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S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

reuters.com

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Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#191

Post by spurgu »

misnamed wrote: post #125
nostrademons wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's analogous to investing money in USD or GBP before those countries were given a license to print as many USD and GBP as they wanted. Before then (1931 for the pound and 1933 for the dollar, though they maintained de-facto parity with gold until 1971), dollars and pounds were considered good investments. That's why we had bank runs: people thought their money would be safer under their mattress, and preferred to o…

A deflationary asset class encourages hording, not spending or using in other ways. There's also no real limit to the number of crytocurrencies that might appear later (see: MySpace replaced by Facebook), unlike gold. As for inflation: safe government bonds have historically kept up with that over the long haul, so no big loss there.

Imagine a society not based on consumerism and quarterly report increases. Gasp!

Back in the day people used to get interest (covering more than inflation) from holding money in their bank accounts. What's changed?

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#192

Post by arisAlexis »

iamspoilt wrote: post #30

Someone please explain this to me: How is any cryptocurrency even considered an investment vehicle? I would classify myself as Boglehead and I believe in the fundamentals of investing in stocks because in all it's technicality (and given the buy-and-hold strategy), you are investing in a business by owning a part of it which naturally means that you will and do get the returns on it, both in terms of profits (dividen…

think gold with finite supply and easily transmissible. Bogleheads approved :)

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#194

Post by bollu »

shuntress wrote: post #185
raziel2701 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is it a jack of all trades and master of none sort of thing? I still see it as a speculation tool and it's grabbing a lot of momentum. But I don't see what's so fundamentally useful about the technology unless you're interested in laundering money and/or buying illegal stuff.

Bitcoin is a currency. The fundamentally useful thing about Bitcoin is it's proof-of-work shared ledger that allows transactions to be conducted and verified between individuals (through the shared network) independent of any third party or broker. It is the electronic equivalent of handing someone a physical coin. It is genuinely pretty neat. Any actual meaningful application of this use has yet to be realized.

> It is genuinely pretty neat.

This captures my feelings exactly about BTC, thank you for phrasing it so succinctly!

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#195

Post by mettamage »

anythingdude321 wrote: post #167
Imnimo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supply of capital-B Bitcoin is 21M, but at any time, anyone can create Bitcoin2, which is an exact clone of Bitcoin but with a fresh chain. Any Bitcoin2 token has exactly the same utility as a Bitcoin token in principle - the only difference is that, for now at least, lots of people are mining Bitcoin and no one is mining Bitcoin2. If there comes a day when a lot of people think there should be 42M bitcoins, inst…

yes but the beauty is that, due to the lack of a central authority, the game theory of the situation virtually ensures that no one would ever do that — that is, take bitcoin2 seriously

Is that true though? Bitcoin cash, bitcoin gold, etc.

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#196

Post by thorwasdfasdf »

iamspoilt wrote: post #30

Someone please explain this to me: How is any cryptocurrency even considered an investment vehicle? I would classify myself as Boglehead and I believe in the fundamentals of investing in stocks because in all it's technicality (and given the buy-and-hold strategy), you are investing in a business by owning a part of it which naturally means that you will and do get the returns on it, both in terms of profits (dividen…

I'll explain it to you in one sentence: There IS NOTHING else.

There's only 4 main assets classes:

1) Equity valuations are at all time highs by nearly every objective measure out there

2) Fixed income is really vulnerable to the onslaught of inflation that looks ever more likely with all the MMT that's been going on.

3) Real Estate is a possibility but not scalable and not tax efficient and takes a great deal of skill and time to execute properly. (not counting REITs and other real estate ETFs)

4) All that leaves is commodities: Gold and Bitcoin.

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#197

Post by dandanua »

JxLS-cpgbe0 wrote: post #176
dandanua wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's useful and it has demand for its use. But most people buy it only to make a fortune. This makes it a Ponzi scheme. No contradiction here.

A Ponzi Scheme relies on a central authority, BTC has none. I think you just mean "scheme?"

There is Satoshi's wallet in the root, no need for authority as we can see.

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#198

Post by mrlala »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #53
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend you read some of Stephen Deihl's thoughts on the subject[0]. You're not alone if you feel that cryptocurrency doesn't make sense as an investment vehicle, but the HN community will make you feel crazy for not seeing what a great thinking this is an incredible new opportunity and "things are different this time!" There is no better indication of a bubble then people telling you that you're the crazy one fo…

> There is no better indication of a bubble then people telling you that you're the crazy one for questioning it. I remember people telling me I was crazy for not buying a house in 2007, and crazy for not trading tech stocks in 1999. I'm not sure that's a good indicator with so many counter examples: the internet, large touch screen phones, Cloud in the earlier days, etc. We truly have no idea what the future if Cryp…

>We truly have no idea what the future if Cryptocurrencies are.

Yes we do...

Why in the utter hell would I ever use crypto that has ABSOLUTLY ZERO GUARANTEE after I pay someone?

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#199

Post by pashamur »

aboodman wrote: post #103
iamspoilt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is another factor for cryptocurrencies. Anyone can create a new network and do an ICO and as long as the protocol is sound and audited, the new network can still enable money transfers the same way as a Bitcoin network. The collection of networks can potentially never become as scarce as, for instance, IPV4 range or the radio spectrum for telephony in the earlier analogy that I mentioned.

Anybody could create a new protocol that competes with IP (many did). So that part of your argument doesn't hold. The reason that IP addresses are scarce is not because it's not possible to invent a new protocol, but because everyone else uses IP so only IP addresses are useful. Spectrum might initially appear to be fundamentally scarce, but even then, people can invent other ways to communicate (and they did! copper…

Even domain names follow the same pattern - in the last decade there has been a huge number of new domain extensions that have been approved for use; if you go to namecheap these days you have hundreds of options for your personal site.

Yet the vast majority will still use .com, .net and .org, and those still remain the most valuable. :)

Re: S&P Dow Jones Indices to launch cryptocurrency indexes in 2021

#200

Post by mettamage »

joosters wrote: post #151
clarky07 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so why does it still take me 3+ business days to move money between banks? I assume it's just because they use that float to make money, but it still sucks. i for one like transactions clearing in a few seconds rather than a few days.

It's because you don't live in the EU. Millions of people have had instant money transfers for years now.

But this is the power of bitcoin right? Now I can live in South America and get near-instant (crypto)currency transfers as well.
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