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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

#191

Post by jacquesm »

vmurthy wrote: post #182
jacquesm wrote: post #169

So, now we know Nassim Taleb missed the crypto boat. As did I and many others. Because if he didn't he wouldn't have posted this. And what nonsense. "A currency must earn interest" It's perfectly possible to lend your bitcoins to someone and generate a return on it, that's what contracts are for and has nothing to do with the currency itself. Coming soon: one NT's own crypto coin.

Um , Taleb was a supporter of BTC a couple of years ago [0] and has owned BTC and is now selling it [1]. I think what he did falls in the category of "When facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" [0] https://news.bitcoin.com/black-swan-author-pulls-a-180-nassi... [1] https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1360276917992230919

Yes, let me be more specific: if you really are able to predict the future then you bet the house on something, you'll make out like a bandit.

But if you also do something that many others do when the trend is plainly visible that doesn't count. Yes, I mined some bitcoin. But that's not the same as being able to predict a trend. Because when you can you're not just going to mine a couple of bitcoins or put a bit of money into it, you're going to bet the house: you know you can't lose.

So as far as I'm concerned he's full of it.

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

#192

Post by jacquesm »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #185
jacquesm wrote: post #169

So, now we know Nassim Taleb missed the crypto boat. As did I and many others. Because if he didn't he wouldn't have posted this. And what nonsense. "A currency must earn interest" It's perfectly possible to lend your bitcoins to someone and generate a return on it, that's what contracts are for and has nothing to do with the currency itself. Coming soon: one NT's own crypto coin.

I’ve accidentally made a fortune on Bitcoin when, for a while, I had set up a small e-commerce payment flow to accept BC and forgot about it. I noticed when it broke because transaction fees at some point escalated to €50 or so. Looked up the address and there had been a few dozens transactions on it over the years, paying €100 with 20 BC or something like it. The total was a little over 900 BC. I found the private k…

Lucky you! I wished I'd been half as dumb, instead I've been working hard.

As for Bitcoin's design: I actually think it is amazing. It managed to scale across many orders of magnitude and is simply a victim of its own success. It has held up amazingly well given the amount of attacks leveled at it. It's not perfect, but that is mostly because the designers never really foresaw it achieving this level of adoption this fast, and if that's failure I hope to fail at that level one day.

Enjoy your beach.

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

#193

Post by tremon »

matkoniecz wrote: post #117
McScroogy wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you point me to an alternative investment that can not lose its value, please?

There is not such thing. Every single thing can lose its value. In addition: Real estate can be bombed in a war or confiscated[0] and is not mobile for obvious reasons[1]. Gold can be stolen, confiscated - and it happened already more than once. Companies can go bankrupt. Items - either productive like machinery or various stores of value like art are not immune. Cash/bank accounts - well, money printing will get you…

Fun fact: Polish words for real estate is "nieruchomości", "nonmovables"

Same in NL, "onroerend goed" translates (literally) as "non-roaming goods".

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

#194

Post by yunohn »

unixhero wrote: post #145

Look I like Taleb, I read his books and they are insightful. But here he is just butthurt he hasn't invested early.

>> he is just butthurt he hasn't invested early

Every single time a BTC supporter says this, they further prove that it’s a Ponzi scheme.

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

#195

Post by herbst »

ABeeSea wrote: post #189
tim333 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economically it's much more like gold than a ponzi scheme: Gold: Asset that goes up and down in price according to demand. No central body controlling it. Some utility as jewelry though we could get by without that. Massive dollar and environmental cost from mining the stuff. Ponzi scheme: Fraud where insiders take money from investors and use it to pay other investors. Collapses and the fraudsters run off or go to j…

It’s a decentralized Ponzi scheme. It’s why Bitcoin owners are so aggressive in convincing others to buy Bitcoin.

I honestly never experienced that. Its not like any crypto investor is running around converting others.

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

#197

Post by herbst »

matkoniecz wrote: post #117
McScroogy wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you point me to an alternative investment that can not lose its value, please?

There is not such thing. Every single thing can lose its value. In addition: Real estate can be bombed in a war or confiscated[0] and is not mobile for obvious reasons[1]. Gold can be stolen, confiscated - and it happened already more than once. Companies can go bankrupt. Items - either productive like machinery or various stores of value like art are not immune. Cash/bank accounts - well, money printing will get you…

> can be stolen remotely with no recourse.

By bruteforcing into the wild? What are ypu referring to?

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

#198

Post by Synaesthesia »

Sammi wrote: post #177
prepend wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key characteristic of Ponzi schemes, I think, is that there is no real value and returns are paid based solely on new cash coming in. There’s shady bookkeeping only as an artifact to hide the cash-in/cash-out structure. I think this applies to Bitcoin because it’s payouts are solely based on speculation and new cash coming in.

Bitcoin has two well understood and valuable use cases: 1) Bitcoin can do trustable and reliable transactions with unlimited amounts of assets across the world in 10 minutes. What else can do that? It's the perfect settlement layer for large actors. 2) It doesn't inflate, which makes it a perfect store of value. Even gold inflates.

That's correct but there is still a huge issue for me with Bitcoin, which is that the vast majority of BTC is owned by literally a handful of people. It should be well distributed if it's gonna succeed as a currency and it never will be.

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

#200

Post by chewz »

matkoniecz wrote: post #174
chewz wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [0] For "real estate will never go down in value" fans: You realise that these properties in the picture (Plac Defilad right in the centre of Warsaw) are worth a lot nowadays. And descendants of the original owners get compensated (the land had been confiscated after WW2 by communist government). So I would rather say that real estate could be illiquid with temporarily depressed prices occasionally. https://pl.wiki…

> the land What about people who owned a flat? Have they got compensations restoring entire value? AFAIK no in general. Or even a noticeable part of original value? One of my friends recently got compensation (after 60 years old legal battle initiated by person who died before it completed). But that was for property that survived WWII and got confiscated after it. > And descendants of the original owners get compens…

I agree with your arguments.

But there is another asset class beside real estate - arable land. People see gold as store of value which is false to some degree - gold was historically more of mean of exchange (of landed wealth) while the universal asset class paying regular dividends since Roman Empire until Industrial Revolution was arable land. And to a degree still is but since Industrial Revolution there are many alternative assets available that provide better/competitive returns (like government bonds)

Of course land could also be taken away but that happens very rarely (Communist revolutions in Russia, China, Central Europe). Historically land-owning class is stable. For example in largest wealth grabs in European history (Burgundians in France, Vandals in North Africa and best of all Norman conquest of Britain) there was generally sharing and mixing between old and new land-owners.

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