251–260 of 343 posts
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'Digital gold' is a meaningless sentence. What is digital gold? How does it differ from, say, digital iron?
Not really - it functions economically in a similar manner to gold. Both have a primary use - jewellery or digital payments - and a secondary function as a store of value. Iron isn't much use for financial reserves unlike bullion.
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The real use case is self defense against the arbitrary devaluation of fiat currency. As wildly imperfect as crypto is at that task, it's the best we have in a fungible, digital form. So pessimistic investors flee to it. The worst case for a crypto investor is for the dollar to be restored to a stable store of value. To outcompete crypto, just whip inflation.
If Bitcoin can be traced (which it can), then it isn't fungible.
Note that it hit a new all-time high last night, but it's been in the ~$70ks since last March. The election results may have pushed it over the top, but it's been way up for a while. The people who predicted it would collapse appear to have been wrong, and the people who predicted it would come back appear to be right. My own position was that it's so volatile that it will always be a roller coaster, which is why I d…
It cannot even get to $100k despite endless predictions over the past 5+ years it would. Each cycle is getting subsequently smaller. If anything, it's reached the final stage in which the supply of new buyers to prop up the price, let alone new highs, is exhausted.
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I have it charted against the Malaysian Ringgit. It was 347k BTC/MYR high this year, compared to 326k today.
this should be the real headline. I am certain and beyond any doubt that I speak for all of us hackernews readers when I say that I have no frame of reference on the value of cryptocurrencies without comparing first with the Malaysian Ringgit
1 Ringgit = 1 Ringgit
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this should be the real headline. I am certain and beyond any doubt that I speak for all of us hackernews readers when I say that I have no frame of reference on the value of cryptocurrencies without comparing first with the Malaysian Ringgit
The biggest use case for Bitcoin is as a wealth store for third world countries that don’t have stable banking institutions.
You'd be surprised how advanced the banking systems are in some 3rd world countries. In many cases the banks skipped over a lot of the legacy cruft that 1st world countries are struggling to get rid of now.
Also, in countries where the banking system or currency is falling apart, they use USD cash. Zimbabwe is doing this, Argentina is doing this, I'm sure more places also do this.
Also also, often where you have crumbling banking or currency, you also have crumbling internet and/or electricity infrastructure. Nobody is sitting on an upturned milk crate in their dilapidated corrugated iron shack in the middle of a slum fucking trading bitcoin on Coinbase so that they can buy bread.
Bitcoin is 99% used as a speculative investment instrument and as a means to participate in illicit markets (drugs etc). There is nothing altruistic or democratising about it.
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no, but I am using my index fund on s&p 500 to buy goods and services
I'm pretty sure you're not. Or at least, my grocery stores and the IRS/tax people take dollars, not SP500 or QQQ. If yours does I'd live to hear how that works (and where you are). If you're referring to investing $1,000, having it be worth $1,500, and then selling off $300 to pay for groceries, which a Coinbase/whatever account would let you do with Bitcoin while it appreciates.
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The difference is that owning bitcoin doesn't give you partial control over the world's largest companies.
Because you think you have any power over microsoft, with one action ? Unless you have a majority of the company, you are worthless.