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Coinbase S-1

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Re: Coinbase S-1

#431

Post by kart23 »

ppierald wrote: post #349

Argentina is a great example. I am an American and have been there many times. They have extreme inflation and regressive policies against USD or foreign currency. Take a look at https://bluedollar.net . Official rates are buy at 89.98 and sell at 94.98 (ARS). Unofficial rates are buy at 138 and sell at 143. That's a massive spread saying that the people on the street are willing to spend 35% more because they know t…

money transfer with BTC is almost comical right now. Fees are incredibly high if you want to get confirmations anytime soon. The average transaction fee is $26 right now. Try buying groceries or clothes with those kinds of fees. Bitcoin has become a good way to store and move money when you have a lot of it, but terrible for an everyday use case. You're better off using something like Nano or a stablecoin.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#432

Post by mattm »

chadash wrote: post #371
silentsea90 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point either in years or market cap or price per coin will you start to question your mental model of Bitcoin?

Not OP, but also a skeptic and here are my thoughts: - Market cap is sort of a misleading stat. Microsoft's market cap is ~1.75 trillion, but it's p/e ratio is 34. So if they stopped reinvesting in their business, I'd be making 3% yearly on that investment with a hedge against inflation since they can just raise prices. A lot more goes into their valuation than that, but my point is that even if you are a huge skepti…

> if BTC got to a point where it didn't change more than 25% value in a year with a normal-ish economy, I'd have to reevaluate

You could probably cherry-pick some dates between Q2 2018 and end of 2019 that would come pretty close to this criteria.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#433

Post by another_sock »

tyre wrote: post #292
hanniabu wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because they view crypto like people viewed the internet/computers back in the day. "It'll never work it's too complicated. No need for it, mail workers just fine. It's just used for illegal activity. Why do I need a productivity boost when I have my assistant to do everything. "

People keep making this parallel to “well they said this about the internet.” People also said that about pets.com, about bloodletting, about horoscopes and communism and hydroxyclorquine and Lizardpeople. It doesn’t replace mail, it isn’t used mainstream for anything but illegal activity and casino speculation, and I’m not sure what productivity boost we are talking about here. At some point you don’t get to make th…

Bloodletting and horoscopes are real.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#434

Post by vinay_ys »

temp8964 wrote: post #303
WD-42 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use a local wallet to store your BTC, let’s say on a HDD, the the magnetic pattern on the disk that makes up the bits that represent your coins would be physically owning then. They can’t be retrieved any other way.

Do I still own the BTC if the whole BTC network shuts down?

If you have a $100 currency note in your hand, you can spend it as long as there exist someone who believes there is a market for $100 bills. Same as with a gold coin.

But if you have a $100 in your bank account, there is an additional constraint – you can spend it only if your bank is alive and functioning correctly and lets you specifically (you are not sanctioned/banned) to spend it.

Same is the case with bitcoin for those who store their private key on exchanges.

First there should exist a market for it (others who also believe bitcoin has value). Then, just like banks, the bitcoin exchanges where you escrowed your key have to let you spend it through them.

If all exchanges you have access to in your country decide to ban you (because your govt told them to) then you cannot spend your bitcoin.

In this way, bitcoin and your bank account balance are similar and they both are different from hard cash in hand or gold coin in hand.

If you hold your private key yourself and run your own bitcoin lightweight node to connect to bitcoin network and submit your transactions, then you don't need exchanges. Even then, others who use exchanges maybe blocked from transacting with you through govt sanctions etc.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#435

Post by azinman2 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #291
lvs wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why that fact alone would affect the value of this company's shares. Just identifying him doesn't mean he'd liquidate.

Risk factors don’t mean “this will definitely happen”. It means this is a known risk for the system underpinning their profits. A more likely scenario is that the keys to those coins are compromised, somehow, given their unbelievably high value.

I’m surprised someone doesn’t spent 10B in computation to brute force those keys.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#436

Post by silentsea90 »

graeme wrote: post #370
silentsea90 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point either in years or market cap or price per coin will you start to question your mental model of Bitcoin?

Not OP, but for me it would be about when crypto actually starts doing something. Smart contracts and NFTs show the hint of a possible future use case. But Bitcoin seems to have no use case, and it takes more and more energy as the price goes up. The higher price absent any use case or advantage seems like it only has speculative value. It could become a religious thing where it has value because people value it: a l…

BTC is digital gold for now. I think an asset class that holds value and can't be printed at whim is a powerful idea. Yes it completely relies on our belief in its valuation and programmed scarcity and decentralization. It is a powerful hedge esp in current times where fiat is printed like there's no tomorrow.

Please share which asset class has value without humans valuing it? If earth was to be wiped out of its human inhabitants, would any asset have any value in human terms? The Indian Rs 500 note lost value instantly as soon as it was banned, just as the German Reichsmark did through inflation. Tribal humans used seashells and beads as currencies. Their belief was no different than your belief in Apple or USD, and my belief in Bitcoin :)

Energy : The power that nation states derive from printing money aka foreign interventionism, military, inefficiency in all processes etc. is likely orders of magnitude higher. BTC energy consumption is concerning but shouldn't be viewed in a void.

Tether afaik is a nothing burger and will not hurt BTC valuation.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#437

Post by azinman2 »

So almost all of the comments here are about bitcoin generally. While that’s not totally surprising, does anyone have any insight on whether or not this S1 reveals interesting data that might inform the public about investing in coin base (eg why they filed an S1)?

Re: Coinbase S-1

#438

Post by UShouldBWorking »

uncletammy wrote: post #430
cactus2093 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t speak for everyone there, “we” don’t all have the same reason. I like Bitcoin as a diversification for being a “better version of gold” - it has the scarcity and you can physically own it but it is much easier to store and send anywhere in the world if needed. These properties also mean that in a pinch, if you live in an unstable society or one facing high inflation it can work as an alternative financial syste…

> These properties also mean that in a pinch, if you live in an unstable society or one facing high inflation it can work as an alternative financial system. At the time of writing this comment, if you want your BTC transaction confirmed in the next hour it would cost you ~ 10USD ( https://bitcoiner.live/ ) . What planet do you live on where you think a non-negligible percentage of people in ANY country, let alone a…

I make payments almost everyday with Peer to Peer Digital Cash. Real users and devs moved to other projects like Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Monero soon after Blockstream hijacked the Bitcoin Core GitHub repo.

Bitcoin Core is broken beyond repair but Bitcoin Cash has taken its place and the project and community are doing great.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#439

Post by dmlittle »

phreack wrote: post #411
ppierald wrote: post #349

Argentina is a great example. I am an American and have been there many times. They have extreme inflation and regressive policies against USD or foreign currency. Take a look at https://bluedollar.net . Official rates are buy at 89.98 and sell at 94.98 (ARS). Unofficial rates are buy at 138 and sell at 143. That's a massive spread saying that the people on the street are willing to spend 35% more because they know t…

There's a bit more nuance to it, in that you're not even allowed to buy at the official rate, and buying something in USD with a credit card gets you slapped with a 65% tax, so it's more like the 140-160 rate actually reflects the current real value of the currency. Having an 'official' rate nowadays is more of a performance to pretend that the already high inflation rate is actually a lot higher, and incredibly it w…

I believe the USD transaction tax is 35% not 65% (not that I think it makes sense in any way).

Re: Coinbase S-1

#440

Post by boh »

throwaway_kufu wrote: post #360
lottin wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is commodity. The financial system is an industry that provides goods and services. Gold is not an alternative to the financial system. How could it be? It's a completely different thing.

>Gold is not an alternative to the financial system. The modern financial system itself is in fact an alternative to gold

We're going to need some more detail on that argument.
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