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Bitcoin Now Worth More Than Twitter
- fnovd 10y agoBitcoin is a currency. Twitter is a company. The comparison doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
- trendia 10y agoThe US dollar is now worth more than Microsoft.
- jamez1 10y agoUS government debt is now worth more than the US dollar its worth is measured in
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoOf course it is. If it was worth less than the US dollar, Obama would've paid it out of pocket change by now.
- adventured 10y agoDramatically disagree with the premise. I'd like to see someone put a value on owning the global reserve currency over the next 30 years (in a nation that owns 43% of all global private wealth, which is mostly accounted for in USD; with a global economy powered by commodities almost exclusively priced in dollars). US Government debt is worth maybe 1% to 2% of what the USD is really worth today. I don't believe you can account for a currency's realistic worth while ignoring all the assets primarily or solely denominated in that currency, to say nothing of the immense leverage / power / economic benefits that the global reserve status brings along (that alone is blatantly worth more than all US Government debt).
- jamez1 10y agoMy comment was half tongue in cheek, but it's still accurate. US government debt has to be paid in USD, it doesn't matter what other assets they own, that can only be used to buy USD. Unless you barter with bondholders and have them accept these other assets? But that misses the point, we all know the situation is manageable, but it's an interesting idiosyncrasy nonetheless.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- visarga 10y agoYes, but the Universe is worth more than US! Got you.
- toomim 10y agoCoin offerings are the new stock. Venture Capital is now investing in both: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/introduction-initial-coin-offerings-icos-venture-capital-tim-r-lea https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/introduction-initial-coin-off... So actually, they are now comparable.
- fnovd 10y agoBitcoin is not a blockchain-based VC company. Bitcoin simply uses a blockchain. They are not comparable.
- toomim 10y agoThey are comparable to investors. Investors have to choose whether to put their money into Company A, Company B, or Coin C. To make this choice, they are comparing companies with coins. Take your blinders off. You are getting disrupted.
- drvdevd 10y agoThis was an unfortunate title to an otherwise not so horrible article. It really didn't press the comparison too hard.
- qwrusz 10y agoWhat? Sorry to rain on your common-sense parade, but the article says: "twitter is a useful measuring stick here, as it is a company of intense worth that is hard to value." I don't know what that means. But after exploring Mattermark's website I'm not clear what they offer their users for $500 a month. Anyone use Mattermark and can offer insight? They seem to scrape publicly available data about companies, organize it and offer an API? They also have some sort of "Mattermark Score" for companies they track. If they don't know the difference between a currency and company, I'd be curious to know what this score involves too.
- strathmeyer 10y ago"What's wrong with comparing apples and oranges? They're both fruit!"
- kin 10y agoTwitter comparisons aside (what's the point?), anyone know what could be causing the surge in pricing for Bitcoin? It was off my radar for a while and all of a sudden it's at $800+.
- imaginenore 10y agoIt's a Christmas miracle.
- 21 10y agoCould be ransomware. The bitcoin killer app :) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/22/city-banks-plan-to-hoard-bitcoins-to-help-them-pay-cyber-ransoms https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/22/city-bank...
- Kostchei 10y ago2 points that I am aware of- attempts in India to rein in the "black" cash economy- which is perhaps 60% of GDP and currently untaxed- so notes taken out of circulation etc. And global jitters about banking and stability in general- I'd blame Trump but he may be a symptom, not a cause.
- gnipgnip 10y agoUnsolicited advice: alt.right religion does not reflect reality.
- modeless 10y ago
- jgrant27 10y agoThis is a startup that provides "valuations" of other startups after all. They sell shovels to the miners who think they are all going to get rich.
- cperciva 10y agoAt about $14B, the market capitalization of bitcoin is still somewhat less than the $30-40B market capitalization of IPv4 address space.
- drvdevd 10y agoNot sure if you're just being sarcastic, but I actually find that to be an interesting comparison.
- cperciva 10y agoNot sarcastic, but both numbers are somewhat meaningless since the prices depend on having only a small proportion of the stock being traded.
- drvdevd 10y agoOk so I suppose you're referencing what I found to be interesting about your first comment: you can compare IPv4 to Bitcoin in terms of artificial scarcity, which you're also saying makes it a somewhat meaningless comparison.
- cperciva 10y agoI'm not saying it's a meaningless comparison; I'm saying it's a comparison between meaningless numbers.
- drvdevd 10y agoAh OK I see. I think what's so interesting to me about comparing bitcoin to IPv4 is that the latter is an artifact of artificial scarcity based on history rather than deliberate design. I'm sure others have noticed this parallel before, of course.
- csomar 10y agoI'm not sure I understand your comment. Is most of the Gold in the world traded? The same for currencies and stocks. Unless I'm missing something.
- rshm 10y agoTwitter's valuation is becoming a favorite recently. Much like how number of books in Library of Congress, used to be standard for hard disk capacity.
- acd 10y agoLegendary creatures with wings that fly high up in the sky are called Pegasus, Unicorns on the contrary does not have wings. Thus when the interest rate go up Unicorns may be separated from Pegasus. Cryptographies stand to create a better future. A better future should be worth more than Twitter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus
- mastazi 10y agoCould someone sum up the needed technology stack to do bitcoin mining in 2016? In particular, is it still in any way possible to build small scale, home-brewed mining operations or the higher barrier of entry means that only the big companies will survive?
- sowbug 10y agohttps://twitter.com/sowbug/status/414098711505952768 https://twitter.com/sowbug/status/414098711505952768 Less concise: don't bother. If you believe the price will rise, buy bitcoin rather than mining equipment and electricity.
- mastazi 10y agoYes, it (buying vs mining) makes sense, thank you.
- TD-Linux 10y agoYou can if you have cheap electricity. The biggest downside is that you'll need ASICs, and only one company publicly sells them. Naturally, they are priced such that your margins will be hair thin.
- mastazi 10y agoThank you, I thought there was more choice regarding ASICs, but even then yeah, why would they sell them on the cheap rather than use them?
- grubles 10y agoIf you treat Bitcoin mining as a lottery, with your hardware generating multitudes of tickets for every ~10 minute (on average) block, then you can just fire up any old CPU, GPU, or ASIC and wait. If you treat Bitcoin mining with a short term profit seeking mindset, you will be disappointed.
- dagw 10y ago
- potlee 10y agoOr rather twitter is now worth less than bitcoin
- gnipgnip 10y agoAnother of alt.right's religious gospels is about BTC being the new 'gold'; about how BTC and XAU will rise as the world is set to plunge. I can't speak for the latter, but anyone with a two bit brain can see that BTC much like USD is negatively corelated with gold. It is currencies like CHF and JPY that ironically track XAU!
- GordonS 10y agoAre the continous 'alt.right' snarks really necessary? They make your comments seem very condescending.
- nikolay 10y agoWell, except, try selling 5% of Bitcoin and see what's gonna happen!
- imaginenore 10y agoTry selling 5% of the dollar and see what happens. It will go to near zero on every single exchange. That's how liquidity works. Pretty much never large percentages of commodities/currencies are traded on exchanges.
- runeks 10y agoThat's not the point. Bitcoin is being compared to Twitter. If you have majority stock in Twitter, you can probably buy the rest at a reasonable price. Not so with Bitcoin, or any other currency/medium of exchange.
- nikolay 10y agoIf you sell 5% of Twitter, you won't see much of an action compared to Bitcoin!
- imaginenore 10y agoIf you sell 5% of Twitter stock, it will go to near zero as well.
- codingmyway 10y agoNot so sure about this line: "bitcoin is closing the year on a high note, surviving its (expected) mining changes with grace" Adoption of technical improvements like segwit has become more of a political game than ever with less technical people shouting louder, so much that it's become a joke with parodies like Bitcoin Ultimate.