Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO • Hacker News Board

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#191

Post by dang » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 4:08 PM UTC

fivethree wrote: post #141

BoorishBears wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person from (West) Africa, I can tell you they've not only heard of Bitcoin but they're mining it, even in villages.

You 6 days ago: >I lived in Downtown Hartford until last month, I don't recall many, if any bikes on roads. Then again, I do recall traffic being generally unsafe, I definitely would avoid riding a bike there.

This is an egregious violation of the site guidelines, which ask you to assume good faith in other users. In fact it's so noxious that it crosses into personal attack, which is something we ban people for, so please don't do anything like this on HN again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#192

Post by BoorishBears » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 6:53 PM UTC

pttrpttrwttr wrote: post #176

BoorishBears wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person from (West) Africa, I can tell you they've not only heard of Bitcoin but they're mining it, even in villages.

Pakistani here, you really expect us to believe that in countries without reliable electricity in rural areas, nevermind reliable broadband internet access, and 40% literacy rates people who, looking at the average GDPs of countries in the region couldn't possibly afford the necessary computing power are mining Bitcoin?

How hard is it to imagine someone doing this:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/18/africa/inside-life-cryptocurre...

Could move to a rural location setup a 3g hotspot (remembering in these countries rural 3g is becoming common is actually fairly cheap) and run generators as backups?

Here's your country:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozBtOtDK4jY

Does anything shown really look that outlandish to do in a rural area with a little more than a backup generator?

Mining is taking off in 3rd world countries too.

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#193

Post by empraptor » Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 11:00 PM UTC

dilap wrote: post #173

lamontcg wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people start to run for the exits, then that number goes down and there's no floor under that number. The system can unwind in a panic until nobody is using the system and the value of the system becomes zero. Which means that isn't any kind of fundamental value, you're just measuring popularity. Fundamentals are supposed to provide support to value when a security becomes unpopular and untrendy.

sure but that's the same as like banks and traditional money, right?

With stable national currencies like US dollar, there are debts, expenses, taxes, etc. that are denominated in the currency. And there is a national economy producing products and services for which people can pay with US Dollar. And financial infrastructure and laws to support the economy and currency.

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#194

Post by dpc_pw » Sat, Dec 30, 2017, 3:13 AM UTC

jhanschoo wrote: post #178

dpc_pw wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, after factoring-in the business risk, the expected return is 5%, and 5 is bigger than 3. Or 10%, or 20%. Eventually, some business opportunities are better than sitting on a pile of cash.

You're adopting the micro perspective to a macro problem of a finite supply of coins. Finite supply means that on average, net coin-profit of a business is zero coins. With such poor odds, why should someone go into business? Inflation incentivizes investment since you know that on average, a business opportunity has better ROI than saving.

If you can produce 3BTC worth of goods using 2BTC, then people will pay you 3BTC.

Your doubts are based on the assumption, that somehow "there would be not enough money", which is simply not true. During the process of producing and trading goods money are not destroyed. They are just changing hands. There is always enough money in the economy.

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#195

Post by dilap » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 11:05 PM UTC

empraptor wrote: post #193

dilap wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure but that's the same as like banks and traditional money, right?

With stable national currencies like US dollar, there are debts, expenses, taxes, etc. that are denominated in the currency. And there is a national economy producing products and services for which people can pay with US Dollar. And financial infrastructure and laws to support the economy and currency.

lots of examples of currencies getting inflated pretty badly. agreed the US $ has been stable for the last 30 years, and seems like a fairly safe bet. but it also doesn't seem outside the bounds of possibility that something will flip and we enter another period of bad inflation. (to me, gut feeling, zero expertise in any of this -- just some guy on the internet, thinking about it for fun.)

are contracts being written in bitcoin yet? if so, that'd be some momentum to help keep the bottom from falling out.

and i don't think taxes are really denominated in USD: they are paid in USD, but they are denominated in % of «taxable event», converted to USD, at whatever the conversion rate happens to be. right?

i guess a national currency is a little more "real" than something like bitcoin because you have one more-or-less guaranteed believer in it, the nation issuer. but it still doesn't seem that different to me than something like bitcoin. it basically just has value because it's useful for it to have value, and it's made scarce enough that it can serve for that purpose.

Re: Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO

#196

Post by empraptor » Tue, Jan 02, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

dilap wrote: post #195

empraptor wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With stable national currencies like US dollar, there are debts, expenses, taxes, etc. that are denominated in the currency. And there is a national economy producing products and services for which people can pay with US Dollar. And financial infrastructure and laws to support the economy and currency.

lots of examples of currencies getting inflated pretty badly. agreed the US $ has been stable for the last 30 years, and seems like a fairly safe bet. but it also doesn't seem outside the bounds of possibility that something will flip and we enter another period of bad inflation. (to me, gut feeling, zero expertise in any of this -- just some guy on the internet, thinking about it for fun.) are contracts being writte…

I see the difference as there being a national economy and government closely tied to USD.

Usually, central bank tries to manipulate supply and velocity of USD so it doesn't become too scarce. Because short supply of money leads to deflation and stagnation of the economy.