.

Which results in long-term depreciation, such that spending bitcoin is economically irrational.

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

#154

Post by glitchc »

jaspax wrote: post #133
glitchc wrote: post #120

Fiat money works because government has a strong say in its creation and valuation, and govt. is elected by the people. Lobbying and other private interests aside, by and large, the system is still beholden to the opinions of the citizenry. Decentralized finance, while originally designed to give more power directly to the people (Nakamoto’s “one CPU one vote”), is now clearly shown to be beholden to an oligopoly of…

The notion that citizens have a say over their country's fiscal policy seems pretty unsupportable to me. In the US, the Federal Reserve is specifically designed to avoid political pressure, and the European banking institutions are even more insulated from the consequences of elections. Your vote's impact on currency policy is very small, indirect, and highly delayed in time, so much so that it is for all practical p…

Pretty unsupportable? Complete and utter nonsense. The Fed just handed out cheques to all Americans because Congress asked it to. It was unprecedented in US history, and the strongest indication that the system still works for the average person. Under what circumstances would that be possible with Bitcoin? Do the big whales in crypto care that you've lost your job? Congress does because it's their job to care. That's how government works. It's not perfect but it's far better than the alternative people seem to be proposing.

Anarchy only works for the person on top, and they know it, that's why in every real anarchy, the ones on top spend most of their resources trying to stay on top. For everyone else, it's a universally miserable experience.

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

#155

Post by arcticbull »

bombcar wrote: post #137
arcticbull wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us have maintained a strong anti-Bitcoin position at all times. [edit] David Gerard comes to mind - author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain and Libra Shrugged - and HN user (dgerard I think) ( https://davidgerard.co.uk/ ) More recently Amy Castor, also an HN user (amycastor) ( https://amycastor.com/ ) And of course Bitfinex’d is back and public again on Twitter. ( https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed )

/r/buttcoin has memes but it also has some pretty serious discussions

One thing I really appreciate about them is unlike literally every other crypto sub, they’re not an echo chamber. Nobody as far as I can tell is ever banned for being pro-crypto, or posting pro-crypto content. If they’re hard-core shills or brigading they get downvoted or get slapped with a playful flair (“warning, I have the brain worms” is my favorite haha).

As such it gets a lot of pro-crypto folks participating to get a different perspective. It’s not high brow HN level discourse but to your point a lot of serious stuff ends up there.

Considering the topic it’s pretty balanced.

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

#156

Post by esperent »

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.

Exchanges reduce risk and make things easy for casual users. By casual, I mean people who just want to invest and don't care much about the mechanics of bitcoin which was always going to be ~99% of users.

What are the other options? Using an exchange is risky (or at least seems risky to me, a person with almost zero crypto experience). Bitcoin ATMs? I know they exist, I've never personally seen one. Handing cash to a stranger? Definitely risky.

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

#157

Post by UncleMeat »

iso1210 wrote: post #72
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…

> 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. Do Swiss Franks pay dividends or other types of cashflows? If I have 50,000 CHF in a box in my cupboard, what value is it beyond a small amount of fuel to burn? At some point…

And people who hold their wealth in cash are speculating, not investing.

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

#158

Post by anonisko »

Judgmentality wrote: post #146
Grim-444 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What price lulls? Before 2017 the price of Bitcoin was stable as it wasn't worth anything. From 2017 to 2021 the price of bitcoin has changed every year by: 1,300%, 71%, 75%, 328% Compared to the DJIA, which over the same years changed every year by: 25%, 8%, 21%, 11% In the last four years, two of those years have had price changes in the hundreds of percent, and the other two years the change was still 300% the gre…

> Before 2017 the price of Bitcoin was stable as it wasn't worth anything. You live in an alternate reality.

Yeah, this is a wildly ignorant take.

Pre 2017 was crazy volatile and unstable. It's still crazy, especially compared to regulated, national markets, but it does seem to be gradually smoothing out from the wildness of it's youth. https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/volatility-index/

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

#159

Post by tootie »

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…

Commodities are not stocks but they have intrinsic value. The value of oil or chickens is based on demand for their consumption.

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

#160

Post by choclatecheese »

casi wrote: post #108
Sargos wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Remember when BTC used to be fun and exciting? Stupid projects being created, tipping widespread all over the internet. All of this moved over to Ethereum long ago but those outside of the crypto space might not know that. Thousands of hackers have created little neat experiments and projects for others to use and build on and more are released everyday. Some of my favorites are https://dontbuymeme.com/ , https://aa…

https://mia.bet/ is one i like, a home made site where you bet on a marble run race with the randomness generated by their pet hamster. makes me smile. i'll also add in https://clr.fund/ as its relevant to the bigger question of "how do we fund open source public goods" that might be relevant to hackernews readers.

mia.bet?? omg is this for real? lol real randomness on blockchain generated by a hamster
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