7 ms·

Bitcoin Is No Bubble, Says Investor With 30K Bitcoin Stake

11 points by pdog 9y ago

mabbo 9y ago
Tulips can only go up, says investor with his life savings invested in tulips.
- saalweachter 9y ago
  The headline could totally have been an Onion headline, but as nearly as I can tell Bloomberg is being serious. Hasn't parody suffered enough this year?
- FLUX-YOU 9y ago
  He's got a net worth of $1b+ though. $18m + Mt.Gox losses would be nothing to him.
- IkmoIkmo 9y ago
  Eh, he's a well-known VC with a portfolio of tens of different companies, a > billion dollar net worth and a fraction of 1% of his original net worth put into bitcoin, which has grossed him $200m. So no, not quite.
  - thisisit 9y ago
    Not that I am disagreeing with Draper but this is like saying because someone is rich and invested in many things, they cannot hold a biased view on something they own.
    - mrb 9y ago
      This is a lousy argument. If he does not hold BTC, people say he is not putting his money where his mouth is. And if he holds BTC, people say he is biased. No matter what, Draper cannot win with these lousy arguments.
  - mabbo 9y ago
    Honestly, it was an off-the-cuff joke. Perhaps this guy is right. I think mostly I'm saying that perhaps this man is slightly biased, in that he will make more money if more people believe that bitcoins are worth more money and here to stay.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  With the insane power consumption, it's more like, "We must plow our fields under and plant only tulips, says pie-eyed lunatic with life savings in tulips." At least tulips sequestered carbon, cryptocurrencies essentially turn usable energy into waste heat, pollution, and e-tulips.
- nul_byte 9y ago
  Tulips are a really bad analogy The supply of tulips isn't fixed which is the key difference. The whole Tulip bubble came about from a large follow through spike in tulip production flooding the market, until supply inevitably outstripped demand, thereby setting the stage for a market crash. That's can happen to bitcoin, as its a fixed supply.
  - mads 9y ago
    Wouldn’t the psychology behind the two bubbles be the same?
  - kerny 9y ago
    > That's can happen to bitcoin, as its a fixed supply. There's endless ways to compute arbitrary numbers.
- Cyphase 9y ago
  If the headline was, "Bitcoin Is No Bubble, Says Investor With No Bitcoins", would that have given him any nominal amount more credence with you, or would you be saying, "Tulips can only go up, says investor with no tulips."?
- kown223 9y ago
  Tulips bubble never happened, is just propaganda
  - incitatus451 9y ago
    This is my feeling. Why people would invest in something that rots pretty fast!?
highace 9y ago
And I still feel bad when I think about the 10 bitcoin I lost in mtgox and what they'd be worth now... (he lost 40,000 in mtgox)
- dmichulke 9y ago
  Plus: it takes ages to get them back, even now that the value of the remaining holdings exceeds the sum of all claims.
- kaffeemitsahne 9y ago
  > and what they'd be worth now You could've bought back in after you lost them, at that time, for the same amount of cash. Just like the guy who bought a pizza for 10k btc could've just bought 10k more for a few tenners.
cvaidya1986 9y ago
I have a contrarian position. ETH will beat out Bitcoin in 5 years because it’s a platform with smart contract programmability.
- platz 9y ago
  You predict utility will beat out pure speculation, when the utility of Bitcoin is largely ignored
  - cvaidya1986 9y ago
    More like a platform will beat out an app. FB vs MySpace.
- GroSacASacs 9y ago
  Sometimes less is more. JS and JSON. JS and HTML. Cars and Motorbikes. TV and Radio. Both can exist at the same time and be usefull.
- sigsergv 9y ago
  Those “contracts” are not so smart unfortunately. It's not even true distributed calculations or something like that.
mads 9y ago
Aren’t those coins essentially worthless since he cannot unload them anywhere without tanking the price? He would have to sell them outside an exchange.
- Cyphase 9y ago
  Outside an exchange is a place he can sell them.
ttul 9y ago
Even if he loses it all, he’s a venture investor. This is what he does. It’s his life to invest in crazy things. One of his latest investments is a dodgy spam filtering idea that forces marketers to pay to send email to you unless they are on your whitelist. This will never work (source: I work in anti spam) for #reasons. But Tim clearly has a major hard on for BTC.
d3ckard 9y ago
Well, I disagree. Bitcoin is purely speculative market right now. Bitcoin is supposed to be a currency - thing you pay with. Right now constant deflation means nobody uses it to pay, which defeats its purpose. Bitcoin is also not gold. It has no inherent value, it's not useful in any way besides as payment instrument and right now utility of BTC as payment instrument is close to zero. Finally, Bitcoin is extremely expensive to maintain (electricity and computing power) and there is no way to lower that cost. Once BTC network processing power is too small percentage of world's total processing power, it becomes feasible to perform an attack on a Network (you need 51% as everybody knows). So, given that production of Bitcoin has a hard limit, at some point increase in price won't be able to offset resources necessary to mine, which will cause collapse of network processing power, which in turn will make network susceptible for attack. Mind you, it has nothing to do with product competitiveness(contracts, transaction times etc.). Bitcoin is designed in a way that is not sustainable and it will become clear at some point.
- mrb 9y ago
  «nobody uses it to pay» Always the same misconception being repeated... Your opinion is not supported by data. Usage is quickly growing: https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-growth-2017/ https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-growth-2017/ https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all (before someone says "it's speculators": no it's not—buying, holding, and selling BTC on an exchange does not create transactions on the blockchain; the vast majority of speculators leave their BTC in an exchange and never move it)
  - foobardeveloper 9y ago
    There is an important distinction between valuing something inherently with bitcoin and accepting bitcoin for a real time USD conversion. What your are seeing with all these merchants is the latter I suppose, they have an intermediary who accepts bitcoin and converts it to USD and hands them the amount. Until something can be stably valued in Bitcoin similar to USD, it's use as a currency will be a moot point.
foobardeveloper 9y ago
Let me just leave this here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd0TqkW7qHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd0TqkW7qHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iNeXCAM_Ik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iNeXCAM_Ik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmH7GdSmSsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmH7GdSmSsU

11 points by pdog 9y ago

mabbo 9y ago

Tulips can only go up, says investor with his life savings invested in tulips.

saalweachter 9y ago
The headline could totally have been an Onion headline, but as nearly as I can tell Bloomberg is being serious. Hasn't parody suffered enough this year?
FLUX-YOU 9y ago
He's got a net worth of $1b+ though. $18m + Mt.Gox losses would be nothing to him.
IkmoIkmo 9y ago
Eh, he's a well-known VC with a portfolio of tens of different companies, a > billion dollar net worth and a fraction of 1% of his original net worth put into bitcoin, which has grossed him $200m. So no, not quite.
- thisisit 9y ago
  Not that I am disagreeing with Draper but this is like saying because someone is rich and invested in many things, they cannot hold a biased view on something they own.
  - mrb 9y ago
    This is a lousy argument. If he does not hold BTC, people say he is not putting his money where his mouth is. And if he holds BTC, people say he is biased. No matter what, Draper cannot win with these lousy arguments.
- mabbo 9y ago
  Honestly, it was an off-the-cuff joke. Perhaps this guy is right. I think mostly I'm saying that perhaps this man is slightly biased, in that he will make more money if more people believe that bitcoins are worth more money and here to stay.
QAPereo 9y ago
With the insane power consumption, it's more like, "We must plow our fields under and plant only tulips, says pie-eyed lunatic with life savings in tulips." At least tulips sequestered carbon, cryptocurrencies essentially turn usable energy into waste heat, pollution, and e-tulips.
nul_byte 9y ago
Tulips are a really bad analogy The supply of tulips isn't fixed which is the key difference. The whole Tulip bubble came about from a large follow through spike in tulip production flooding the market, until supply inevitably outstripped demand, thereby setting the stage for a market crash. That's can happen to bitcoin, as its a fixed supply.
- mads 9y ago
  Wouldn’t the psychology behind the two bubbles be the same?
- kerny 9y ago
  > That's can happen to bitcoin, as its a fixed supply. There's endless ways to compute arbitrary numbers.
Cyphase 9y ago
If the headline was, "Bitcoin Is No Bubble, Says Investor With No Bitcoins", would that have given him any nominal amount more credence with you, or would you be saying, "Tulips can only go up, says investor with no tulips."?
kown223 9y ago
Tulips bubble never happened, is just propaganda
- incitatus451 9y ago
  This is my feeling. Why people would invest in something that rots pretty fast!?

highace 9y ago

And I still feel bad when I think about the 10 bitcoin I lost in mtgox and what they'd be worth now... (he lost 40,000 in mtgox)

dmichulke 9y ago
Plus: it takes ages to get them back, even now that the value of the remaining holdings exceeds the sum of all claims.
kaffeemitsahne 9y ago
> and what they'd be worth now You could've bought back in after you lost them, at that time, for the same amount of cash. Just like the guy who bought a pizza for 10k btc could've just bought 10k more for a few tenners.

cvaidya1986 9y ago

I have a contrarian position. ETH will beat out Bitcoin in 5 years because it’s a platform with smart contract programmability.

platz 9y ago
You predict utility will beat out pure speculation, when the utility of Bitcoin is largely ignored
- cvaidya1986 9y ago
  More like a platform will beat out an app. FB vs MySpace.
GroSacASacs 9y ago
Sometimes less is more. JS and JSON. JS and HTML. Cars and Motorbikes. TV and Radio. Both can exist at the same time and be usefull.
sigsergv 9y ago
Those “contracts” are not so smart unfortunately. It's not even true distributed calculations or something like that.

mads 9y ago

Aren’t those coins essentially worthless since he cannot unload them anywhere without tanking the price? He would have to sell them outside an exchange.

Cyphase 9y ago
Outside an exchange is a place he can sell them.

ttul 9y ago

Even if he loses it all, he’s a venture investor. This is what he does. It’s his life to invest in crazy things. One of his latest investments is a dodgy spam filtering idea that forces marketers to pay to send email to you unless they are on your whitelist. This will never work (source: I work in anti spam) for #reasons. But Tim clearly has a major hard on for BTC.

d3ckard 9y ago

Well, I disagree. Bitcoin is purely speculative market right now. Bitcoin is supposed to be a currency - thing you pay with. Right now constant deflation means nobody uses it to pay, which defeats its purpose. Bitcoin is also not gold. It has no inherent value, it's not useful in any way besides as payment instrument and right now utility of BTC as payment instrument is close to zero. Finally, Bitcoin is extremely expensive to maintain (electricity and computing power) and there is no way to lower that cost. Once BTC network processing power is too small percentage of world's total processing power, it becomes feasible to perform an attack on a Network (you need 51% as everybody knows). So, given that production of Bitcoin has a hard limit, at some point increase in price won't be able to offset resources necessary to mine, which will cause collapse of network processing power, which in turn will make network susceptible for attack. Mind you, it has nothing to do with product competitiveness(contracts, transaction times etc.). Bitcoin is designed in a way that is not sustainable and it will become clear at some point.

mrb 9y ago
«nobody uses it to pay» Always the same misconception being repeated... Your opinion is not supported by data. Usage is quickly growing: https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-growth-2017/ https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-growth-2017/ https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all (before someone says "it's speculators": no it's not—buying, holding, and selling BTC on an exchange does not create transactions on the blockchain; the vast majority of speculators leave their BTC in an exchange and never move it)
- foobardeveloper 9y ago
  There is an important distinction between valuing something inherently with bitcoin and accepting bitcoin for a real time USD conversion. What your are seeing with all these merchants is the latter I suppose, they have an intermediary who accepts bitcoin and converts it to USD and hands them the amount. Until something can be stably valued in Bitcoin similar to USD, it's use as a currency will be a moot point.

foobardeveloper 9y ago

Let me just leave this here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd0TqkW7qHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd0TqkW7qHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iNeXCAM_Ik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iNeXCAM_Ik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmH7GdSmSsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmH7GdSmSsU