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The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

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Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#181

Post by brmgb »

mkirklions wrote: post #74
Balero wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin has no inflation, there are only a given number of total bitcoins in existence, which many (myself included) would argue makes it a poor currency.

> there are only a given number of total bitcoins in existence, which many (myself included) would argue makes it a poor currency. I have always question who says this. What makes you think deflation would be bad? My conspiracy is that governments require inflation to print themselves out of bad policy. Without government abilities to do this, the government performs poorly. Common citizens do not lose 2-4% of their…

Deflation is not a viable strategy for a currency. It's bad because it makes hoarding a valuable strategy and hoarding reduce the amount of currency in circulation leading to even more deflation. Who wants to use a mean of exchange actually discouraging exchange ?

The alternative really is between low inflation and price stability. Government tends to prefer low inflation because it encourages people to invest their assets in a productive way and because it's actually pretty difficult to avoid any inflation via monetary policy.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#182

Post by shawn »

dmoy wrote: post #155
mkirklions wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With 1000 USD? Sure, thats petty money if I lost it. I dont keep most of my bitcoin in coinbase.

What's the backup for various failure cases? House fire? I'd guess off-site backups. House fire that kills you? Do you stick recovery instructions to your backup in a will, or how do you leave money to your heirs? (Or just you don't?)

Brainwallet plus multisig.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#183

Post by maehwasu »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #147
mkirklions wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coinbase Peer to Peer using email is free and instant. Shift card had like a 10$ fee for printing the card, but its free and instant. The only time I did an on-chain transaction in the last 3 years was moving money to another exchange to buy alt-coins.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but the way you're using Bitcoin gives you no magical crypto guarantees the currency is supposed to offer? I increasingly feel that pro-crypto arguments are mostly motte and bailey. So Bitcoin is better than fiat because it's decentralized and censorship-resistant, with everything forever stored in the blockchain. It's also more convenient and efficient than fiat in daily use - when we dis…

He gets the "magical crypto guarantees" for 99% of his money, and only waives them for a small part that is "in-flight."

This isn't at all different from the way many people separate their investments and savings accounts from their checking accounts, except that in this case, the investment/savings accounts get "magical crypto guarantees."

This isn't rocket science.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#184

Post by mkirklions »

jonknee wrote: post #177
mkirklions wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if you need to eat food? Or pay your mortgage? How will you pay for things if you dont spend Bitcoin?

Yes, essential spending would happen. But why upgrade your car, or go out to eat, or go on a vacation, or all the other non-essential spending that powers our economy? Even a very small change in these behaviors has huge effects because one person's spending is another person's income.

> why upgrade your car, or go out to eat, or go on a vacation, or all the other non-essential spending that powers our economy?

I find 0 of those good. Upgrading your car when you dont need to is wreckless spending. Maybe the Economy changes to become more conservative and less environmentally damaging.

Going out to eat + vacations are unnecessary expenses. And btw, I completely doubt people are going to stop doing those 3.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#185

Post by keymone »

simias wrote: post #179
chiefalchemist wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Looks like in the future people hoard currency instead of spending and investing it then. That ought to be interesting." That sounds like the current to me. Too much is locked up (in too few hands) instead of doing what currency should do. That is, reduce the friction of trade (i.e., goods, skills, etc.) Currency is a lubricant. It's no surprise things are drying up.

I completely agree with you that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny portion of the population is a huge problem today, but don't deflationary cryptocurrencies make it objectively worse? At least if the current "1%" hoard dollars or euros in their mattress they slowly lose their wealth thanks to inflation. After a generation or two they'll have lost a significant share of their treasure. Therefore they…

Bitcoin is inflationary at least nominally, until 2140.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#186

Post by csomar »

simias wrote: post #17

>the global currency of the future, that they need to buy some, and that he’s the man to safeguard it. Looks like in the future people hoard currency instead of spending and investing it then. That ought to be interesting. It also demonstrates the costs associated with non-reversible transactions, these vaults aren't storing gold ingots or priceless artifacts, just private keys. Banks around the world don't need to w…

People will always hoard. It is just that currency is a bad hoard. People already hoard gold which is hard to store and secure.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#187

Post by gm-conspiracy »

simias wrote: post #17

>the global currency of the future, that they need to buy some, and that he’s the man to safeguard it. Looks like in the future people hoard currency instead of spending and investing it then. That ought to be interesting. It also demonstrates the costs associated with non-reversible transactions, these vaults aren't storing gold ingots or priceless artifacts, just private keys. Banks around the world don't need to w…

Is this not like every movie's "bearer bonds" plot requirement?

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#188

Post by mkirklions »

spookthesunset wrote: post #167
mkirklions wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I feel like bitcoin people live in some kind of alternate reality that I simply don't understand. I can tell. You seem to think Bitcoin is another inflationary currency. The excitement is that, Donald Trump doesnt have control over Bitcoin. China doesnt have control over bitcoin. No government does. People with computers have control over it. There are 21,000,000 Bitcoin ever ever ever. No amount of awful government…

> There are 21,000,000 Bitcoin ever ever ever. Provably false. Bitcoin has been forked into multiple chains numerous time, creating many more then 21 million tokens. Given that there is no trademark on the term "Bitcoin", some of these forks can rightfully claim themselves to be The True Bitcoin. In addition, there are thousands of other non-forked blockchains that are nearly identical to bitcoin, save for a few mino…

Your original point was correct, you dont understand Bitcoin.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#189

Post by TACIXAT »

TimmyMustGo wrote: post #175
simias wrote: post #17

>the global currency of the future, that they need to buy some, and that he’s the man to safeguard it. Looks like in the future people hoard currency instead of spending and investing it then. That ought to be interesting. It also demonstrates the costs associated with non-reversible transactions, these vaults aren't storing gold ingots or priceless artifacts, just private keys. Banks around the world don't need to w…

So if we let a bank manage bitcoin, perhaps the bank could issue paper receipts that are backed by said bitcoin, and those pieces of paper could circulate instead of using the blockchain. What I don't understand is if fiat currencies are so bad, why do people express the value of bitcoin in a fiat currency (like USD)? They are just like the goldbugs, hoping and praying that the world will collapse back into the dark…

>why do people express the value of bitcoin in a fiat currency (like USD)?

Mostly because businesses do accounting and pay taxes in usd, so bitcoin is just used as a pass through gimmick to make sales. There is no path to the price stabilization of bitcoin, it's purely deflationary, no one is going to set prices in something that has no monetary policy.

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