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Why I’m Cryptophobic

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351–360 of 455 posts

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#351

There needs to be some basic economics here.. Money has value because of the value of the economic transactions in which its conducted. Government-backed currencies are forced to have value in the sense they force people to use it for their taxes. The US, additionally, forces the world to use it for oil trades. Value is in those economic transactions. A currency is just a "liquifying" of that value, to make it easier…

> Imagine BTC was actually used for any scale of economic transactions. It would collapse overnight. Higher velocity of money would lead to zero value? That's not commonly what basic economy dictates. This being 2022, let's try to keep our concepts clear as to not rehash the debate from ten years ago. BTC is a currency, a blockchain, a programmable transaction language, a piece of software, and a protocol. It is good…

I appreciate that we both replied with the same points at almost the same time.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#352
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you are responding to, but is there somewhere reputable offering these kinds of contracts to no-name retail investors like myself? I would absolutely load up on something like 12,000 - 15,000 USD bitcoin puts depending on the time decay people are offering and how certain I could be that they would actually let me exercise them, and not freeze trading or even go belly up during the crash. I am somewhat…

In the US, LedgerX[1] (now owned by FTX) is a reputable, regulated exchange. The longest-dated put I see for $15k is EOY 2022 and is trading at a spread of $2000-8000. You can buy puts at the $25k strike dated June 2023 for $4300-4800. [1] https://app.ledgerx.com/btc There was a link that doesn't require login but I forgot it.

Thank you, this could be exactly what I was looking for, I will look into this.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#354
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep and I can't find any reference to the bitcoin core client ever having anything to do with poker.

It did. https://github.com/trottier/original-bitcoin/blob/master/src... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28830211

Thanks. Looks like it was more GUI code copied from something else then removed a few commits later rather than it actually having a "poker lobby" feature as implied though.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you are responding to, but is there somewhere reputable offering these kinds of contracts to no-name retail investors like myself? I would absolutely load up on something like 12,000 - 15,000 USD bitcoin puts depending on the time decay people are offering and how certain I could be that they would actually let me exercise them, and not freeze trading or even go belly up during the crash. I am somewhat…

Also, not to pile on, but GP said 100-1000USD BTC. I’ll sell puts at that until my Saudi buds run out of money to lend me. You’re talking 12k-15k, which is a much more interesting options chain.

Right, I’ve learned the hard way that if my models are that out of line with the market then my models are wrong in ways that will cost me a lot of money. Satoshi himself could reveal to me the future price of bitcoin is intrinsically around $1,000 USD as a little understood fact of how the blockchain works, and I still wouldn’t trade on that today with prices where they are. Even a instantaneous divine revelation from God to all mankind would take a long time to propagate through the markets and you would lose your money in the meantime.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#356
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, LedgerX[1] (now owned by FTX) is a reputable, regulated exchange. The longest-dated put I see for $15k is EOY 2022 and is trading at a spread of $2000-8000. You can buy puts at the $25k strike dated June 2023 for $4300-4800. [1] https://app.ledgerx.com/btc There was a link that doesn't require login but I forgot it.

Thank you, this could be exactly what I was looking for, I will look into this.

Glad to help! Late correction, though, I think I was reading the call side by accident, some of the puts are a lot cheaper.

EOY 2022 $15k strike: $1700-2000

EOY 2022 $10k strike: $700-950

June 2023 $25k strike: $7400-7900

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#357
post #337
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people did not have a car in the early 1900s. Not everyone can go into space today, it doesn't scale. BTC may have a maximum number of transactions today but many are using bitcoin and the big advantage is it doesn't matter how much you move you pay the same transaction fee. It is not ready for micro payments but works great for larger payments.

What size transaction do you think it helps with? My transaction fees are usually zero, even internationally, with the only exception being trivial costs when I visited the USA. Conversely, when I bought a flat I was legally required to add the much larger in-all-but-name transaction fee of having a lawyer sign off that I and my money and my payment of it and the flat itself and the seller I was buying it from were a…

I think the argument for this would be that things like smart contracts could do away with lawyers and such.

Except who vets the smart contracts? How does the customer execute the transaction in a fool proof way?

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, not to pile on, but GP said 100-1000USD BTC. I’ll sell puts at that until my Saudi buds run out of money to lend me. You’re talking 12k-15k, which is a much more interesting options chain.

Right, I’ve learned the hard way that if my models are that out of line with the market then my models are wrong in ways that will cost me a lot of money. Satoshi himself could reveal to me the future price of bitcoin is intrinsically around $1,000 USD as a little understood fact of how the blockchain works, and I still wouldn’t trade on that today with prices where they are. Even a instantaneous divine revelation fr…

I don’t know whether or not you’ve studied economics or financial mathematics, but you’ve concisely and concretely identified something called the Weak-Form Efficient Market Hypothesis.

Maybe you already knew that, but if not you’re a natural.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#359

There needs to be some basic economics here.. Money has value because of the value of the economic transactions in which its conducted. Government-backed currencies are forced to have value in the sense they force people to use it for their taxes. The US, additionally, forces the world to use it for oil trades. Value is in those economic transactions. A currency is just a "liquifying" of that value, to make it easier…

> Imagine BTC was actually used for any scale of economic transactions. It would collapse overnight. Higher velocity of money would lead to zero value? That's not commonly what basic economy dictates. This being 2022, let's try to keep our concepts clear as to not rehash the debate from ten years ago. BTC is a currency, a blockchain, a programmable transaction language, a piece of software, and a protocol. It is good…

> Higher velocity of money would lead to zero value? That's not commonly what basic economy dictates.

I think you missed his actual point, which to be fair wasn't explicitly stated and I don't think is widely known. The bitcoin network can not handle large transaction volumes, like at all- its absurdly low. Somewhere around 10/second is where I understood it to stand, and I recall reading a paper that talked about changes that could theoretically get that to 40/s. A quick googling on the state of the art of this has it reporting 7/second: https://www.google.com/search?q=max+transactions+per+second+...

I know this because this came up around 2016ish during one of the booms, and while I was previously crypto-curious and even a bit enthusiastic about the possibilities, once I saw that, I immediately lost all interest and got out. Other coins like Bitcoin Cash tried to address this, but the numbers were still absurdly low for what was supposed to be a completely decentralized currency to replace all others. Which is actually why Coinbase, FTX and the like rose so quickly and became so important- they enable transfers off chain.

Re: Why I’m Cryptophobic

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you are responding to, but is there somewhere reputable offering these kinds of contracts to no-name retail investors like myself? I would absolutely load up on something like 12,000 - 15,000 USD bitcoin puts depending on the time decay people are offering and how certain I could be that they would actually let me exercise them, and not freeze trading or even go belly up during the crash. I am somewhat…

Depends on the size. At retail size counterparty risk of e.g. Binance or FTX is a talking point, not a legitimate concern. If you want to take a big position, talk to someone like Wintermute who has a big OTC desk, or if you want a better deal, find a friend of a friend. Someone you know knows a whale.

I mean, my use of belly up is definitely hyperbole. But, that the position of say, 12,000 usd per coin expiring in December is a huge enough dip from current prices that it is likely to come true only in the event of a large crash, and during the last crash Binance froze withdrawals and there was a large backlog of “stuck” transactions on the blockchain. I don’t know how these options execute but if I have to move bitcoin on the blockchain to unwind the position I would be afraid of being able to actually unwind it at the most favorable price in a time window, making the risk actually higher than typical models. Or maybe I dont know what I am talking about and Binance options wouldn’t need to actually move coins on the chain to close out the position?
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