Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up • Hacker News Board

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#341

Post by nickbauman » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

zackmorris wrote: post #291

wcoenen wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you know what money really is and how it actually works OK, I'll bite. What is money really and how does it actually work?

I would say that money is a measure of inefficiency. Say for example you hire a mechanic to fix your car. You pay the mechanic's shop for parts and labor. The cost of parts represents inefficiencies in how they're manufactured, the markups of middlemen, the high cost of raw materials from nonrecycled sources, etc etc. Labor represents your lack of knowledge about how to fix your own car, plus the time involved to fix…

Interesting thought experiment! One things that's missing from this is — historically — any economic endeavor that has a continual increase of efficiency ends up being highly volatile in the marketplace. So when prices have this continual downward pressure eventually the market collapses altogether.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#342

Post by kadenshep » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 4:04 AM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #327

kadenshep wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing that makes him entitled is learning from history and being able to reason about pretty elementary models in his head. Why do people with your types of opinion always make it wholly personal, just to try to weasel their way around a subject? Like, here's another comment you made: >I like to compare Bitcoin to Land. Just stop. There is so much fundamentally wrong with that analogy at face value it beggar…

> The only thing that makes him entitled is learning from history and being able to reason about pretty elementary models in his head. That is his opinion, and even if it were factually true it doesnt give him the entitlement to prevent other people from doing it. If he believes the SEC provides value he can go to SEC regulated places, and let the ones that don't just be. Today, the SEC regulates the startups right h…

>and even if it were factually true it doesnt give him the entitlement to prevent other people from doing it.

Yes it does. In the same way I'm entitled to prevent people from drunk driving, because we know it's factually a bad idea and likely to end in a pretty nasty mess.

>I've built my case about it

In the same way you can build a ship designed to sink maybe.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#343

Post by hndamien » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 11:12 PM UTC

Slansitartop wrote: post #323

hndamien wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still had a system that decided removing airbags was a good idea. Then, when getting smacked in the face, doing nothing to the people involved in removing the airbags or causing the face smacking.

That doesn't really reflect on the suitability or effectiveness of regulation to address the problem. Greedy, ignorant people who failed to study and learn from the past can be the decision-makers, too.

Then you have a systemic problem allowing greedy ignorant people to be decision makers. Not sure how to fix this, but I believe there is a solution.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#344

Post by tooltalk » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 8:19 PM UTC

stouset wrote: post #270

sixQuarks wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever heard of the phrase "kicking the can down the road"?

You can play this argument ad infinitum without actually adding anything of value to this conversation. Central banking is not perfect, but it has a better track record of stability and growth than any other system that’s been tried at a large scale. Try and remember that the alternatives aren’t optimal economic systems that are immune to bubbles, recessions, depressions, hyperinflation, corruption and manipulation.…

How do you know that it has a better track record of "stability" and "growth" than any other system at a large scale? Much of America's growth in the late 19th happened without any central banks in 1913. Most of "depressions" happened prior to that -- and there were 4 such major ones in the 19th century and many of them were directly caused by the govt policy changes -- were nowhere as severe as the Great Depression occurred after the creation of the central banking in the US.

Re: Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up

#345

Post by ric2b » Tue, Feb 06, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

simias wrote: post #84

The somewhat ironic part is that one of the core concepts of Bitcoin is that you can't counterfeit it. You can mathematically prove how many coins you own, if somebody sends you 3 BTC then once it's been validated on the blockchain you know that the money is now yours, they can't have lied, it can't bounce like a cheque Except this Bitfinex thing shows that while an amount of bitcoin can't be manipulated or counterfe…

What if they were buying gold with their Tethers? Or anything else? There's nothing that makes Bitcoin inherently "vulnerable" to being bought with Tethers beyond being easily trade-able and being available on the same exchanges.