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I've been playing with Bitcoin since 2010, the first price I remember was $0.10 a coin. I even did some CPU mining (!). I have never seriously invested in BTC b

by habosa 9y ago

I've been playing with Bitcoin since 2010, the first price I remember was $0.10 a coin. I even did some CPU mining (!). I have never seriously invested in BTC but I've been paying attention. It's amazing to watch the price go up as utility has gone down. In 2012 or so Bitcoin was legitimately useful. Coinbase was around so it was easy to buy. You could move it for reasonable fees / transaction times and it gave you access to Darknet Markets which offered services you couldn't get anywhere else. We also believed it to be private because law enforcement had not yet developed any block chain analysis software. Bitcoin was the only credible coin, everything else was a joke or lacked critical mass. Now none of that is true. If you're interested in privacy you don't touch BTC with a 10 foot pole. If you want an actually usable currency with speed and low fees you use ETH or any other. And if you're a financial institution you're looking at Ripple. Oh and let's not forget all the BTC forks and exchange hacks. Yet the price just climbs and climbs, and many people are getting quite rich. I can't say I'm not jealous, but I still won't invest because the fundamentals are all wrong. Someone will be left holding the bag.

Proven 9y ago
Other coins are less hacked (or, only BTC is stolen) because it makes most sense to steal it. While it’s true that it’s less private and useful than it was, there are developments that will make it better and some are in testing now (such as LN). It is a bubble, but it’s anyone’s guess when this madness will stop. There’s relatively few BTC out there. Like many others I regret I didn’t hold onto BTC I once had...
antoniuschan99 9y ago
What do you think of Ripple? It seems like it has the potential to be the legit crypto because it’s backed by banks.
- deweller 9y ago
  Not backed by banks is Bitcoin's primary value proposition. Ripple will find a use and may do quite well. But it requires more trust in a few centralized parties. It won't replace Bitcoin's primary use case as the highest security value store and world-wide settlement layer.
  - acjohnson55 9y ago
    Bitcoin effectively requires trust in a few centralized parties. The parties may not be set by fiat or syndicate, but the extent to which Bitcoin is truly trustless and decentralized in a way that is accessible to normal people is greatly exaggerated.
- habosa 9y ago
  I hold a small amount of XRP. It's not even a true Cryptocurrency as we commonly think of them but it's a nice piece of tech with good momentum in a space that could sorely use some efficiency gains.
  - antoniuschan99 9y ago
    Why is that? Isn’t it an ICO? Like it’s just a fork of ETH/BTC/LITE?
    - habosa 9y ago
      No not at all. XRP is part of the Ripper network which is a centralized payment network run by a single company. It's mostly used by banks. It's going for speed and volume not privacy, decentralization, or growth.
- abecedarius 9y ago
  According to a summary I read a while back, Ripple the company has a fair chance of success, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea for you to bet on the appreciation of XRP. IIRC the company keeps far more of it than they've put on the market. I haven't looked into this myself.
- ActsJuvenile 9y ago
  What remains of Ripple now is awfully similar to a scam: Jed McCaleb has been selling thousands of coins a day, and duped noobs are the only ones buying it. https://themerkle.com/ripple-labs-settles-lawsuit-with-jed-mccaleb/ https://themerkle.com/ripple-labs-settles-lawsuit-with-jed-m...
makomk 9y ago
In 2012 or so, the block size limit was 500 KB and blocks weren't close to being full; towards the end of 2012 they were approaching 100 KB each. The current block size limit is 1MB+ and almost every block is stuffed to the limit. It's easy to lose track of the fact that the reason fees are high is because there's a lot more on-chain activity than back in 2012. What's more interesting is that, for example, Bitcoin Cash has a similar level of on-chain activity to 2012-era Bitcoin without the interesting shops accepting it, but its price is about a hundred times higher than 2012-era Bitcoin.
- habosa 9y ago
  All true but that's just proof that BTC doesn't really scale to the point where it's a useful global medium of exchange. That's an interesting way to think about BCH. Some of the price increase is justified due to the increasing legitimization of all crypto currencies but definitely not 100x.
  - bobcat9 9y ago
    Some believe that it can easily scale to the that point, but there are corrupt and powerful people who are stifling that effort.
    - xapata 9y ago
      Some people believe the earth is flat, too. I'd rather hear a detailed discussion than a summary.
- DSingularity 9y ago
  There is criminal level fraud occurring. I am not going to throw allegations out, but I believe there will be a day in the coming years where we read stories about organized crime and pump and dumps in this space. I believe the bitcoin forks will be at the heart of this all. Everybody is happily singing the song of crypto while the music is going. Not sure how long it will last.
  - 9y ago
nextstep 9y ago
Bitcoin Cash is usable, at least so much as Bitcoin circa 2012 was "usable".
charlesdm 9y ago
Same boat as you -- I wanted to buy some in the early days but ultimately didn't for various reasons. At the time, it was an experiment. But today it's becoming more and more clear what it'll eventually end up being: not a payment network, not a private way of transacting, but digital (yet secure) gold. That's all Bitcoin will most likely ever be and that is totally fine. There is something to be said about an asset that is held outside of the traditional financial system. I'm not a Bitcoin bull, but I also wouldn't be surprised if a coin hits $100,000 (or more) sometime in the next few years. Ethereum though.. I'm more curious about how that will turn out. Seems to have many potential interesting use cases
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  There's still not an entirely compelling reason to believe it's digital gold and not digital Beanie Babies.
- paulryanrogers 9y ago
  Is gold a good comparison though? Gold has value beyond fiat in manufacturing. If Bitcoin cannot provide value for exchange then why would it be a better store of value?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - anonymous5133 9y ago
    and clearly as you've just proved, a good store of value does NOT require an intrinsic value. All that is important is that people place trust in the asset. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have attributes that make it easy for people to place trust in it.
    - hd4 9y ago
      The fact that people trust in something doesn't automatically mean that thing is good, remember that many people (even the same as those who put their trust in *coins) also trust in sky wizards and celebrities. I realise you may just be stating that that's how the world is.
matwood 9y ago
In my 'speculative' investments I have some crypto and have more ETH than BTC. I think ETH just has more utility, but it is missing the name recognition of BTC. Who knows...the crypto that wins out might not even be invented yet.
- prawn 9y ago
  Does there need to be one that wins out? Could there be 50+ of a reasonable size?
  - Viker 9y ago
    For what possible reason? It is like having 50 reasonable Internets.
    - cc81 9y ago
      Protection against manipulation and attacks?
      - stordoff 9y ago
        Seems like a bit of a double-edged sword to me. On one hand, it becomes less likely that a single party or exploit would be able to damage the entire ecosystem (because distinct currencies aren't likely to have exactly the same flaws). On the other hand, AFAIK, smaller networks are generally easier to attack, making it more feasible that it will happen.
    - Klathmon 9y ago
      To me it's more like 50+ image formats. Yeah, 50 might be more than is really needed, but there is no reason why several or more can't happily coexist, each specialized in their own way.
    - eric-hu 9y ago
      Because many different groups bought into many different viable systems in the same time? Isn't that why many countries in the world use their own currencies?
asdfasdfas112 9y ago
So far, it seems it is people like you who are holding the bag ;) Just sayin.
empath75 9y ago
I think people aren't as rich as they think they are. Let them try and cash out the bitcoins on bitfinex and discover that what they actually get are funny-money tokens called 'tether' which they can't exchange for dollars anywhere.
- alanfalcon 9y ago
  ... nobody would do that though. I can sell my BTC for USD on Kraken and withdraw to my bank account. And I have.
  - sparkie 9y ago
    Kraken is the only exchange where you can actually exchange USDT for USD. However, at the time of posting, you can only redeem 320k Tether before the price of it will half. Only 320k out of 650M+ (and growing) has any real value. Where are the remaining 649780k USDT going to be redeemed for USD? (Hint: Not from Tether themselves, they clearly state in their own terms of service that they're not redeemable for USD).
    - alanfalcon 9y ago
      Right, Tether is a scam. But my point is that Bitcoin can be sold directly for USD (not USDT) on some exchanges.
      - empath75 9y ago
        I like how you just sort of blithely say that tether is a scam when there’s nearly a billion dollars of it trading on margin, inflating the bitcoin price.
  - socialist_coder 9y ago
    I haven't traded any BTC for years, but when I did, I was using Kraken. Why do you think Kraken isn't more popular now? It seems to be the least shady of the exchanges.
knodi 9y ago
Ya I feel like the value of BTC right now is only investing for a quick turn around. I hope there is a market correction coming soon.
static_noise 9y ago
> many people are getting quite rich Only if they cash out. You need new investors to be able to cash out. The wise ones smell the crash and are the first ones out. Some make it out just before the crash when the party is still going but the fires are rising. The rest burns. There is no real value in bitcoin (unlike the stock exchange or fiat money where valuable people are trapped in contracts).
- 3pt14159 9y ago
  Eh, the value is being able to buy drugs and exploits and botnets and ransomware unlocks online and move money between countries without delay or paperwork or reversal. If you're a CTO of a major company and you don't have a wallet with at least $1m in BTC in some wallet somewhere then you're risking a major disaster if someone breaks in and locks up your data. But just because there are real uses doesn't mean that I think that the government will allow it to remain legal.
  - opportune 9y ago
    Right but there are better cryptos for all of those purposes (Ethereum, Monero). Right now Bitcoin's only killer app is the name recognition and the fact that it's increasing in value, which is tautological and why I think it's bound to decline in importance compared to other crypto.
    - danenania 9y ago
      I think you're underestimating the power of network effects and critical mass. Even when a product (or protocol) has major flaws, it can be an insurmountable obstacle for potential competitors, regardless of how much better they might be otherwise. Bitcoin is going to be extremely difficult to catch on this front unless it has a true meltdown or there's a fundamental shift due to legislation.
      - opportune 9y ago
        That's fair, but while my 19 year old younger brother has heard of Bitcoin and not Ethereum, the same is not true for developers. I think there is some information asymmetry and a discrepancy in the quality of the users between networks - by quality I mean how likely users are to contribute to new software to make it better, the level of what is essentially corruption/bureaucracy in making changes to the platform, etc. Facebook and Snap did well because they were "cooler" than their predecessors, and they had different/more uses. I think that's analogous to where I see the future of crypto
iMuzz 9y ago
> It's amazing to watch the price go up as utility has gone down. Couldn't agree more. I've been following crypto since 2012. The most exciting aspect of bitcoin personally was being able to hold both cash(private/low fees) AND and an asset(scarce) on the internet without having to trust any 3rd parties. Sad to see the community is just settling on the latter (at least for now). I don't think there's a need for two different currencies to represent both 'cash' and 'asset'. I think in the future it'll most likely be one crypto that fulfills both needs. And as of right now, I wouldn't bet on Bitcoin. But hey, what do I know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
pizza234 9y ago
The rich ones are those who got rich (by cashing out) - not the ones getting rich. The latter ones are not "rich"; they're "paper rich", which is radically different. I think it's crucial to highlight the difference, since the BTC may be toilet paper tomorrow, or maybe not; and this is how lotteries work.
- MoBattah 9y ago
  I don't like these "paper rich" comments. Why? Because the vast majority of people who hold BTC can market sell their coins now without affecting the market. Your statement, from my understanding, is saying "if people cash out, everything will crash". That's simply not true. More so, it's not true because that's fundamentally not how markets work. Whenever someone buys 400 BTC, that means someone else sold or "cashed out" 400 BTC. This is a highly liquid market system with many participants, not a lottery system.
  - pmoleri 9y ago
    However it's crazy how volatile it is. When you Cash out, you would put your money in a less volatile currency or asset.
  - pizza234 9y ago
    > Your statement, from my understanding, is saying "if people cash out, everything will crash" I never wrote that. I've been quite specific: > BTC may be toilet paper tomorrow, or maybe not; and this is how lotteries work. The difference between wealth and "paper wealth", in this interpretation, is simply in the volatility of the assets. BTC is extremely volatile both in the short and long terms, therefore being rich can't be disassociated from the cash out. Association is the concept I'm stressing. With lowly volatile assets, one can be reasonably confident the value of the assets, so cashing out can be reasonably ignored, but with highly volatile ones, one can't, so it's all about the moment of the conversion. Lottery has probably been a wrong term - probably gambling is better, but the concept still stands.
emerged 9y ago
It often feels like I'm the only one on the planet who genuinely doesn't want to make money off bitcoin. It's a pretty satisfying perspective, though -- I don't feel jealous of anyone who has or will make a killing off bitcoin speculation. I don't want it to fail and I don't really care if it succeeds. To me it's an interesting phenomena which is just as likely to be the most important creation in a century as it is to be a temporary fluke/bubble which won't stand the test of time. Running around hopping on popular ideas, foaming at the mouth fearing to lose out is an unpleasant mental/emotional state of mind IMO.
- mojoe 9y ago
  Consciously avoiding FOMO is something I also try to do. Takes a certain amount of mental discipline, but reduces stress significantly (for me, at least).
stevenj 9y ago
>...but I still won't invest because the fundamentals are all wrong. Trading bitcoin is speculation. It's not investing (where fundamental analysis can be useful to evaluate assets). But a lot of money can be made (and lost) by speculating. It just depends on your risk profile.
nmj 9y ago
The utility has gone down? Bitcoin utility hasn't gone down it has had many additional features built into it but the utility has not changed. The fact that this is upvoted so high really shows the number of people who truly lack an understanding of an asset but are vocal in spite of that fact.
MandieD 9y ago
My pastor asked me about Bitcoin yesterday, and if he should buy some. My pastor, who did the math and realized that it doesn't make financial sense for him to own a car on the little bit of money he makes working for various English-speaking churches here in Germany and teaching, and is not a greedy person (otherwise he wouldn't be a poorly-paid mainline Protestant pastor...) At least he understands that he doesn't understand how on earth it works and that should be grounds enough for caution. If I didn't already have problems with how much electricity it burns for even the smallest transaction, that would have been enough to put me off it. I apologized to him for possibly being wrong about warning him off from what looks to me like an enormous bubble, but from what I've seen outside of our own tech bubble, it's an enormous bubble that most of the buyers have little to no understanding of. I made 1300% on Nvidia stock purchased in 2009, after that court ruling. I'm content with the money I've indirectly made off Bitcoin.
0bsidian 9y ago
I respectfully disagree with your assertion that "the fundamentals are all wrong". I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwhich if you live in the West (or frankly, even most developing nations). On the other hand, I can definitely see the utility in a censorship-resistant digital medium to store wealth. To me, this latter use case has much, much more potential to serve the unbanked (as well as the banked). Some use cases I can think off the top of my head: (1) You are from Syria and need to flee war and escape into Europe – however bank transfers into Europe are almost impossible if you are a common Syrian. Bitcoin allows you to take your wealth with you, in your brain, as you escape across the border, by just memorising your twelve word private key. (2) You are from Venezuela or Zimbabwe – The government has issued capital controls and is devaluing currency by the day. You transfer your wealth into Bitcoin in order to offset capital erosion due to hyper-inflation. When the situation stabilises, you transfer your Bitcoin back into fiat. (3) You are Saudi billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal. The government freezes all your assets in a political coup. If you have a portion of your wealth in Bitcoin, you could protect them from government expropriation and anonymously transfer them to associates or family members abroad. (4) You are whistleblower Julian Assance and have been cut off from the financial system as a way to censor your speech. Bitcoin allows you to have an unbreakable digital "Swiss bank account" that the authorities are not able to reach. This reminds me of Peter Thiel's recent words about Bitcoin: "it's like a reserve form of money, it's like gold, and it's just a store of value. You don't need to use it to make payments." Reference [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/26/bitcoin-underestimated-peter-thiel-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/26/bitcoin-underestimated-peter...

by habosa 9y ago

Proven 9y ago

Other coins are less hacked (or, only BTC is stolen) because it makes most sense to steal it. While it’s true that it’s less private and useful than it was, there are developments that will make it better and some are in testing now (such as LN). It is a bubble, but it’s anyone’s guess when this madness will stop. There’s relatively few BTC out there. Like many others I regret I didn’t hold onto BTC I once had...

antoniuschan99 9y ago

What do you think of Ripple? It seems like it has the potential to be the legit crypto because it’s backed by banks.

deweller 9y ago
Not backed by banks is Bitcoin's primary value proposition. Ripple will find a use and may do quite well. But it requires more trust in a few centralized parties. It won't replace Bitcoin's primary use case as the highest security value store and world-wide settlement layer.
- acjohnson55 9y ago
  Bitcoin effectively requires trust in a few centralized parties. The parties may not be set by fiat or syndicate, but the extent to which Bitcoin is truly trustless and decentralized in a way that is accessible to normal people is greatly exaggerated.
habosa 9y ago
I hold a small amount of XRP. It's not even a true Cryptocurrency as we commonly think of them but it's a nice piece of tech with good momentum in a space that could sorely use some efficiency gains.
- antoniuschan99 9y ago
  Why is that? Isn’t it an ICO? Like it’s just a fork of ETH/BTC/LITE?
  - habosa 9y ago
    No not at all. XRP is part of the Ripper network which is a centralized payment network run by a single company. It's mostly used by banks. It's going for speed and volume not privacy, decentralization, or growth.
abecedarius 9y ago
According to a summary I read a while back, Ripple the company has a fair chance of success, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea for you to bet on the appreciation of XRP. IIRC the company keeps far more of it than they've put on the market. I haven't looked into this myself.
ActsJuvenile 9y ago
What remains of Ripple now is awfully similar to a scam: Jed McCaleb has been selling thousands of coins a day, and duped noobs are the only ones buying it. https://themerkle.com/ripple-labs-settles-lawsuit-with-jed-mccaleb/ https://themerkle.com/ripple-labs-settles-lawsuit-with-jed-m...

makomk 9y ago

In 2012 or so, the block size limit was 500 KB and blocks weren't close to being full; towards the end of 2012 they were approaching 100 KB each. The current block size limit is 1MB+ and almost every block is stuffed to the limit. It's easy to lose track of the fact that the reason fees are high is because there's a lot more on-chain activity than back in 2012. What's more interesting is that, for example, Bitcoin Cash has a similar level of on-chain activity to 2012-era Bitcoin without the interesting shops accepting it, but its price is about a hundred times higher than 2012-era Bitcoin.

habosa 9y ago
All true but that's just proof that BTC doesn't really scale to the point where it's a useful global medium of exchange. That's an interesting way to think about BCH. Some of the price increase is justified due to the increasing legitimization of all crypto currencies but definitely not 100x.
- bobcat9 9y ago
  Some believe that it can easily scale to the that point, but there are corrupt and powerful people who are stifling that effort.
  - xapata 9y ago
    Some people believe the earth is flat, too. I'd rather hear a detailed discussion than a summary.
DSingularity 9y ago
There is criminal level fraud occurring. I am not going to throw allegations out, but I believe there will be a day in the coming years where we read stories about organized crime and pump and dumps in this space. I believe the bitcoin forks will be at the heart of this all. Everybody is happily singing the song of crypto while the music is going. Not sure how long it will last.
- 9y ago

nextstep 9y ago

Bitcoin Cash is usable, at least so much as Bitcoin circa 2012 was "usable".

charlesdm 9y ago

Same boat as you -- I wanted to buy some in the early days but ultimately didn't for various reasons. At the time, it was an experiment. But today it's becoming more and more clear what it'll eventually end up being: not a payment network, not a private way of transacting, but digital (yet secure) gold. That's all Bitcoin will most likely ever be and that is totally fine. There is something to be said about an asset that is held outside of the traditional financial system. I'm not a Bitcoin bull, but I also wouldn't be surprised if a coin hits $100,000 (or more) sometime in the next few years. Ethereum though.. I'm more curious about how that will turn out. Seems to have many potential interesting use cases

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
There's still not an entirely compelling reason to believe it's digital gold and not digital Beanie Babies.
paulryanrogers 9y ago
Is gold a good comparison though? Gold has value beyond fiat in manufacturing. If Bitcoin cannot provide value for exchange then why would it be a better store of value?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- anonymous5133 9y ago
  and clearly as you've just proved, a good store of value does NOT require an intrinsic value. All that is important is that people place trust in the asset. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have attributes that make it easy for people to place trust in it.
  - hd4 9y ago
    The fact that people trust in something doesn't automatically mean that thing is good, remember that many people (even the same as those who put their trust in *coins) also trust in sky wizards and celebrities. I realise you may just be stating that that's how the world is.

matwood 9y ago

In my 'speculative' investments I have some crypto and have more ETH than BTC. I think ETH just has more utility, but it is missing the name recognition of BTC. Who knows...the crypto that wins out might not even be invented yet.

prawn 9y ago
Does there need to be one that wins out? Could there be 50+ of a reasonable size?
- Viker 9y ago
  For what possible reason? It is like having 50 reasonable Internets.
  - cc81 9y ago
    Protection against manipulation and attacks?
    - stordoff 9y ago
      Seems like a bit of a double-edged sword to me. On one hand, it becomes less likely that a single party or exploit would be able to damage the entire ecosystem (because distinct currencies aren't likely to have exactly the same flaws). On the other hand, AFAIK, smaller networks are generally easier to attack, making it more feasible that it will happen.
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    To me it's more like 50+ image formats. Yeah, 50 might be more than is really needed, but there is no reason why several or more can't happily coexist, each specialized in their own way.
  - eric-hu 9y ago
    Because many different groups bought into many different viable systems in the same time? Isn't that why many countries in the world use their own currencies?

asdfasdfas112 9y ago

So far, it seems it is people like you who are holding the bag ;) Just sayin.

empath75 9y ago

I think people aren't as rich as they think they are. Let them try and cash out the bitcoins on bitfinex and discover that what they actually get are funny-money tokens called 'tether' which they can't exchange for dollars anywhere.

alanfalcon 9y ago
... nobody would do that though. I can sell my BTC for USD on Kraken and withdraw to my bank account. And I have.
- sparkie 9y ago
  Kraken is the only exchange where you can actually exchange USDT for USD. However, at the time of posting, you can only redeem 320k Tether before the price of it will half. Only 320k out of 650M+ (and growing) has any real value. Where are the remaining 649780k USDT going to be redeemed for USD? (Hint: Not from Tether themselves, they clearly state in their own terms of service that they're not redeemable for USD).
  - alanfalcon 9y ago
    Right, Tether is a scam. But my point is that Bitcoin can be sold directly for USD (not USDT) on some exchanges.
    - empath75 9y ago
      I like how you just sort of blithely say that tether is a scam when there’s nearly a billion dollars of it trading on margin, inflating the bitcoin price.
- socialist_coder 9y ago
  I haven't traded any BTC for years, but when I did, I was using Kraken. Why do you think Kraken isn't more popular now? It seems to be the least shady of the exchanges.

knodi 9y ago

Ya I feel like the value of BTC right now is only investing for a quick turn around. I hope there is a market correction coming soon.

static_noise 9y ago

> many people are getting quite rich Only if they cash out. You need new investors to be able to cash out. The wise ones smell the crash and are the first ones out. Some make it out just before the crash when the party is still going but the fires are rising. The rest burns. There is no real value in bitcoin (unlike the stock exchange or fiat money where valuable people are trapped in contracts).

3pt14159 9y ago
Eh, the value is being able to buy drugs and exploits and botnets and ransomware unlocks online and move money between countries without delay or paperwork or reversal. If you're a CTO of a major company and you don't have a wallet with at least $1m in BTC in some wallet somewhere then you're risking a major disaster if someone breaks in and locks up your data. But just because there are real uses doesn't mean that I think that the government will allow it to remain legal.
- opportune 9y ago
  Right but there are better cryptos for all of those purposes (Ethereum, Monero). Right now Bitcoin's only killer app is the name recognition and the fact that it's increasing in value, which is tautological and why I think it's bound to decline in importance compared to other crypto.
  - danenania 9y ago
    I think you're underestimating the power of network effects and critical mass. Even when a product (or protocol) has major flaws, it can be an insurmountable obstacle for potential competitors, regardless of how much better they might be otherwise. Bitcoin is going to be extremely difficult to catch on this front unless it has a true meltdown or there's a fundamental shift due to legislation.
    - opportune 9y ago
      That's fair, but while my 19 year old younger brother has heard of Bitcoin and not Ethereum, the same is not true for developers. I think there is some information asymmetry and a discrepancy in the quality of the users between networks - by quality I mean how likely users are to contribute to new software to make it better, the level of what is essentially corruption/bureaucracy in making changes to the platform, etc. Facebook and Snap did well because they were "cooler" than their predecessors, and they had different/more uses. I think that's analogous to where I see the future of crypto

iMuzz 9y ago

> It's amazing to watch the price go up as utility has gone down. Couldn't agree more. I've been following crypto since 2012. The most exciting aspect of bitcoin personally was being able to hold both cash(private/low fees) AND and an asset(scarce) on the internet without having to trust any 3rd parties. Sad to see the community is just settling on the latter (at least for now). I don't think there's a need for two different currencies to represent both 'cash' and 'asset'. I think in the future it'll most likely be one crypto that fulfills both needs. And as of right now, I wouldn't bet on Bitcoin. But hey, what do I know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

pizza234 9y ago

The rich ones are those who got rich (by cashing out) - not the ones getting rich. The latter ones are not "rich"; they're "paper rich", which is radically different. I think it's crucial to highlight the difference, since the BTC may be toilet paper tomorrow, or maybe not; and this is how lotteries work.

MoBattah 9y ago
I don't like these "paper rich" comments. Why? Because the vast majority of people who hold BTC can market sell their coins now without affecting the market. Your statement, from my understanding, is saying "if people cash out, everything will crash". That's simply not true. More so, it's not true because that's fundamentally not how markets work. Whenever someone buys 400 BTC, that means someone else sold or "cashed out" 400 BTC. This is a highly liquid market system with many participants, not a lottery system.
- pmoleri 9y ago
  However it's crazy how volatile it is. When you Cash out, you would put your money in a less volatile currency or asset.
- pizza234 9y ago
  > Your statement, from my understanding, is saying "if people cash out, everything will crash" I never wrote that. I've been quite specific: > BTC may be toilet paper tomorrow, or maybe not; and this is how lotteries work. The difference between wealth and "paper wealth", in this interpretation, is simply in the volatility of the assets. BTC is extremely volatile both in the short and long terms, therefore being rich can't be disassociated from the cash out. Association is the concept I'm stressing. With lowly volatile assets, one can be reasonably confident the value of the assets, so cashing out can be reasonably ignored, but with highly volatile ones, one can't, so it's all about the moment of the conversion. Lottery has probably been a wrong term - probably gambling is better, but the concept still stands.

emerged 9y ago

It often feels like I'm the only one on the planet who genuinely doesn't want to make money off bitcoin. It's a pretty satisfying perspective, though -- I don't feel jealous of anyone who has or will make a killing off bitcoin speculation. I don't want it to fail and I don't really care if it succeeds. To me it's an interesting phenomena which is just as likely to be the most important creation in a century as it is to be a temporary fluke/bubble which won't stand the test of time. Running around hopping on popular ideas, foaming at the mouth fearing to lose out is an unpleasant mental/emotional state of mind IMO.

mojoe 9y ago
Consciously avoiding FOMO is something I also try to do. Takes a certain amount of mental discipline, but reduces stress significantly (for me, at least).

stevenj 9y ago

>...but I still won't invest because the fundamentals are all wrong. Trading bitcoin is speculation. It's not investing (where fundamental analysis can be useful to evaluate assets). But a lot of money can be made (and lost) by speculating. It just depends on your risk profile.

nmj 9y ago

The utility has gone down? Bitcoin utility hasn't gone down it has had many additional features built into it but the utility has not changed. The fact that this is upvoted so high really shows the number of people who truly lack an understanding of an asset but are vocal in spite of that fact.

MandieD 9y ago

My pastor asked me about Bitcoin yesterday, and if he should buy some. My pastor, who did the math and realized that it doesn't make financial sense for him to own a car on the little bit of money he makes working for various English-speaking churches here in Germany and teaching, and is not a greedy person (otherwise he wouldn't be a poorly-paid mainline Protestant pastor...) At least he understands that he doesn't understand how on earth it works and that should be grounds enough for caution. If I didn't already have problems with how much electricity it burns for even the smallest transaction, that would have been enough to put me off it. I apologized to him for possibly being wrong about warning him off from what looks to me like an enormous bubble, but from what I've seen outside of our own tech bubble, it's an enormous bubble that most of the buyers have little to no understanding of. I made 1300% on Nvidia stock purchased in 2009, after that court ruling. I'm content with the money I've indirectly made off Bitcoin.

0bsidian 9y ago

I respectfully disagree with your assertion that "the fundamentals are all wrong". I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwhich if you live in the West (or frankly, even most developing nations). On the other hand, I can definitely see the utility in a censorship-resistant digital medium to store wealth. To me, this latter use case has much, much more potential to serve the unbanked (as well as the banked). Some use cases I can think off the top of my head: (1) You are from Syria and need to flee war and escape into Europe – however bank transfers into Europe are almost impossible if you are a common Syrian. Bitcoin allows you to take your wealth with you, in your brain, as you escape across the border, by just memorising your twelve word private key. (2) You are from Venezuela or Zimbabwe – The government has issued capital controls and is devaluing currency by the day. You transfer your wealth into Bitcoin in order to offset capital erosion due to hyper-inflation. When the situation stabilises, you transfer your Bitcoin back into fiat. (3) You are Saudi billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal. The government freezes all your assets in a political coup. If you have a portion of your wealth in Bitcoin, you could protect them from government expropriation and anonymously transfer them to associates or family members abroad. (4) You are whistleblower Julian Assance and have been cut off from the financial system as a way to censor your speech. Bitcoin allows you to have an unbreakable digital "Swiss bank account" that the authorities are not able to reach. This reminds me of Peter Thiel's recent words about Bitcoin: "it's like a reserve form of money, it's like gold, and it's just a store of value. You don't need to use it to make payments." Reference [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/26/bitcoin-underestimated-peter-thiel-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/26/bitcoin-underestimated-peter...