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My wife works in the high-end art and auction world. I always joke that artists are the most extreme capitalist you will ever find. This is a world where a din

My wife works in the high-end art and auction world. I always joke that artists are the most extreme capitalist you will ever find. This is a world where a dinner table can easily be sold for 1$mio because it's owned by some famous person. Pretty fascinating world. On a slightly different note. This is also the reason why I think cryptocurrencies/tokens are going to be doing just fine. Humans very rarely exchange and value based on utilitarianism alone.

vinceguidry 9y ago
My whole attitude towards cryptocurrencies changed when I realized that intrinsic value literally didn't matter to the global rich, they're not interested in growth or value at all, only in security, and they'd be willing to pay a premium to store their wealth if it only means that they can control the risk. Crypto can provide them with precisely that. The volatility of crypto is immaterial, what matters is that it's still around. The resilience of Bitcoin means that rich people can park wealth there. They can trust the protocol more than they can trust their nation's banks, their political institutions, and their social order. Techies can make a nice side income arbitraging the scrambling of the global elite for a safe haven. It's the new Cayman Islands bank account, only now it's math keeping the filthy government's hands off your money, not the flimsy sham of sovereignty.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  > The volatility of crypto is immaterial, what matters is that it's still around. The resilience of Bitcoin means that rich people can park wealth there. They can trust the protocol more than they can trust their nation's banks, their political institutions, and their social order. You may eventually be able to make this claim, but to make it now is lunacy.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    It is but so is believing in the government-backed securities IMO.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > The resilience of Bitcoin means that rich people can park wealth there When one speaks of assets in which one parks their wealth, an asset that loses 50% of its purchasing power overnight is not one of them.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    So just wait for it to come back up. You're not looking to withdraw it now, just eventually. Tap one of your other asset stores until Bitcoin climbs back. The perspective of wealthy people is not ours. They have to weigh risk differently than we do. To them, if a bank fails or if the state seizes their wealth, it's the same thing as Bitcoin falling. Only it's not, because Bitcoin can climb back, while the people that stole their wealth are never going to give it back. Bitcoin being a market entity that can remain outside government regulation and enforcement reach makes it the ultimate asset store. Nothing else in the world offers that.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - ckastner 9y ago
      > So just wait for it to come back up Some assets do not come back up.
      - vinceguidry 9y ago
        If the global elite start parking wealth in Bitcoin, then there's literally no ceiling on the price. You see this in any market that gets targeted by them. Prices go up, and they don't come back down until governments start paying attention and figure out how to control access and regulate. Then they come back down some. But unless a governing entity can figure out how to completely shut global money out of a market, then that asset price might not be being held up by God Himself, but by a force almost as strong.
        JumpCrisscross 9y ago
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Really rich people have most of their money in t-bills and real estate. Once you have a few million dollars, 95% of people become very conservative and focused on wealth preservation. 4.9% lose it, and 0.1% keep doubling down and get even more wealthy. The principles of sovereignty have been around for a millennia. They aren't going anywhere. Debt is the financial innovation that has ignited centuries of growth, not few forms of cash... people were getting rich even when they needed to hump wagons of silver and gold around. Cryptocurrency is just a new form of scrip.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    Not everyone has access to t-bills and real estate. Capital controls can prevent wealth moving across borders. If you literally can't get your wealth to safety, then Bitcoin looks really, really good.
    - reverend_gonzo 9y ago
      Wrong. If you can't move your money due to capital controls, you use bitcoin to bypass those controls, and get your money into somewhere more stable, preferably something that does not have volatility of 20% per day.
      - vinceguidry 9y ago
        Both security and stability are scarce assets. Bitcoin can provide useful alternative market offerings for both.
        reverend_gonzo 9y ago
        Bitcoin as a secure and stable asset? Maybe in the far future, but not even remotely now.
        ThomPete 9y ago
        Who do long term investments in short terms? The whole point is that if you get in now you both gain the upside of the value plus the increasing stability. If you have enough money you can make that bet, hell even if you have less money you can still make that bet.
- reverend_gonzo 9y ago
  > Crypto can provide them with precisely that. The volatility of crypto is immaterial, what matters is that it's still around. The resilience of Bitcoin means that rich people can park wealth there. They can trust the protocol more than they can trust their nation's banks, their political institutions, and their social order. What? Nobody sane is putting their long-term savings in crypto. The resilience of bitcoin has absolutely not been proven. For long term assets, you want your money in some stable, solid, not volatile, and preferably backed by a global superpower, hence US Government bonds and Euro bonds are pretty much the safest assets you can buy. They won't go up much in value, but they won't go down much either.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    Government bonds are limited in quantity, the government can't sell enough of them to meet demand. Not even the US government has that much appetite for spending. And if you think about it, governments could never be that sink. Security will forever be a scarce asset.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    Long term it's exactly what you should do unless you truly believe that the USD is going to be as valuable as a security as it is right now in the long run (it's not). One thing that many people forget is that most bitcoin is owned by very few people who go in very very early. They will not need to sell even if it was cut on half from now and they do not have to worry about inflation. If you can do that in the long run bitcoin will gain trust and thus be less volatile or even live with the volatility (as we used to do with normal fiat currencies)
    - reverend_gonzo 9y ago
      If, as you say, the majority of bitcoin is owned by very few people, that market is cornered and you shouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.
      - ThomPete 9y ago
        That's like saying that because the top 5% own most of the world's wealth you should stay away. Can't you see how wrong that claim is?
- boffinism 9y ago
  > They're...interested...in security, and... [c]rypto can provide them with precisely that. 20% of all bitcoins have been irretrievably lost [0] and 7% have been stolen [1]. If I was the global rich, I'd rather hide gold bars in my mattress rather than put it in Bitcoin if my goal was just security. [0] http://fortune.com/2017/11/25/lost-bitcoins/ http://fortune.com/2017/11/25/lost-bitcoins/ [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-bitcoins-have-been-stolen-2014-3?IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-bitcoins-have-been-s...
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    Due to haphazard security and sheer being unlucky (i lost 300bitcoin from very very early on because they were on an external hardisk that I threw out) I am not the only one. Peoples money gets stolen all the time.
  - JonnyNova 9y ago
    Also, Bitcoin is 15x more expensive than gold to store securely: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-15-times-more-expensive-130000674.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-15-times-more-expensi... Edit: for large institutional investors in a trust fund
    - bfuller 9y ago
      >Also, Bitcoin is 15x more expensive than gold to store securely: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-15-times-more-expensi.. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-15-times-more-expensi.... This is only the case for this particular trust fund. You can secure your coins for free on your own. edit: downvoted for stating a fact? really?
      - JonnyNova 9y ago
        Didn't mean to leave that out. Added it in
  - bfuller 9y ago
    I disagree with this point. While the facts about the amount of bitcoin being lost are true, if someone is properly motivated to learn how to do things correctly, and large amounts of money can definitely be motivating, you can be very confident in your security. So many coins have been lost because people were careless or uninformed, not because the system is fundamentally broken. Edit: You're free to downvote, but if you can't make a reasonable argument against me it just shows the emotional response you are leaning on. I would be happy to post a wallet address with $10,000 in bitcoin on there, if I am wrong about what I said, surely you'd be able to take the money from me?
- sigstoat 9y ago
  > My whole attitude towards cryptocurrencies changed when I realized that intrinsic value literally didn't matter to the global rich, they're not interested in growth or value at all, only in security, and they'd be willing to pay a premium to store their wealth if it only means that they can control the risk. perhaps a bit more accurately, they're interested in growth and value, but they've got enough of both that they've become interested in eliminating risk. which requires finding assets which are decorrelated from one another. the various electronic currencies are a new sort of asset class which appear to be decorrelated from everything (except NVDA?). > The volatility of crypto is immaterial... eh, the volatility isn't great, but so long as it is very different from everything else's volatility, it can be useful.
MaxBarraclough 9y ago
> Humans very rarely exchange and value based on utilitarianism alone. Careful - before you know it you'll have a long and tedious conversation about the true nature and scope of 'utility'.

vinceguidry 9y ago

My whole attitude towards cryptocurrencies changed when I realized that intrinsic value literally didn't matter to the global rich, they're not interested in growth or value at all, only in security, and they'd be willing to pay a premium to store their wealth if it only means that they can control the risk. Crypto can provide them with precisely that. The volatility of crypto is immaterial, what matters is that it's still around. The resilience of Bitcoin means that rich people can park wealth there. They can trust the protocol more than they can trust their nation's banks, their political institutions, and their social order. Techies can make a nice side income arbitraging the scrambling of the global elite for a safe haven. It's the new Cayman Islands bank account, only now it's math keeping the filthy government's hands off your money, not the flimsy sham of sovereignty.

ceejayoz 9y ago
> The volatility of crypto is immaterial, what matters is that it's still around. The resilience of Bitcoin means that rich people can park wealth there. They can trust the protocol more than they can trust their nation's banks, their political institutions, and their social order. You may eventually be able to make this claim, but to make it now is lunacy.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  It is but so is believing in the government-backed securities IMO.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> The resilience of Bitcoin means that rich people can park wealth there When one speaks of assets in which one parks their wealth, an asset that loses 50% of its purchasing power overnight is not one of them.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  So just wait for it to come back up. You're not looking to withdraw it now, just eventually. Tap one of your other asset stores until Bitcoin climbs back. The perspective of wealthy people is not ours. They have to weigh risk differently than we do. To them, if a bank fails or if the state seizes their wealth, it's the same thing as Bitcoin falling. Only it's not, because Bitcoin can climb back, while the people that stole their wealth are never going to give it back. Bitcoin being a market entity that can remain outside government regulation and enforcement reach makes it the ultimate asset store. Nothing else in the world offers that.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - ckastner 9y ago
    > So just wait for it to come back up Some assets do not come back up.
    - vinceguidry 9y ago
      If the global elite start parking wealth in Bitcoin, then there's literally no ceiling on the price. You see this in any market that gets targeted by them. Prices go up, and they don't come back down until governments start paying attention and figure out how to control access and regulate. Then they come back down some. But unless a governing entity can figure out how to completely shut global money out of a market, then that asset price might not be being held up by God Himself, but by a force almost as strong.
      - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
Spooky23 9y ago
Really rich people have most of their money in t-bills and real estate. Once you have a few million dollars, 95% of people become very conservative and focused on wealth preservation. 4.9% lose it, and 0.1% keep doubling down and get even more wealthy. The principles of sovereignty have been around for a millennia. They aren't going anywhere. Debt is the financial innovation that has ignited centuries of growth, not few forms of cash... people were getting rich even when they needed to hump wagons of silver and gold around. Cryptocurrency is just a new form of scrip.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  Not everyone has access to t-bills and real estate. Capital controls can prevent wealth moving across borders. If you literally can't get your wealth to safety, then Bitcoin looks really, really good.
  - reverend_gonzo 9y ago
    Wrong. If you can't move your money due to capital controls, you use bitcoin to bypass those controls, and get your money into somewhere more stable, preferably something that does not have volatility of 20% per day.
    - vinceguidry 9y ago
      Both security and stability are scarce assets. Bitcoin can provide useful alternative market offerings for both.
      - reverend_gonzo 9y ago
        Bitcoin as a secure and stable asset? Maybe in the far future, but not even remotely now.
        ThomPete 9y ago
        Who do long term investments in short terms? The whole point is that if you get in now you both gain the upside of the value plus the increasing stability. If you have enough money you can make that bet, hell even if you have less money you can still make that bet.
reverend_gonzo 9y ago
> Crypto can provide them with precisely that. The volatility of crypto is immaterial, what matters is that it's still around. The resilience of Bitcoin means that rich people can park wealth there. They can trust the protocol more than they can trust their nation's banks, their political institutions, and their social order. What? Nobody sane is putting their long-term savings in crypto. The resilience of bitcoin has absolutely not been proven. For long term assets, you want your money in some stable, solid, not volatile, and preferably backed by a global superpower, hence US Government bonds and Euro bonds are pretty much the safest assets you can buy. They won't go up much in value, but they won't go down much either.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  Government bonds are limited in quantity, the government can't sell enough of them to meet demand. Not even the US government has that much appetite for spending. And if you think about it, governments could never be that sink. Security will forever be a scarce asset.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  Long term it's exactly what you should do unless you truly believe that the USD is going to be as valuable as a security as it is right now in the long run (it's not). One thing that many people forget is that most bitcoin is owned by very few people who go in very very early. They will not need to sell even if it was cut on half from now and they do not have to worry about inflation. If you can do that in the long run bitcoin will gain trust and thus be less volatile or even live with the volatility (as we used to do with normal fiat currencies)
  - reverend_gonzo 9y ago
    If, as you say, the majority of bitcoin is owned by very few people, that market is cornered and you shouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      That's like saying that because the top 5% own most of the world's wealth you should stay away. Can't you see how wrong that claim is?
boffinism 9y ago
> They're...interested...in security, and... [c]rypto can provide them with precisely that. 20% of all bitcoins have been irretrievably lost [0] and 7% have been stolen [1]. If I was the global rich, I'd rather hide gold bars in my mattress rather than put it in Bitcoin if my goal was just security. [0] http://fortune.com/2017/11/25/lost-bitcoins/ http://fortune.com/2017/11/25/lost-bitcoins/ [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-bitcoins-have-been-stolen-2014-3?IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-bitcoins-have-been-s...
- ThomPete 9y ago
  Due to haphazard security and sheer being unlucky (i lost 300bitcoin from very very early on because they were on an external hardisk that I threw out) I am not the only one. Peoples money gets stolen all the time.
- JonnyNova 9y ago
  Also, Bitcoin is 15x more expensive than gold to store securely: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-15-times-more-expensive-130000674.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-15-times-more-expensi... Edit: for large institutional investors in a trust fund
  - bfuller 9y ago
    >Also, Bitcoin is 15x more expensive than gold to store securely: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-15-times-more-expensi.. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-15-times-more-expensi.... This is only the case for this particular trust fund. You can secure your coins for free on your own. edit: downvoted for stating a fact? really?
    - JonnyNova 9y ago
      Didn't mean to leave that out. Added it in
- bfuller 9y ago
  I disagree with this point. While the facts about the amount of bitcoin being lost are true, if someone is properly motivated to learn how to do things correctly, and large amounts of money can definitely be motivating, you can be very confident in your security. So many coins have been lost because people were careless or uninformed, not because the system is fundamentally broken. Edit: You're free to downvote, but if you can't make a reasonable argument against me it just shows the emotional response you are leaning on. I would be happy to post a wallet address with $10,000 in bitcoin on there, if I am wrong about what I said, surely you'd be able to take the money from me?
sigstoat 9y ago
> My whole attitude towards cryptocurrencies changed when I realized that intrinsic value literally didn't matter to the global rich, they're not interested in growth or value at all, only in security, and they'd be willing to pay a premium to store their wealth if it only means that they can control the risk. perhaps a bit more accurately, they're interested in growth and value, but they've got enough of both that they've become interested in eliminating risk. which requires finding assets which are decorrelated from one another. the various electronic currencies are a new sort of asset class which appear to be decorrelated from everything (except NVDA?). > The volatility of crypto is immaterial... eh, the volatility isn't great, but so long as it is very different from everything else's volatility, it can be useful.

MaxBarraclough 9y ago

> Humans very rarely exchange and value based on utilitarianism alone. Careful - before you know it you'll have a long and tedious conversation about the true nature and scope of 'utility'.