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What are the best arguments AGAINST Bitcoin?

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Re: What are the best arguments AGAINST Bitcoin?

#31

Post by hakfoo »

Honestly, a lot of it is the community. The strongest advocates for crypto tend to have a lot of wince factor.

* The most prominent actual merchants taking crypto first or only (as opposed to a novelty 13th choice between PayPal and money-order-in-an-envelope) are in it because no conventional financial platforms will touch them (Silk Road style stuff, ransomware, etc.).

* The "irreversibility" crowd. The people who are convinced that all their profits are going out the window because of the cost of honouring refunds and chargebacks, and if only we used a payment method that didn't support them... normal people tend to classify "the system will make you whole if stolen from" as a feature, not a bug.

* The "it's independent and self-governing" crowd. These are the same people who blame their gout on the Federal Reserve and 20 years ago were buying Liberty Dollars. Money is a tool, and it makes sense to have the tool be bendable to public needs, not dogmatically hard-coded into economic rictus.

* The FOMO/HODL crowd inherently keeps cryptocurrency from developing legitimacy. What is a dollar, rouble, or yuan worth? It's how much goods and services you can get for it, and that being relatively stable and predictable allows people to build an economy around it. Until we get a critical mass of actual commerce occurring in cryptocurrency, we can't say "what is a Bitcoin worth" in the same way, and instead we have speculators tossing the value wildly up and down from day to day.

Re: What are the best arguments AGAINST Bitcoin?

#32

Post by tuesdayrain »

ghego1 wrote: post #8

Bitcoin is essentially a Ponzi scheme. The only way to make a profit is to sell an asset whose added value only exists if more people buy into it. Nowadays many bitcoin supporters refer to it as "digital gold", but that's just not the case. Gold is a natural element with some unique phisical a chemical properties that make it both attractive (e.g. jewelry) and useful (e.g. industrial applications). So those buying go…

Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme, and as far as I know it's the best one ever created. That's why I'll drop my paychecks into it for as long as I live (or work).

Re: What are the best arguments AGAINST Bitcoin?

#34

Post by jqpabc123 »

londons_explore wrote: post #20
mikeodds wrote: post #19

What happens when rewards for mining a block halt or the price of Bitcoin drops to a point where it’s no longer economically viable to pay for electricity and mining rigs?

Fewer people buy rigs. Fewer people mine. The remaining people get paid more. It's a self balancing system.

Is it self balancing or self defeating? Time will tell but the answer should already be obvious. Mining fees decrease over time and eventually disappear --- taking security with it.

It is not only possible but also likely that at some point, the majority of remaining miners will be controlled by one entity.

Re: What are the best arguments AGAINST Bitcoin?

#35

Post by jqpabc123 »

anm89 wrote: post #24

Philosophically? As an investment? I don't think this question has any meaning without being qualified. Assuming you are saying as an investment, I think a plausible worst case scenario is that a major government, let's say the US, makes it illegal to move their currency on to crypto exchanges and kills all legitimate on ramps. Bitcoin would survive this but I would guess it's price would go down somewhere between 10…

The worst case scenario for "investment" is if government doesn't do anything but ignore bitcoin and allow it to fail under it's own weight --- taking your "investment" with it.

Re: What are the best arguments AGAINST Bitcoin?

#36

Post by jqpabc123 »

tuesdayrain wrote: post #32
ghego1 wrote: post #8

Bitcoin is essentially a Ponzi scheme. The only way to make a profit is to sell an asset whose added value only exists if more people buy into it. Nowadays many bitcoin supporters refer to it as "digital gold", but that's just not the case. Gold is a natural element with some unique phisical a chemical properties that make it both attractive (e.g. jewelry) and useful (e.g. industrial applications). So those buying go…

Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme, and as far as I know it's the best one ever created. That's why I'll drop my paychecks into it for as long as I live (or work).

Ponzi schemes are built on misplaced and misguided trust and designed to benefit early investors at the expense of those who follow.

Your simple minded strategy virtually guarantees that you will be a follower.

Re: What are the best arguments AGAINST Bitcoin?

#37

Post by [deleted] »

ghego1 wrote: post #8

Bitcoin is essentially a Ponzi scheme. The only way to make a profit is to sell an asset whose added value only exists if more people buy into it. Nowadays many bitcoin supporters refer to it as "digital gold", but that's just not the case. Gold is a natural element with some unique phisical a chemical properties that make it both attractive (e.g. jewelry) and useful (e.g. industrial applications). So those buying go…

[deleted]

Re: What are the best arguments AGAINST Bitcoin?

#38

Post by andirk »

ghego1 wrote: post #8

Bitcoin is essentially a Ponzi scheme. The only way to make a profit is to sell an asset whose added value only exists if more people buy into it. Nowadays many bitcoin supporters refer to it as "digital gold", but that's just not the case. Gold is a natural element with some unique phisical a chemical properties that make it both attractive (e.g. jewelry) and useful (e.g. industrial applications). So those buying go…

"an asset whose added value only exists if more people buy into it"

That's what money is.

Re: What are the best arguments AGAINST Bitcoin?

#39

Post by anm89 »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #35
anm89 wrote: post #24

Philosophically? As an investment? I don't think this question has any meaning without being qualified. Assuming you are saying as an investment, I think a plausible worst case scenario is that a major government, let's say the US, makes it illegal to move their currency on to crypto exchanges and kills all legitimate on ramps. Bitcoin would survive this but I would guess it's price would go down somewhere between 10…

The worst case scenario for "investment" is if government doesn't do anything but ignore bitcoin and allow it to fail under it's own weight --- taking your "investment" with it.

Ok, there are existing avenues to short bitcoin. So no need to tell the internet about it. Go become unbelievably rich if you know this for a fact while other's don't understand.

I'll be happy to take the other side of your bet.

Re: What are the best arguments AGAINST Bitcoin?

#40

Post by jqpabc123 »

anm89 wrote: post #39
jqpabc123 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst case scenario for "investment" is if government doesn't do anything but ignore bitcoin and allow it to fail under it's own weight --- taking your "investment" with it.

Ok, there are existing avenues to short bitcoin. So no need to tell the internet about it. Go become unbelievably rich if you know this for a fact while other's don't understand. I'll be happy to take the other side of your bet.

LOL! The concept of "fail" clearly eludes you.

When it is discovered that Chinese interests have assumed functional control of bitcoin mining and are using it to perpetrate widespread fraud, all bitcoin trading and contracts will be frozen. Just one possible failure scenario.

It will be impossible to extract anything from the "marketplace" because it will evaporate back into the ether from which it sprang.

Your "faith" in bitcoin is based on an unfounded assumption --- that crypto "exchanges" are financially stable, reputable and trustworthy institutions similar to the regulated securities markets. They are none of the above in my judgement. They regularly engage in what would be considered illegal fraud in more reputable markets. And they are fully prepared to fold up shop and disappear in an instant if need be.

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