6 ms·

Whenever irrational or weird things like this happen, i always tell myself that maybe people aren't stupid, maybe i just miss a crucial piece of information. F

by bsaul 9y ago

Whenever irrational or weird things like this happen, i always tell myself that maybe people aren't stupid, maybe i just miss a crucial piece of information. For example, who are the poeple lending that much money ? Why are they doing it ? Is this whole thing some kind of money laundering or tax evading scheme ? Is it related to central banks having 0% interest rates, etc.. You only know what happens after some time, but you always end up knowing.

jboggan 9y ago
I see parallels to the 1810s in America where an explosion of banks needed virtually nothing to get chartered and issue unlimited amounts of their own currency. That went great, until it didn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1819 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1819
- baybal2 9y ago
  I have a similar feeling. Banking explosion of mid nineties Russia. My mom was a de-facto CTO of a bank back then. What got her that job was the simple fact that she was the only person that bank found competent enough to just code basic things in C, Fox Pro and Basic (back then, those were virtually unknown in Russia. The only popular "Western" programming language was Pascal). Back then, solely founding a bank to 'jump on the bandwagon' earlier than others was seen as something much much more important than to have that bank functioning properly. Now, none of those first wave banks remain prominent. Out of roughly 2000, only 20 function today.
  - r00tn00b 9y ago
    Sorry disagree.... C and Fox Pro were known and used in Russia at least end of 80s when I started to look.for gigs. Pascal I used last time at 1990 as my first contract as a student. Then switched to C. Then added Ada. Clipper/FoxPro/dbase were de facto tools to develop any db backed apps beginning of 90s. When I came to one of the major banks in 1994 and said I'm using oracle they stumbled and said "we are not there yet... dbase ... sorry" lol
- novalis78 9y ago
  That's an interesting link. What's particularly noteworthy is the mentioning of the inflationary spread of paper money that the banks issued which had no gold/silver etc backing...and the role of the government facilitating this to finance their war. Now, the crypto world was created as a direct response to that problem - nobody can issue fake bitcoins/file coins. You will have to have the cryptographic key to a public address. In that sense while we might be back in 1810 we seems to be branching off into an alternative reality where 'banks' can't produce more coin-notes than they have. I am also not sure anybody would accept a paper note as a substitute for a Bitcoin.
  - Nursie 9y ago
    OTOH a coin ICO seems to be exactly this sort of behaviour, the issuing of effectively un-backed tokens by anyone that wants to. Bitcoin and other crypto-coins are also created without the gold or silver backing of course... they just aren't issued in quite the same way.
    - novalis78 9y ago
      I think about it this way: if I get a 20 dollar paper note let's say in 1810 and believe it to represent 20 ounces of silver (simplified to make the point) but upon visiting my bank branch I only find 5 ounces - the bank is insolvent and the paper notes immediately near worthless. In the crypto world 5 filecoin will always be 5 filecoin- and I can see (and trade in and out of them) on a 24/7 basis. That's quite a different trust level to me. In fact I can 'shapeshift' them into hundreds of other coins that I deem more relevant or worthy as a value store at a moments notice. Does not that sound like a superior system, even when granted, it's not perfect (as long as we are dealing with imperfect knowledge of the future and human emotions)
      - Nursie 9y ago
        But it's still not backed by anything, it's still potentially worthless the moment you go to cash it in - you have a better idea of that potential, sure. And maybe filecoin is an exception - most ICOs seem a little scammy at best, with value based purely on speculation and scarcity.
puranjay 9y ago
I'm extremely bearish on ICOs. I almost never seen any real-life use case in the wild. There was some push a couple of years back when some retailers started accepting Bitcoin, but I almost never see this thing now. It's absolutely dead in India, for instance, a market of 1.4B people who would, presumably, be Bitcoin's target customers
- mathgenius 9y ago
  Looks like Bitcoin will be a store of value. Here is an attempt at the payment side of things: https://coinjournal.net/ripple-opens-new-office-india-eyes-multibillion-dollar-remittance-market/ https://coinjournal.net/ripple-opens-new-office-india-eyes-m...
- mrb 9y ago
  "Absolutely dead"? Localbitcoin volume in India is sharply increasing: https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/INR https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/INR Other "trading platforms are witnessing unexpectedly high traffic and seem to be growing at an exponential rate" http://www.dqindia.com/growth-and-future-of-bitcoin-in-india/ http://www.dqindia.com/growth-and-future-of-bitcoin-in-india... Activity is such that the Indian government is looking into (finally!) regulating it: https://cointelegraph.com/news/suddenly-bitcoin-to-be-officially-legal-in-india https://cointelegraph.com/news/suddenly-bitcoin-to-be-offici... Bitcoin in India is in no way "absolutely dead."
  - pault 9y ago
    I think GP means "outside of speculation".
  - puranjay 9y ago
    How many of these are speculators? How many are end-users? I can't recall the last time I saw an Indian website accept Bitcoin
    - mrb 9y ago
      Use language correctly. If you want to say Bitcoin is not used for purchases, then write that. Even if people were only speculators, it would be incorrect for you to say "Bitcoin is absolutely dead". «I can't recall the last time I saw an Indian website accept Bitcoin» One of the best use case of Bitcoin is for informal person-to-person payments, eg. sending money to friend/family. No merchants involved.
ailideex 9y ago
It's not lending them the money ... they own the money now ...
femto113 9y ago
Our friend Occam suggests: nope, people are just stupid.
- bsaul 9y ago
  stupidity doesn't explain it all, because people are also naturally reluctant to give their own money. Either they are stupid and abused , in such a large number that you can witness million dollars ICO every week (which means a really large scam is actually being organized), or there's another fact we're not aware of.
  - vasilipupkin 9y ago
    it's an option. An out of the money option. It may expire worthless, or it could be worth a lot. It's not irrational to buy into it.
    - bsaul 9y ago
      as opposed to regular shares that will at least bring dividends every year ? The only person i know that trades crypto currencies do it with pocket money. But the sums we're talking about here are about something a bit different (i suppose).
      - vasilipupkin 9y ago
        well, people buy out of the money options on all sorts of stuff, like oil and other things. It;s a bet that has small limited downside and large upside, so not completely nonsensical. I invested in filecoin. I figured, hell, if I lose 1-2k no big deal, but if this thing takes off, I could make a lot more
  - femto113 9y ago
    That "other fact" would be greed. "Many individuals grew suddenly rich. A golden bait hung temptingly out before the people, and, one after the other, they rushed to the tulip marts, like flies around a honey-pot. Every one imagined that the passion for tulips would last for ever, and that the wealthy from every part of the world would send to Holland, and pay whatever prices were asked for them. The riches of Europe would be concentrated on the shores of the Zuyder Zee, and poverty banished from the favoured clime of Holland. Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maidservants, even chimney sweeps and old clotheswomen, dabbled in tulips." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#Mackay.27s_Madness_of_Crowds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#Mackay.27s_Madness...
loceng 9y ago
People who want to get in early and grab as much share of blockchain crypto-assets that have Ponzi-like scheme built into them early on - the global, decentralized Ponzi-like schemes. They understand that the wealth will be unreasonably (insanely) re-distributed to early adopters if these take off and if society is tricked and manipulated into adopting it. And as I feel I always need to include - I'm not putting down the value of blockchain as a utility.
mdpopescu 9y ago
> Is it related to central banks having 0% interest rates, etc.. Yes, money is very cheap right now which creates a rush to invest in anything - see for example [1]. [1] http://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/1923-hyperinflation/ http://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/1923-hyperinflation/

by bsaul 9y ago

jboggan 9y ago

I see parallels to the 1810s in America where an explosion of banks needed virtually nothing to get chartered and issue unlimited amounts of their own currency. That went great, until it didn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1819 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1819

baybal2 9y ago
I have a similar feeling. Banking explosion of mid nineties Russia. My mom was a de-facto CTO of a bank back then. What got her that job was the simple fact that she was the only person that bank found competent enough to just code basic things in C, Fox Pro and Basic (back then, those were virtually unknown in Russia. The only popular "Western" programming language was Pascal). Back then, solely founding a bank to 'jump on the bandwagon' earlier than others was seen as something much much more important than to have that bank functioning properly. Now, none of those first wave banks remain prominent. Out of roughly 2000, only 20 function today.
- r00tn00b 9y ago
  Sorry disagree.... C and Fox Pro were known and used in Russia at least end of 80s when I started to look.for gigs. Pascal I used last time at 1990 as my first contract as a student. Then switched to C. Then added Ada. Clipper/FoxPro/dbase were de facto tools to develop any db backed apps beginning of 90s. When I came to one of the major banks in 1994 and said I'm using oracle they stumbled and said "we are not there yet... dbase ... sorry" lol
novalis78 9y ago
That's an interesting link. What's particularly noteworthy is the mentioning of the inflationary spread of paper money that the banks issued which had no gold/silver etc backing...and the role of the government facilitating this to finance their war. Now, the crypto world was created as a direct response to that problem - nobody can issue fake bitcoins/file coins. You will have to have the cryptographic key to a public address. In that sense while we might be back in 1810 we seems to be branching off into an alternative reality where 'banks' can't produce more coin-notes than they have. I am also not sure anybody would accept a paper note as a substitute for a Bitcoin.
- Nursie 9y ago
  OTOH a coin ICO seems to be exactly this sort of behaviour, the issuing of effectively un-backed tokens by anyone that wants to. Bitcoin and other crypto-coins are also created without the gold or silver backing of course... they just aren't issued in quite the same way.
  - novalis78 9y ago
    I think about it this way: if I get a 20 dollar paper note let's say in 1810 and believe it to represent 20 ounces of silver (simplified to make the point) but upon visiting my bank branch I only find 5 ounces - the bank is insolvent and the paper notes immediately near worthless. In the crypto world 5 filecoin will always be 5 filecoin- and I can see (and trade in and out of them) on a 24/7 basis. That's quite a different trust level to me. In fact I can 'shapeshift' them into hundreds of other coins that I deem more relevant or worthy as a value store at a moments notice. Does not that sound like a superior system, even when granted, it's not perfect (as long as we are dealing with imperfect knowledge of the future and human emotions)
    - Nursie 9y ago
      But it's still not backed by anything, it's still potentially worthless the moment you go to cash it in - you have a better idea of that potential, sure. And maybe filecoin is an exception - most ICOs seem a little scammy at best, with value based purely on speculation and scarcity.

puranjay 9y ago

I'm extremely bearish on ICOs. I almost never seen any real-life use case in the wild. There was some push a couple of years back when some retailers started accepting Bitcoin, but I almost never see this thing now. It's absolutely dead in India, for instance, a market of 1.4B people who would, presumably, be Bitcoin's target customers

mathgenius 9y ago
Looks like Bitcoin will be a store of value. Here is an attempt at the payment side of things: https://coinjournal.net/ripple-opens-new-office-india-eyes-multibillion-dollar-remittance-market/ https://coinjournal.net/ripple-opens-new-office-india-eyes-m...
mrb 9y ago
"Absolutely dead"? Localbitcoin volume in India is sharply increasing: https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/INR https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/INR Other "trading platforms are witnessing unexpectedly high traffic and seem to be growing at an exponential rate" http://www.dqindia.com/growth-and-future-of-bitcoin-in-india/ http://www.dqindia.com/growth-and-future-of-bitcoin-in-india... Activity is such that the Indian government is looking into (finally!) regulating it: https://cointelegraph.com/news/suddenly-bitcoin-to-be-officially-legal-in-india https://cointelegraph.com/news/suddenly-bitcoin-to-be-offici... Bitcoin in India is in no way "absolutely dead."
- pault 9y ago
  I think GP means "outside of speculation".
- puranjay 9y ago
  How many of these are speculators? How many are end-users? I can't recall the last time I saw an Indian website accept Bitcoin
  - mrb 9y ago
    Use language correctly. If you want to say Bitcoin is not used for purchases, then write that. Even if people were only speculators, it would be incorrect for you to say "Bitcoin is absolutely dead". «I can't recall the last time I saw an Indian website accept Bitcoin» One of the best use case of Bitcoin is for informal person-to-person payments, eg. sending money to friend/family. No merchants involved.

ailideex 9y ago

It's not lending them the money ... they own the money now ...

femto113 9y ago

Our friend Occam suggests: nope, people are just stupid.

bsaul 9y ago
stupidity doesn't explain it all, because people are also naturally reluctant to give their own money. Either they are stupid and abused , in such a large number that you can witness million dollars ICO every week (which means a really large scam is actually being organized), or there's another fact we're not aware of.
- vasilipupkin 9y ago
  it's an option. An out of the money option. It may expire worthless, or it could be worth a lot. It's not irrational to buy into it.
  - bsaul 9y ago
    as opposed to regular shares that will at least bring dividends every year ? The only person i know that trades crypto currencies do it with pocket money. But the sums we're talking about here are about something a bit different (i suppose).
    - vasilipupkin 9y ago
      well, people buy out of the money options on all sorts of stuff, like oil and other things. It;s a bet that has small limited downside and large upside, so not completely nonsensical. I invested in filecoin. I figured, hell, if I lose 1-2k no big deal, but if this thing takes off, I could make a lot more
- femto113 9y ago
  That "other fact" would be greed. "Many individuals grew suddenly rich. A golden bait hung temptingly out before the people, and, one after the other, they rushed to the tulip marts, like flies around a honey-pot. Every one imagined that the passion for tulips would last for ever, and that the wealthy from every part of the world would send to Holland, and pay whatever prices were asked for them. The riches of Europe would be concentrated on the shores of the Zuyder Zee, and poverty banished from the favoured clime of Holland. Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maidservants, even chimney sweeps and old clotheswomen, dabbled in tulips." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#Mackay.27s_Madness_of_Crowds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#Mackay.27s_Madness...

loceng 9y ago

People who want to get in early and grab as much share of blockchain crypto-assets that have Ponzi-like scheme built into them early on - the global, decentralized Ponzi-like schemes. They understand that the wealth will be unreasonably (insanely) re-distributed to early adopters if these take off and if society is tricked and manipulated into adopting it. And as I feel I always need to include - I'm not putting down the value of blockchain as a utility.

mdpopescu 9y ago

> Is it related to central banks having 0% interest rates, etc.. Yes, money is very cheap right now which creates a rush to invest in anything - see for example [1]. [1] http://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/1923-hyperinflation/ http://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/1923-hyperinflation/