4 ms·

By that same token (lol), isn't it hilarious what the U.S. is doing here? Money in our bank accounts only exists because we believe they exist and have value. T

By that same token (lol), isn't it hilarious what the U.S. is doing here? Money in our bank accounts only exists because we believe they exist and have value. The $100 bill in my back pocket would only be useful to wipe my ass if everyone else didn't value it. Cryptocurrencies are brand new, so they're incredibly volatile, sure. But it can be "real money" just as much as money, because really what is money? An idea.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Exactly. But holy smokes: The fact that both BTC and BCH exist now means that there is ${BTC + BCH} market cap now, right? If you put $3k into BCH and $3k into BTC, your investments will grow or fall independently of each other, depending on how BTC or BCH does. But if BCH reaches parity with BTC, that means the world now has ${2xBTC} of value in it, right? I mean yes, set aside the question of what "value" means, but that's what the numbers are showing? In other words, BCH was one of the biggest things anyone could have done to grow the Cryptocoin ecosystem as a whole, then? Coinmarketcap shows $68B for BTC and $13B for BCH. Ethereum is $27B, and that took like four years to get to this point. So, true or false: BCH just created half the total value of ETH within the last month or so? What justifies this? Is everything going to explode? I need a mathematical or investment framework to think rationally about the implications of this. Are we in danger of any kind of "pop"? The 2008 housing crash affected the world. Anyone know how big these babies need to grow before a pop would cause problems for the world economy? I'm not even convinced it will pop. But I've also read Madness of Crowds, and the temperament here reads identical to the worldwide investment craze portrayed in it. It didn't last forever. (I guess once all the naysayers stop naysaying about BTC, then it's time to worry. Till then, though...)
- rothbardrand 9y ago
  Instantaneous price is not value. The concept of "market cap" for these coins is ... fairly weak. It's not a good real measure. We are going to have a massive crypto bubble-- this is fundamentally new technology so its going thru the technology adoption life cycle and pops every time it gets to a wider audience--- and it hasn't yet gone mainstream. Everyone knows about it, but nobody trusts it yet. We're at the point like in the 1990s when the idea of using your credit card on the internet seemed foolish and just asking to lose your money. Once people become comfortable with it we will have a massive bubble, fortunes will be made and lost and it will make 2001 and 2008 look positively sedate. I don't think BCH will still be around by the time that happens, though.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- davidgerard 9y ago
  "Market cap" in cryptos is meaningless. If you add up everything on coinmarketcap.com, you get $146 trillion total. About $60 trillion is the total GDP of the ENTIRE WORLD. ($75 trillion if you include M3.) Any number that makes out that tokens whose entire real-life pricing is based entirely on speculation is bigger in some sense than all real world economic activity may not be a good measure.
  - davidgerard 9y ago
    CORRECTION: $146 billion. Sorry, I failed at counting zeroes!
grey-area 9y ago
Money is confidence in its purest form. The thing about national fiat currencies like your $100 bill is that millions of people are forced by the state to transact in that currency and none other, and it is backed by the promises and threats of the state. When the confidence in that backing evaporates (as happened with Assignats for example in post-revolutionary France, originally backed by property, later backed by thin air), bad things happen and what seemed valuable can overnight lose its value. All that is solid melts into air.
- prostoalex 9y ago
  Forced to transact but not forced to own. You can accumulate your wealth in gold, real estate, Dogecoin or S&P 500 stocks, and liquidate just enough to pursue a transaction.

sillysaurus3 9y ago

Exactly. But holy smokes: The fact that both BTC and BCH exist now means that there is ${BTC + BCH} market cap now, right? If you put $3k into BCH and $3k into BTC, your investments will grow or fall independently of each other, depending on how BTC or BCH does. But if BCH reaches parity with BTC, that means the world now has ${2xBTC} of value in it, right? I mean yes, set aside the question of what "value" means, but that's what the numbers are showing? In other words, BCH was one of the biggest things anyone could have done to grow the Cryptocoin ecosystem as a whole, then? Coinmarketcap shows $68B for BTC and $13B for BCH. Ethereum is $27B, and that took like four years to get to this point. So, true or false: BCH just created half the total value of ETH within the last month or so? What justifies this? Is everything going to explode? I need a mathematical or investment framework to think rationally about the implications of this. Are we in danger of any kind of "pop"? The 2008 housing crash affected the world. Anyone know how big these babies need to grow before a pop would cause problems for the world economy? I'm not even convinced it will pop. But I've also read Madness of Crowds, and the temperament here reads identical to the worldwide investment craze portrayed in it. It didn't last forever. (I guess once all the naysayers stop naysaying about BTC, then it's time to worry. Till then, though...)

rothbardrand 9y ago
Instantaneous price is not value. The concept of "market cap" for these coins is ... fairly weak. It's not a good real measure. We are going to have a massive crypto bubble-- this is fundamentally new technology so its going thru the technology adoption life cycle and pops every time it gets to a wider audience--- and it hasn't yet gone mainstream. Everyone knows about it, but nobody trusts it yet. We're at the point like in the 1990s when the idea of using your credit card on the internet seemed foolish and just asking to lose your money. Once people become comfortable with it we will have a massive bubble, fortunes will be made and lost and it will make 2001 and 2008 look positively sedate. I don't think BCH will still be around by the time that happens, though.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
davidgerard 9y ago
"Market cap" in cryptos is meaningless. If you add up everything on coinmarketcap.com, you get $146 trillion total. About $60 trillion is the total GDP of the ENTIRE WORLD. ($75 trillion if you include M3.) Any number that makes out that tokens whose entire real-life pricing is based entirely on speculation is bigger in some sense than all real world economic activity may not be a good measure.
- davidgerard 9y ago
  CORRECTION: $146 billion. Sorry, I failed at counting zeroes!

grey-area 9y ago

Money is confidence in its purest form. The thing about national fiat currencies like your $100 bill is that millions of people are forced by the state to transact in that currency and none other, and it is backed by the promises and threats of the state. When the confidence in that backing evaporates (as happened with Assignats for example in post-revolutionary France, originally backed by property, later backed by thin air), bad things happen and what seemed valuable can overnight lose its value. All that is solid melts into air.

prostoalex 9y ago
Forced to transact but not forced to own. You can accumulate your wealth in gold, real estate, Dogecoin or S&P 500 stocks, and liquidate just enough to pursue a transaction.