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Because the previous times it wasn't being hyped in mainstream news and culture. The point where the guy on the elevator is taking about [bubble] is the point a

by themgt 8y ago

Because the previous times it wasn't being hyped in mainstream news and culture. The point where the guy on the elevator is taking about [bubble] is the point at which [bubble] is about to burst for real, because you've just about run out of new suckers to fuel it.

morgancmartin 8y ago
Would you be willing to make a friendly wager on whether it returns bigger than ever? My ten dollars says it will within, say, two years. What do you say?
- tn_ 8y ago
  This guy bitcoins.
  - morgancmartin 8y ago
    Haha, thanks for the laugh. Considering the downvotes I got, I suppose I was out of line suggesting a wager, but I've yet to see convincing evidence for why blockchain tech can't work. Sure it's overhyped way beyond what it deserves and it hasn't found its "killer app" or niche yet, but that doesn't mean it won't. Nano's my favorite coin. It's fee-less, near-instant, and secure. Its largest flaw (and one all coins share at this point) is its tendency to fluctuate in value. But this problem is soon to be overcome by stable coins. Once that's done, its only remaining disadvantage will be lack of adoption. And if the product's right, I don't see any reason why a superior product won't gain market share given enough time. And it's not like crypto is under some investor enforced deadline to reach a certain market share, it's got all the time in the world. Anyone care to point out any flaws in my thinking?
    - berbec 8y ago
      I have no skin in the game either way, so I am curious (asked before): Is crypto: money/currency (spend able exchange of value) a store of value (investment etc) a cool technology with no current useful application or something I don't understand? If crypto is money, can I: Spend it at Amazon? My grocery store? My corner deli? Pay my rent? Pay my employees? If crypto is a store of value can I trust it will have any rational storage value over any time period?
      - tim333 8y ago
        It works as a spend able exchange of value and as an investment. Just not very well. I've done both of those. Given the not very well bit, it's main use in reality is doing stuff discouraged by governments such as buying drugs and pushing scammy investments. Whether it will develop beyond that I'm not sure.
      - jki275 8y ago
        It's kind of all of the above. As to your questions, you can spend it some places. I think newegg takes it, Valve used to take it with Steam, etc. There are corner delis who take it, I'm not sure about yours. Your employees may be ok with you paying them in it, but that's an agreement you have to have with them. To your last question -- no, I wouldn't think so at least for now.
- dagw 8y ago
  I say you buy $10 worth of bitcoin and promise not to sell for 2 years. I'll stick $10 extra in an index fund and not sell that for 2 years. There, now we've made an implicit wager with each other and this way we won't have to reconnect in 2 years to work out exactly who won how much.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
disishhsha 8y ago
I could still see it getting bigger - you can’t buy a bitcoin ETF yet. Not saying it’ll ever happen, but there are big pools of money out there that haven’t touched crypto yet.
whytaka 8y ago
I laughed when the guy on the elevator told me he was selling his bitcoins at a loss because he heard other people on the elevator talking about it.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ScottAS 8y ago
Well, the gold bubble has yet to "permanently" pop, and has been through multiple phases of mania - an arbitrary substance worth trillions of dollars which our entire supply of fits in 3 olympic swimming pools. Socially agreed upon value can potentially last for generations without any fundamental sense.
- belltaco 8y ago
  Gold is very different. There's a lot of ornamental uses(some industrial) and also historical and cultural value. Owning and hoarding gold is a status symbol in some cultures(2.5 billion plus with just China+India) way beyond owning the latest and most expensive iPhones. Throughout most of modern history, you could buy things with gold and that's unlikely to change. Barring alchemy or some extreme globalwide natural disasters, there's a value floor on gold that's missing with bitcoin. There are no current killer applications for bitcoin beyond some semi-legal trade of illicit drugs and ransomware which doesn't even need or cause the currency price to go up since it's usually converted back and forth to fiat. Perhaps this will change if countries currencies go belly up and die (think Venezuela, Argentina and Zimbabwe).
  - ScottAS 8y ago
    While gold has a much later stage "shared illusion of value" that comes from its brand and emotional associations, I'd argue that Bitcoin is extremely similar, just much earlier stage. The purported uses of gold have no relevance, they're just part of the illusion of gold having value. We value 3 swimming pools of an arbitrary substance at 7 trillion dollars. There is no utility that even justifies 1% of this valuation. It does not produce dividends. Would you rather speculate on a "shared illusion of value" that has massive room to grow into the digital age, or one that is potentially reaching peak levels of absurdity? Both assets are illusory bullshit - but you can make a lot of money trading bullshit.
panarky 8y ago
It's damn difficult to discriminate in advance between a bubble and a Revolution der Denkart [0]. The presence of hype, fraud and large fluctuations in prices do not invalidate new technology or concepts. The dotcom "bubble" was a hypefest, then it deflated, but the underlying technology and concepts have spawned something many times larger than the original bubble. If it turns out that cryptocurrencies have no purpose beyond a small niche, then we'll see in hindsight that it was indeed a bubble. But if creative people find a larger use for cryptocurrencies, then hindsight will understand the 2018 "crash" as just another in the fractal series of price declines followed by even larger price increases. Since the underlying technology has withstood sustained attacks across the technical, economic, political and legal domains, perhaps reports of its death are premature. [0] https://books.google.com/books?id=sRYW1wtdER0C&pg=PA136&lpg=PA136&dq=Revolution+der+Denkart&source=bl&ots=kvMER1Eboy&sig=QnG6FI1mOFBZBNz0UUlkW9H-dOs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjB56WYiKjfAhV1HjQIHSDnDCIQ6AEwEnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Revolution%20der%20Denkart&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=sRYW1wtdER0C&pg=PA136&lpg=...

by themgt 8y ago

morgancmartin 8y ago

Would you be willing to make a friendly wager on whether it returns bigger than ever? My ten dollars says it will within, say, two years. What do you say?

tn_ 8y ago
This guy bitcoins.
- morgancmartin 8y ago
  Haha, thanks for the laugh. Considering the downvotes I got, I suppose I was out of line suggesting a wager, but I've yet to see convincing evidence for why blockchain tech can't work. Sure it's overhyped way beyond what it deserves and it hasn't found its "killer app" or niche yet, but that doesn't mean it won't. Nano's my favorite coin. It's fee-less, near-instant, and secure. Its largest flaw (and one all coins share at this point) is its tendency to fluctuate in value. But this problem is soon to be overcome by stable coins. Once that's done, its only remaining disadvantage will be lack of adoption. And if the product's right, I don't see any reason why a superior product won't gain market share given enough time. And it's not like crypto is under some investor enforced deadline to reach a certain market share, it's got all the time in the world. Anyone care to point out any flaws in my thinking?
  - berbec 8y ago
    I have no skin in the game either way, so I am curious (asked before): Is crypto: money/currency (spend able exchange of value) a store of value (investment etc) a cool technology with no current useful application or something I don't understand? If crypto is money, can I: Spend it at Amazon? My grocery store? My corner deli? Pay my rent? Pay my employees? If crypto is a store of value can I trust it will have any rational storage value over any time period?
    - tim333 8y ago
      It works as a spend able exchange of value and as an investment. Just not very well. I've done both of those. Given the not very well bit, it's main use in reality is doing stuff discouraged by governments such as buying drugs and pushing scammy investments. Whether it will develop beyond that I'm not sure.
    - jki275 8y ago
      It's kind of all of the above. As to your questions, you can spend it some places. I think newegg takes it, Valve used to take it with Steam, etc. There are corner delis who take it, I'm not sure about yours. Your employees may be ok with you paying them in it, but that's an agreement you have to have with them. To your last question -- no, I wouldn't think so at least for now.
dagw 8y ago
I say you buy $10 worth of bitcoin and promise not to sell for 2 years. I'll stick $10 extra in an index fund and not sell that for 2 years. There, now we've made an implicit wager with each other and this way we won't have to reconnect in 2 years to work out exactly who won how much.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

disishhsha 8y ago

I could still see it getting bigger - you can’t buy a bitcoin ETF yet. Not saying it’ll ever happen, but there are big pools of money out there that haven’t touched crypto yet.

whytaka 8y ago

I laughed when the guy on the elevator told me he was selling his bitcoins at a loss because he heard other people on the elevator talking about it.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ScottAS 8y ago

Well, the gold bubble has yet to "permanently" pop, and has been through multiple phases of mania - an arbitrary substance worth trillions of dollars which our entire supply of fits in 3 olympic swimming pools. Socially agreed upon value can potentially last for generations without any fundamental sense.

belltaco 8y ago
Gold is very different. There's a lot of ornamental uses(some industrial) and also historical and cultural value. Owning and hoarding gold is a status symbol in some cultures(2.5 billion plus with just China+India) way beyond owning the latest and most expensive iPhones. Throughout most of modern history, you could buy things with gold and that's unlikely to change. Barring alchemy or some extreme globalwide natural disasters, there's a value floor on gold that's missing with bitcoin. There are no current killer applications for bitcoin beyond some semi-legal trade of illicit drugs and ransomware which doesn't even need or cause the currency price to go up since it's usually converted back and forth to fiat. Perhaps this will change if countries currencies go belly up and die (think Venezuela, Argentina and Zimbabwe).
- ScottAS 8y ago
  While gold has a much later stage "shared illusion of value" that comes from its brand and emotional associations, I'd argue that Bitcoin is extremely similar, just much earlier stage. The purported uses of gold have no relevance, they're just part of the illusion of gold having value. We value 3 swimming pools of an arbitrary substance at 7 trillion dollars. There is no utility that even justifies 1% of this valuation. It does not produce dividends. Would you rather speculate on a "shared illusion of value" that has massive room to grow into the digital age, or one that is potentially reaching peak levels of absurdity? Both assets are illusory bullshit - but you can make a lot of money trading bullshit.

panarky 8y ago

It's damn difficult to discriminate in advance between a bubble and a Revolution der Denkart [0]. The presence of hype, fraud and large fluctuations in prices do not invalidate new technology or concepts. The dotcom "bubble" was a hypefest, then it deflated, but the underlying technology and concepts have spawned something many times larger than the original bubble. If it turns out that cryptocurrencies have no purpose beyond a small niche, then we'll see in hindsight that it was indeed a bubble. But if creative people find a larger use for cryptocurrencies, then hindsight will understand the 2018 "crash" as just another in the fractal series of price declines followed by even larger price increases. Since the underlying technology has withstood sustained attacks across the technical, economic, political and legal domains, perhaps reports of its death are premature. [0] https://books.google.com/books?id=sRYW1wtdER0C&pg=PA136&lpg=PA136&dq=Revolution+der+Denkart&source=bl&ots=kvMER1Eboy&sig=QnG6FI1mOFBZBNz0UUlkW9H-dOs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjB56WYiKjfAhV1HjQIHSDnDCIQ6AEwEnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Revolution%20der%20Denkart&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=sRYW1wtdER0C&pg=PA136&lpg=...