"All that glitters is not gold" ~~ William Shakespeare ~~
Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme
321–330 of 449 posts
Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme
#322Wait, isn't this the guy with the whole shpeel about having skin in the game? And, didn't he also sell most of his BTC in February? If so, then I guess he would want us to just ignore him.
Clearly you don't understand what SITG is. He's not _deciding_ for you. He's merely expressing his opinion on something. For this to be a SITG question, he'll have to take a decision on your behalf but one that he's insulated from.
He is no longer exposed to BTC, and thus no longer assumes any risk from the advice he gives on it.
Like, if he wanted me to pay attention, he'd be shorting BTC right now.
Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme
#323Wait, isn't this the guy with the whole shpeel about having skin in the game? And, didn't he also sell most of his BTC in February? If so, then I guess he would want us to just ignore him.
"And, didn't he also sell most of his BTC in February?" - that sounds like he put skin in the game by selling off most of his BTC when he concluded that it hadn't become a functional cryptocurrency? Though I would note that these tweets make no statement about whether speculating on crypto is a good idea - they merely state that it failed as a currency.
If he really believes BTC has failed, he'd be shorting it.
Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course! How else we gonna get rich?
Well you could build a business. That's a postive-sum investment. I hear there's even a seed stage startup accelerator that can help fund you. Something about combinators, I don't know.
Stop saying this utter nonsense. It’s far easier to flood everyone’s devices with MLM material, cough sorry, Crypto bullshit, sorry information.
As an aside I think part of the problem is FAAMG platform monopolies sucking the life out of real company innovation. I’ve had so many ideas where the ultimately decision was to not do it because it makes more sense for them to do it.
Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme
#325The full tweet is actually easier to read: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1382446478539550727 WHAT WE WANT CRYPTO & CURRENCY FOR: 1) Currency w/o a government 2) Stable/reliable for contracts 3) Inflation indexed store of value -- basket of items representative for me. 4) Rapid transactions Can we do it? #BTC failed to be currency, open-Ponzi speculative game. A currency must earn interest: currencies weren't bor…
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…
An investment asset must have a cash flow and/or intrinsic value. Otherwise you do not have a way to recuperate your money, so it is not an investment. They also provide basis for value of the asset. Bitcoin has neither. That is why Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme regardless of all the rosy pictures the believers try to paint. This is very important: Bitcoin has neither cash flow nor intrinsic value. The only way to recuperate money from Bitcoin is for another person to pay for it - the very definition of a Ponzi scheme. Gold does not have a cash flow, but it has an intrinsic value.
Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is more a mania with dogecoin. Of course set off by robinhood traders and elon musk tweets.
blame musk all you want, he knows doge is a joke and treated it as such. same for doge creator. there's simply so much money looking to be put to work that people throw it around to see what sticks. i don't believe that anyone trading doge isn't aware this is a ponzi. the only question may be if it's by design or by accident. or maybe memes have value after all...
Memes are influencing presidential elections.
Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme
#327There seems to be a detachment on the tech and the price of the tech. It’s prob not a ponzi but when that promise starts to take too long, people are still waiting, these prices won’t last long. The current price appreciation, the “cycle” as they call t, is based on a world wide FOMO.
Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme
#328An honest question, understanding crypto and its true viability as a non-fiat currency or an anti-inflationary digital gold is simply above my pay-grade. I'm wondering if there are any smart plays out there to take advantage of the volatility and/or the inefficiencies in the blockchain that has zero directional delta exposure to the underlying crypto-market. I'm talking about the exploiting the inefficiency of some c…
https://www.hegic.co/ is an on-chain options protocol if that's the kind of thing you're looking for.
Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to go into too much detail. But in a debt based system you have bonds and currency. A bond has the risk of not being repaid, speculators speculate in the likelihood of that and their individual decisions give a market price for that bond. Likewise bond may have repayment price-indexed and speculators then speculate indirectly in the currency's price stability. Point is that even with stable prices, there is plent…
But Bitcoin specifically excludes credit. I put $100 in the bank. The bank lends $50 to an entrepreneur. Now there is $150. That’s the magic of credit. And it’s impossible with Bitcoin.
Why is it impossible with Bitcoin? This is already taking place. How do you think the interest bearing crypto accounts work? Rehypothecation, lending the same coin possibly multiple times.
https://blockfi.com/an-introduction-to-rehypothecation-with-...
Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme
#330Bitcoin is new technology. Internet took 42 years from 1967 to 2009 to get from zero to Bitcoin. How long for Bitcoin to get zero to Arguably, the technology is much more complex and slow moving because it has to store value instead of just random bits.
> Arguably, the technology is much more complex and slow moving because it has to store value instead of just random bits. What does this even mean? Writing ones is faster than writing random integers?
Think they mean you can't easily swap out the code and iterate, as the current chain is the "value" so any update has to be widely accepted and heavily tested to not taint that value.