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Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC

cointelegraph.com

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Re: Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC

#461

Post by toenail »

democracy wrote: post #457
david_shi wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely true in the West. I said millions because of every day crypto usage in countries like Argentina and Turkey, where inflation makes it challenging to save money, and in countries where there are high remittance rates. More builders are definitely needed to improve the crypto user experience across a range of categories.

...another fairytale about people in poor countries using crypto )))) Nothing beats good old USD or EURO as an asset if you live in a country with hyperinflation.

Did the USD or EURO gain +7000% in the last decade? Didn't think so.

Re: Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC

#462

Post by david_shi »

democracy wrote: post #457
david_shi wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely true in the West. I said millions because of every day crypto usage in countries like Argentina and Turkey, where inflation makes it challenging to save money, and in countries where there are high remittance rates. More builders are definitely needed to improve the crypto user experience across a range of categories.

...another fairytale about people in poor countries using crypto )))) Nothing beats good old USD or EURO as an asset if you live in a country with hyperinflation.

USD and Euro are great assets to hold if you have the ability to access banking services that support them, which isn't universal.

Are you questioning the data?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1202468/global-cryptocur...

Re: Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC

#463

Post by toenail »

shock-value wrote: post #403
david_shi wrote: post #354

Bitcoin exists to solve the principal-agent problem that comes with delegating control of the money supply to singular institutions. If you look at the history of empires, from the Romans to the Han, it is littered with instances of societal decline as a direct result of inflation and overspending. This unilateral currency debasement is much harder if the collective (and global) definition of money is determined by d…

Speaking of Bitcoin specifically, if this is your view then you should take some time to understand the severe societal and economic problems that come with persistent deflation. And more generally, determining the optimal level of the money supply to match the needs of a dynamic economy is not trivial — there is no simple formula involving straightforwardly measurable variables that I am aware of.

> And more generally, determining the optimal level of the money supply to match the needs of a dynamic economy is not trivial

No, we don't need some grand wizards in an ivory tower to finely tune the amount of money in the economy, that idea is absurd. The economy has worked fine for thousands of years before they started doing that. In fact, since they started doing it we've seen ever growing boom and bust cycles.

Re: Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC

#464

Post by democracy »

cs702 wrote: post #273

The Bitcoin network has survived everything that has been thrown at it. Nothing has stopped the damn thing. It's always there. It's one of those things that just keeps on existing, like gold. It doesn't care what you think. It doesn't care whether you like it or not. It doesn't care if you understand it. It's just always been there. Might as well make it easier for people and companies to own it and trade Bitcoin, an…

Last time i checked it's still gonna suffer from 51% attack? Or its ECDSA implementation might have NSA backdoor?

There is no stats how many people were robbed, how many accounts where hijacked, how many keys were guessed (due to crap implementations) etc. I think there was no other technology in the world that lost so much of people's cash with no responsibility of any kind.

Yeah, just like gold - if you lived in 860 AC and thought copper was gold too - then it's a valid comparison!

Re: Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC

#465

Post by cortesoft »

toenail wrote: post #463
shock-value wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of Bitcoin specifically, if this is your view then you should take some time to understand the severe societal and economic problems that come with persistent deflation. And more generally, determining the optimal level of the money supply to match the needs of a dynamic economy is not trivial — there is no simple formula involving straightforwardly measurable variables that I am aware of.

> And more generally, determining the optimal level of the money supply to match the needs of a dynamic economy is not trivial No, we don't need some grand wizards in an ivory tower to finely tune the amount of money in the economy, that idea is absurd. The economy has worked fine for thousands of years before they started doing that. In fact, since they started doing it we've seen ever growing boom and bust cycles.

This is the OPPOSITE of the truth. Boom and bust cycles were much worst in the pre-central bank world.

Re: Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC

#466

Post by adastra22 »

kibwen wrote: post #386
david_shi wrote: post #354

Bitcoin exists to solve the principal-agent problem that comes with delegating control of the money supply to singular institutions. If you look at the history of empires, from the Romans to the Han, it is littered with instances of societal decline as a direct result of inflation and overspending. This unilateral currency debasement is much harder if the collective (and global) definition of money is determined by d…

> If you look at the history of empires, from the Romans to the Han, it is littered with instances of societal decline as a direct result of inflation and overspending. Not only was the decline of the Roman empire too slow and variegated to attribute to a single cause, "inflation and overspending" isn't even on the shortlist. If we're oversimplifying, it was more akin to the opposite of the sentiment that you're shoo…

Also if you want to attribute the decline of Rome to any monetary policy, deflation is much more likely. Periods of deflation in the 4th and 5th centuries led to hoarding and burying of coins rather than productive use of wealth, leading to declines and further deflation. Rome never escaped from this deflationary trap and many of these coin hoards were never dug up.

Ironically bitcoin attempts to replicate this failed monetary policy.

Re: Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC

#467

Post by marenkay »

Yodel0914 wrote: post #454
marenkay wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin just like capitalism is a horrible failure making life worse for humanity and no proof exists it made anything better. Both accelerate the destruction of the planet and humanity. It’s ridiculous to claim any of this is good just because you think you have a chance to get some imaginary part of the big cake.

Capitalism has its problems, for sure, but it is the only system in history that has raised the majority of people out of abject poverty. Even Marx recognized this, which is why capitalism is a necessary step on the path to Marx's communism. And of course Marx was seeing capitalism before it had done the majority of the good it has done over the past ~200 years.

I lived in capitalism for 50 years. I’ve seen hyper capitalism reduce or remove education, devalue income and Labor, force people to work two or three jobs to survive barely. That’s in a western society where capitalism is supposed to work.

If anyone thinks the good it did is anything but an accident I expect some people will be really surprised when it turns out how bad things are.

At this point it’s ignorant to not see how much damage it has done. But okay. Keep riding the dead horse.

Re: Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC

#468

Post by smoldesu »

ESTheComposer wrote: post #446
smoldesu wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are just like that. The same thing happens on the other side of the fence alarmingly often, where someone will claim Bitcoin is the second coming of Christ and sell their home before knowing basic technical details about the network. Or people who fully understand the system, and deliberately lie about a coin's functionality for petty gain. On either side there are people promoting altruistic regulation a…

> Very plainly, you're risking normal money on a venture that doesn't promote anything other than greed and black market transactions. You could quite say the same about any privacy or encryption or really anything that protects you from a centralized entity taking your rights/property. It’s a bit absurd that people are really that blind that they think this is all there is to crypto. Your same logic would apply to d…

I could say the same about privacy or encryption. It's probably why the average person doesn't care about either of those things when pressed.

Ideologically I'm not opposed to Bitcoin or the idea of it existing for the base it serves. It's too volatile to suggest for serious investment though, and it's reached an uncomfortable echelon of "nerd joke gone too far" for my taste. Real people do not need to waste life-hours learning about this when their local government invests in a clear and immediately fungible form of currency for them already. Investors should not be wasting life-hours learning about a perpetually-irrational investment when other industries are both safer investments and arguably more innovative.

> Your same logic would apply to dollars in that case as well.

It would, mostly. Most people who oppose the online adoption of crypto probably object to the same level of microtransaction in any currency.

Re: Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC

#469

Post by TapWaterBandit »

kibwen wrote: post #451
TapWaterBandit wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof of Work is an energy-intensive solution to a very deep and old social problem: how do you verify transactions between parties over a great distance/online without a trusted intermediary? Proof of work is enormously socially valuable and will change the world. Bitcoin may not be the PoW application to do it (although it also might be) but proof of work is here to stay because of the huge advantages it has over t…

> Just going to point out that if that is your concern luckily the world is going over to renewables so that particular objection will be gone soon anyway. This is dangerously missing the peril of the current situation. The problem with our current energy makeup is not "there's not enough renewables". The problem with our current energy makeup is "there are too many carbon emissions". As a first-order effect, it does…

> Please trust me when I say that I do not give a damn about the price of bitcoin. What I care about is stopping runaway energy consumption, and from that perspective proof-of-work is the biggest existential threat to humanity since the atom bomb.

Mate, this is ridiculous.

Global energy usage was 179000 Twh (terawatt hours) in 2022. (https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption)

Bitcoin energy usage was at its highest in 2022 at 200 Twh. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/881472/worldwide-bitcoin...)

So 200/179000 * 100 = 0.11%

Bitcoin energy usage accounted for 0.11% of global energy usage and you think it is the biggest threat to humanity since the A-Bomb? Bitcoin is entirely irrelevant to the grand scheme of things re climate emissions.

So you are wrong on this point:

> bitcoin is a nontrivial component of that and it threatens to grow at an exponential pace

Bitcoin IS a trivial component of overall emissions and even with an insane ramp up would not be close to being the biggest issue re emissions.

Re: Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC

#470

Post by toenail »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #351
Aunche wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view Bitcoin the same way I view Herbalife. I don't have any issue with the product. I'm bothered by the misleading claims made by proponents to benefit themselves.

This is really what it comes down to. I really didn't mind bitcoin before the price exploded, it was a curiosity and interesting experiment. Since then, it has been used to transfer a lot of wealth using outright fraud, cons, and other criminal means. I get paid a lot of money (fiat) to program digital payment systems, and have spent time understanding the underlying technology, as well as a holding a degree in econo…

> For every bitcoin millionaire, there's someone that pumped real dollars into the system

Are you blaming bitcoin for gambling addiction and bad investing now? That's funny. There more of that with the USD, by several orders of magnitude.

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