[deleted]
Bitcoin is a Startup
51–60 of 86 posts
Re: Bitcoin is a Startup
#52Bitcoins are worthless. They never had any value, and never will. Valueless meaning they are as worthless as Bernie Madoff fund shares, Dutch tulip bulbs, Pets.com stock and Flooz and Beanz, Reichsmarks and confederate dollars and so forth. People might have been temporarily fooled into paying money for these things, but ultimately people realized they were worthless. Like a forged painting or counterfeit dollar. Tod…
Beware scale-free arguments.
> On the other hand, if Bitcoins continue to hold value over the long-term...
Is long-term one month? One year? Ten years? Why?
> There is no way a Bitcoin can be worth $122 over the long term...
What about $12.20? $1.22? Why?
Re: Bitcoin is a Startup
#53Bitcoins are worthless. They never had any value, and never will. Valueless meaning they are as worthless as Bernie Madoff fund shares, Dutch tulip bulbs, Pets.com stock and Flooz and Beanz, Reichsmarks and confederate dollars and so forth. People might have been temporarily fooled into paying money for these things, but ultimately people realized they were worthless. Like a forged painting or counterfeit dollar. Tod…
You're definitely on the right track, but you're omitting the factor which binds the value of money to the value of labor: taxes. Taxes force (upon pain of inprisonment) people living within the territory of an issuing authority to offer their output for sale in that authority's IOU's (fiat). This allows states to provision themselves using their own credit (that credit then becomes the private sector's financial assets).
I'm not as bearish on Bitcoin as a type of payments system, but it can never supplant traditional currencies (at least not without formal state endorsement, and subsequent deflationary problems).
Re: Bitcoin is a Startup
#54Bitcoins are worthless. They never had any value, and never will. Valueless meaning they are as worthless as Bernie Madoff fund shares, Dutch tulip bulbs, Pets.com stock and Flooz and Beanz, Reichsmarks and confederate dollars and so forth. People might have been temporarily fooled into paying money for these things, but ultimately people realized they were worthless. Like a forged painting or counterfeit dollar. Tod…
In your blog post you assert that "Gold and silver were valuable 2000 years ago and are still valuable" but you never explain why. What properties does gold and silver has that makes them valuable?
Gold's use as a currency is apart from its use as a commodity. It makes a good currency for several reasons - it is durable, storable, standardized, portable, easily divisible.
Beyond its use as a currency or as jewelery, I don't have much to say beyond what you could find at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Applications . Dentists used to use it for crowns. It is used in photographic equipment. It is used in satellites. It is used in heat shielding. It is used in electronics.
Before the industrial revolution, gold was not used for industrial uses all that much - instead of good china for the dining room, people who could afford it would have golden goblets to drink from and the like. This, plus the lack of industrial mining methods, is probably one of the reasons why it is estimated that 80% of the gold ever mined has been mined since 1910 ( http://www.goldsheetlinks.com/production2.htm ).
Re: Bitcoin is a Startup
#55Bitcoins are worthless. They never had any value, and never will. Valueless meaning they are as worthless as Bernie Madoff fund shares, Dutch tulip bulbs, Pets.com stock and Flooz and Beanz, Reichsmarks and confederate dollars and so forth. People might have been temporarily fooled into paying money for these things, but ultimately people realized they were worthless. Like a forged painting or counterfeit dollar. Tod…
According to some very sound economic currency theory, you're 100% wrong.
http://bitcoinsurvey.wordpress.com/
tl;dr About half the current value of a bitcoin is speculation. The rest is fundamentally supported by its trade volume.
There is no way a bitcoin can crash unless its use in trade crashes.
The paper money I use every day, which can burn instantly in a flame, has no intrinsic value either.
Re: Bitcoin is a Startup
#56Bitcoins are worthless. They never had any value, and never will. Valueless meaning they are as worthless as Bernie Madoff fund shares, Dutch tulip bulbs, Pets.com stock and Flooz and Beanz, Reichsmarks and confederate dollars and so forth. People might have been temporarily fooled into paying money for these things, but ultimately people realized they were worthless. Like a forged painting or counterfeit dollar. Tod…
I would argue Bitcoin has more intrinsic value than gold - it is easier to move, faster to move, more secure in its transit, harder to counterfit, and impossible to create more (than is already planned.)
It's intrinsic value comes from these very properties - similar to how gold's intrinsic value is that it's shiny, has been around for 2000 years, makes great jewelry, and some other things as well.
In this century though if you're looking for a digital, better kind of gold then Bitcoin is it - hands down.
Re: Bitcoin is a Startup
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is it a ponzi scheme?
Bitcoin ecosystem by design rewards the early adopters, since the more people use Bitcoin, the higher the value will go up. I also got the feeling that if Bitcoin does fail, it will go down in history as another Ponzi scheme. Which made me rethink about Ponzi scheme. Everyone in Bitcoin community genuinely believes that Bitcoin will succeed. I am sure it was like that with Ponzi scheme too. Theoretically Bitcoin can…
So basically, every currency ever invented was a Ponzi scheme?
When the government of a country prints money for itself, is it engaging in Ponzi?
Gold mining (which is quite analogous to Bitcoin mining) is also a ponzi scheme, then?
Re: Bitcoin is a Startup
#58Bitcoins are worthless. They never had any value, and never will. Valueless meaning they are as worthless as Bernie Madoff fund shares, Dutch tulip bulbs, Pets.com stock and Flooz and Beanz, Reichsmarks and confederate dollars and so forth. People might have been temporarily fooled into paying money for these things, but ultimately people realized they were worthless. Like a forged painting or counterfeit dollar. Tod…
> The argument is whether the value of commodities or currencies are subjective, or whether they are ultimately derived from labor. Bitcoin partisans believe the former, I believe the latter.
And what about the labor which went into designing and coding the bitcoin software, the exchanges, and so forth? Do you think all that labor was worthless (we don't even have to include the "mining" capital and labor in this judgement)? Well, then the value of labor is apparently just as subjective as the value of commodities. So I don't follow how a premise involving STV vs LTV can be used to make a logical argument about the value of bitcoin, or any software for that matter.
Re: Bitcoin is a Startup
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
In your blog post you assert that "Gold and silver were valuable 2000 years ago and are still valuable" but you never explain why. What properties does gold and silver has that makes them valuable?
Gold's use as a currency is apart from its use as a commodity. It makes a good currency for several reasons - it is durable, storable, standardized, portable, easily divisible. Beyond its use as a currency or as jewelery, I don't have much to say beyond what you could find at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Applications . Dentists used to use it for crowns. It is used in photographic equipment. It is used in satell…
You forgot that the supply of gold is limited. So if gold is durable, storable, standardized, portable, easily divisible and the supply is limited, then it's exactly like Bitcoin. Only gold is actually less portable, less durable, much less divisible and its supply is less limited than the supply of Bitcoin.
Now tell me, what Bitcoin doesn't have that Gold has (except for the industrial use, which you admitted didn't event exist before the industrial revolution, and, frankly, can only be attributed to a fraction of actual gold's price)?
Re: Bitcoin is a Startup
#60I love Bitcoin and own some myself, but from the title I expected this article to be about how the "founders" of Bitcoin cash out from an early financing round and spend the rest of their days rich, regardless of whether the concept survives.
Given time everyone will come to realize that bitcoin is a very complex and elaborate ponzi scheme. One that will rewrite the books on scams.
[Bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme.](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#Is_Bitcoin_a_Ponzi_scheme.3F)
If Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme, then startup investment (which requires you to be an "accredited investor" aka have a million dollars just lying around... literally, that's what it takes to achieve "accredited investor" status) is also a Ponzi scheme.