How much money would you have made if you'd bought $1000 worth of bitcoin on that day?
Don't rub salt in fresh wounds, man.
The first Bitcoin post on HN
121–130 of 302 posts
Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bitcoin is different in that is the purest form of a fiat currency in the sense that it is backed by nothing and thus has no intrinsic value whatsoever. Traditional currencies, on the other hand, are at least fractionally backed by (usually) gold and government bonds which in itself are backed by a government's ability to tax its citizens. There is also a second problem in that BTC is deflationary by design. Deflatio…
>> Bitcoin is different in that is the purest form of a fiat currency in the sense that it is backed by nothing and thus has no intrinsic value whatsoever. It's backed by the tremendous amount of electricity required to run the transaction processing network (ie. "mining"). Remember this is the world's largest distributed supercomputer. BTC is a proxy for electricity, that's why mining equipment ended up at ASICs so…
The costs of producing BTC or USD are not their backings. You can't exchange your BTC back into electricity.
The USD (and usually most other currencies) aims to be indirectly backed by the corresponding amount of goods they represent within the currency zone and their legal status.
BTC isn't even indirectly backed. It just exists. And that's okay for its purpose.
Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's like saying populations or startup stocks are broken. Do you think Facebook had a very smooth, progressive, and always upward growth? The stabilization comes at the end of the S curve. And Bitcoin isn't just a currency, it's a lot of things. One of them is a store of wealth, like gold, and it's doing wonders in that role.
Ahh, someone on HN who understands stores of exchange-value. Refreshing. Just one of the many, many ways bitcoin is better than gold as a store of exchange-value: embedded security. No armored trucks, no vaults. And look at China. BTC's recent rise is partially attributable to the fact it's a so-far-legal method of moving ¥ out of the country. And their government looks to be in support. The reason it's illegal to ex…
What do you mean doesn't leave the system ? If I were to exchange yuan for USD at a currency exchange/bank, they would keep the yuan and give me USD. The yuan wouldn't get destroyed and lose value or leave the system. It would be either a) handed back to another guy who wants to buy yuans for USD or b) used for the profit/operations of the currency exchange.
BTC may for the time being move currencies without any perceptible loss in exchange value but the exchange value of BTC will go up per yuan with greater demand. The yuan will devalue against BTC but maybe this isn't a big problem because BTC isn't a major world currency .. yet ?
Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ahh, someone on HN who understands stores of exchange-value. Refreshing. Just one of the many, many ways bitcoin is better than gold as a store of exchange-value: embedded security. No armored trucks, no vaults. And look at China. BTC's recent rise is partially attributable to the fact it's a so-far-legal method of moving ¥ out of the country. And their government looks to be in support. The reason it's illegal to ex…
What do you mean doesn't leave the system ? If I were to exchange yuan for USD at a currency exchange/bank, they would keep the yuan and give me USD. The yuan wouldn't get destroyed and lose value or leave the system. It would be either a) handed back to another guy who wants to buy yuans for USD or b) used for the profit/operations of the currency exchange. BTC may for the time being move currencies without any perc…
Yup you said it- it's not a major currency yet, so it's not "competition." ¥ -> BTC != ¥ -> $|€|£ etc. No manipulation of a central bank can effect BTC's value. Not only does yuan get "kept in the system" through govt-regulatable Chinese exchanges, it's not pegged to other nation's currencies, which China hates.
Remember Romney's line about "going after China for their illegal currency manipulations?" Heh.
Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
His comments seem entirely reasonable to me. Why are they all grey?
Account may have been hellbanned.
its a great example of the failure of the hellbanned concept. time to ditch it and stop looking like "TOTAL ASSHOLE HACKER NEWS YCOMBINATOR"?
Or are the admins/moderators really this oversensitive? Cry more. Grow up noobs.
Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN
#126That four-year-old submission has just two comments: one expressing doubt, one expressing optimism. Interestingly, despite growing worldwide adoption of Bitcoin, comments about it on HN continue to be more or less evenly split between doubters and optimists. And I wouldn't be surprised if comments to this submission are evenly split between those same two camps. No amount of evidence or reasoning seems to persuade ei…
But it is not that black and white, is it? While it is quite clear that Bitcoin has "value" as long as people are willing to trade it (i.e., indefinitely), there is still no reason to assume that it will ever stop having these extreme fluctuations. To the contrary, I'd say that, as time progresses, we observe Bitcoin having the same problems that the gold standard had, mixed with an additional proneness to speculatio…
there is still no reason to assume that it will ever stop having these extreme fluctuations.
Actually I was thinking about this yesterday, and I think if/when goods start to be priced in BTC (not just "fixed USD value converted to current BTC equivalent") that could help anchor the value of BTC.
Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Bitcoin is different in that is the purest form of a fiat currency in the sense that it is backed by nothing and thus has no intrinsic value whatsoever. It's backed by the tremendous amount of electricity required to run the transaction processing network (ie. "mining"). Remember this is the world's largest distributed supercomputer. BTC is a proxy for electricity, that's why mining equipment ended up at ASICs so…
The costs of producing BTC or USD are not their backings. You can't exchange your BTC back into electricity. The USD (and usually most other currencies) aims to be indirectly backed by the corresponding amount of goods they represent within the currency zone and their legal status. BTC isn't even indirectly backed. It just exists. And that's okay for its purpose.
Re your comment about currency production costs: A spike in electricity costs would directly effect existing bitcoins' value. A spike in cloth paper prices would not cause a meaningful change in the value of already-printed dollars. And the price of the dollar would spike with electricity costs indirectly. They're not the same, it's an invalid comparison that neatly evades their inherent technological and conceptual differences.
"Store of exchange-value" != currency, and BTC is currently behaving best in that role. Admirably, really- see how it's spreading like hotcakes in China. That's as a store of exchange value, not a currency.
You can't turn your gold "back into" ore or your diamonds "back into" carbon. The cost of an airline ticket is mostly determined by the current price of fuel.
When BTC starts to be used as a currency in earnest we can revisit the issue. Although at that point, you will be able to exchange your BTC back into electricity or other commodities through speculation or arbitrage. Which you can actually do directly right now if you know the right people, anyway. Profitably.
Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
People should be required to place a monetary bet whenever they make a bold claim in public. I think we would see less comments like this one.
For all we know, the comment might be proven right next week/month/year. It's just right now that it's plainly wrong. How much is your monetary bet then?
The claim, as claimed, is wrong. Plenty of people have faith in it.
Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Bitcoin is different in that is the purest form of a fiat currency in the sense that it is backed by nothing and thus has no intrinsic value whatsoever. It's backed by the tremendous amount of electricity required to run the transaction processing network (ie. "mining"). Remember this is the world's largest distributed supercomputer. BTC is a proxy for electricity, that's why mining equipment ended up at ASICs so…
The costs of producing BTC or USD are not their backings. You can't exchange your BTC back into electricity. The USD (and usually most other currencies) aims to be indirectly backed by the corresponding amount of goods they represent within the currency zone and their legal status. BTC isn't even indirectly backed. It just exists. And that's okay for its purpose.
You can't exchange your BTC back into electricity.
Huh? Why not? Surely you could just buy some solar panels with bitcoins, or convert them to another currency and then buy electricity from the grid.
Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hate when people use the tulips comparison. The basic protocol of bitcoin that allows people to send value anywhere in the world and solves the double spend problem must have some value unto itself. I don't know it's worth $0.10, $100, or $1000000 per bitcoin to use the protocol but to compare it to a plant seems kinda ridiculous.
The easiest way to refute the tulip argument is simply point out Bitcoins total money stock is fixed at 21 million units, wheras you can plant new tulips at will. (The skill/time required to do this is irrelevant to the point).
Actually, the interesting thing about tulips is that that's not true. I don't mean to single you out here, but this is a demonstration of how most people know jack shit about Tulipomania (even though many of them are perfectly willing to bloviate about it and compare Bitcoin to tulips).
One of the revolutionary things about tulips at that time was that the unique patterns caused by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip-breaking_virus were only partially inherited: after a few generations, the bulbs are too weakened to survive, and the particular pattern disappears permanently, no matter how lovely and beautiful it was.
If you read up on a book about Tulipomania, you'll notice there are no contemporary photos of tulips like Semper Augustus. Because Semper Augustus no longer exists.
So you can 'plant new tulips at will' the same way you can 'paint new Rembrandts at will' ie. slap some paint on a canvas and hope it looks vaguely similar and that's the best you can do, since you can never ever get another real Rembrandt or real Semper Augustus.