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Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

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Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#231

Post by shlant »

bob33212 wrote: post #184
shlant wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "manipulated" mean to you? What does a "manipulated" chart look like? (I'm not being cheeky, I am just trying to get a grasp on your perspective)

For the past 8 weeks it has traded in a 10% band. Why have none of the events or momentum moved the price by more than 10%. You can make the case that Tesla selling some wasn't a big deal. But with everything happening over the past 2 months there should have been at least 1 swing up or down by a lot.

> there should have been at least 1 swing up or down by a lot.

says who? why is this your criteria for "manipulation"? Are you saying that it's only been manipulated for the last 8 weeks?

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#232

Post by Applejinx »

sixQuarks wrote: post #205
Applejinx wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If, indeed, bitcoin is inimical to civilization, then HN is smart and prescient to hate it. That would be a plausible interpretation if you figure that the HN crowd are smarter and more capable of thinking through problems than the average bear. Perhaps if you don't agree, you should be listening :)

I did listen.... when bitcoin was $1 and everyone here was saying it was a scam. I learned that just because the group is smart, they may not be prescient. Look up any successful Y Combinator company's Show HN thread on here, and the top comment is usually something along the lines of "this will never work"

Scams are inimical to civilzation, and hated by Hacker News posters. I don't see the contradiction here.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#233

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

sschueller wrote: post #137
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you would not be able to collect the cash from a bank without all kinds of due diligence, or process alarms going off.

In Switzerland it used to be quite easy as the money belongs to you and you can do with it what you want. The only issue should be depositing large sums. If the banks make it harder and harder to get your money out then of course things like bitcoin are getting more popular.

I can't actually speak for Switzerland, it does have a reputation for "no questions asked" banking.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, "Know Your Customer", "Due Diligence" and other Anti-Money-Laundering measure are important. (1)

I think your last point is better phrased as "If the banks make it harder and harder to get your money out in bulk, without proof that your transaction is legal; then of course things like bitcoin will be used for the illegal transactions. And as a result the regulators will sooner or later regulate those too".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_diligence

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#234

Post by neals »

maxqin1 wrote: post #53
neals wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you traveled? Enough places where the dollar is not the national currency but still accepted and used for purchasing drug and weapons.

I'm not familiar with foreign drug and weapons markets, but even so, That is still a significant minority compared to USD as a whole. BTC as a whole is used for just that and gambling.

Looking at your comment history, it's too bad we're seeing this type of trolling leak out of Reddit onto HN.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#235

Post by maxqin1 »

jl2718 wrote: post #204
maxqin1 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with foreign drug and weapons markets, but even so, That is still a significant minority compared to USD as a whole. BTC as a whole is used for just that and gambling.

Even the most Pollyanna reports from firms that exist to ‘fight’ crime say it 2% criminal. I don’t know how much of that is illegal source versus regulatory evasion. World black market GDP is estimated somewhere around 25%. And it make sense that it would be so low. Let’s say you just got $1M in Bitcoin and you have to pay your suppliers $500k in cold cash. Not going to happen. Only from other criminals that take pro…

> I just hope that fear of the old power structures doesn’t bring good people to ally with values that we would not want in a new system.

That's why people need to call BS on the current hype train. Otherwise, when a sufficient solution surfaces, people are going to distrust it just as much as the old power structures. And I'd say we're already getting close to that point.

The problem is, with equal distrust, people will tend to choose the option that doesn't require change.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#236

Post by bob33212 »

shlant wrote: post #231
bob33212 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the past 8 weeks it has traded in a 10% band. Why have none of the events or momentum moved the price by more than 10%. You can make the case that Tesla selling some wasn't a big deal. But with everything happening over the past 2 months there should have been at least 1 swing up or down by a lot.

> there should have been at least 1 swing up or down by a lot. says who? why is this your criteria for "manipulation"? Are you saying that it's only been manipulated for the last 8 weeks?

If you Google "statistical anomalies and fraud" you will see several examples of where public data pointed to corruption without hard evidence. ( Madoff, Putin election )

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#237

Post by jsiepkes »

keiferski wrote: post #165
majewsky wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a ten-thousand year head start to be widely adopted. Bitcoin is 12 years old now. PayPal was that old in 2010/2011. PayPal was definitely more widely adopted at that age than Bitcoin is now. And besides, claiming that "traditional currency has a ten-thousand year head start" lumps so many wildly different forms of currency into a single category that the category is borderline meaningless.

PayPal or other online banking apps are nowhere near as big of a leap as crypto is. Not even remotely comparable. The former is simply making a trusted single location for a database of transactions. The latter is making that database global and uncontrollable by any single entity. A vastly more difficult and complex task. And again, the idea that a technology can be deemed useless a mere decade after its launch is d…

None of the technologies you name had that big of a negative effect on society while they were maturing.

We are a decade in with cryptocoins and 98% of the things that cryptocoins have currently accomplished are a net loss for society. A net loss of which we are currently already "paying" for; Ransomware, waste of energy, people getting scammed with pump and dumps, etc.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#238

Post by shlant »

bob33212 wrote: post #236
shlant wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there should have been at least 1 swing up or down by a lot. says who? why is this your criteria for "manipulation"? Are you saying that it's only been manipulated for the last 8 weeks?

If you Google "statistical anomalies and fraud" you will see several examples of where public data pointed to corruption without hard evidence. ( Madoff, Putin election )

what does that have to do with crypto? elections are not markets. Where did you get this 10% swing idea from? I bet I could find 100's of examples of equities that trade within a 10% band for much longer periods of time

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#239

Post by saalweachter »

ragnese wrote: post #216
saalweachter wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trillion dollars a year are disbursed by the companies of the S&P 500 to their shareholders, in the form of dividends and stock buybacks. Berkshire Hathaway itself bought back $25B of its stock in 2020.

Buybacks absolutely count under speculation-then-bigger-sucker.

The difference between a stock buyback and iterative speculation is that the "bigger sucker" in a stock buyback is the customer interested in the actual product being sold by the company.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#240

Post by bob33212 »

shlant wrote: post #238
bob33212 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you Google "statistical anomalies and fraud" you will see several examples of where public data pointed to corruption without hard evidence. ( Madoff, Putin election )

what does that have to do with crypto? elections are not markets. Where did you get this 10% swing idea from? I bet I could find 100's of examples of equities that trade within a 10% band for much longer periods of time

Elections are markets. Markets of ideas.
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