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Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

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Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#21

Post by rybosworld »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15
rybosworld wrote: post #10

"The value of Bitcoin is negative if we applied a carbon tax to it" (paraphrased). Can't this be said about literally anything? Bitcoin and cryptos in general are actually worth more than $0 because people are tired of seeing their cash devalued on the whim of politicians and bankers.

> Can't this be said about literally anything? No. Carbon taxes would not make everything worthless.

Deduce just a bit more, and see that I meant you can tax literally anything until it is worthless.

I think you already knew what I meant but just wanted to nitpick.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#25

Post by tspike »

dsun180 wrote: post #2

The value of everything is negative when you measure by these standards. We should stop laughing to emit less CO2.

No, but the way we measure value is so flawed that it can seem that way.

Consider how we define poverty.

Suppose we discover an as-yet unknown group of people who have been using traditional farming methods to sustain themselves in the same area for thousands of years.

How would you classify them economically? Are they in "abject poverty", the same as a group whose traditional means of sustenance have been destroyed and who rely on international aid? What distinction do we make?

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#26

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #19
bustin wrote: post #5

How does someone measure the potential value of "being a pain in the ass to those who seek to control the supply of money"

It’s amazing that the popular narrative is that the average person will somehow benefit if we switch to a currency that is majority owned by a small handful of early adopters. I’m not a fan of the current inflationary economic policy, but in no way would a Bitcoin economy be a win for the average person. Early adopters and Bitcoin whales would love it because they hold the vast majority of Bitcoin. They want nothing…

It's the "bitcoin is good because I have it" narrative.

That doesn't make it an equitable or even workable economic system.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#27

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

rybosworld wrote: post #21
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can't this be said about literally anything? No. Carbon taxes would not make everything worthless.

Deduce just a bit more, and see that I meant you can tax literally anything until it is worthless. I think you already knew what I meant but just wanted to nitpick.

But that is absolutely not the point, and it is not a nitpick. The real argument is that Bitcoin has negative value if you include externalities, and that is not the case for most assets.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#28

Post by NationalPark »

rybosworld wrote: post #10

"The value of Bitcoin is negative if we applied a carbon tax to it" (paraphrased). Can't this be said about literally anything? Bitcoin and cryptos in general are actually worth more than $0 because people are tired of seeing their cash devalued on the whim of politicians and bankers.

I think his point is that the externalities outweigh the actual benefits, so bitcoin is only valuable so long as a bunch of people who've never heard of it continue to be the ones who end up with the environmental liabilities.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#29

Post by rawtxapp »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #19
bustin wrote: post #5

How does someone measure the potential value of "being a pain in the ass to those who seek to control the supply of money"

It’s amazing that the popular narrative is that the average person will somehow benefit if we switch to a currency that is majority owned by a small handful of early adopters. I’m not a fan of the current inflationary economic policy, but in no way would a Bitcoin economy be a win for the average person. Early adopters and Bitcoin whales would love it because they hold the vast majority of Bitcoin. They want nothing…

A lot of the early adopters have either permanently lost their coins or sold it local maximums, very few people would have hold on to it that long. And you can argue that if they had that kind of strong belief, they should receive some rewards for it.

It's like saying by the time a company IPOs, early VCs have benefited the most, while that is true, you could also argue they deserve it because of the risk they took.

Re: Nouriel Roubini: Bitcoin is not a hedge against tail risk

#30

Post by rybosworld »

fileeditview wrote: post #18
rybosworld wrote: post #10

"The value of Bitcoin is negative if we applied a carbon tax to it" (paraphrased). Can't this be said about literally anything? Bitcoin and cryptos in general are actually worth more than $0 because people are tired of seeing their cash devalued on the whim of politicians and bankers.

But is it better to see your crypto devalued by some big dump? Would probably be easy for a nation state to do this if it wanted to.. All this independence from states seems totally overrated to me. They can tax your crypto. They can participate in the crypto market.. many possibilities.

People have been making some variation of this claim since bitcoin was $0.01.

There haven't yet been any successful attempts at destroying it, which I think is what you're implying. Not to say it can't happen, but then if we prepared for every single possible scenario we'd all be quite exhausted.

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