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Credit Suisse’s $17B of Risky Bonds Are Now Worthless

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Re: Credit Suisse’s $17B of Risky Bonds Are Now Worthless

#31

Post by HashBasher »

qwytw wrote: post #12
codetrotter wrote: post #3

And they wonder why we want to replace the traditional banking system. Here’s a hint: it’s not got anything to do with either “metaverse” bs nor with silly “NFT” JPEGs. Read the original Bitcoin whitepaper. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Using an ultra deflationary token like bitcoin as a global currency would literally be the most stupid thing that ever happened in human history. Basically people who held significant amounts of bitcoin from early on would become billionaires (if not trillionaires...) by having provided zero value to the economy. As awful and unfair what we have currently is it's still several magnitudes superior in almost any concei…

Bitcoin is not deflationary. It just has a fixed supply.

People who held bitcoin from early on supported the growth of bitcoin by holding up it's value through the wild gut-wrenching rollercoaster ride that it has gone through. They should be rewarded for the risk they're taking on, having invested significant amount of their net worth in the face of harsh criticism such as yours.

Bitcoin and "crypto" are completely different beasts. Cryptos are unregistered securities masquerading as Bitcoin 2.0.

Re: Credit Suisse’s $17B of Risky Bonds Are Now Worthless

#32

Post by watwut »

yevpats wrote: post #22
qwytw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using an ultra deflationary token like bitcoin as a global currency would literally be the most stupid thing that ever happened in human history. Basically people who held significant amounts of bitcoin from early on would become billionaires (if not trillionaires...) by having provided zero value to the economy. As awful and unfair what we have currently is it's still several magnitudes superior in almost any concei…

I don't have a side in the whole crypto vs fiat war but I do wonder why HN is so anti-crypto (maybe it's just classic position speak). Re the "people who held significant amounts of bitcoin from early on would become billionaires by having provided zero value" - isn't that true to people who held Google stock very early on? what was their value? Also, I would say inflationary token vs deflationary token is not clear…

Early ownership of Google means you are investor in some way. They have money, because Google itself has money. If google fails without them selling, they have no money. As in, if you believe google is societal good, they gave it money by the beginning.

If you think it is just a company, then they are just winners in economy. There is no reason for any of us to lobby for them to get more money. And, none of us lobby for it.

Re: Credit Suisse’s $17B of Risky Bonds Are Now Worthless

#33

Post by lowkey »

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #8
pfannkuchen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that a central authority doesn’t control the size of the bitcoin supply. It wouldn’t be a utopia, it would only fix a certain class of problems we have today.

A central authority doesn't control the size of the money supply in our current economy either, as the vast majority of money is created by private banks and other institutions issuing loans.

Those “private banks” are at least in theory heavily regulated by the central bank. The central bank controls interest rates and thereby the cost of money. They control the amount of base money in the system and they control the reserve ratio of “private banks” thereby controlling the amount of leverage banks can apply to deposits. A central bank most certainly controls every aspect of the money supply.

Re: Credit Suisse’s $17B of Risky Bonds Are Now Worthless

#34

Post by simonh »

yevpats wrote: post #22
qwytw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using an ultra deflationary token like bitcoin as a global currency would literally be the most stupid thing that ever happened in human history. Basically people who held significant amounts of bitcoin from early on would become billionaires (if not trillionaires...) by having provided zero value to the economy. As awful and unfair what we have currently is it's still several magnitudes superior in almost any concei…

I don't have a side in the whole crypto vs fiat war but I do wonder why HN is so anti-crypto (maybe it's just classic position speak). Re the "people who held significant amounts of bitcoin from early on would become billionaires by having provided zero value" - isn't that true to people who held Google stock very early on? what was their value? Also, I would say inflationary token vs deflationary token is not clear…

> isn't that true to people who held Google stock very early on? what was their value?

You mean aside from capitalising one of the most powerful money making machines in the tech industry, and a global advertising powerhouse that hundreds of millions of people use to find stuff on the internet multiple times every day. Plus Android, gmail, etc, etc. All those took money to develop, which came from early investors.

Meanwhile how much actually useful economic activity has been enabled by Bitcoin? I suppose it depends if you count money laundering, drug trading and fraud as useful economic activity.

Re: Credit Suisse’s $17B of Risky Bonds Are Now Worthless

#35

Post by CJefferson »

yevpats wrote: post #22
qwytw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using an ultra deflationary token like bitcoin as a global currency would literally be the most stupid thing that ever happened in human history. Basically people who held significant amounts of bitcoin from early on would become billionaires (if not trillionaires...) by having provided zero value to the economy. As awful and unfair what we have currently is it's still several magnitudes superior in almost any concei…

I don't have a side in the whole crypto vs fiat war but I do wonder why HN is so anti-crypto (maybe it's just classic position speak). Re the "people who held significant amounts of bitcoin from early on would become billionaires by having provided zero value" - isn't that true to people who held Google stock very early on? what was their value? Also, I would say inflationary token vs deflationary token is not clear…

No one is (I hope!) suggesting we use Google stock as our general currency, so if bitcoin acts like google stock, that’s another reason not to use it to replace USD.

Re: Credit Suisse’s $17B of Risky Bonds Are Now Worthless

#36

Post by peyton »

indymike wrote: post #26
yevpats wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a side in the whole crypto vs fiat war but I do wonder why HN is so anti-crypto (maybe it's just classic position speak). Re the "people who held significant amounts of bitcoin from early on would become billionaires by having provided zero value" - isn't that true to people who held Google stock very early on? what was their value? Also, I would say inflationary token vs deflationary token is not clear…

> I do wonder why HN is so anti-crypto Some of it is regret from selling early (I'd be a billionaire... if I had held), some of it is FOMO, some of it is that crypto is used by criminals (see bitlocker hacks), some of it is seeing people loose everything due to security breaches, and some of it is the attitude of proponents that act like all of the above is an anomaly.

It does make for strange bedfellows. Weird to see so much support for the traditional banking system and antipathy towards people advancing an alternative. Credit Suisse has a rap sheet a mile long.

Re: Credit Suisse’s $17B of Risky Bonds Are Now Worthless

#37

Post by Nasrudith »

HashBasher wrote: post #31
qwytw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using an ultra deflationary token like bitcoin as a global currency would literally be the most stupid thing that ever happened in human history. Basically people who held significant amounts of bitcoin from early on would become billionaires (if not trillionaires...) by having provided zero value to the economy. As awful and unfair what we have currently is it's still several magnitudes superior in almost any concei…

Bitcoin is not deflationary. It just has a fixed supply. People who held bitcoin from early on supported the growth of bitcoin by holding up it's value through the wild gut-wrenching rollercoaster ride that it has gone through. They should be rewarded for the risk they're taking on, having invested significant amount of their net worth in the face of harsh criticism such as yours. Bitcoin and "crypto" are completely…

A fixed supply with growing markets is deflationary. Cryptocurrency advocates wrongly insist thid is a good thing out of motivated reasoning.

Re: Credit Suisse’s $17B of Risky Bonds Are Now Worthless

#38

Post by markus_zhang »

testfoobar wrote: post #29
zhoutong wrote: post #4

I was initially surprised about this because AT1 notes are supposed to rank higher than equity. It seems that almost no one saw this coming (CS AT1 bonds traded higher this weekend before the write-down announcement), and traders presumed that bondholders should be made whole if equity holders get something. However then I looked at the information memorandum of these AT1 bonds (e.g. https://www.credit-suisse.com/med…

Between this and Janet Yellen's shaky answer to the Senate regarding deposit flight from community banks on Thursday, I think regulators are prolonging this crisis. Each solution seems designed to address the localized problem but does not consider systemic effects. 1: With this weekends actions in Europe, how will the AT1 bond market react tomorrow? 2: With Yellen's uninspiring answer on Thursday regarding deposits…

No sane regulator would want the bomb to explode on his/her own hands. Volcker might be an outlier but everyone else is sane.

Re: Credit Suisse’s $17B of Risky Bonds Are Now Worthless

#39

Post by markus_zhang »

KarlKemp wrote: post #30
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #14

If the casino always wins, why is it so hard to identify who owns this[1] casino? [1] Not CS, but the entire "serious" financial system.

Well don’t keep us guessing! What’s the secret cabal owning the financial system, according to your research, and how do they manage to own both the „serious“ business and the funny pages?

The winners?

Re: Credit Suisse’s $17B of Risky Bonds Are Now Worthless

#40

Post by [deleted] »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #7
tuyguntn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

issues are coming up mostly because of interest based economy and multitude of instruments built on top of it. IMHO, even if whole banking system will be replaced with bitcoin, interest based economy will be built on top of it and same instruments will be built with similar level of issues

The difference is that a central authority doesn’t control the size of the bitcoin supply. It wouldn’t be a utopia, it would only fix a certain class of problems we have today.

[deleted]
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