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Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

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Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of Bitcoin simply get lost and people are betting on this loss too. You are also forgetting the ultimate irony behind long term deflation. At some point your Bitcoin will be worth millions in dollars but will the dollar actually buy you that much product or service if there aren't enough young people to take care of everything?

The endgame is that there will be no dollars and Bitcoins will cover all exchange and savings needs. At that point deflation stops.

"At that point deflation stops."

Not unless all economic growth stops, too. More people in the world + fixed number of bitcoins = deflation. More cars/computers/thingys made + fixed number of bitcoins = deflation.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every store of value that has ever existed and will ever exist is just a game of speculation that it will continue to be valued when you're ready to withdraw your money to do things you've saved for. Gold was the best portable and fungible speculative bet for a very long time. Bonds are speculation that a country will continue to be productive and well managed enough to pay their debts without resorting to massive in…

The problem with bitcoin is that it's not exclusive - there are tons of alternatives. Some even have better features (think Ethereum or Monero or Zcash). Nothing is stopping people from launching bitcoin2,bitcoin3, etc and having the same technology available - yet BTC is the major player skyrocketing. This is an example of the market being irrational longer than expected, in my book.

Still kicking myself for hearing of Bitcoin and not repeating to myself for the next two days: [To succeed] You can be the first or you can be the best. You can be the first or you can be the best. You can be the first or you can be the best.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#273

> Coinbase Global Inc.’s filing to become a publicly-traded company provides a glimpse into the remarkably small circle of mostly men who command the incredibly lucrative digital landscape Why is the fact they are "mostly men" relevant in any way? What if they are "mostly jewish"? Or "mostly white"? Or "mostly American"? Is Bitcoin now a matter of "privilege"? Are there people out there who fall for this sort of insa…

Pointing out that it was "mostly white" or "mostly American" would be accepted and considered progressive. Pointing out that it was "mostly Jewish" would not be accepted and would be considered hate speech.

Are you confused by the pattern? One set of those groups are historically oppressed. The other are not.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#274
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pointing out that it was "mostly white" or "mostly American" would be accepted and considered progressive. Pointing out that it was "mostly Jewish" would not be accepted and would be considered hate speech.

Are you confused by the pattern? One set of those groups are historically oppressed. The other are not.

Why does that matter at all?

Shall we treat individuals on the basis of generalizations?

Shall we use identity groups and biased historical lenses in order to justify specific narratives?

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So they MUST spend their coins within a fixed time frame of about 70 years. Inheritance. Donations.

No one passes everything to heirs

No, but anything you didn’t spend while you were alive goes to your heirs (or the state if you don’t have any, or other rules).

So, you do not have to spend everything while alive.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#276
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the fair value of bitcoin? It will never provide dividends or other types of future cashflows, so that aspect of its fair value is zero. The remaining part is purely speculative in that it is based on what other people will pay for it. Do Swiss Franks pay dividends or other types of cashflows? If I have 50,000 CHF in a box in my cupboard, what value is it beyond a small amount of fuel to burn? At some point…

No, Swiss Franks do not pay dividends, that's why nobody is betting on the fact that Swiss Franks would be worth more in the future. Somehow owners of Bitcoin insist that it doesn't follow this simple rule and that it should net a return. >At some point I will hope someone (perhaps someone in Switzerland) will exchange something I want for those pieces of paper. The amount of businesses accepting Bitcoin as a means o…

> No, Swiss Franks do not pay dividends, that's why nobody is betting on the fact that Swiss Franks would be worth more in the future.

They are (foreign currency reserves), hence the swiss banks charging to store swiss franks. Indeed Hedge Funds (darlings of HN) make a killing out of currency speculation -- Black Wednesday and Brexit in the UK for example.

There's 61 currency funds listed here, I'm sure some are betting on swiss franks.

https://www.barclayhedge.com/databases/forex-database

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone said "The remarkably small circle of mostly hair stylists who control bitcoin" would you have responded so many times? No, there's something about gender here that's got you incensed. I'm not trying to sound flippant, but I think there's more to this than genitals and the amount of relevance that genitals or gender has to the story. First though, I think you're confusing what was said. The starting sentenc…

I am not incensed at all. Say, gender equals to genetalia 99.x% or 9x% of the time.. for arguments sake we can substitute one for another.. The reason for using that word is to show the absurdity of any gender based argument, feel free to substitute it with "people who can grow beards" if you like. As specific data points they may have relevance as tools, but, making sweeping claims about 50% of humanity makes for ba…

> I just think it's pointless to bring in gender into things where it's not relevant...

And yet, when confronted with reasons why that's completely wrong, all of those reasons remain unaddressed.

People are obviously interested in knowing the gender of a story's subject. That's why it's constantly mentioned in the news and also why there's a huge thread of people constantly talking about it...everywhere.

> The individual has more power over their lives than just being robots dictated by biology.

So, we by stripping them of their gender when talking about them we make the individual more human? That's completely illogical.

Also - simply mentioning someone's gender in a news story is causing some individual's entire life to be dictated by their genitals? I don't buy it. If someone I knew felt that they're being turned into a robot because an article mentioned the gender of a person, I'd be concerned for their mental health.

First, I'd just stop arguing with them though because it sounds like it would be a fruitless endeavor.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#278
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you confused by the pattern? One set of those groups are historically oppressed. The other are not.

Why does that matter at all? Shall we treat individuals on the basis of generalizations? Shall we use identity groups and biased historical lenses in order to justify specific narratives?

>Why does that matter at all?

Because we cannot move forward as a society, together, if we are not willing to confront and make effort to repair the wrongs of our past.

>Shall we treat individuals on the basis of generalizations?

No, but public policy usually requires some generalizations.

>Shall we use identity groups and biased historical lenses in order to justify specific narratives?

No, we should use actual, factual history and follow a correct narrative and we can use identity groups where necessary and justified and in keeping with actual historical fact.

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