Bitcoin’s plunge intensifies, tanks 30% to $30k in single day • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin’s plunge intensifies, tanks 30% to $30k in single day

#151

Post by disruptalot » Wed, May 19, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #108

drcross wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll listen to Bitcoin FUD all day but you don't seem to care about the hydro carbons purged in the process of strip mining the earth for shiny rocks though. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/why-bitcoin-may-actually-spe...

This is pure garbage. The problem bitcoin solves, a distributed ledger, is one that's simply solved with a ledger over a trust network. In otherwords, this is a "solution" that is burning TWh of energy doing something global banks accomplish with kWh of power. All the power funneled into BTC would be far better spent doing anything useful. From electrolysis to protein folding. Also, it should be noted that shiny rock…

Central banks don't do fixed supply money. Investment banks don't do payments and financial products that don't involve a middleman.

Bitcoin is a censorship resistant, neutral money and payment network. Banks don't do that. Banks don't consume "kWh of power" by the way. From the endless wars to protect the US (dollar) hegemony to 50 floor buildings draped in marble. Thats all cost + energy.

Re: Bitcoin’s plunge intensifies, tanks 30% to $30k in single day

#152

Post by endisneigh » Wed, May 19, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

wppick wrote: post #129

endisneigh wrote: post #10

other than trying to get the money of suckers, I've never understood the point of bitcoin. no currency, digital or not, can be removed from the world's activities. why would you ever want something that could plunge 30% in a day? even if it went up 5 billion percent, then what? everyone sells and it goes down? what's the point? it's like the most zero-sum activity imaginable. edit: I'm sincerely wondering what the va…

Zoom out. Look at the performance on a larger scale. Are you making the same claims about stock options? They can plunge much more than 30% in a day, but is there no value in them? Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are still in their infancy. Compare to other assets in their infancy. This might not be a great comparison but think about real estate. In it's infancy raiders or militaries could wipe out the value of your rea…

I'm talking about bitcoin, not stock options. Why even bring it up? I'm talking about bitcoin specifically, not cryptocurrencies in general.

you've said a bunch of things but haven't explained the value.

Re: Bitcoin’s plunge intensifies, tanks 30% to $30k in single day

#153

Post by root_axis » Wed, May 19, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

stephc_int13 wrote: post #132

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i get that Tesla is revolutionary in the car industry but it's stock pretty much goes up and down like a cryptocurrency. I have a strong feeling that people who love tesla stock also own crypto.

Is it revolutionary? What is the innovation behind it?

Tesla is the preeminent electric vehicle and is pushing the entire industry forward as every manufacturer races towards producing their own luxury electric vehicle to compete with Tesla. It's a very similar dynamic to how the iPhone revolutionized mobile phones.

With that stated, I don't attribute this success to Elon Musk beyond his ability to lie his way into sustaining the company's valuation so that the engineers could do the hard work.

Re: Bitcoin’s plunge intensifies, tanks 30% to $30k in single day

#154

Post by drcross » Wed, May 19, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

outside1234 wrote: post #27

Who could have predicted that the Tulip bulbs would plunge...

People have been using the tulip comparison for over ten years and yet bitcoin is still worth over 30k euro today, a price never reached until last January. When will you eventually get tired of saying the same repetitive trope?

Re: Bitcoin’s plunge intensifies, tanks 30% to $30k in single day

#155

Post by drcross » Wed, May 19, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

maedla wrote: post #67

It gets harder every day to take seriously the people that say this is a viable currency alternative

It does very well for anyone who uses it as a store of value over a long time span. It's obviously not a currency, there are other coins for that.

Re: Bitcoin’s plunge intensifies, tanks 30% to $30k in single day

#156

Post by disruptalot » Wed, May 19, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

unknown_error wrote: post #146

drcross wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you hear all the energy it takes to run the current financial system, or the energy it takes to run the worlds gaming consoles, or any other stuff that you have personally found to be more useful than crypto currency. If bitcoin frees us from financial tyranny it's all worth it.

How would cryptocurrency free us from financial tyranny? At some scale finance becomes a state affair, and regulated by law backed by a monopoly on violence. Or, otherwise, you end up with crypto-warlords with private military companies. In neither sense would the average user be meaningfully "free"; it seems like you're replacing democratic checks-and-balances with harder-to-regulate digital capital, which is "freed…

You only need to look around for a moment to find an example.

There are people living under governments that don't allow their citizens access to the global financial system (i.e. capital controls) and are often living in high inflation environments. Storing their wealth in an unseizable asset, even $100 worth, means that they are decoupled from their government financially and can escape their hell hole with their wealth in tact.

Re: Bitcoin’s plunge intensifies, tanks 30% to $30k in single day

#157

Post by cogman10 » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

drcross wrote: post #140

cogman10 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol. Oh I understand what bitcoin is, I just think it has no value. You are arguing that bogosort, because it's the first sort of it's kind to use a random number generator, MUST have some value! After all, look at all the watts it burns! Just because someone does something first, doesn't mean that thing is useful or good.

>I just think it has no value. Don't use it then, but why would you also disparage the millions of people who are happily finding value in it? >Just because someone does something first, doesn't mean that thing is useful or good. Well done creating your amazing straw man.

> Why would you also disparage the millions of people who are happily finding value in it?

Because it's an environmental disaster causing a bunch of modern issues and the defenders are being annoyingly naive about.

BTC uses a ton of power, requires a ton of equipment. They solve a problem with TWh of power that is simply solved globally with kwh of power. It is beyond wasteful.

> Well done creating your amazing straw man.

Nah, BTC is just beyond pointless. You are arguing that it's special, but have a hard time actually articulating WHY it's special "If you can't see this, then I don't have time to explain".

That's the same line cult members use defending their faith. It's a mental shortcut to avoid critically analyzing something you've bought into.

Re: Bitcoin’s plunge intensifies, tanks 30% to $30k in single day

#158

Post by drcross » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

unknown_error wrote: post #146

drcross wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you hear all the energy it takes to run the current financial system, or the energy it takes to run the worlds gaming consoles, or any other stuff that you have personally found to be more useful than crypto currency. If bitcoin frees us from financial tyranny it's all worth it.

How would cryptocurrency free us from financial tyranny? At some scale finance becomes a state affair, and regulated by law backed by a monopoly on violence. Or, otherwise, you end up with crypto-warlords with private military companies. In neither sense would the average user be meaningfully "free"; it seems like you're replacing democratic checks-and-balances with harder-to-regulate digital capital, which is "freed…

>How would cryptocurrency free us from financial tyranny?

Inflation is theft. Crypto prevents this theft.

Re: Bitcoin’s plunge intensifies, tanks 30% to $30k in single day

#159

Post by alimw » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

SkyMarshal wrote: post #141

endisneigh wrote: post #10

other than trying to get the money of suckers, I've never understood the point of bitcoin. no currency, digital or not, can be removed from the world's activities. why would you ever want something that could plunge 30% in a day? even if it went up 5 billion percent, then what? everyone sells and it goes down? what's the point? it's like the most zero-sum activity imaginable. edit: I'm sincerely wondering what the va…

Well so far it’s anything but zero sum. From nothing to tens of thousands of dollars in 10yrs is not zero sum. It’s highly volatile yes, and has lost >= 80% of its value four times in those ten years (so this little 30% dip is nothing by comparison). But not zero sum. It originally mainly appealed to two factions: techies who like disrupting big things from first principles, and people who were long concerned with th…

When it began it was worth nothing and when it ends it will be worth nothing. Zero sum.

Re: Bitcoin’s plunge intensifies, tanks 30% to $30k in single day

#160

Post by paulgb » Wed, May 19, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

drcross wrote: post #139

paulgb wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wait until you hear all the energy it takes to run the current financial system Every Bitcoin defender repeats this line, but I never see any numbers. Whatever the energy use is, it's provably less than Bitcoin by any metric like transaction volume or market cap, by the simple fact that if you were to scale up Bitcoin's energy use for comparison to the world financial system, it would use magnitudes more energy tha…

The key to your misunderstand here is that the proof of work hashing is decoupled from transaction volume or market cap.

It's not. If the market cap goes up, it's because the price of bitcoin goes up. If the price of bitcoin goes up, the mining reward goes up. If the mining reward goes up, the block reward that incentivizes mining goes up. The mining market is in equilibrium when miners expenses approach the block reward, so mining uses more energy as the market cap goes up.