The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers • Hacker News Board

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#401

Post by ric2b » Mon, May 14, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

beojan wrote: post #393

mkirklions wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I do DCA. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dollarcostaveraging.asp

To buy Bitcoin, sure. When it hit $18,000 you would still look back at the $2 (then) worth that you spent at $200 / bitcoin and regret it.

> When it hit $18,000 you would still look back at the $2 (then) worth that you spent at $200 / bitcoin and regret it.

This a completely emotional argument, there's no logic behind it, you could also regret spending $2 at Taco Bell instead of on Bitcoin.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#402

Post by ric2b » Mon, May 14, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

frockington wrote: post #319

mr_spothawk wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

today's market cap for BTC is around 158 Billion$. so we're talking about something around 7% of the world supply, "locked in an underground bunker". What's not clear to me: is this just the keys stored underground and clients have access? or is this "cold storage"? I'd speculate that more than 7% of the world's gold is locked up in bunkers, where it can be accounted for and borrowed against. Nobody is shocked to kno…

Nobody is shocked because at least gold has a historical value and won't dissappear. When the a-bombs start dropping, nobody is going to want a piece of steel with an engraved bitcoin wallet key

> When the a-bombs start dropping, nobody is going to want a piece of steel with an engraved bitcoin wallet key

But they'll want a bunch of a heavy yellow metal? At least the small piece of steel is easier to carry around.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#403

Post by ric2b » Mon, May 14, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #344

blueprint wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right now we're not able to pull energy from Sun fast enough to power them (see all the global energy issues, fossil fuels, etc.) Actually there are thousands of other things that take way more energy and pollute way more than cryptocurrency mining. In fact you can locate your miners anywhere, unlike, say, your shipping vessels. So there's an incentive to place the miners next to, say, hydrothermal plants. Why aren…

> Why aren't you fervently arguing for the other orders-of-magnitude-larger polluters to be replaced? Lord knows we have alternatives to them too. Because here I'm arguing against the trend, not just absolute magnitude. Almost every other human endeavour has incentives to reduce waste and upkeep. Cryptocurrencies require ever increasing energy use for maintaining the system. (Note that I also frequently argue against…

> And the grounds are that the system is designed in a way that you literally make money burning electricity, so as long as electricity is cheaper than payoff somewhere (or you can steal some), there's strong incentive for everyone to try and burn energy.

Which increases energy costs until that profit gets small.

As long as there is a more valuable use for energy than getting a 0.1% profit mining Bitcoin, I don't see why mining would ever consume all energy, that's ridiculous.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#404

Post by ric2b » Mon, May 14, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

sireat wrote: post #388

simias wrote: post #17

>the global currency of the future, that they need to buy some, and that he’s the man to safeguard it. Looks like in the future people hoard currency instead of spending and investing it then. That ought to be interesting. It also demonstrates the costs associated with non-reversible transactions, these vaults aren't storing gold ingots or priceless artifacts, just private keys. Banks around the world don't need to w…

This is a problem/misfeature with cryptocurrencies: You are never truly sure that you own any of it, until you spend/send it elsewhere. No matter what layers of indirection(multi-party-sigs,bio-metric based encryption, etc) you put on it, at the end the private key has to come out in order to use it. With Gold, you see gold in your vault, you know it is yours. You see dollar in your pocket you can be sure you can spe…

There's this thing called a Bitcoin address, which you can just watch on the block-chain and be sure that your money is still there.

It's easier to verify than opening a vault to check on your gold.

Re: The Wealthy Are Hoarding $10B of Bitcoin in Bunkers

#405

Post by ric2b » Mon, May 14, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

TimmyMustGo wrote: post #175

simias wrote: post #17

>the global currency of the future, that they need to buy some, and that he’s the man to safeguard it. Looks like in the future people hoard currency instead of spending and investing it then. That ought to be interesting. It also demonstrates the costs associated with non-reversible transactions, these vaults aren't storing gold ingots or priceless artifacts, just private keys. Banks around the world don't need to w…

So if we let a bank manage bitcoin, perhaps the bank could issue paper receipts that are backed by said bitcoin, and those pieces of paper could circulate instead of using the blockchain. What I don't understand is if fiat currencies are so bad, why do people express the value of bitcoin in a fiat currency (like USD)? They are just like the goldbugs, hoping and praying that the world will collapse back into the dark…

> perhaps the bank could issue paper receipts that are backed by said bitcoin, and those pieces of paper could circulate instead of using the blockchain.

Feel free to use them, I won't. There's no point when Bitcoin is so simple to move.

> What I don't understand is if fiat currencies are so bad, why do people express the value of bitcoin in a fiat currency (like USD)?

Because it's one of the most practical things to measure against, because almost everything is also measured against it?

I don't get this argument, if I say a car is worth $20k that means the car is actually worthless because I'm measuring it's value in USD?

Or someone in the US saying that meters are actually a stupid and useless unit because before everyone gets used to using it you have to constantly convert it to imperial.