371–380 of 532 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you trade BTC/USDC or BTC/ETH on any of them?
Yes. You can trade one of the many ERC-20 tokens that wrap bitcoin (e.g, WBTC, renBTC) and later you can swap these tokens for "real" BTC, also just by executing the smart contracts from the wrappers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Long term I'm bearish because it's a deflationary asset. Deflationary value stores have a tendency to cause all sorts of social ills by encouraging hoarding. There's a reasonable line of thought that observes that it's no coincidence that the end of the age of European colonialism coincided with the demise of the gold standard. More concretely: if crypto is deflationary, then its value works similarly to how an Amway…
That's a common fallacy. Hoarding, saving, preparing for the future is one of most fundamental human needs and the bedrock for a functioning economy and society. There's no fundamental economic principle which would indicate that an inflationary money would do any good to a society. It destroys savings, which is opposite of what is good for an individual and a society. Also, because you mentioned colonialism, read th…
Oh you say, I can trade the chips with other people. Also the chips are numbered and we have an agreement to never accept a casino chip numbered over 1 trillion. Then we pay the casino one chip every time we trade. So the casino always has some chips to trade.
The casino always wins. You're even paying their horrendous electricity bill.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If all the exchanges lock users out, you can “transact” with BTC But can you convert it into US dollars? Where does one spend BTC these days, buy some furniture off overstock?
Where does one spend gold these days?
Usually you need to convert your gold to a legal tender currency in order to be able to spend it. You normally lose money on the conversion at a retail volume, though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my opinion mixing the functions of medium of exchange and store of value has caused untold amounts of needless suffering. You see 2% inflation is the middle ground. Rich people may want to save and increase their wealth but my mom just wants a job to pay rent and buy groceries, she has no grand ambitions to become super wealthy. When you mix the two functions into cash, one of the two is going to dominate the econ…
Maybe the issue is just that we no longer have a store of wealth that isn't tied to a speculative asset? Fiat currency is a fantastic currency - even terrorists who hate America use dollars. But it's a terrible store of wealth because it loses at least 2% of its value by intention (this fluctuates - just going off the stated Federal Reserve targets). I think this is where things like houses becoming collateralized as…
You say speculative, I say productive.
Is a non-productive store of value actually a thing which exists in nature?
For most things, you can't store a thing itself: grain rots, chickens die, houses decay, iron rusts, water is fouled.
If you want to have a thing in the future, you need a way to produce the thing: fields of grains, lineages of chickens, maintenance and construction of houses, refinement of iron, the purification of water.
All investment in these future means of production is speculative; you have no guarantee the bet you made on how you will obtain a chicken in 20 years will play out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bitcoins reason d'etre is to permit an exchange of value without involving the banks/classic financial infrastructure. It could go down to fractions of a penny and still be able to do that.
No, because energy is not free.
I recently watched some traditional cable and was shocked by the number of crypto ads bombarding viewers. I have to imagine that this market was goosed up by retail investors trading on coinbase and binance just as the e-betting market was. The only difference between crypto and e-betting is that everyone got to be a winner on the crypto markets for a while. As users lose out, and exchanges stop ad campaigns - how lo…
> Crypto needed a tangible market/reason d'etre to be valuable. The reason, as we have been reminded so many times, is that it's an inflation-resistant store of value. Pay no attention to BTC tanking right after actual inflation started. It's weird how, as an inflation-resistant store of value, it only seems to work when we have asset-inflation, but stops working when we have main-street-grocery-prices-inflation. Per…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe the issue is just that we no longer have a store of wealth that isn't tied to a speculative asset? Fiat currency is a fantastic currency - even terrorists who hate America use dollars. But it's a terrible store of wealth because it loses at least 2% of its value by intention (this fluctuates - just going off the stated Federal Reserve targets). I think this is where things like houses becoming collateralized as…
> Maybe the issue is just that we no longer have a store of wealth that isn't tied to a speculative asset? You say speculative, I say productive. Is a non-productive store of value actually a thing which exists in nature? For most things, you can't store a thing itself: grain rots, chickens die, houses decay, iron rusts, water is fouled. If you want to have a thing in the future, you need a way to produce the thing:…
Oh I totally agree! Stocks in companies are absolutely productive assets. Though they are still speculative. I guess the first thought that comes to mind is well, so what? Does it make sense for individuals to plow money into the stock market even at all-time highs? Should you basically have to perform an investor level due diligence for buying these productive assets? Sometimes I think we are duped by the liquidity in ways we wouldn't be if we were deciding whether or not to buy a farm or a movie theater.
> Is a non-productive store of value actually a thing which exists in nature?
Gold is probably the closest we've ever gotten. Besides that I'm not sure. But then that begs the question I was responding to regarding savings for "regular people". Is it impossible to save money without buying into the stock market? Idk.
I am so happy about this. I hope this is going to sour crypto for "investors". I use quotes, because they really are not -- investing should be reserved for fronting cash to create some value (like buying stock to infuse capital into a corporation). As it is all crypto trading is purely speculation. The world would be so much better if money tended to be exchanged in good faith, to improve something rather than just…
>investing should be reserved for fronting cash to create some value (like buying stock to infuse capital into a corporation). As it is all crypto trading is purely speculation. Ok but let's be real- buying a stock is not really "creating value". The stock already exists. Company A has issued 100 shares. People are buying/selling it in the market.. no one is creating value there. Sure they may be arbitrarily driving…
I am so happy about this. I hope this is going to sour crypto for "investors". I use quotes, because they really are not -- investing should be reserved for fronting cash to create some value (like buying stock to infuse capital into a corporation). As it is all crypto trading is purely speculation. The world would be so much better if money tended to be exchanged in good faith, to improve something rather than just…
Technically, only direct stock offerings "infuse capital into a corporation". The rest (which is probably 99% of the market volume) is also just "speculation".
Speculation is something that happens when you start buying and selling for reasons that are not at all connected to the performance of the company.
There is a lot of useful, value-creating reasons for people to be able to sell their share they bought at initial stock offering.
And think about how useful/worthwhile a share would be if you could never sell it. Remember, there isn't selling if there isn't buying. If you want to sell your share there must be somebody ready to buy from you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why is financial engineering inherently universally without qualification bad? Yeah because it takes up engineering time and produces no tangible good but to widen inequality.
I cited three examples of financial engineering. Just to be clear you oppose mortgages, index funds, and ATM machines? I agree all of these or at least mortgages and index funds probably increase inequality especially given uneven access. As far as tangible goods — home ownership, retirement savings, and less time spent waiting at the bank.
If crypto made it meaningfully easier to borrow capital to invest in utility assets, then I'd :heart: it too. (Mortgages)
If crypto made it meaningfully easier to own equity capital in assets priced by utility, then I'd :heart: it too. (ETFS)
If crypto made it meaningfully easier to transact for utility goods/services with my capital, then I'd :heart: it too (ATMS)
Crypto dos none of these things.
What it does do, is it allows me to arb trade against misinformed retail liquidity providers who foolishly put their capital into DEX's.