Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

digesttime.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 449 posts

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#61

Post by timoth3y »

I know it's a losing battle, but I can't help but tilt at this particular pedantic windmill.

Not all financial scams are Ponzi schemes. Most are not. Ponzi schemes involve shady bookkeeping by the operator that conceals the source of fake profits.

If Bitcoin were an actual scam (and I don't think it is) it would be a pump-and-dump. Most ICOs were clearly pump-and-dumps.

There is a huge variety of financial scams, and it would be a fiscally safer world if more people knew about them.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#62

Post by sebmellen »

entropic88 wrote: post #59
Crye wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if we're there yet or not, but I remember last peak I started to here about crypto in my non crypto media feeds, aka comedy podcasts. I just saw my disc golf feeds talk about crypto. I think that's a strong signal.

Last peak was pretty much 100% retail investors like your disc golf gang. The amount of institutional investment this round offer legitimacy and absolute scale of potential that can't be overlooked by anyone that's been paying attention. Honestly, for the amount of forward thinking technologists that call this nook of the internet home, there is a ridiculous blind spot for cryptocurrency. It's actually ridiculous to…

I have been around in the crypto space for a significant amount of time (think $700 BTC) and have started two startups which use blockchain tech to a significant degree.

But I am very disappointed in BTC and ETH. BTC did not become “A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” and we haven’t seen the explosion of uses-cases I hoped to see from ETH (like tokenization and trading of real-world assets). There’s a ton of froth and solutionism in this space, which is OK, but it also understandably puts off a lot of people who see it as a scam-ridden wasteland.

That’s to say nothing of the Tether black swan to come.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#63

Post by sebmellen »

senojretep356 wrote: post #53
sebmellen wrote: post #14

What's more concerning to me is the cryptocurrency market as a whole. Perhaps there is an argument to Bitcoin being a kind of "digital gold" even if it is all but useless as a currency. But events like Dogecoin hitting a $50B market cap are very unsettling to me. I used to take part in "Dogecoin Socks for the Homeless" events. It was wonderful, everyone was trying to make something good out of what we all knew to be…

Money only works because we all agree to believe in it. The book Money by Jacob Goldstein is the best thing I have read on this. It covers the useful fiction that is money and how it has has shaped societies. From the inception of coins in ancient Greece, the first stock market to current day cryptocurrencies. When people first came up with coins and paper money, don't you think people questioned their value? "At the…

No disagreement.

Here’s my beef, though: Dogecoin, BTC, etc. have failed to replace cash money or be used for any sort of significant, regular, money-like use-case.

Monero is maybe the most legitimate cryptocurrency at the moment, as it allows for (and is really used for) darknet purchases. That’s a real use-case.

This is the point Taleb is making too.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#64

Post by sebmellen »

Kranar wrote: post #42
GhostVII wrote: post #35

What I want is an inflationary cryptocurrency, not a deflationary one. Make an actual currency, not something to speculate on.

If you want something inflationary, why not a basket of currencies via the traditional finance system? One reason I like Bitcoin is because it's a deflationary asset which makes it unique among most other assets. This site is overwhelmingly negative towards Bitcoin, but I feel like the negativity would only make sense if you had to make a binary decision to put most of your wealth in Bitcoin or none of it. Having jus…

IMO what’s neat about cryptocurrencies is that they are programmable money. This means you could build inflationary cash which inflates at a fixed, fair rate, in an open and transparent manner (Dogecoin did this, for example). Bitcoin has obviously failed at being what the whitepaper said it would be: “A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” A fair and open inflationary currency might stand a better chance.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#65

Post by sebmellen »

tartoran wrote: post #31
thefoodboylover wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when is the mining phase over?

As I understand will get more difficult to mine as it aproaches its 21 million cap. https://www.investopedia.com/tech/what-happens-bitcoin-after...

Not more difficult per se, just that the rewards will be less.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#66

Post by diego_moita »

> Nassim Taleb called him an “imbecile”.

This is why I disgust this Taleb guy: he usually has good insights but defends them with the worst arguments. Or no arguments at all.

I felt his "Black Swan" book is a very good idea stretched into hundreds of pages of arrogance and condescendence.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#67

Post by christiansakai »

ideamotor wrote: post #49
christiansakai wrote: post #8

Dogecoin has an actual use case though, it is called wealth transfer, and it is doing a damn good job at it. Just make sure you aren't at the bottom of the barrel but someone else is. Life is hard, we need to eat other people to survive. Deal with it. Long live Dogecoin!

So all ponzi schemes are OK because uh -> "wealth transfer?"

Of course! How else we gonna get rich?

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#68

Post by ChainOfFools »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #22

That "article" doesn't add anything beyond the fact that "this guy wrote a tweet and here's what it said". Why is such low quality filler getting traction on HN? Is it because anti-crypto posts push people's buttons? Every day there is something like this posted, and like clockwork the comments are full of the same arguments both on the pro and anti crypto sides. Am I an idiot for expecting better from HN?

there is a wonderful irony to Taleb saying this because his ideas, especially the concept of having 'skin in the game,' have been extremely popular among the most ideologically orthodox of the Bitcoin crowd.

This remark smarts only slightly less than if someone like Satoshi or Nick Szabo came out and called Bitcoin a failure, or at least admitted it was fated to become a naturally occurring Ponzi all along.

unfortunately I suspect that Taleb is merely setting up a pivot into some other crypto ponzi wherein he is better positioned to realize gains (and the guru praise he craves) from diverting his followers away from Bitcoin. I wouldn't be surprised if that "not Bitcoin" turns out to be Ethereum.

Re: Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

#70

Post by DrOctagon »

diego_moita wrote: post #66

> Nassim Taleb called him an “imbecile”. This is why I disgust this Taleb guy: he usually has good insights but defends them with the worst arguments. Or no arguments at all. I felt his "Black Swan" book is a very good idea stretched into hundreds of pages of arrogance and condescendence.

100% agree on Black Swan. Taleb sure loves Taleb.
Post reply on HN