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Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

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Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#61

Post by pmlnr »

stale2002 wrote: post #12
pmlnr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those of us who are fed up with these problems have moved on to other coins, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash. What do you use those for? In the article above the author mentions you were able to pay for dinner, for various bits and pieces in BTC - even for pizzas, as we all know. You can't do that with ETH, BCH, or any altcoin, and you can't use BTC for it any more either. So why move on to other coins?

Merchant adoption for bitcoin cash is increasing very quickly. You can indeed pay for things with bitcoin cash, and as soon at bitpay adds it to their platform (Which they are working on and will do so very soon), the merchant adoption rate will actually be higher than the bitcoin adoption rate. And all of this was done in only a couple months.

Examples, citation, please. I do not see 'merchants' accepting BCH when I try to buy food.

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#63

Post by simonsarris »

passwordreset wrote: post #41
0wing wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's no inherent value and it's just traders making up theories, I would conclude there's this set of game theory: 1. Buy bitcoins or release media PR to pump price 2. Buy future shorts 3. Sell a large enough order to trigger margin calls and stop losses 4. Profit twice from your BTC sale, and short sale 5. If you believe the price will return, buy back in cheaper than you sold due to other panic sellers

Could you please give me your reason for believing that there is no inherent value in Bitcoin?

Copied from an argument in another thread on the same thing:

Any currency that a:

1. strong entity circulates and

2. wants back

is fundamentally valuable.

> American dollars have value because the US Government taxes things, like land, and if you do not pay those taxes they will send you mean letters (trust me) before resorting to other means (trust Al Capone). You pay these taxes in US dollars. You just having dollars does not make them valuable. And dollars are not valuable because they are backed by gold or silver or sea shells. What makes dollars valuable is that the government wants them back.

https://hackernoon.com/the-guns-of-bitcoin-1f779309a718

Ways to destroy the US dollar value: Destroy the US tax collecting power, or have the US ask for taxes in a different currency. If the US started collecting taxes in Euros, the value of the US dollar would disappear instantly.

The US is a strong entity and has no incentive to ruin the value of the dollar. It will not start collecting taxes in Euros. Or Bitcoin. Why would it give all that power away? More likely is that Bitcoin gets made illegal or very difficult to use. At the end of the day, if you have US-protected assets, you will have to pay US dollars to the US gov and this will continue to give USD value.

Bitcoin has no such strong-entity backing, so it has no fundamental value. Bitcoin people are obsessed with the idea that mere possession is important. It's not. Ask people with loads of marks or Zimbabwe dollars.

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#64

Post by cat199 »

michaelchisari wrote: post #28
bbrx wrote: post #17

Pardon my very limited knowledge about those things, but one thing I wonder and find fascinating about bitcoin is this : I understand that a very limited number of people, probably the initial developers, hold a very hight percentage of available bitcoin. (disregard the rest in case i'm even completely mistaken in that assumption...) Those people have an asset with an incredibly high face value. Of course, the market…

On the flip side of that, how do you build an economy around a currency that front loads such massive wealth inequality out of the gate?

we have an answer for that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#65

Post by ardit33 »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #55
ardit33 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is using bitcoin for any daily transactions.... at this point is just bits... so, it fails as a cash. The the second argument is made, it is a "storage" medium, like gold/silver, etc... At least you could argue that gold/platinium/silver have some intrinsic industrial value, but bitcoin?

the value of gold is in no strong way tied to its industrial uses, the concept of "intrinsic value" being what drives market value is silly. If gold had zero industrial usage it would still be almost as valuable as it is now. After all how much of money's value is due to the fact that it has a decent BTU value per weight in a furnace? Most money is as purely a "digital fiction" as bitcoin is these days.

That's incorrect. Gold became valuable in historic times because of its awesome properties as a metal: Doesn't rust, easy malleable, beautiful without much processing(i.e. compared to rough steel), high conductivity of electricity and heat... etc..

At some point, on some societies, things like rare sea shells, or big stones, were used as currency, but they didn't survive times for a good reason: No real use in real life.

Same with bitcoin, unless it starts having real use in real life, it wont survive. People buy it because they expect it will go up. It is like the Kim Kardashian of currencies, popular just because it is popular. But once that expectation is broken (i.e. of bitcoin always rising in value), than the downspiral starts.

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#66

Post by nadam »

brucephillips wrote: post #60
nadam wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I speculate that at first people want to use it as a store of value, but after a critical amount of holders, and having a lighting network, users and merchants could also adopt it as a currency. A conservative scenario is that cryptocurrencies will not really become adopted other than store of value: I think even in this case BTC value can go up tremendously. It has benefits over gold: like easy and fast transport ac…

> I speculate that at first people want to use it as a store of value, but after a critical amount of holders, and having a lighting network, users and merchants could also adopt it as a currency. Why would they? Why should I buy things with BTC instead of USD? The fact that I've yet to hear a convincing answer to this most fundamental question is the strongest indicator that BTC is a bubble. I do agree that BTC coul…

If you already adopt it as a store of value it can be convenient to use it also for payment if:

- it is convenient

- has low transaction fees

- fast

But I agree, store of value is the most realistic mainstream usecase of cryptos.

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#67

Post by cat199 »

moneytide1 wrote: post #32

Bitcoin will be more relevant soon because there is exponentially more gold/silver/platinum/uranium in the solar system than on Sol-3. It would be silly to ship in paper every 2 years so people could trade "cash" while working at the methane harvesters and excavators. Just keep that price constant and we can finally move forward.

Totally. My perceptics rundown indicates that the real thetans are moving things forward to clear the planet with heavy upstat bitcoin momentum. Mining coin helps me to audit my preclears and be a more on-source being.

Either that or I've been reading too much sci fi. Not sure which. Xenu knows!! :D :D

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#68

Post by cat199 »

namelost wrote: post #26
pmlnr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those of us who are fed up with these problems have moved on to other coins, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash. What do you use those for? In the article above the author mentions you were able to pay for dinner, for various bits and pieces in BTC - even for pizzas, as we all know. You can't do that with ETH, BCH, or any altcoin, and you can't use BTC for it any more either. So why move on to other coins?

Stripe maintains a big list of prohibited businesses. Some of these are honest consumer protection. Others are there to try to instil Christian values into our money, for instance you may not use Stripe to sell sex toys. If you ask Stripe, they'll tell you that these restrictions are there because of the requirements of Stripe's partners. And that is exactly the problem. If we are heading towards a cashless society (…

> that does not consult the Bible before deciding whether to allow your payment or not.

or the HRC either, for that matter.

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#69

Post by brucephillips »

nadam wrote: post #66
brucephillips wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I speculate that at first people want to use it as a store of value, but after a critical amount of holders, and having a lighting network, users and merchants could also adopt it as a currency. Why would they? Why should I buy things with BTC instead of USD? The fact that I've yet to hear a convincing answer to this most fundamental question is the strongest indicator that BTC is a bubble. I do agree that BTC coul…

If you already adopt it as a store of value it can be convenient to use it also for payment if: - it is convenient - has low transaction fees - fast But I agree, store of value is the most realistic mainstream usecase of cryptos.

USD beats BTC in all of those features.

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#70

Post by webninja »

simonsarris wrote: post #63
passwordreset wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please give me your reason for believing that there is no inherent value in Bitcoin?

Copied from an argument in another thread on the same thing: Any currency that a: 1. strong entity circulates and 2. wants back is fundamentally valuable. > American dollars have value because the US Government taxes things, like land, and if you do not pay those taxes they will send you mean letters (trust me) before resorting to other means (trust Al Capone). You pay these taxes in US dollars. You just having dolla…

Technically you don't even "possess" Bitcoin. The network possesses them for you. You just have a private key that authorizes you to send the Bitcoins that are held on the network for you.
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