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Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

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Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#101

Post by alkonaut »

ragnese wrote: post #81
robjan wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stocks represent an ownership in a company. They can be speculated on but that's not the primary purpose.

I very much disagree. How many people with 401ks and/or other retirement vehicles actually know what companies they "own"? How many of them vote? How many of them actually have enough of the right kinds of shares to vote? To say that stocks are about owning a company in practice is the same as saying bitcoin is just money like the dollar. It's true in theory, but it's not the practical reality of this moment in histo…

If they bought the stock they are helping fund the business. The shareholders are keeping the stock because it represents their stake but the actual money paid can be used by the company selling its stock and that’s the primary purpose. Whether the buyer/investor votes, or knows what they bought, doesn’t change anything in that respect.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#102

Post by frereubu »

Qluxzz wrote: post #61
guerrilla wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He probably does. In Sweden, everything is going cashless in the name of convenience and cracking down on tax avoidance.

Swede here. I cant even remember the last time I used cash. Used to get it from my grandmother for christmas but now they send it to me digitally as well. It was always a pain to get cash since you needed to find a place to deposit them into your account, and most banks don't even handle cash today. Most of all I hate getting change, people look at you funny here if you say keep the change in a regular store.

My mum only just stopped giving me cheques...

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#103

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

sschueller wrote: post #63
maxqin1 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you tried to move a million in cash? It's not that easy...

1 bundle of 1,000 CHF (1,112.51 USD) notes is 100,000 CHF which is only 1cm thick [1]. So 10 would be 10cm which easily fits in a small bag. [1] https://www.bielertagblatt.ch/nachrichten/wirtschaft/eine-mi...

But you would not be able to collect the cash from a bank without all kinds of due diligence, or process alarms going off.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#104

Post by nahuel0x »

xwdv wrote: post #38

One of the shocking things is how much cryptocurrency has poisoned the minds of youth who see it as their easy path to riches. Young people simply don’t want to work anymore, everyone is planning to retire very soon and a job is only a temporary inconvenience while they wait for their crypto coins to moon in value and make them millionaires set for life. The truth is while many people did get very rich getting in ear…

It's a sign of decadence, the question "what's my contribution to society?" is out of sight. Becoming rich by the crypto lottery should not be seen as an achievement with pride, but as the shame of becoming a harmful parasite.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#105

Post by Strom »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #15

> Warren Buffett: "I knew there’d be a question on bitcoin or crypto and I thought to myself, well, I watch these politicians dodge questions all the time … The truth is, I’m going to dodge that question. Because the truth is, we’ve probably got hundreds of thousands of people that are watching this that own bitcoin. And we’ve probably got two people that are short. So, we’ve got a choice of making 400,000 people mad…

> Nor do I like shoveling out a few extra billions and billions and billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air.

Sounds like Munger doesn’t like that financial innovation is coming from outside the established club. — I mean this argument has nothing to do with the safety of children and everything to do with classism.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#106

Post by alkonaut »

passtheglass wrote: post #73
maxqin1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the primary use of the dollar is good. The same can't be said about the primary use for Bitcoin (which is, at best, speculation).

I'm confused by this statement. The primary use of the dollar is as a currency. The primary use of Bitcoin is as a currency. The fact that so much of Bitcoin's traded volume is used for speculation is actually an issue with excess dollar liquidity available for speculation, not because of some problem inherent to Bitcoin. That liquidity would just move to some other financial product that probably wouldn't make the n…

> The primary use of Bitcoin is as a currency

An intended hypothetical use, or actual use in paying for goods or services now?

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#107

Post by dcolkitt »

maxqin1 wrote: post #16
reedf1 wrote: post #7

The context of the quote: > I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth... So, I think I should say modestly that the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interest of civilization. I find it strange to criticize an asset for how it gets used in extremis. I feel like the same criticism could be levied against the dollar.

Except the primary use of the dollar is good. The same can't be said about the primary use for Bitcoin (which is, at best, speculation).

The primary use case of Bitcoin is to evade governments control over capital. Sometimes that’s good (governments disgorging kidnappers of their ransom). Sometimes that’s bad (Nazis seizing wealth of targeted groups). Sometimes it depends on your perspective (governments preventing the trade in illicit drugs).

Overall how you feel about this in aggregate will depend on how comfortable you are with government power. Let’s even ignore the fact that Bitcoin today is being used to circumvent unquestionably oppressive governments (Venezuela, China, Iran). Even as a hardened libertarian, I’ll freely admit that Americans and Europeans live under a generally fair and just government. Bitcoin is still worth it as a fail safe against future totalitarianism.

It’s the same reason I support the Second Amendment. Having a bunch of people run around with guns probably doesn’t help much today, and may even have ongoing social costs. But it would make things a hell of a lot harder for any would be tyrants. Not that it’d be impossible, but small frictions can have big impacts on the course of history. That’s a civilizational insurance policy worth paying.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#108

Post by bob33212 »

bronzeage wrote: post #75

The real issue with Bitcoin is tether. Tether printing is practically responsible for almost all the gains in Bitcoin. Just look at Tether volume versus Bitcoin volume and tell me you trust bitcoins valuation when it's backed by make belief tethers. When you can print make belief dollars, in volumes that were never proven to exist, and pretend trading them for Bitcoin is the same as trading dollars, then of course Bi…

I'm the furthest thing from a technical analysis expert of price movement, but the BTC chart looks manipulated to me. I assumed at first that it was just people trading BTC between themselves to move the market, but this theory makes more sense. BTC miners are extracting USD from their mining, while the price is controlled by other coins printing and buying BTC. New buyers of BTC are providing the cashflow into the system.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#109

Post by calsy »

maxqin1 wrote: post #22
KingOfCoders wrote: post #14

I'm not a fan of Bitcoin, but often "contrary to the interest of civilization" means "contrary to the interest of me".

Yes, and yes. But, if Berkshire wanted to they could pump BTC to new heights and undoubtedly make a profit.

If they could undoubtedly make a profit, why haven't they done so. What investment firm would miss making a profit on a sure thing?

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#110

Post by maxqin1 »

jl2718 wrote: post #98
maxqin1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and yes. But, if Berkshire wanted to they could pump BTC to new heights and undoubtedly make a profit.

Or they know they can’t, so they are moral grandstanding until they come up with a plan for the digital economy.

At their ages they can barely stand on their own, so I'm not too worried about any grandstanding.
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