71–80 of 133 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we don't ban things because you or I don't see the point We do see the point, though: to scam people out of money.
Then let's ban gift cards first, because those get used for scamming as well and I don't really see the point in them in the first place, other than making money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
* Bitcoin is and has been available in countries where there are currency problems and it has yet to solve any of them. This canard has been trotted out for over a decade, there have been plenty of chances to demonstrate this notion, and none of them have panned out. When do we stop flogging this obviously-false excuse? * Transaction fees and exchange rates into and out of the crypto economy make transferring money i…
* Who ever claimed bitcoin would fix the problems with a currency? The point is that it gives people an alternative to those broken currencies. * Yes, but same goes for many other services. Transferring value is always a costly process unless you're using cash. * Pretty much all of it. Are we even talking about the same thing when we say "Bitcoin"? Because it sure seems like you're thinking of something completely di…
* Claim was made that Bitcoin made this "cheaper and simpler". That isn't true.
* Which part of the public ledger exactly is anonymous? You say "pretty much all of it", I see "public" and say pretty much none of it.
The difference between us is that I haven't hinged my hopes of personal financial success on a Ponzi scheme, so we're probably not going to see eye to eye.
There was a period of time where bitcoin was almost exclusively used for illegal substances / activity - predominately for drugs (the only time I ever used bitcoin was to buy adderall on silkroad), but also for things like hiring hitmen, weapons, and child pornography. To see cryptocurrency grow to what it is today, especially given the context of what it originally was used for is a bit demoralizing.
This "guilt by association" type thinking makes no sense at all. Why would it matter who the earlier adopters of bitcoin were and what they were using it for? This is like saying TOR is bad because most people associate it with those same things (drugs, hitmen, etc.)
Indeed my first assessment way back when it was 1) Read the Whitepaper 2) Read the Bitcoin Standard Book (and subsequently the Fiat Standard book) 3) Listened to The Saylor Series on YouTube, and 4) Did the MIT Blockchain and Money course. I then re-considered criticism from: 1) Various Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger interviews 2) The Blackpaper by Nassim Taleb, and 3) Various interviews with Peter Schiff. My concl…
It would be more helpful if you could say what changed your mind. From your comment I can't say whether you changed your mind because you learned something in your studies, or because BTC went from <1$ to 10k$+.
Indeed my first assessment way back when it was 1) Read the Whitepaper 2) Read the Bitcoin Standard Book (and subsequently the Fiat Standard book) 3) Listened to The Saylor Series on YouTube, and 4) Did the MIT Blockchain and Money course. I then re-considered criticism from: 1) Various Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger interviews 2) The Blackpaper by Nassim Taleb, and 3) Various interviews with Peter Schiff. My concl…
Did you become a believer without evidence (faith) or do you wish to share what changed your mind? Like physicist Richard Feynman said, if you can't explain it simply, then you don't understand it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
* Bitcoin is and has been available in countries where there are currency problems and it has yet to solve any of them. This canard has been trotted out for over a decade, there have been plenty of chances to demonstrate this notion, and none of them have panned out. When do we stop flogging this obviously-false excuse? * Transaction fees and exchange rates into and out of the crypto economy make transferring money i…
The part where you identity is linked to the wallet can be anonymous. The transactions are public, but if your identity is unlinked, that only matters so much.
It boils down to you can't expect a return on bitcoin hence it's shouldn't be worth anything. If that argument was true, then gold is a ponzi that shouldn't be worth anything and the same would apply to art.
A slightly more advanced rebuttal would be to say, yes but gold has some industrial use and you pay for art because you can enjoy consuming it. But the price of gold and rare artistic pieces is many times their "useful value" if defined as such.
All these arguments show a deep misunderstanding of what constitute money, the history of money [1] and the concept of "hard money". Bitcoin is the only way to transfer an arbitrary amount of money in a way that is fast, verifiable, permissionless and to an arbitrary location. This particular use, that no other tool makes possible, means it has some value to some people and consequently should be worth something. The question of what its fair value is harder to answer but just because gold is worth more than its industrial value doesn't make it a ponzi scheme.
[1] https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/eh/papers/0211/02...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you become a believer without evidence (faith) or do you wish to share what changed your mind? Like physicist Richard Feynman said, if you can't explain it simply, then you don't understand it.
He became a believer because he's now part of the funnel, and it's in his interest to continue promoting it to new users. Full stop.
Indeed my first assessment way back when it was 1) Read the Whitepaper 2) Read the Bitcoin Standard Book (and subsequently the Fiat Standard book) 3) Listened to The Saylor Series on YouTube, and 4) Did the MIT Blockchain and Money course. I then re-considered criticism from: 1) Various Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger interviews 2) The Blackpaper by Nassim Taleb, and 3) Various interviews with Peter Schiff. My concl…
It would be more helpful if you could say what changed your mind. From your comment I can't say whether you changed your mind because you learned something in your studies, or because BTC went from <1$ to 10k$+.
But rationally, if someone can wake up one day and decide you can't buy an equity with little consequences, then it is entirely possible for a bank to take away the withdraw button.
Even if we assume competence and good sense of the state and the banks (big if!), they will always act for the good of the majority - which is not always good for you or your family. (take the pros and cons of inflation for example)
Follow the logic of what's possible with the centralization of money, and quickly you would realize that you really own nothing, except what's in a cold-wallet secured by a decentralized, global network and mathematical facts. There is nothing stopping any central bank from inflating ANY national currency to 0, except good sense and competence.
You can and should still believe in their competence and good sense if you are in a democratic country with stable regime, but it would be irrational to not insure against it. Also, it is completely irrational to believe in the good sense and competence of someone like Erdogan or any of the many clown head of states around.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the same. Especially when you see in investing forums that many people are tilting 5% to crypto.
I think crypto "investing" might be here to stay, for quite a while at least. Not that I think it should: it's a non-productive asset valued almost totally based on the greater fool theory, and there seem to be very credible indications that there may be large-scale price manipulation going on. But it appears to have managed to become entrenched in culture to the point that my non-tech-savvy colleagues talk about it…
Feel free to buy dividend stocks then. It's just that the growth types are expected to have a greater "total growth" over time.