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Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

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Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#51

Post by iamben »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #41
prepend wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s such strange advice to buy a currency early. Just the utterance of such a thing shows how these aren’t good currencies. Imaging how stupid someone would be to generally give advice to “buy some Euro” or “buy some Dollar.”

Buy some dollar would have been awesome advice after Bretton Woods and pretty much up until now. Now we will have a new world currency. The dollar had a good run but it has pumped as far as it can go now on money printing. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL https://marketcap.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/WRCurren... We are in the buildup period for the next currency. What is it we can't be sure, but a world…

It's a very utopian idea though, isn't it? What government is going to settle for a currency that's out of their control, that doesn't allow them to collect taxes efficiently?

I'm not really for or against crypto in general. But I do like my bins being collected, and my roads without holes in them - it kind of requires some kind of central governing for this to happen.

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#52

Post by jmcqk6 »

lowkey wrote: post #39
esens wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of your comment makes sense, but this sentence is disconnected from reality: "People El Salvador didn't get the $1200 checks that US citizens got from printing more USD, even though they both use USD in theory." Are you seriously saying that 5% inflation a year, maybe a bit more worse case, is bad compared to Bitcoin just lost 40% of its value in the last 2 months? Oh no, better not use USD then and switch t…

As most Bitcoin advocates would say Zoom Out. Yes Bitcoin looks volatile if you look at the past 2-3 months. However if you zoom out to 1 year Bitcoin is still up almost 300% y/y. Zoom out 2-3 years and the numbers look even better. As for USD, depending on what you want to buy inflation is 3-30% y/y - think asset price inflation. Zoom out further and USD looks even less attractive as a store of value. In 1933 $20usd…

>As most Bitcoin advocates would say Zoom Out. Yes Bitcoin looks volatile if you look at the past 2-3 months. However if you zoom out to 1 year Bitcoin is still up almost 300% y/y.

Either you don't understand what volatility means, or you think volatility only matters when it's towards the down position. Either way, you're wrong.

Volatility in a currency is not a good thing. Even if some people are making money, other people are losing money due to the volatility. Value stability should be one of the top goals for any currency.

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#53

Post by psswrd12345 »

prepend wrote: post #33
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #10

You should look into Ethereum 2.0. And probably buy some.

It’s such strange advice to buy a currency early. Just the utterance of such a thing shows how these aren’t good currencies. Imaging how stupid someone would be to generally give advice to “buy some Euro” or “buy some Dollar.”

Ethereum isn't a currency

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#54

Post by psswrd12345 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #17

I’m pleased that Taleb doesn’t want to own bitcoin. He’s a millionaire already, and he already has a bank account for a long time, and enjoyed US dominance for all his life. Meanwhile finally El Salvadorian US immigrants will able to pay the rent and food for their parents stuck in El Salvador without a 20% markup 3 months for now.

Sad state of affairs with bitcoiners pretending to care about El Salvadorans - a country most did not know existed a month ago and could still not point out on a map - in an increasingly desperate attempt to make number go back up.

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#55

Post by root_axis »

errantmind wrote: post #5
QuadrupleA wrote: post #2

Heartened to see Taleb taking a skeptical stance on Bitcoin and crypto - last time I looked into it he was a proponent due to its decentralization and existence outside the monoculture of mainstream finance. The sooner we can move past these staggeringly inefficient environment-destroying pump-and-dump schemes the better off we'll all be.

Something can be overvalued without being worthless. Also, the environment argument is inconclusive. Using a lot of power isn't the problem, it is how the power was generated and whether or not it was excess capacity

In this case using a lot of power is the problem since the network's power consumption does not increase the performance or capacity of the network - using excess capacity to mine bitcoin is actually worse than doing nothing with it because it contributes to a difficulty increase which makes the entire network more expensive.

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#56

Post by lowkey »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #52
lowkey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As most Bitcoin advocates would say Zoom Out. Yes Bitcoin looks volatile if you look at the past 2-3 months. However if you zoom out to 1 year Bitcoin is still up almost 300% y/y. Zoom out 2-3 years and the numbers look even better. As for USD, depending on what you want to buy inflation is 3-30% y/y - think asset price inflation. Zoom out further and USD looks even less attractive as a store of value. In 1933 $20usd…

>As most Bitcoin advocates would say Zoom Out. Yes Bitcoin looks volatile if you look at the past 2-3 months. However if you zoom out to 1 year Bitcoin is still up almost 300% y/y. Either you don't understand what volatility means, or you think volatility only matters when it's towards the down position. Either way, you're wrong. Volatility in a currency is not a good thing. Even if some people are making money, othe…

A currency that constantly loses value in terms of purchasing power over time is not stable.

Again, zoom out and the picture looks different.

The US Dollar loses approximately 100% of it’s value per century.

Bitcoin maintains or increases its purchasing power by many orders of magnitude per decade.

While the market rate on offer for Bitcoin at a given moment fluctuates, sometimes wildly, over a multi-year period the value always tends to go up.

This is by design as Bitcoin is the scarcest asset ever invented - giving it the property of hard money which unlike fiat is immune from debasement.

> Value stability should be one of the top goals for any currency.

Per my comment above the US dollar’s value is not stable. It falls by ~100% per century and because of the Fed’s 80 year long policy of continuous debasement the value of US dollars will never be stable over time and will always go down.

By contrast, while Bitcoin is volatile today, as it matures in its price discovery Bitcoin is likely to become more and more stable (read less volatile) in the future.

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#57

Post by lowkey »

verall wrote: post #47
lowkey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As most Bitcoin advocates would say Zoom Out. Yes Bitcoin looks volatile if you look at the past 2-3 months. However if you zoom out to 1 year Bitcoin is still up almost 300% y/y. Zoom out 2-3 years and the numbers look even better. As for USD, depending on what you want to buy inflation is 3-30% y/y - think asset price inflation. Zoom out further and USD looks even less attractive as a store of value. In 1933 $20usd…

The point of a fiat is that it slowly loses value, so wealth holders can't get bigger and bigger just by holding the fiat, they are forced to invest to break even. Bitcoin is not "fixing" anything here, a currency that deflates forever is a dumb idea.

So you consider it a feature of fiat that it is impossible for a saver to maintain their purchasing power over time unless they risk their capital on volatile assets such as stocks or real estate?

Why is is a good thing that widows, orphans, those living in poverty or on a fixed income have no way to save without having to Risk their principal?

The only ones who benefit from inflationary fiat currencies are those closest to the new spending - via the Cantillon effect - namely bankers, politicians and their friends in the military industrial complex.

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#58

Post by dragonwriter »

lowkey wrote: post #57
verall wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of a fiat is that it slowly loses value, so wealth holders can't get bigger and bigger just by holding the fiat, they are forced to invest to break even. Bitcoin is not "fixing" anything here, a currency that deflates forever is a dumb idea.

So you consider it a feature of fiat that it is impossible for a saver to maintain their purchasing power over time unless they risk their capital on volatile assets such as stocks or real estate? Why is is a good thing that widows, orphans, those living in poverty or on a fixed income have no way to save without having to Risk their principal? The only ones who benefit from inflationary fiat currencies are those clo…

> So you consider it a feature of fiat that it is impossible for a saver to maintain their purchasing power over time unless they risk their capital on volatile assets such as stocks or real estate?

Some cryptocurrencies may (in some cases, based on past performance) be good on average as long term stores of value, but even those that are good at this are extremely volatile assets, much more so than, say, blue-chip stocks. So they certainly don’t solve any problem of “you need exposure to volatile assets to not lose value of savings” that you might imagine exists.

> Why is is a good thing that widows, orphans, those living in poverty or on a fixed income have no way to save without having to Rick their principal?

People without surplus income have no way to save by definition, with or without risking their income. That people with surplus income need to participate in wealth generation to recurve additional wealth from storage of their surplus income is obviously a feature.

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#59

Post by haskellandchill »

lowkey wrote: post #50
haskellandchill wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is a just a row in an SQL table. We can update it for less than a cent. Everything else is a social problem, Bitcoin does nothing to help here. Exchanges over Bitcoin are no better or worse in principle than existing financial infrastructure. The reason for high fees are the risk in sending the money across borders. Due to fraud there are risks. Bitcoin does nothing to fix this and seems to even enable more sca…

> The reason for high fees are the risk in sending the money across borders. Due to fraud there are risks. Bitcoin does nothing to fix this and seems to even enable more scams. Bitcoin eliminates counter party risk and international transfer risk. Lightning eliminates cost, latency and transaction volume limits. In every way that matters, Bitcoin via Lightning eliminates high fees and addresses all your concerns. As…

> Bitcoin eliminates counter party risk and international transfer risk

citations are a two way street buddy

Re: Taleb: Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles

#60

Post by lowkey »

haskellandchill wrote: post #59
lowkey wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason for high fees are the risk in sending the money across borders. Due to fraud there are risks. Bitcoin does nothing to fix this and seems to even enable more scams. Bitcoin eliminates counter party risk and international transfer risk. Lightning eliminates cost, latency and transaction volume limits. In every way that matters, Bitcoin via Lightning eliminates high fees and addresses all your concerns. As…

> Bitcoin eliminates counter party risk and international transfer risk citations are a two way street buddy

Fair enough ..

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network that does not rely on any third party to function - hence no counter-party risk. Bitcoin operates based on rules, but has no rulers, only participants of various flavors.

Bitcoin doesn’t understand or recognize borders. There is no country-code input field in a bitcoin transaction. Bitcoin doesn’t care if you are sending Bitcoin to your friend across the street or North Korea, Iran, - international transfer risk is non-existent for Bitcoin as Bitcoin does not recognize political borders.

Any human anywhere with a computing device and internet connectivity can create an address and transact with anyone else in the network.

Bitcoin is a censorship resistant monetary network open to all 7.5 Billion humans. No bank can compete with Bitcoin on this dimension.

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