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Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

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Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#231

Post by bb88 »

lamontcg wrote: post #162
cs702 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I see what you mean now. I agree with you on the Lindy effect. What I meant is that the arguments used by many past predictions of Bitcoin's demise have been proven wrong. Anyone making new predictions of Bitcoin's demise must explain precisely how and why its distributed network would fail. Sorry if that wasn't clear in my comment above!

> Anyone making new predictions of Bitcoin's demise must explain precisely how and why its distributed network would fail. A systemic banking panic. Everyone becomes worried about being able to extract money/value from the crypto ecosystem as a whole due to the failure of some exceptionally large entity (Coinbase or Binance or Tether failing). They all run for the exits at the same time trying to cash whatever crypto…

Systemic banking panic. Or systemic crypto panic. But there could be lots of causes for it.

Mining made illegal by locales, states, or countries -- because of energy pricing.

BTC transfers made illegal through law or made undesirable in some way (say KYC but with like actual teeth)

And then there's the long shot chance that a nation-state (China perhaps) figures how to program their quantum computers to break BTC algorithms, snatching away value, before investors even realize what even happened.

For the record, I don't think it would happen. But also I didn't think that AI would be a thing in my lifetime.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#232

Post by knodi123 »

waynecochran wrote: post #73
Hermitian909 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - and the question is - do we as a society want to allow that, do we think it's worth the tradeoffs? Five years ago I think the answer was still "wait and see", I think it's reasonable by now to say "actually, no, it's not worth it".

Not to argue, but it really strange how the things that my generation valued (e.g. individual freedom) are being overturned. The old axiom "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." was a mantra in my younger days.

and yet we gave up the liberty to allow citizens to own rocket launchers. we gave up the liberty to allow people to say "buy my elixir, it cures cancer".

The proper answer is not "absolute unrestrained freedom", nor is it "absolute safety at all costs". We have to find a balance between the two- one that lets people live their lives in the way that they choose, but protects them from predators (or just grossly irresponsible actors).

Just because the needle is moving, does not mean it's a corruption of some magical ideal. It's just a sign of shifting consensus.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#233

Post by jfengel »

derbOac wrote: post #109
cs702 wrote: post #58

Three highly speculative predictions: 1. The courts are more likely than not to rule that many crypto-assets -- but not all -- should be regulated as investments. It won't be fun for a lot of crypto traders. 2. Over time, the usual giant financial institutions are bound to become the dominant market makers in crypto-assets. In all likelihood, one of them will end up buying Coinbase. Those giant financial institutions…

Bitcoin is puzzling to me, in that a commodity usually has some value outside of a trading market per se. That is, it is usually consumable in some abstract sense. I'm not sure what you would "do" with Bitcoin other than as some form of currency. In this regard, ETH always seemed a bit more on track, in the sense that there have been attempts to use the ETH blockchain from the beginning for the purposes of computatio…

In theory, you could think of bitcoin as electricity that has already been consumed. To replace it, you would have to burn more electricity. The bitcoin concept is to manifest that burned electricity as a tradeable value.

That is the sense in which it's commodity-like. It's the underlying electricity which is consumed.

It's far from clear that this is really valid, but that's the sense of it.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#234

Post by kiicia »

tromp wrote: post #155
cs702 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. Others have made that argument before. So far, it's been proven wrong. The rewards are already pretty small, and things are still working. Maybe it could happen after block rewards go to zero? I don't know. But we'll find out if you're right over the next six years!

> So far, it's been proven wrong. How can a prediction of what happens after 2050 (i.e. after a total of 10 halvings to make subsidy negligible) have been proven wrong "so far" ??

there is set amount of bitcoins to mint

transaction fees were intended to keep miners active

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#235

Post by mrguyorama »

alphanullmeric wrote: post #165
Hermitian909 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - and the question is - do we as a society want to allow that, do we think it's worth the tradeoffs? Five years ago I think the answer was still "wait and see", I think it's reasonable by now to say "actually, no, it's not worth it".

Allow what exactly? Consenting individuals to risk what they want to risk with each other?

Tainted economies have externalities. Did everyone just forget how the stock market crashed in the 1920s and fucked over LOTS of people who didn't touch it?

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#236

Post by [deleted] »

eli wrote: post #170
cs702 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The longer Bitcoin's network continues to function, more and more people will become aware of its resiliency . Governments may topple; banks may fail; exchanges may go bust; Bitcoin keeps on ticking. As long as the network continues to function, Bitcoin will have a price.

It's possible that more people are aware of Bitcoin than 18 months ago, but I doubt many think it's more resilient. Since Bitcoin depends on a functioning network it seems more likely than something physical like Beanie Babies or baseball cards to one day become effectively worthless.

[deleted]

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#237

Post by lamontcg »

bb88 wrote: post #231
lamontcg wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone making new predictions of Bitcoin's demise must explain precisely how and why its distributed network would fail. A systemic banking panic. Everyone becomes worried about being able to extract money/value from the crypto ecosystem as a whole due to the failure of some exceptionally large entity (Coinbase or Binance or Tether failing). They all run for the exits at the same time trying to cash whatever crypto…

Systemic banking panic. Or systemic crypto panic. But there could be lots of causes for it. Mining made illegal by locales, states, or countries -- because of energy pricing. BTC transfers made illegal through law or made undesirable in some way (say KYC but with like actual teeth) And then there's the long shot chance that a nation-state (China perhaps) figures how to program their quantum computers to break BTC alg…

Most of those concerns though are covered by "failure of an entity" -- which could be inherent through bad business practices, or it could be regulatory.

A quantum computer breakthrough that destroys BTC does really fundamentally cause BTC to fail as an algorithm, which is a bit higher level.

I don't think that is likely, and we don't really have AGI, although LLMs are great for certain kinds of queries and polishing language or doing boilerplate coding.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#238

Post by [deleted] »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #96
cs702 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...can you actually do more with it [I assume you mean Bitcoin] now than you could five years ago? Not really. To date, Bitcoin has been used successfully only as an alternate store of value -- one which, like gold, doesn't depend on the financial credibility of a particular government or country. Bitcoin's continued existence depends only on the integrity of its distributed consensus algorithm, which so far has wi…

Bitcoin is a horrible store of value. It's incredibly volatile.

[deleted]

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#240

Post by [deleted] »

mminer237 wrote: post #113
cs702 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is pretty volatile too. Its price has gone up and down between 5x and 10x a few times in just the past century: https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-... -- no one sane would call it stable. And yet, despite its volatility, gold has been used as a store of value for millennia .

In the last 5 fives, gold's highest price was 60% higher than its lowest point. That is indeed pretty volatile. Let's see if Bitcoin is comparably volatile… Oh, it's highest point was only 1920% higher than its lowest point. That's definitely the exact same as gold. /s Also, that ignores that gold has been a store of value for millennia. It's almost synonymous with wealth. In a total financial collapse, if all modern…

[deleted]
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