101–110 of 176 posts
MicroStrategy moves its cash into Bitcoin; shares up 9%
Oh go home 2020, you’re drunk.
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>I assume these folks have actual intel to take this big decision. They sure write like they do. But they act like gamblers hoping for the next big score.
What if sentiment is blue-pilled and holding dollars is actually the gamble? You would be holding the wrong side of the stick. I would agree that dollars have little downside but the purchasing power degradation of dollars feels like a irremediable tax on savings. And hard money like gold, silver, Bitcoin or Ethereum a quite decent hedge.
Even if you have no confidence in the dollar, doesn't mean Bitcoin or crypto currencies are a good alternative.
>And hard money like gold, silver, Bitcoin or Ethereum a quite decent hedge.
That is a strong statement. There is no evidence that crypto currencies are a 'decent hedge' for anything.
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> go through another bubble I don't know. I remember a few years ago when people on reddit would get excited when some cafe in Bratislava or wherever started accepting bitcoin, or when Steam started accepting bitcoin. Now cryptocurrencies seem... boring. I see lots of people talking about "store of value", but actual use of bitcoin for what it was intended seems to be decreasing. And now people who want to gamble can…
The counterargument to this is that IF people are willing to pay for something, they must care about it. For both Bitcoin and Ethereum, the amount of money people are willing to pay in fees to propagate on the network are extremely high at the moment... so in theory at least, somebody thinks these networks are "worth" using, or they wouldn't spend this money.
Just to add here, the transaction fees you have to pay are highly variable, see chart fee chart for the last 30 days[1]. As of this posting the market clearing rate for a typical transaction is about 0.000325 BTC[2], or around $3.73. However, a few hours ago it was as low as 0.000005 BTC for a typical transaction, or around ($0.058).
[1] https://i.imgur.com/FYpGpES.png
[2] a random google search says a typical bitcoin transaction 250 bytes. this is a different unit than the one in the linked chart, which uses satoshis (0.00000001 BTC) per byte.
It’s so crazy that it might just be completely crazy. Behaviour that is grounds for an investigation by shareholders. In a world where the governments can’t support their own currencies, nobody will give a shit about Bitcoin. “I don’t trust the real hospitals because of medical negligence, better get my amputation done by that guy operating out of his garage just to be safe.”
BTC is fully accountable while it's issuance is not in the hands of any certain group. Therefore it has a permanently predictable rate of inflation that is much lower than fiat currencies at the moment. Nobody has to trust anyone, that's the whole point of bitcoin.
It’s volatility would suggest otherwise. As many others have commented here an in other places, the fact that supply is predictable is not enough, demand is a factor too.
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No inflation? Look what new money has bought and you will clearly see huge inflation: stocks and housing. We don't see shopping cart inflation because it's countered by the technological cheapening of the production. And the key fact that new money is not being given to people buying groceries.
I never understood how anyone can find it remotely fair for the Fed to introduce new money into the economy by any means other than equal division between all citizens.
It is easy to forget that the Fed's mission is to stabilize the value of money, not to conform to some concept of fairness. I would also point out that instability in the value of money disproportionately impacts the poor, who have the least savings available to deal with price shocks (if you are living paycheck to paycheck, then the price of bread suddenly doubling will leave you eating half as much bread).
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I'm not sure I see how an increase in the value of assets hurts people's ability to invest in them.
Some assets are indivisible, so increasing value makes it unaffordable. You can't buy a fraction of a house. For things like stocks, if the increased value is driven by inflation, you get less for your money. So it takes more money to store the same amount of value there.
Isn't that basically what a REIT is? It's also possible to enter into joint ownership of a property. Roommates are also kind of like acquiring a fraction of a house.
Here is a list of 20 companies buying Bitcoin recently: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2020/08/06/v... Keep in mind that 250 mil, and 250 mil times 20 is a drop in the $214.4 billion bitcoin market cap and doesn't move anything. Just a sign of mild interest. Furthermore, Grayscale just ran a crypto ad campaign on large TV networks such as Fox.
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Except you have to trust lots of people for Bitcoin to work, from DNS record holders to developers to intermediaries and beyond. The whole system is dripping with trust, so why not just use standard currencies?
False, you do not have to trust anyone. You decide what code you run, not developers. As far as DNS goes, you should study the bitcoin consensus protocol in more detail.
Do you trust whoever happens to own xf2.org more than you trust a central bank? Do you trust the domain name registrar more than you trust a central bank? Why?
You decide what code you run, not developers well, sure you can run whatever code you like on your machine...the Bitcoin devs get to decide whether your software counts as a Bitcoin client or not. They are in a position of power and you must trust them.
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I'm not sure I see how an increase in the value of assets hurts people's ability to invest in them.
Some assets are indivisible, so increasing value makes it unaffordable. You can't buy a fraction of a house. For things like stocks, if the increased value is driven by inflation, you get less for your money. So it takes more money to store the same amount of value there.
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BTC is fully accountable while it's issuance is not in the hands of any certain group. Therefore it has a permanently predictable rate of inflation that is much lower than fiat currencies at the moment. Nobody has to trust anyone, that's the whole point of bitcoin.
it has a permanently predictable rate of inflation It’s volatility would suggest otherwise. As many others have commented here an in other places, the fact that supply is predictable is not enough, demand is a factor too.
