Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 161 posts

Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018

#31

Post by boh »

agd wrote: post #7

I'm not sure that the statements that a) there are bad actors in the space, and b) there will be a crash, are particularly insightful here. Both of these were predicted/expected by many, including many crypto supporters. The key question is whether crypto will rebound. I would expect it to, particularly as governments move more into digital currencies.

It's amazing how much magical thinking pervades the space. Why would governments moving "more" into digital currencies do anything for crypto? They'd be completely unrelated.

Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018

#32

Post by rcarr »

I've always found this excerpt from a Doomberg article sums the whole thing up nicely:

> We distinctly recall drawing two circles on a piece of paper. In the circle on the left, we wrote "Real Economy"; while in the circle on the right we wrote "Crypto Universe". We drew two pipes between the circles - one flowing into the crypto universe and the other flowing back to the real economy - and labeled both pipes with fiat currencies. While we understood how fiat currencies from investors could flow in, we failed to grasp what could be occurring within the crypto universe that would create more fiat currency for investors to take out at a later date.

Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018

#33

Post by HermanMartinus »

madsbuch wrote: post #9

> There is nothing being produced of value from the assets. A guy like Warren Buffet can clearly appreciate value in the sense of institutions, after all he made his fortune largely in the insurance sector. We are still in the early stages of Crypto, only now we see serious DAO structures start to emerge. There is also a good chance that he will see his entire industry disrupted in some years as more efficient ways t…

Turns out we govern small scale institutions pretty well without blockchain. Eg: companies, collectives, organisations, associations, etc.

Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018

#34

Post by madsbuch »

paulgb wrote: post #15
madsbuch wrote: post #9

> There is nothing being produced of value from the assets. A guy like Warren Buffet can clearly appreciate value in the sense of institutions, after all he made his fortune largely in the insurance sector. We are still in the early stages of Crypto, only now we see serious DAO structures start to emerge. There is also a good chance that he will see his entire industry disrupted in some years as more efficient ways t…

Is an insurance DAO fundamentally any different from mutual insurance? What benefit does the blockchain provide? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_insurance

There are probably no fundamental differences like there are no fundamental difference on transportion from a horse to a car. You just have the benefit when you can drive 130kmh for hours on well maintained road infrastructure instead of riding through a forest.

Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018

#35

Post by madsbuch »

HermanMartinus wrote: post #33
madsbuch wrote: post #9

> There is nothing being produced of value from the assets. A guy like Warren Buffet can clearly appreciate value in the sense of institutions, after all he made his fortune largely in the insurance sector. We are still in the early stages of Crypto, only now we see serious DAO structures start to emerge. There is also a good chance that he will see his entire industry disrupted in some years as more efficient ways t…

Turns out we govern small scale institutions pretty well without blockchain. Eg: companies, collectives, organisations, associations, etc.

Maybe, we will see. This is the beautiful thing about technology – time will tell, not opinions.

Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018

#36

Post by jqpabc123 »

adriand wrote: post #5

Regardless of how you feel about crypto - and I admit to seeing some valuable use-cases, while being highly skeptical of the speculation - you gotta admit that these comments are prescient and also very funny. I sincerely hope I have that presence of mind at that age.

FedNow aims to provide *instant* and secure transfers between existing fiat bank accounts 24/7/365 at a projected cost of 5 cents per transaction.

In trials now, scheduled to launch in mid-2023.

The most valuable use-case for crypto was prodding the Fed to develop and implement this. If all goes as planned, consider crypto's work done.

https://explore.fednow.org

Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018

#37

Post by boh »

DennisP wrote: post #29
agd wrote: post #7

I'm not sure that the statements that a) there are bad actors in the space, and b) there will be a crash, are particularly insightful here. Both of these were predicted/expected by many, including many crypto supporters. The key question is whether crypto will rebound. I would expect it to, particularly as governments move more into digital currencies.

Especially since this wasn't a failure of "crypto" or anything decentralized actually built on it. It was a failure by a Wall Street trader who set up a centralized exchange in the Bahamas, and engaged in the sort of shenanigans that we've seen other Wall Street people do. Apparently everybody's forgotten that legacy finance had Madoff, all sorts of shady nonsense that collapsed in 2008, etc. The point of crypto is t…

The point of crypto is speculation and has been for some time. If you're buying it with fiat and then selling it for fiat you're always going to be subject to unregulated exchanges. No one is using this stuff as currency. There's no "legacy finance" if 100% of your transactions are on it. You're not living in the future, you've been in the present this whole time

Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018

#39

Post by prepend »

tinco wrote: post #25

Everyone with half a brain has predicted the failure of NFT's and the collapse of ridiculous get rich schemes such as FTX. The big problem is when recognising the (small amount) of value that actually is in the cryptocurrency/defi industry, to put your money to work in a smart manner. Sequoia is clearly not able to do so reliably, but in general it's incredibly hard to be long on a market that's so overhyped as crypt…

I think the difference is that there are many tech stocks that aren’t overhyped and are delivering things of value to the market, paying dividends, and rightly appreciating (eg, apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc).

I don’t think there’s any examples of crypto that have had virtuous payouts in the past 10 years. Everything is based on some future payout and luring in greater fools.

So I don’t think the comparison is valid because most of tech stocks (by market cap) are not scams and hype. Although there is a lot of hype and probably a decent amount of scam.

Re: Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on crypto in 2018

#40

Post by tokai »

Frost1x wrote: post #30
tokai wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I admit to seeing some valuable use-cases Could you write them here? Genuinely curious.

The general concept of having a medium and marketplace of exchange that isn't regulated/controlled has some value. It may have more costs than benefits in the grand scheme of things, though. I tend to support regulation in general, but I also see the value of something that has limited opportunity for opportunists to dig their fingers into and extract from without contributing real value themselves. To be very clear,…

But regulation/control has nothing todo with crypto. Its not a technical issue, but social/political. So tax fraud and remittances are left. Both seems like they will make regulation come eventually.
Post reply on HN