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Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

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Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#121

Post by throwaway4good »

matkoniecz wrote: post #100
throwaway4good wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the idea that money is credit / debt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_theory_of_money As for Bitcoin. Who cares if it is a bubble or a ponzi? People make money and gambling is a part of human nature. People are stuck at home and cannot go to the cinema. Investing in Bitcoin and watching Elon's twitter is an ok replacement for now.

OK I will bite. > As for Bitcoin. Who cares if it is a bubble or a ponzi? People make money and gambling is a part of human nature. People who want to use it as a currency and people preferring to avoid losing their investment in a dumb bubbles. (it is more OK if it is a dumb gambling with what someone is considering as entertainment funds, but nearly noone is doing that)

There are a number of Bitcoin variations out there (Bitcoin Cash and BSV) which are tuned in manner that gives faster and cheaper transactions. None of them seem to have caught the eye of investors. My interpretation is that investors like their ponzi and don't really care about whether the technology is useful. I could try and scold them but I don't think it works, therefore I choose just to accept them as they are and see their beauty in their own right.

In the money as credit model, the money supply expands and subtracts with economic activity. And the best suited money have price stability so the market of credit can focus "pricing" risk correctly.

This model of money could be supported by some kind of cryptocurrency, however right now the investors don't seem to have an appetite for sponsoring that sort of thing.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#122

Post by DonHopkins »

Bitcoin has spectacularly succeeded as a reliable litmus test to identify people and companies who are actually charlatans and get-rich-quick scammers with nothing better to offer than self-serving shilling and crypto-woo-woo, who contribute nothing to the world but hot air, burning coal, and global warming.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#123

Post by nickkell »

lindy2021 wrote: post #77
diego_moita wrote: post #66

> Nassim Taleb called him an “imbecile”. This is why I disgust this Taleb guy: he usually has good insights but defends them with the worst arguments. Or no arguments at all. I felt his "Black Swan" book is a very good idea stretched into hundreds of pages of arrogance and condescendence.

“To figure out if someone is an idiot, call him an idiot and check if he gets upset.” It’s intentional: https://mobile.twitter.com/nntaleb/status/129716309534169907...

His reply to his own tweet is hilarious. He's playing chess whilst we're all playing checkers

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#124

Post by tootahe45 »

pineaux wrote: post #90
dmitriid wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which absolutely befuddles me for the foundational societal concepts it modernizes There are literally no fundamental societal aspects that cryptocurrencies modernize. Unless you call speculation "not modern".

I disagree with you. Some coins like tezos and cardano or a similar coin will be a creative destructive force for many institutions. They allow for truly decentralized authority. Think passports without an issuing country. Think money without a central bank. They are building the systems to be all the things that Taleb laments in Bitcoin.

Why does every feature implementation feel like the Manhattan Project for the crypto guys? So many of these stories were told in 2017, and in 2021 we're still talking about future updates and 'will be', rather than working products.

Eth 2.0 for example was talked about for years, I'm still here getting wrecked on fees.

Lightning network for reducing BTC fees is another beauty we hear less about now days.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#125

Post by dylkil »

Crye wrote: post #54
aqsheehy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used uniswap? What do you think of it?

tried to use it recently but saw the fees in the $25-$30 range and thought, ok we're definitely not there yet. Beyond that tho I was super impressed.

try it on matic or optimism l2

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#126

Post by kall »

Kranar wrote: post #42
GhostVII wrote: post #35

What I want is an inflationary cryptocurrency, not a deflationary one. Make an actual currency, not something to speculate on.

If you want something inflationary, why not a basket of currencies via the traditional finance system? One reason I like Bitcoin is because it's a deflationary asset which makes it unique among most other assets. This site is overwhelmingly negative towards Bitcoin, but I feel like the negativity would only make sense if you had to make a binary decision to put most of your wealth in Bitcoin or none of it. Having jus…

You suggested something OP can invest in that has none of the technical benefits of cryptocurrency. If you think of cryptocurrency primarily as an investment (=speculation) medium with technological window dressing, that makes sense.

I too would like to see a cryptocurrency modeled on the idea that current democracies and their monetary systems aren‘t all bad: steady inflation, some degree of control over monetary policy for a state like body, programmable taxation... There are many thousands of projects in the space but somehow they all share a hardcore libertarian political orientation. I guess we‘ll let IBM contract with the ECB to build the future.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#128

Post by dandanua »

ummonk wrote: post #106

Pretty uncontroversial. It's clearly failed as a currency, and is more of a collectible for speculative investment. It may one day become functional currency, but it certainly isn't today.

Bitcoin won't become a functional currency. I have a blog post about that https://dandanua.github.io/posts/why-i-wouldnt-recommend-usi...

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#130

Post by miohtama »

sebmellen wrote: post #14

What's more concerning to me is the cryptocurrency market as a whole. Perhaps there is an argument to Bitcoin being a kind of "digital gold" even if it is all but useless as a currency. But events like Dogecoin hitting a $50B market cap are very unsettling to me. I used to take part in "Dogecoin Socks for the Homeless" events. It was wonderful, everyone was trying to make something good out of what we all knew to be…

> But events like Dogecoin hitting a $50B market cap are very unsettling to me.

It's the sign of the peak of the bull market. There is going to be hangover.

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