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Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

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Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#41

Post by 627467 »

jonathanaird wrote: post #23
hntrader wrote: post #14

Question about energy usage: roughly how much does it increase as a function of transaction volume? If 10x the number of people start getting involved and transaction volume increases 10x as a result, will the network use 10x the energy?

It has no relation to transaction volume. It is related to the price of BTC and the block reward every 10 minutes. The higher the price, the more miners compete to find a block. Transaction volume can never increase because they have capped the block size at 1mb.

> The higher the price, the more miners compete to find a block.

But only if it's profitable to miners coming in. Ultimately mining pressures miners into finding cheap sources of electricity. Yes, many just take advantage of subsidies (governmental or environmental) to lower their costs, but as mining difficulty and competition increases inefficient are kicked out.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#42

Post by api »

raziel2701 wrote: post #19

~2.3% of addresses own ~95% of all bitcoins. [1] How is a cryptocurrency with this type of wealth inequality supposed to help the common person? It's already centralized, thus easy to manipulate. Bitcoin is reproducing the same type of wealth distribution we see in real life. What exactly does btc offer? I don't understand how one can look at this distribution of bitcoins, where essentially the 1% owns most of it and…

A lot of those are exchange wallets, and the wealth distribution of fiat currency in many societies is not much better.

There are tons of valid criticisms of Bitcoin but this one doesn't amount to much.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#43

Post by BiteCode_dev »

adhoc32 wrote: post #5
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

It will be interesting to see Bitcoin sentiment shift as newcomers realize that the bulk of Bitcoin value is held by a small handful of early adopters, and that the bulk of Bitcoin mining capacity is held by a small handful of large mining companies. Cryptocurrency proponents are trying to get ahead of this by reframing Bitcoin as the people's currency, or an opportunity for average people to get rich while sticking…

You assume that early adopters still hold their Bitcoins. You are (mostly) wrong.

I concur, I had 140 btc 10 years ago. Sold it all when it reached $800, which I though was peak.

I doubt the guy who sold the 5000 btc pizzas still have them.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#44

Post by the_giraffe »

Call me old fashioned but I feel like bitcoin is similar to fiat currencies simply because it's not backed by anything. It has invented scarcity. If I just created giraffe coin and there were only 5 coins it doesn't mean it has any value. Would someone please explain why on earth I want to own bitcoin? I really don't understand the bull case for it.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#45

Post by BurningFrog »

raziel2701 wrote: post #28
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think it is "supposed to help the common person"? That seems like a weird assumption to start at.

Because its proponents claim it's gonna make you rich. That you gotta board this rocket before it takes off to the moon. A lot of the propaganda I remember about bitcoin is that it was going to help bank the unbanked. What I see about btc is that people will tell you anything to get you to buy. The goalposts get moved and depending on who you talk to: "it's a store of value, no it's like a stock! No it's a currency!…

Never seek wisdom in comment sections.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#46

Post by 627467 »

adhoc32 wrote: post #33
vmception wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some indexing sites that do that.

How? It's impossible to know if someone has lost his private keys or the address is dormant.

Probabilistically, you probably can estimate that. Is a permanently dormant address just dormant or is it "burnt"?

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#47

Post by xiphias2 »

pjc50 wrote: post #31
xiphias2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distribution of capital allocation doesn’t change by adopting a non-central bank based monetary system. The thing you can choose is who is doing the capital allocation: Satoshi / Winklewoss brothers / Chamath / Elon Musk / Michael Saylor, or Trump / Biden / Putin / Christine Lagarde. If you like Biden and Jerome Powell, keep your money in USD. If you like Putin, buy RUB. If you prefer the libertarian crowd, buy B…

Currency is not a fandom.

For me it is, as I don't live in North Korea

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#48

Post by iso1210 »

loceng wrote: post #18
samatman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your problem with this hypothetical endgame is an appeal to fairness. I understand why you'd want that, fairness is a strong human instinct, but I don't see where it has any bearing on the likelihood of this future occurring. People don't enjoy having a high number in their accounting system, they enjoy being wealthy. If, say, African central banks start purchasing BTC, and India joins them, early adopters will cash…

"Or they could lose it all when BTC crashes to the natural value of any completely hypothetical asset, which is zero." It'll be interesting who's left "holding the bag" once its the end of the MLM-ponzi scheme of who you can convince to buy into it - save regulatory capture somehow forcing the rest of society to buy into it.

> save regulatory capture somehow forcing the rest of society to buy into it.

That's what happens, some little scheme gets too big to fail, so the taxpayer bails it out. Those that are in the schemes win, those that felt the scheme was stupid lose.

I remember seeing adverts on the London underground for icelandic banks offer 5% more than any other savings account. I chuckled and thought "surely nobody's that gullible".

There were many. Both individuals, who got bailed out by me (the taxpayer), and many councils (who lost money which belonged to the taxpayer)

For 20 years I laughed at these various get quick schemes. Then I realised that they don't fail. Profits are privitised, losses are socialised, and they taxpayer always loses.

When you realise that, you have to look at dodgy schemes in a whole separate light. Sure bitcoin is stupid, but as it gets larger and larger the chance of it failing without bailing out large institutions reduces, meaning the chance of me riding on the coattails increases.

Re: Bitcoin hits $1T in market value

#50

Post by vkou »

GoldenMonkey wrote: post #35
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

It will be interesting to see Bitcoin sentiment shift as newcomers realize that the bulk of Bitcoin value is held by a small handful of early adopters, and that the bulk of Bitcoin mining capacity is held by a small handful of large mining companies. Cryptocurrency proponents are trying to get ahead of this by reframing Bitcoin as the people's currency, or an opportunity for average people to get rich while sticking…

Oh, it's a lot more than $1,000 to $1,300 in a week. If you had invested your $1,200 stimulus check in Bitcoin. It would now be worth $7,200. Where else can the average person make 6x's their money. And, it has already made plenty of average people. Millionaires.

> Where else can the average person make 6x's their money

Go to Vegas, bet on red three times.

Or, if you don't want to get on a plane during a pandemic, trade on margin.

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