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except amazon stock represents ownership of a corporation with assets that have value.

bringtheaction 9y ago
> digital things can't have value because they aren't real That's basically what you are saying. Here's the thing though. Crypto currencies can have lots of uses. And even "simple" ones "only" made for payment like XLM and XRB have a value when they let me transact fast and cheaply. I look forward to a future where my money is mine. Where no bank can arbitrarily decide to FREEZE MY FUNDS that I have LOANED TO THEM. The banking system is broken. Sure it gives us some nice things in return like fraud protection. But increasingly I begin to wonder whether the advantages of trad-banks are worth giving them control over my money, and increasingly the answer seems to me to be no.
- tim333 9y ago
  > digital things can't have value because they aren't real I don't think he's saying that at all. Google is pretty digital but has value because it has millions of paying customers. With things like dogecoin the value proposition is more questionable.
pedalpete 9y ago
But Amazon's value is not based on it's assets. What is the value of AWS? Is it the physical servers and data-centers? Or is it the knowledge and systems which make it all operational. If you can accept the later is where the real value is, eventually you're going to get to the point where you see the REAL value is in putting these pieces together into a system where a customer can exchange $$ for the value being created. Then look at somebody like Stripe, and say, they make all the $$ just facilitating the exchange of $$ online. Now, all of a sudden these other crypto services that enable the exchange of $$ don't seem so out there or do they?
- 0wing 9y ago
  These are common misconceptions from speculators. 1. Crypto-assets like Bitcoin/Ethereum/Steller/Ripple, etc, are created simply by typing some numbers into a piece of software. There's no underlying value, it's a number in a database. 2. Stocks have measurable value, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93earnings_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93earnings_ratio 3. Anytime someone sells a Bitcoin or whatevercoin it requires a buyer. Similar to baseball cards, beanie babies, or other artifitially scarce yet easy to produce asset, the market is subject to supply and demand. In the case of cryptocoins, the supply is created and distributed to a small group of users who horde it, in the hope that new users will come in and purchase the coins for more than it cost to create them. This is a hallmark of a typical pyramid scam, which collapses once no more investors can be found, leaving the late adopters holding now worthless "coins". 4. Stocks in Amazon and businesses grant you legal rights, and if the company goes bankrupt you are entitled to compensation from their assets.
  - JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
    How long do you think Amazon's stock price would stay high if no new investors could be found? Don't dig too deep into what separates stocks and government issued fiat currency from pyramid schemes or what you find will trouble you. In many ways, crypto is the safer of the two. A finite amount of bitcoin will be created, can you say the same for the US dollar? My view is that everything is a pyramid scheme from the first wampum and beads that were traded by humans on down the line to where we are now. The difference is crypto is a chance to get in at the top for once. That chance was missed ages ago by our generation with regard to the US dollar.
    - Lewton 9y ago
      > How long do you think Amazon's stock price would stay high if no new investors could be found? If, in your hypothetical example, the reason there were no buyers was completely unrelated to the performance of Amazon as a company And the price of Amazons stocks dropped enough, eventually it would reach a point where Amazon would start buying its stocks back as it would be financially nonsensical to not do so
    - 9y ago
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  Software and intellectual property is an asset.
benatkin 9y ago
Traditional crypto mining burns real energy that costs real money and has a real carbon footprint, and the owners of the rigs have real pride that create a floor of how much Bitcoin will be worth, so long as it's technically sound.
panarky 9y ago
You'd think so, but not really. Amazon's balance sheet [0] shows assets minus liabilities of $19 billion. So the "assets" that shareholders "own" are less than 3% of the company's $690 billion market cap. Not to mention that shareholders don't "own" those assets in any real, tangible sense. If you look around at any form of wealth, from the balance in your checking account to stocks, bonds and even the title on real property, it's all invisible, intangible and socially constructed. Not as different from cryptocurrency as one would like to think. [0] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872417000135/amzn-20170930x10q.htm#sDDB2F8EEC1A45608A02845A43822D631 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872417...

> digital things can't have value because they aren't real That's basically what you are saying. Here's the thing though. Crypto currencies can have lots of uses. And even "simple" ones "only" made for payment like XLM and XRB have a value when they let me transact fast and cheaply. I look forward to a future where my money is mine. Where no bank can arbitrarily decide to FREEZE MY FUNDS that I have LOANED TO THEM. The banking system is broken. Sure it gives us some nice things in return like fraud protection. But increasingly I begin to wonder whether the advantages of trad-banks are worth giving them control over my money, and increasingly the answer seems to me to be no.

tim333 9y ago
> digital things can't have value because they aren't real I don't think he's saying that at all. Google is pretty digital but has value because it has millions of paying customers. With things like dogecoin the value proposition is more questionable.

pedalpete 9y ago

But Amazon's value is not based on it's assets. What is the value of AWS? Is it the physical servers and data-centers? Or is it the knowledge and systems which make it all operational. If you can accept the later is where the real value is, eventually you're going to get to the point where you see the REAL value is in putting these pieces together into a system where a customer can exchange $$ for the value being created. Then look at somebody like Stripe, and say, they make all the $$ just facilitating the exchange of $$ online. Now, all of a sudden these other crypto services that enable the exchange of $$ don't seem so out there or do they?

0wing 9y ago
These are common misconceptions from speculators. 1. Crypto-assets like Bitcoin/Ethereum/Steller/Ripple, etc, are created simply by typing some numbers into a piece of software. There's no underlying value, it's a number in a database. 2. Stocks have measurable value, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93earnings_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93earnings_ratio 3. Anytime someone sells a Bitcoin or whatevercoin it requires a buyer. Similar to baseball cards, beanie babies, or other artifitially scarce yet easy to produce asset, the market is subject to supply and demand. In the case of cryptocoins, the supply is created and distributed to a small group of users who horde it, in the hope that new users will come in and purchase the coins for more than it cost to create them. This is a hallmark of a typical pyramid scam, which collapses once no more investors can be found, leaving the late adopters holding now worthless "coins". 4. Stocks in Amazon and businesses grant you legal rights, and if the company goes bankrupt you are entitled to compensation from their assets.
- JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
  How long do you think Amazon's stock price would stay high if no new investors could be found? Don't dig too deep into what separates stocks and government issued fiat currency from pyramid schemes or what you find will trouble you. In many ways, crypto is the safer of the two. A finite amount of bitcoin will be created, can you say the same for the US dollar? My view is that everything is a pyramid scheme from the first wampum and beads that were traded by humans on down the line to where we are now. The difference is crypto is a chance to get in at the top for once. That chance was missed ages ago by our generation with regard to the US dollar.
  - Lewton 9y ago
    > How long do you think Amazon's stock price would stay high if no new investors could be found? If, in your hypothetical example, the reason there were no buyers was completely unrelated to the performance of Amazon as a company And the price of Amazons stocks dropped enough, eventually it would reach a point where Amazon would start buying its stocks back as it would be financially nonsensical to not do so
  - 9y ago
oh_sigh 9y ago
Software and intellectual property is an asset.

benatkin 9y ago

Traditional crypto mining burns real energy that costs real money and has a real carbon footprint, and the owners of the rigs have real pride that create a floor of how much Bitcoin will be worth, so long as it's technically sound.

panarky 9y ago

You'd think so, but not really. Amazon's balance sheet [0] shows assets minus liabilities of $19 billion. So the "assets" that shareholders "own" are less than 3% of the company's $690 billion market cap. Not to mention that shareholders don't "own" those assets in any real, tangible sense. If you look around at any form of wealth, from the balance in your checking account to stocks, bonds and even the title on real property, it's all invisible, intangible and socially constructed. Not as different from cryptocurrency as one would like to think. [0] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872417000135/amzn-20170930x10q.htm#sDDB2F8EEC1A45608A02845A43822D631 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872417...