The rising of Bitcoin can be a threat to working democracies - at least if it is used as a currency. Monetary politics are important for our society to function properly. On the other hand: For broken countries, it can help the people as a temporary replacement.
Our Thoughts on Bitcoin
61–70 of 123 posts
Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do this for the selection bias effect: they want to weed out anyone whose emotional reaction to the content will prevent them from engaging with the data and the reasoning in it. The company culture is based around radical transparency (within the firm, at least): say anything you want, criticize anyone, don't get mad about the criticism but instead engage with the information content contained in it. It's basic…
> * They do this for the selection bias effect: they want to weed out anyone whose emotional reaction to the content will prevent them from engaging with the data and the reasoning in it.* To me that sounds like the perfect way to create an echo chamber.
The exact opposite. Echo chambers shutdown heterodox thinking, Bridgewater apparently embraces it.
They’re filtering out people who are most susceptible to getting stuck in groupthink.
Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin
#63The section about the fallacy of limited cryptocurrency supply is one of the key insights missing from many Bitcoin discussions: > For those reasons the “limited supply” argument isn’t as true as it might appear—e.g., if Blackberries were in limited supply they still wouldn’t be worth much because they were replaced by competitors that were more advanced. I agree that Bitcoin is interesting as an alternative asset, b…
The analogy doesn't really work because cryptocurrencies aren't interchangeable the way phones are. A better analogy would be if each phone could only talk to people using the same phone brand. If everyone is on iphone and you need an iphone to talk to anyone you care about, the iphone becomes more valuable because of its scarcity. The network effects of bitcoin and the lack of interchangeability between different cr…
But people almost invariably don't need BTC to transact with people they care about (the number of people with BTC denominated payment obligations is relatively small, and most stuff that can be bought with BTC can be bought with other methods). And as flawed as many exchanges may be, they make cryptocurrencies very interchangeable, especially compared with phones.
Blackberry actually did have a proprietary messaging system, it just wasn't anywhere near enough lockin because most people used Blackberry for other reasons, the non-proprietary messaging layers were actually better and Blackberry's popularity turned out to be nearly all down to being first in class.
Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can see Bitcoin hardfork to POS once the tech has been proven in Ethereum. Bitcoiners only care about the 21 millions hard cap and a secure network, not the exact consensus algorithm used.
PoS isn't as secure as PoW, though. I'd imagine the majority of BTC nodes would reject updating to a fork that removed PoW.
I agree. The miners have no incentive to switch to PoS and share the rewards with all participating holders.
Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin
#65The rising of Bitcoin can be a threat to working democracies - at least if it is used as a currency. Monetary politics are important for our society to function properly. On the other hand: For broken countries, it can help the people as a temporary replacement.
How do people in those broken countries get Bitcoin? To buy Bitcoin in a first world country I need a valid ID, an online exchange that operates in my country, access to the internet and a bank account. And it can take days if you've never done it before. Is that realistic for someone living in a third world country? What does bitcoin give you that you don't already have if you have access to all the items listed above?
Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin
#66I'm surprised that the energy usage axis does not come up in this summary of his thoughts. Isn't that likely to be a factor in bitcoin's growth and long-term survival?
No, the energy usage is proportional to its economic value. If energy prices go up or down while nothing else changes, bitcoin's energy usage will go inversely. If bitcoin's value goes up or down while nothing else changes, energy usage will go the same.
you missed the elephant in the room:
bitcoin can almost double (2x) in value every 4 years without an increase of energy usage by miners (if you put a wide enough filter)
- I guess most understand that the reason is the supply halving finding place every 210.000 blocks (roughly 4 years), and nothing to do with technology/moore's law or anything else
- this will probably be true (more or less... lets say 1.8x -2x) for another 2 halvings
- then the rate [1] will decrease from about 2x to 1x while fees rapidly start to be the predominant source of revenue to miners, and less and less the newly minted coins)
[1]: rate of possible increase in value for the same amount of energy consumed
Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin
#67The rising of Bitcoin can be a threat to working democracies - at least if it is used as a currency. Monetary politics are important for our society to function properly. On the other hand: For broken countries, it can help the people as a temporary replacement.
How do people in those broken countries get Bitcoin? To buy Bitcoin in a first world country I need a valid ID, an online exchange that operates in my country, access to the internet and a bank account. And it can take days if you've never done it before. Is that realistic for someone living in a third world country? What does bitcoin give you that you don't already have if you have access to all the items listed abo…
You just need a phone, you can buy it p2p (ex: localbitcoins), or get paid for a product/service in crypto as well.
Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin
#68Ray Dalio on Bitcoin in December 2019 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeWcprAJjqs He says that it isn't an effective medium of exchange or a good storehold of value. I wonder what has changed between then and now.
The richest man on earth bought $1.5B worth to hold as a corporate treasury.
Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin
#69The rising of Bitcoin can be a threat to working democracies - at least if it is used as a currency. Monetary politics are important for our society to function properly. On the other hand: For broken countries, it can help the people as a temporary replacement.
How do people in those broken countries get Bitcoin? To buy Bitcoin in a first world country I need a valid ID, an online exchange that operates in my country, access to the internet and a bank account. And it can take days if you've never done it before. Is that realistic for someone living in a third world country? What does bitcoin give you that you don't already have if you have access to all the items listed abo…
People in "broken" countries are comfortable operating outside the system (or they're already dead) so they can buy crypto person-to-person.
Re: Our Thoughts on Bitcoin
#70Ray Dalio on Bitcoin in December 2019 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeWcprAJjqs He says that it isn't an effective medium of exchange or a good storehold of value. I wonder what has changed between then and now.
The richest man on earth bought $1.5B worth to hold as a corporate treasury.
That can't be it - the article from Bridgewater was written before Tesla bought a bunch of Bitcoin.