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Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

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Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#331

Post by Retric »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #319
gruez wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Stocks have dividends when was the last time TSLA paid out a dividend?

Not only that but companies keep buying back their own stock to make the price go higher. If this isn’t Ponzi I don’t know what is. The companies realized they don’t even have to wait for an investor to pump the price they can just do it themselves. Spend the money that should have been spent on keeping planes from falling out of the sky on the stock. Genius! Goodhardt’s Law in full effect. >Boeing, which has been st…

I think you’re misunderstanding what a buyback does, it returns value to shareholders.

If you own X% of a company and it buys back 20% of it’s shares, congratulations you now own 1.25X% of the company. If you don’t want 1.25% of the company sell 1/5th and it’s equivalent to a dividend. Alternatively, if it does this for long enough without you selling then you end up owning 100% of the company and the next buyback is again equivalent to a dividend.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#332

Post by wkazatu »

tim333 wrote: post #179
throwaway4good wrote: post #84

The 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…

Sure we could "get by" without gold jewelry, but it is a _real_ tangible thing.

The problem with Bitcoin is that it is "international" in nature.

Yet, China holds the largest share of Bitcoins and thus ownership is unbalanced.

https://www.investopedia.com/news/bitcoin-wont-win-worldwide...

https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2021/03/bitcoins-gr...

I think there is more value in Blockchain at the municipal or federal level of a country to improve transparency and such. Or somehow even the issuance of currency. Given geopolitical unrest and contention, or differing political views (USA vs. China), I can't see how this decentralized coin will continue over a 20 year period.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#333

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

Retric wrote: post #331
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that but companies keep buying back their own stock to make the price go higher. If this isn’t Ponzi I don’t know what is. The companies realized they don’t even have to wait for an investor to pump the price they can just do it themselves. Spend the money that should have been spent on keeping planes from falling out of the sky on the stock. Genius! Goodhardt’s Law in full effect. >Boeing, which has been st…

I think you’re misunderstanding what a buyback does, it returns value to shareholders. If you own X% of a company and it buys back 20% of it’s shares, congratulations you now own 1.25X% of the company. If you don’t want 1.25% of the company sell 1/5th and it’s equivalent to a dividend. Alternatively, if it does this for long enough without you selling then you end up owning 100% of the company and the next buyback is…

Think about what you wrote more and then come back later.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#334

Post by nly »

tim333 wrote: post #301
pyrale wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is stable in isolation. If you bury gold in your backyard, and dig it up 20 years later, you will still have the exact same amount of gold. The exchange rate between gold and other things won't change that. On the other hand, for btc to keep value, you need people to mine it from to the moment you buy it to the moment you sell it. This has a cost, which is currently paid by newcomers. But if btc becomes stable (…

That's not really true. You could bury a bottle in the backyard with the address and private key written on paper and still have the bitcoins in 20 years. If no one is running the blockchain software you could get the most recent copy of the chain / software and start it up. With both gold or bitcoin if there are no buyers then you won't be able to sell it for much. It might actually be entertaining to bury a bottle…

There have been buyers of gold for thousands of years though

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#336

Post by keithtom »

GuB-42 wrote: post #283
pyrale wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is stable in isolation. If you bury gold in your backyard, and dig it up 20 years later, you will still have the exact same amount of gold. The exchange rate between gold and other things won't change that. On the other hand, for btc to keep value, you need people to mine it from to the moment you buy it to the moment you sell it. This has a cost, which is currently paid by newcomers. But if btc becomes stable (…

Bitcoin will stay forever as long as someone has a copy of the blockchain (around 300GB now). The cost of which is negligible today. Mining is only necessary for making transactions, and it doesn't have to be expensive. It only is because of the competition. That expensive competition is important for stability but in theory, the entire system could run on a smartphone. And it could run without newcomers. If everyone…

What about chain re-org attacks? Without miners the next blocks would be easy to attack and then you lose immutability along with creditability.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#337

Post by bob33212 »

_dps wrote: post #314
bob33212 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. The problem is that some people think it is a currency instead of an investment. Other people think it is an investment instead of a currency. It can't be both. Currencies have to be less valuable over time, otherwise no one would ever spend the currency. Investments have cost more overtime otherwise no would would invest. But both groups are buying and driving up the price. Also, there is a 3rd group tha…

> Currencies have to be less valuable over time, otherwise no one would ever spend the currency. I don't have an opinion on BTC (or gold for that matter) but this widely-distributed meme is simply untrue. 1) If I have a bar of gold, and it will buy me 1% more bread loaves in a year's time, but I can invest it in something that will trade for 2% more bread loaves next year, then I will spend it because despite appreci…

Sure, people do have to buy food to live, but that isn't the point. Just replace "less valuable over time" with "not much more valuable over time" in my comment. The point isn't that gold went up or down by 1% between 1750-1850. The point is that people are buying bitcoin for opposite reasons. Is it a currency? If so like you said it shouldn't be going up quickly. Is it an investment? If so, where is the cashflow?

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#338

Post by sub7 »

tom_mellior wrote: post #168
sub7 wrote: post #141

Just wait until people realize the stable coins are not stable either. There's 1000 or so entities that control 50% of circulating btc. These insiders run the game, they have more information than you and they control the very few exits out there so you cannot really win without being extremely lucky. Everyone thinks they are smart enough to get out before the next idiot, there's no universe where this ends well for…

Many many people have already gotten out, with things ending brilliantly for them. Out of being smarter? No, through pure dumb luck. But this notion that "the average person who holds forever can't win, ergo nobody can win" doesn't make your analysis look particularly insightful.

This isn't analysis, it's opinion. But thanks for adding to it in a meaningful way.

The people who get out in time will be a tiny fraction of those that get fucked. And to date, exponentially more people have gotten fucked than have had brilliant endings.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#339

Post by faffe »

chii wrote: post #159
petre wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck transporting and securing larger quantities of gold and also exchanging it for money. One basically has to declare any quantity in excess of six ounces / 170 grams of gold because it exceeds 10k US dollars / euros.

what's wrong with declaring? It's not like it'd be taken from you...unless you illegitimately obtained it.

It can via tax...

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#340

Post by nly »

Retric wrote: post #281
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What investment is not a Ponzi scheme? Real estate and stocks rely on a greater fool that was later to the party to come buy them at a later date. Stocks have appreciated in value so far past what they are worth for a dividend that we have had to give up that charade long ago. From the wiki for Ponzi scheme- > The scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity (e.g. product…

Stocks have dividends, loans have interest, land has either rents or utility from using it. It’s that income stream beyond the initial capital that turns something into an investment. Bitcoin lacks that, it only has money from new investors and it loses money from mining. Which means without new investment it’s value must crash which creates incentives for people that own Bitcoin to convince others to buy Bitcoin. Th…

Something is valuable if you'd be more than happy to own it even if you, or your heirs, could never sell or exchange it.

Currencies aren't inherently valuable, but a measure of value and a medium of exchange. If you couldn't buy things, or settle your debts (taxes), with US dollars tomorrow they'd be worthless.

Something that is valuable, and is either subjectively or objectively going to become more valuable, is an investment.

You can make a case for almost anything being an investment, since value can be subjective and speculation is rife

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