5 ms·

Serious Money Is Warming to Bitcoin

42 points by otoburb 7y ago

CPLX 7y ago
This article talks about “the crypto industry” and mentions things like “institutional investment in crypto” and so on. It’s odd that in an article so detailed there’s just no mention of the fact that there are no fundamentals whatsoever to any of these things, and they’ve been used almost entirely for speculation since inception. Where’s the actual industry? In what are these institutions investing?
- roboys 7y ago
  They are investing in anti-fragility, scarcity, immutability, the world's largest super computer, instant transactions, tx volume, among other things. You can arrive at a value of the network (and value per btc) using these numbers when you consider tx volume.
  - jazzyjackson 7y ago
    The world's slowest supercomputer, amirite? (Actually tho is there a coin out there that let's people post jobs to be computed as a useful proof of work? I would be curious to know.)
    - mLuby 7y ago
      SETIcoin
    - arisAlexis 7y ago
      elastic,i-exec and sonm (maybe others too there is a lot of innovation there)
- crdoconnor 7y ago
  The fundamentals appear to be intrinsic scarcity + facilitating illegal transactions easily (circumventing currency controls, drug deals, malware ransoms, etc.). I haven't seen much intrinsic value beyond those two things. Everything else is fluff (e.g. coffee shops taking bitcoin) or speculation. That said, illegal transactions are an absolutely massive part of the global economy. What's perplexing to me is that governments haven't yet reacted to this by bringing the hammer down. Realistically, if you're not involved in fluff or speculation you're probably using bitcoin to break the laws of some country.
  - CryptoPunk 7y ago
    An autonomous platform means that multiple mutually distrusting parties can transact without fear of the trusted third-party that controls the platform raising fees to extract economic rent from them once they're locked in. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/say-hello-nightfall-paul-brody-1f/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/say-hello-nightfall-paul-brod...
- javert 7y ago
  Bitcoin was designed to be honest and sound money. In the way that gold once was. Contrary to the way fiat money is. For now, the fundamentals are simple: supply side is fixed and known, and demand is speculation. In the ideal case for bitcoin, over time, people will gradually use bitcoin more for actual commerce. As this adoption increases, liquidity increases, and price becomes less volatile. The speculation we have now is the necessary first step on that road, because it gives bitcoin a price (i.e. props it up) and gives it some liquidity. People complaining that bitcoin is just for crime are slandering it. People complaining that it has no intrinsic value don't understand that nothing in the world has intrinsic value, including gold. Intrinsic value is bad monetary theory derived from bad philosophy.
  - woah 7y ago
    I have a small amount of Bitcoin so this scenario would be good for me, but the looming crisis is that transaction fees will go really high (or the chain will become insecure) once Bitcoin’s inflation runs out. The magical 21 number will come into question, which will really dent confidence in the entire premise.
  - awt 7y ago
    > People complaining that bitcoin is just for crime are just slandering it. This one really gets my goat. There are so many ridiculous laws. It’s illegal to consume alcohol in Saudi Arabia. It’s illegal in Russia to use profanity in theaters, and in Thailand it’s illegal not to play a salute to the king before every film. Besides geographical differences in current times, the differences throughout history are more striking.
    - CryptoPunk 7y ago
      Thank God for the existence of other countries or else I would be forced to say those laws in Russia and Saudi Arabia are justified, and any technology that that lets people subvert them is immoral. The idea that one can live in a country where fundamental political values are wrong is alien to most people. Every form of imposition that the government applies is justified with ideological notions like the social contract. So one can only explain the value of censorship resistance by pointing out how it enables people to escape tyrannical laws in those other countries, which unlike our own perfect countries, are repressive.
Forge36 7y ago
I'm not sure where the sentiment came from (I probably read the article to quickly?) It sounds as if coinbase now had a larger share because a major company switch moved their existing assets.
joeyrideout 7y ago
My understanding of this appeal to institutional investors is that it's simply a good risk-reward macro speculation play. A decent amount of macro folks are forecasting some sort of monetary crisis or at least significant inflation in the years ahead. In the scenario that there is a full-blown crisis that requires a currency reset rather than just restructuring, what are we resetting to? Assign probabilities to gold, silver, a new fiat currency, or cryptocurrency. Given the small market cap of Bitcoin, a small investment would pay off incredibly well if that's where the chips fall down the line. At a market cap of ~180 Billion USD, Bitcoin has a market cap similar to Pepsi Co. The USD monetary base is something like $4000 Billion and all gold ever mined is worth about $7500 Billion. Of the three, Bitcoin is a growth play plain and simple. Even if it's the least likely system of the future, a probability above 0 means institutions will likely buy some as a hedge. (Edit: That is, if institutions are ever allowed to. Many pension funds in Europe are forced to buy negative-yielding government bonds... sigh.)
xiphias2 7y ago
Retail is serious money. I'm actually quite happy that Bitcoin has more retail investors than institutional, and I hope it stays that way (a few billion dollars of institutional money at this point is not important).

42 points by otoburb 7y ago

CPLX 7y ago

This article talks about “the crypto industry” and mentions things like “institutional investment in crypto” and so on. It’s odd that in an article so detailed there’s just no mention of the fact that there are no fundamentals whatsoever to any of these things, and they’ve been used almost entirely for speculation since inception. Where’s the actual industry? In what are these institutions investing?

roboys 7y ago
They are investing in anti-fragility, scarcity, immutability, the world's largest super computer, instant transactions, tx volume, among other things. You can arrive at a value of the network (and value per btc) using these numbers when you consider tx volume.
- jazzyjackson 7y ago
  The world's slowest supercomputer, amirite? (Actually tho is there a coin out there that let's people post jobs to be computed as a useful proof of work? I would be curious to know.)
  - mLuby 7y ago
    SETIcoin
  - arisAlexis 7y ago
    elastic,i-exec and sonm (maybe others too there is a lot of innovation there)
crdoconnor 7y ago
The fundamentals appear to be intrinsic scarcity + facilitating illegal transactions easily (circumventing currency controls, drug deals, malware ransoms, etc.). I haven't seen much intrinsic value beyond those two things. Everything else is fluff (e.g. coffee shops taking bitcoin) or speculation. That said, illegal transactions are an absolutely massive part of the global economy. What's perplexing to me is that governments haven't yet reacted to this by bringing the hammer down. Realistically, if you're not involved in fluff or speculation you're probably using bitcoin to break the laws of some country.
- CryptoPunk 7y ago
  An autonomous platform means that multiple mutually distrusting parties can transact without fear of the trusted third-party that controls the platform raising fees to extract economic rent from them once they're locked in. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/say-hello-nightfall-paul-brody-1f/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/say-hello-nightfall-paul-brod...
javert 7y ago
Bitcoin was designed to be honest and sound money. In the way that gold once was. Contrary to the way fiat money is. For now, the fundamentals are simple: supply side is fixed and known, and demand is speculation. In the ideal case for bitcoin, over time, people will gradually use bitcoin more for actual commerce. As this adoption increases, liquidity increases, and price becomes less volatile. The speculation we have now is the necessary first step on that road, because it gives bitcoin a price (i.e. props it up) and gives it some liquidity. People complaining that bitcoin is just for crime are slandering it. People complaining that it has no intrinsic value don't understand that nothing in the world has intrinsic value, including gold. Intrinsic value is bad monetary theory derived from bad philosophy.
- woah 7y ago
  I have a small amount of Bitcoin so this scenario would be good for me, but the looming crisis is that transaction fees will go really high (or the chain will become insecure) once Bitcoin’s inflation runs out. The magical 21 number will come into question, which will really dent confidence in the entire premise.
- awt 7y ago
  > People complaining that bitcoin is just for crime are just slandering it. This one really gets my goat. There are so many ridiculous laws. It’s illegal to consume alcohol in Saudi Arabia. It’s illegal in Russia to use profanity in theaters, and in Thailand it’s illegal not to play a salute to the king before every film. Besides geographical differences in current times, the differences throughout history are more striking.
  - CryptoPunk 7y ago
    Thank God for the existence of other countries or else I would be forced to say those laws in Russia and Saudi Arabia are justified, and any technology that that lets people subvert them is immoral. The idea that one can live in a country where fundamental political values are wrong is alien to most people. Every form of imposition that the government applies is justified with ideological notions like the social contract. So one can only explain the value of censorship resistance by pointing out how it enables people to escape tyrannical laws in those other countries, which unlike our own perfect countries, are repressive.

Forge36 7y ago

I'm not sure where the sentiment came from (I probably read the article to quickly?) It sounds as if coinbase now had a larger share because a major company switch moved their existing assets.

joeyrideout 7y ago

My understanding of this appeal to institutional investors is that it's simply a good risk-reward macro speculation play. A decent amount of macro folks are forecasting some sort of monetary crisis or at least significant inflation in the years ahead. In the scenario that there is a full-blown crisis that requires a currency reset rather than just restructuring, what are we resetting to? Assign probabilities to gold, silver, a new fiat currency, or cryptocurrency. Given the small market cap of Bitcoin, a small investment would pay off incredibly well if that's where the chips fall down the line. At a market cap of ~180 Billion USD, Bitcoin has a market cap similar to Pepsi Co. The USD monetary base is something like $4000 Billion and all gold ever mined is worth about $7500 Billion. Of the three, Bitcoin is a growth play plain and simple. Even if it's the least likely system of the future, a probability above 0 means institutions will likely buy some as a hedge. (Edit: That is, if institutions are ever allowed to. Many pension funds in Europe are forced to buy negative-yielding government bonds... sigh.)

xiphias2 7y ago

Retail is serious money. I'm actually quite happy that Bitcoin has more retail investors than institutional, and I hope it stays that way (a few billion dollars of institutional money at this point is not important).