121–130 of 138 posts
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You remember that there were other social networks before facebook dominated everything, right? Network effect now is no guarantor of the future.
That doesn't mean Facebook is overvalued though. Just because it's value could disappear doesn't mean it has no value.
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> Was the collapse of the German Deutsche Mark... I think you may have this backwards. Your example currencies all tanked against USD. BTC is appreciating, heavily, against USD. > so they’re clearly exiting the USD ecosystem Sorry, are you suggesting that there's currently a run on USD? Because I'm pretty sure there isn't. What you have here is pretty standard speculation in the price of BTC. I don't think you can re…
>> Because bitcoin is measurable scarcity one can provable show it’s a good store of wealth One can't, provably, do anything of the sort. You don't understand how Bitcoin and Proof of Work works. The block hash in the following block is a measure of how scarce or rare it was to produce the bitcoins that were minted in this block: https://insight.bitpay.com/block/0000000000000000002c8fe4629... If you don't understand…
> Yes literally this is what the BTCUSD price plot is showing you. the ZWDUSD looks the same.
So you're equating the current performance of USD with ZWD? Wow, ok. I've changed my mind. I'm more than happy to sell you those pictures in exchange for just a few thousand of those worthless US dollars.
I find this an incredible shame. Bitcoin is a very interesting experiment and we have learnt a lot. It's by no means perfect but the major limitations are fairly easy to see and, I think, could have been rectified. I have a horrible feeling that the ignorance that seems to have surrounded it will not only kill it but make the whole idea toxic.
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>> It is only worth something because other people say it is worth something That is actually the very definition of most currencies currently in use [1]. Money is actually just a promise that someone will provide you goods or services in exchange for it sometime in the future, it has no intrinsic worth. Also, paper money isn't tied to anything [2] either, let alone the "digital" money we have in the banks. [1] https…
Money is traditionally backed by something though right? Isn't a currency a bunch of tokens with an army? Where's the Bitcoin army when I need them to enforce my contacts?
Though I agree that there is a lot less "backing" of Bitcoin in that sense, nothing protects you from losing everything if something goes wrong.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/30/bank-of-cyprus...
Bitcoin could hit $10.000 any moment now. Who is buying and why?
Personally I wonder if the rise in Bitcoin could be linked to Russian sanctions like the Magninsky act? Could now blacklisted Oligarchs who were previously using western financial institutions to launder their money now be using Bitcoin instead?
That way you get new "clean" coins.
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All that's required to to exchange gold is one person that has gold and another person who wants gold and has something the first wants to trade for it.
Really? Let's meet, I'll give you gold. Or: for the majority of people, holding hold, recognizing gold, and exchanging gold is not possible. You need experts for that, and they all take commissions. And sometimes scam you.
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I wonder how the environmental impact of mining gold compares to mining bitcoin?
Pollution from Gold mining: https://sciencing.com/types-pollution-generated-gold-mining-... A very rough estimate: World wide Bitcoin mining operation spends per year around 60% as much electricity as all of USA's bank offices: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15615601 With Bitcoin mining there is a high incentive to actually use renewable energy sources and could be physically outsourced to places where building…
The idea is great, but in reality these stupid crypto coins are practically useless and wasting HUGE amounts of resources. Bitcoin is said to be consuming as much power a some countries, and still rising fast, while the amount of transactions is comically low compared to the power consumption. Bitcoin in its current state can never be a thing to actually buy something with. I don't see any other long-term use for bit…
Old saying: "What's common in every bubble is the belief that this time, it will be different." -> if you invest in cryptocurrencies, make sure not to invest more than you can comfortably lose (probably a few percent of your overall funds).
Oh, but the naysayers in the media who have predicted bitcoin's collapse every month for years and have been wrong every time are of course given a free pass and are allowed to say "this time it's different" once again.
At the moment it feels like a parent warning a child - at some point you have to decide to step back and let them learn the painful lesson for themselves
I don't get this. The dot-com bubble ran up to $6.7tn in market cap, in 2000, before crashing down to $1.7tn. The crypto space, which seems to be shaping into an entirely new asset class, has a $300bn valuation. That's less than the value of Facebook. The only reason why people are shouting bubble is because people were able to get in from the start, when these coins were 10 cents on the dollar. But when Facebook IPO…