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Bitcoin ‘More Than Just a Fad,’ Morgan Stanley CEO Says
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- noipv4 9y agoif I invest in Bitcoin today, am I still an early adopter?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- VMG 9y agoDepends on who you think will adopt it after you.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoIndeed. The question isn't whether you're an early adopter, but whether you're an early enough adopter.
- adamnemecek 9y agoI think that it will go to like 20k in the next 4 years but there are coins that will grow much more. Bitcoin is the conservative investment.
- CPLX 9y ago> Bitcoin is the conservative investment. Now this is what I come to HN in the morning for.
- nobaelazum 9y agoI talk to these people all the time. Them: "I KMOW stock XXX is going to be at price YYY in time Z." Me: "How much have you invested in stock XXX?" Them: "Oh nothing yet".
- ringaroundthetx 9y agoI see things this way as well. Options and derivatives are risky. A merely volatile asset that never expires is pretty conservative in comparison.
- eudoxus 9y agoI think he means within the context of the Cryptocurrency market, which he is pretty correct on. Many other coins have gone up 2x, 5x, even 10x in the last weeks/months. Bitcoin going from 4K to 20K in 4 years (ie 5x) is relatively tame.
- Joeboy 9y ago> I think that it will go to like 20k in the next 4 years Why like 20k (as opposed to like 100k or like 1k)?
- whataretensors 9y agoBecause nobody knows. This has literally never happened before.
- RyanCavanaugh 9y ago99% of Bitcoins are being held by people expecting to sell it to someone else for more than they bought it for. That doesn't seem to be changing. You just have to do a calculation involving the number of people on the planet to figure out when the supply of new suckers runs dry and the price crashes.
- mediocrejoker 9y agoDoesn't that assume every person on the planet will own some BTC before it crashes? It also assumes the rate new people start buying BTC is constant, or even predictable.
- RyanCavanaugh 9y agoThe comment was perhaps a satirical take on the "BTC as investment" philosophy's implied endgame.
- chrisco255 9y agoIf more vendors would take BTC, I would gladly buy things using said BTC. I would rather do that than convert to cash and then buy.
- zaccus 9y agoIf BTC has a good chance of doubling in value over the next few months, then how is it remotely rational to spend it?
- companyhen 9y agoYeah I agree with 20k in 3-5 years. That's conservative. John McAfee said $500k in 3-5 years! Would be nice. :D
- billmalarky 9y agoMcAfee also said he would chop off his penis and eat it if it didn't hit $500k. I'm bullish on crypto but McAfee is... well something else.
- ybrah 9y agoNope. Bitcoin's network is not scaling well.
- sp821543 9y agoI think it would be a mistake to assume performance cannot improve.
- sp527 9y agoUmm anyone who has studied distributed systems understands a fully distributed system cannot scale past a certain limited point. That's not controversial. That's just reality. LN, for example, is adding degrees of centralization to achieve better scaling. Human systems have a tendency towards centralization and consolidation of power/authority as well, as we see in various ways already with Bitcoin (China, Ver, Core). There's overwhelming evidence to believe that the future of Bitcoin is much more centralized, at which point it starts to resemble the systems we already have but with horrifying disadvantages: your entire transaction history is public to everyone, your identity can be linked to your wallet through exchanges, etc.
- sp821543 9y agoI don't agree with you, but an interested in your view. What in your opinion is the best implementation of a blockchain?
- Caveman_Coder 9y agoDistributed renewable energy sharing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15349405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15349405
- sp527 9y ago‘Dark’ coins like Monero. They provide the highest utility for their most obvious use case: money laundering and illicit, untraceable transactions.
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- csomar 9y agoIf you are looking into investing you may want to understand the volatility of assets. Then all assets are practically the same.
- matthewbauer 9y agoI think invest is the wrong term. Investments have some kind of builtin return like interest or dividends. You're buying bitcoin in the same way you buy gold or a lottery ticket. Maybe you have some solid reasoning on why price will go up but you aren't getting any returns like in an investment.
- nwah1 9y agoVery true. The correct term is speculation.
- fenwick67 9y agoBoiled down to the base principles it's the same... money goes in, more money might come out, or you might get less money out. The only difference is predictability and odds.
- RyanCavanaugh 9y agoThe entire profit motive from Bitcoin "investing" comes from selling it to another human for more than you bought it for. They're digital Beanie Babies. Real investments have a return derived from capital. A house, for example, can be rented out for money. Or a business can earn profit and distribute it to its shareholders. You can try to buy and sell houses like people did during the RE bubble for profit, or try to buy and sell stocks like a day trader, but these are still fundamentally different from an "asset" which has no means by which to generate a return on its own.
- mcjiggerlog 9y ago> Real investments have a return derived from capital. A house, for example, can be rented out for money. You can buy goods and services with Bitcoin. It's just another currency. Do people claim that forex is not investing?
- root_axis 9y ago> You can buy goods and services with Bitcoin. It's just another currency. Not really though. You can buy a few novelties online and there are a handful of places that accept bitcoin, but realistically it is not "just another currency", it's an IOU for usable money.
- omarchowdhury 9y agoWhich Bitcoin?
- eksemplar 9y agoNo, but you may still make some money from it before it drops to zero. Just don't consider it an investment, and don't put anything into it that you'll miss. Investments are tied to real world value, returns and having a say, bitcoins have no real world application or substance outside of financial crime.
- mcjiggerlog 9y ago> bitcoins have no real world application or substance outside of financial crime https://www.coindesk.com/information/what-can-you-buy-with-bitcoins/ https://www.coindesk.com/information/what-can-you-buy-with-b...
- eksemplar 9y agoYour product simply isn't valuable if the world wouldn't miss it if it disappeared over night. Outside of keeping money away from legislation what value does crypto currencies have that would be missed?
- chrisco255 9y agoTry transferring $1 million (or hell, even simply more than $10K) of legitimate cash to another country. With USD you have to jump through hoops. With BTC, it's less than an hour to clear and the transaction fee is peanuts. BTC has properties of physical cash and credit/debit cards. That's valuable.
- eksemplar 9y agoI don't know about the US, but that would be illegal in a lot of countries.
- dogruck 9y agoKey quote from Gorman in the article: "I haven't invested in it."
- andruby 9y agoWell, he would sound like he's pushing an agenda if he says "I have invested in it".
- dogruck 9y agoAre you saying that you think Gorman has actually invested in Bitcoin, but he lied because he didn't want to make it seem like he was touting his book?
- andirk 9y agoI think people at his level trade on traditional assets (stocks, metals, whatever) but always with an insider's edge. He probably does not have that edge in Bitcoin.
- adamnemecek 9y agoGood thing that all these Wall Street CEOs share these nuggets of wisdom with us uncouth plebeians. Their charity is out of this world! Now I just need to know what Jim Kramer thinks of this and I'm good.
- theWatcher37 9y agoLike it or not, major figures in the financial industry saying “this is legit” helps bitcoin’s image which has knock-on effects. Bitcoin still struggles from the “its only used to buy drugs” stigma even with some on here.
- adamnemecek 9y agoThe point of crypto is making these figures irrelevant.
- matthewbauer 9y agoBut you'll always have some figures that people look up to for advice, right? They won't change value but they will get people to speculate. Like it or not, most people buying and holding Bitcoin are speculating at this point in time.
- adamnemecek 9y agoRight but I'm hoping that in the future these figures might have less conflict of interests.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jsmthrowaway 9y ago...and replacing them with cryptocurrency CEOs and HN and Reddit commenters whose economic experience is limited to googling the word “fiat” and talking points on free markets? Is that what you mean? Occasionally people are listened to because they have something to offer, like, say, running one of the world’s largest investment banks. His remarks immediately made Bloomberg, CNBC, and so on, which is just free PR. From the head of Morgan Stanley. Who in the current world, and not the glorious future one you want, commands respect and attention. Talk about biting the hand throwing your passion a bone. And what’s your plan to make Gorman and other investment banks irrelevant with cryptocurrency? You’re talking about something like, what? A third of the world economy? I made that number up, but it’s probably even more. Nobody will have financial planning services and investments in your cryptographic future? End capitalism? How should I explain what you want to the soybean farmer next door who needs an ag loan from one of those very banks to buffer crop loss from an imported Asian pest? The free market will figure it out, and the entire system of capital allocation we all know is fundamentally broken and useless? If only he mined Litecoin? The single biggest thing holding crypto back is tone deaf arrogance like this from its biggest proponents. Slow down, buddy, you’ve successfully monetized files of bits. Completely disrupting the entire world economy and making banks irrelevant is a wee bit far fetched and even if it isn’t, should be approached with a little more caution than a lot of crypto folks give it. You’re talking about the (imperfect) global system that feeds billions of people and keeps them alive. Show it some respect; only hundreds of thousands of people, nigh, millions, worked on it before the engineers with vim showed up and declared they know better. Cryptocurrency is good. Let’s be reasonable when discussing it.
- jmkni 9y ago* Call it a fad * Price goes down * Buy * Say it's not a fad * Price goes up * Sell * ... * Profit?
- ghostbrainalpha 9y agoI don't think you need the "...", usually that indicates a mysterious step will never actually materialize. But the Profit cycle is fully complete here.
- rb808 9y ago> "The concept of anonymous currency is a very interesting concept -- interesting for the privacy protections it gives people, interesting because what it says to the central banking system about controlling that." I don't think he means bitcoin in particular, it could be any crypto currency. Bitcoin is still a ponzi scheme in bubble phase.
- oculusthrift 9y agohey that's not fair... it's a pyramid scheme, not a ponzi
- d0lph 9y agoIt's neither of these things.
- lotyrin 9y agoMost of its value is speculative and if you buy you have to hope there's a bigger sucker somewhere in the future in order to get your payout, that's not exactly Ponzi-shaped, but I can definitely see why people might consider it a decentralized form of the pattern.
- d0lph 9y agoAccording to your interpretation, wouldn't gold also qualify as a decentralized ponzi scheme? You're just hoping some bigger sucker buys your over inflated metal right?
- jack9 9y agoPeople actually use gold, as it's optimal (or solely suited) for a number of electric and chemical tasks. Also, it's pretty and used as a status symbol. It has utility, which has been overblown in the market for a long time (like diamonds).
- beepboopbeep 9y agoI'm here for the shit posting.
- lr4444lr 9y agoI thought I was the only one!
- beepboopbeep 9y agoPopcorn?
- wslh 9y agoBeyond all this noise that is patticularly annoying in this space, I really like articles trying, at least, to provide more fundamental analysis. Last week Chris Burniske provided an article about cryptoasset valuation: https://medium.com/@cburniske/cryptoasset-valuations-ac83479ffca7 https://medium.com/@cburniske/cryptoasset-valuations-ac83479...
- orbitur 9y agoThis seems like a decent place to ask: What is the most legit and safe method for creating a wallet and just buying a bit of Bitcoin? I wouldn't mind being able to drop a couple hundred on it and seeing where it goes, but it's hard to trust websites/subreddits that look like posts were written by nerdy 15 year olds.
- relyio 9y ago0. Purchase a hardware wallet Pro-tip: Go for a Ledger Nano S (https://www.ledgerwallet.com/products/12-ledger-nano-s https://www.ledgerwallet.com/products/12-ledger-nano-s), it is (IMO) the best hardware wallet available. Had a terrific experience using it, it is a genuinely great product. 1. Pick a high-profile exchange Pro-tip: I had an absolutely terrible experience with Coinbase. And a far better one with GEMINI (Although I have issues that are +30 days old still open with their customer support. I'm pretty disappointed). 2. Get your account verified (KYC) Pro-tip: If you are concerned about your privacy, you can always buy bitcoin for cash on localbitcoins. They have an escrow system. 3. Purchase cryptocurrency of your choosing. Pro-tip: look at historical charts (both Linear/Log scales) and do your best to "time" your order, of course it is hard. 4. Move back funds to your hardware wallet. Pro-tip: Whatever HW wallet you choose, do not leave your funds on the exchange. Just don't do it, accounts get hacked all the time (even with 2FA), exchanges get hacked all the time, remember MtGox and learn from others' mistakes.
- blhack 9y agoAbsolutely do not do this unless you are buying a very small amount of coins as an exploratory thing into bitcoin, and won't worry about losing them if you mess up your opsec.
- relyio 9y agoI think you would make a stronger case if you actually provided any arguments. There's literally nothing complicated about using a hardware wallet. It is a well documented, well thought out procedure that shields people from 99% of the reasons people lose their money (lost keys, theft, exchange bankruptcy, hack etc.). I'm really curious to hear what's the rationale behind your post. Please elaborate.
- Robotbeat 9y agoI hope Bitcoin is more than just a fad because it would provide a really convenient way of harnessing solar energy in space without having to beam it all back to Earth. But this can only happen if Moore's Law slows way down (which is happening) and if mining ASICs hit an efficiency plateau lasting for years (is this happening?). Currently, it costs about 9MWh per BTC, or about $1000 in electricity per bitcoin to mine on a pretty efficient S9 antminer. S9s currently go for about $2/Watt and require about 100 J/TH and weigh, I don't know, maybe 1kg per kilowatt (or 1000W/kg). Solar modules are about 30 cents per watt on the spot market, produce about 100W/kg (if weight optimized, i.e. not such a thick aluminum frame). Since all the heat must be dumped into space at the ASIC's operating temperature, radiators are about 100W/kg and probably cost as much as solar modules ($0.30/W) if mass produced. So 1000W of mining capacity would weigh 21 kg and cost $2000+$300+$300= $2600. To launch 21kg at $100/kg to GSO (this is an incredibly low cost, but could be achieved with SpaceX's or Blue Origin's long-term ITS/BFR or New Armstrong rockets) would cost about $2100. So a total of about $4.7/W. Assuming the lifetime of that whole thing is about 12 years (a reasonable time for a risk-free doubling of an investment), that's about 12 BTC, or about $47,000 at today's prices, or a factor of 10 return. (Today's BTC returns ~40 cents per kWh invested, this scheme would break-even at about 4 cents per kWh generated.) ...but: 1) There's a whole bunch of glue, like a network link and spacecraft subsystems that must be included as well as spacecraft processing. 2) Moore's Law in the strict sense is over, but progress still continues. 3) ASIC improvement is possible. 4) We don't have Musk's or Bezos' huge reusable rockets quite yet. 5) If return was this well-proven, you'd likely have a bunch of competition from even cheaper sources of energy. 6) I still think Bitcoin is far too volatile and speculative to justify this kind of investment. Given the reduction in mining rate, if you knew Bitcoin would be able to justify this kind of investment over decades, then you'd probably be better off just buying a bunch of BTC right now and holding it. But maybe the future of cryptocurrency will eventually enable a less volatile and more proven return, making stuff like this worth investing in. I hope so.