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> It's almost entirely a speculative bubble. Just the other week an older relative asked me to help get them set up so they could buy Ethereum. Another friend

> It's almost entirely a speculative bubble. Just the other week an older relative asked me to help get them set up so they could buy Ethereum. Another friend asked me to help them setup an account to buy Doge. Neither have any intention of using it as anything besides a speculative store of value because they hear other people are buying it, which would be fine if it didn’t actually have such poor environmental externalities. What a time to be alive.

reader_mode 6y ago
Same thing happened when it peaked at 20k - the hairdressers were talking about Bitcoin and altcoins. The difference this time is big time investors started gambling with it - so who knows where it's going to go.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  Silver was a big bubble at that time too. I knew the end was near when the owner of a restaurant I frequented showed me the silver statue he had made of his dog. Once you have real ETFs the crypto mania will turn into yet another debt fielded bubble. In the meantime, enjoy the ride!
  - cosmodisk 6y ago
    It will be interesting to watch silver prices in the long term (20 years),as it's supply will be getting lower,while some important industrial applications will unlikely to ne replaced quickly enough.
    - Blueskytech 6y ago
      I think Silver is the straw that will break the camels back, it’s hard to know if it will be in 1 or 50 years but it’s fungible and affordable while also having increased industrial usage. At this point it is almost at parity for industrial consumption as it was in the 90s when silver was used to develop analog film. It’s certainly true that topological insulators may replace silver in many electron transfer applications. That being said medical uses due to the way it kills micro organisms through sulfur attraction, and it’s thermal properties, will possibly continue to expand industrial consumption.
  - lifty 6y ago
    It is the bed central banks have laid for ourselves. They did and continue doing everything in their power to prevent asset price deflation, and this is the result. And I imagine that when things will get even more out of control we will get capital controls.
    - vkou 6y ago
      Given that money supplies contract during recessions, which drives deflation, I would argue that they did everything in their power to prevent both asset price deflation, in addition to actual, main-street deflation.
  - TomSwirly 6y ago
    Indeed, silver is actually useful in a huge number of ways, from electronics and technology, to making beautiful and functional items for the home, to defending against supernatural creatures, which brings us back to Bitcoin.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rawtxapp 6y ago
I'm guessing a lot of people also tried to get in on the dot com bubble, does it mean we write off the internet as a speculative bubble that's not providing any value?
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > a lot of people also tried to get in on the dot com bubble Ex ante, it is difficult to differentiate a Pets.com from an Amazon, or a dot com bubble from a beanie baby boom.
  - rawtxapp 6y ago
    > it is difficult to differentiate a Pets.com from an Amazon Arguably a small minority were able to differentiate and it paid off very well for them.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > a small minority were able to differentiate and it paid off very well for them True. But from a policy perspective this punts the problem. Ex ante, identifying the president from the deluded is difficult.
      - jfk13 6y ago
        > identifying the president from the deluded I'm guessing you might have meant "prescient" there? Then again, perhaps not.
    - tshaddox 6y ago
      They may feel like they were able to differentiate, but without an actual explanation of how they differentiated, we can’t determine whether they differentiated or whether they got lucky.
- mtalantikite 6y ago
  I mean sure, but this is sort of a straw man - of course bubbles can exist even if the underlying asset has fundamental value. The Internet, housing, and tulips are all great things with value. But it’s not entirely clear to me that Bitcoin provides more value than the energy cost it requires to sustain it.
cosmodisk 6y ago
It's not fine even without environmental impact: getting yourself into an asset class with zero understanding about it is a recipe for disaster. There are tons of examples of real estate investors burning their money because they lacked fundamental knowledge and etc. Even the management meetings I attended are now peppered with crypto news and how x gone by y%, even by the sound of it everyone would have been better off just buying some ETFs, instead of pouring money on random peaks or troughs.
- throwaway803453 6y ago
  "they lacked fundamental knowledge"... you think people should get fundamental knowledge ? on _bitcoin_ ? It is fundamentally worth $0. The only knowledge I try to spread is correcting anyone who uses the word "invest" and recommend the proper words of buy, speculate, or gamble when it comes to cryptocurrencies. I guess I will add "fundamental" too since I think you meant technical analysis. But even that implies brains when it really is just voodoo unless you are an influencer.
  - kralos 6y ago
    USD, EUR etc are also "fundamentally worth $0". Fiat currencies and crypto currencies are just a median for representing value for real goods and services. What's unique about crypto currencies is the distributed method of transacting and therefore the inability for them to be regulated. The whole financial industry, is fundamentally a massive waste of humanity's resources. Fiat currencies are regulated, regulators are a target for bribery, deals are made etc... Cryptos are a massive waste of electricity. Decentralization is a great way to curb corruption and restore a natural economy but we need to solve the electricity problem. The electricity problem came from the mechanism chosen to "fairly" distribute the initial pool of cryptocoins based on mathematical effort.
    - recursive 6y ago
      Well USD is fundamentally worth $1. Really the most fundamental of all.
tkgally 6y ago
Around the time of the late 1990s Internet bubble, I read someone's observation that you can identify an investment bubble when barbers and nurses and taxi drivers start investing on the assumption that prices will just keep going up. That matched my own experience of having lived through the stock and real-estate bubble in Japan in the late 1980s: I knew shopkeepers and rice farmers who borrowed money to buy stock and land and condominiums, certain that their value would continue rising. The American real-estate bubble that led up to the 2008 crash looked very similar, as does Bitcoin now. It seems certain to collapse, though I can’t predict when.
- atwebb 6y ago
  Sounds like the Ford story: The fable about Henry Ford has rarely been as apposite as now. During an American recession, the shoeshine boy on the sidewalk gave Ford some tips on the stock market. Ford's response: "When the shoeshine boy is telling you what to buy, it's time to sell!" For what it's worth the first hit I got searching for it was from January 2008...
  - tkgally 6y ago
    Yes, the shoeshine boy! That was the story I read. Probably it was in 2008, too. Thanks for the clarification.
  - mtalantikite 6y ago
    I’ve also heard it attributed to Joe Kennedy, who supposedly went on to short the market as the Great Depression was about to hit.
  - cafard 6y ago
    The version I heard had Joseph Kennedy.
judge2020 6y ago
As I understand it, Doge works on auxpow now so it's not nearly as bad as it used to be, or as bad as eth/btc is currently (and asic mining is not as profitable as daggerhashimoto for retail miners; ASIC miners will already be located in a DC where electricity is cheap/likely underutilized).

reader_mode 6y ago

Same thing happened when it peaked at 20k - the hairdressers were talking about Bitcoin and altcoins. The difference this time is big time investors started gambling with it - so who knows where it's going to go.

Spooky23 6y ago
Silver was a big bubble at that time too. I knew the end was near when the owner of a restaurant I frequented showed me the silver statue he had made of his dog. Once you have real ETFs the crypto mania will turn into yet another debt fielded bubble. In the meantime, enjoy the ride!
- cosmodisk 6y ago
  It will be interesting to watch silver prices in the long term (20 years),as it's supply will be getting lower,while some important industrial applications will unlikely to ne replaced quickly enough.
  - Blueskytech 6y ago
    I think Silver is the straw that will break the camels back, it’s hard to know if it will be in 1 or 50 years but it’s fungible and affordable while also having increased industrial usage. At this point it is almost at parity for industrial consumption as it was in the 90s when silver was used to develop analog film. It’s certainly true that topological insulators may replace silver in many electron transfer applications. That being said medical uses due to the way it kills micro organisms through sulfur attraction, and it’s thermal properties, will possibly continue to expand industrial consumption.
- lifty 6y ago
  It is the bed central banks have laid for ourselves. They did and continue doing everything in their power to prevent asset price deflation, and this is the result. And I imagine that when things will get even more out of control we will get capital controls.
  - vkou 6y ago
    Given that money supplies contract during recessions, which drives deflation, I would argue that they did everything in their power to prevent both asset price deflation, in addition to actual, main-street deflation.
- TomSwirly 6y ago
  Indeed, silver is actually useful in a huge number of ways, from electronics and technology, to making beautiful and functional items for the home, to defending against supernatural creatures, which brings us back to Bitcoin.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rawtxapp 6y ago

I'm guessing a lot of people also tried to get in on the dot com bubble, does it mean we write off the internet as a speculative bubble that's not providing any value?

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> a lot of people also tried to get in on the dot com bubble Ex ante, it is difficult to differentiate a Pets.com from an Amazon, or a dot com bubble from a beanie baby boom.
- rawtxapp 6y ago
  > it is difficult to differentiate a Pets.com from an Amazon Arguably a small minority were able to differentiate and it paid off very well for them.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > a small minority were able to differentiate and it paid off very well for them True. But from a policy perspective this punts the problem. Ex ante, identifying the president from the deluded is difficult.
    - jfk13 6y ago
      > identifying the president from the deluded I'm guessing you might have meant "prescient" there? Then again, perhaps not.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    They may feel like they were able to differentiate, but without an actual explanation of how they differentiated, we can’t determine whether they differentiated or whether they got lucky.
mtalantikite 6y ago
I mean sure, but this is sort of a straw man - of course bubbles can exist even if the underlying asset has fundamental value. The Internet, housing, and tulips are all great things with value. But it’s not entirely clear to me that Bitcoin provides more value than the energy cost it requires to sustain it.

cosmodisk 6y ago

It's not fine even without environmental impact: getting yourself into an asset class with zero understanding about it is a recipe for disaster. There are tons of examples of real estate investors burning their money because they lacked fundamental knowledge and etc. Even the management meetings I attended are now peppered with crypto news and how x gone by y%, even by the sound of it everyone would have been better off just buying some ETFs, instead of pouring money on random peaks or troughs.

throwaway803453 6y ago
"they lacked fundamental knowledge"... you think people should get fundamental knowledge ? on _bitcoin_ ? It is fundamentally worth $0. The only knowledge I try to spread is correcting anyone who uses the word "invest" and recommend the proper words of buy, speculate, or gamble when it comes to cryptocurrencies. I guess I will add "fundamental" too since I think you meant technical analysis. But even that implies brains when it really is just voodoo unless you are an influencer.
- kralos 6y ago
  USD, EUR etc are also "fundamentally worth $0". Fiat currencies and crypto currencies are just a median for representing value for real goods and services. What's unique about crypto currencies is the distributed method of transacting and therefore the inability for them to be regulated. The whole financial industry, is fundamentally a massive waste of humanity's resources. Fiat currencies are regulated, regulators are a target for bribery, deals are made etc... Cryptos are a massive waste of electricity. Decentralization is a great way to curb corruption and restore a natural economy but we need to solve the electricity problem. The electricity problem came from the mechanism chosen to "fairly" distribute the initial pool of cryptocoins based on mathematical effort.
  - recursive 6y ago
    Well USD is fundamentally worth $1. Really the most fundamental of all.

tkgally 6y ago

Around the time of the late 1990s Internet bubble, I read someone's observation that you can identify an investment bubble when barbers and nurses and taxi drivers start investing on the assumption that prices will just keep going up. That matched my own experience of having lived through the stock and real-estate bubble in Japan in the late 1980s: I knew shopkeepers and rice farmers who borrowed money to buy stock and land and condominiums, certain that their value would continue rising. The American real-estate bubble that led up to the 2008 crash looked very similar, as does Bitcoin now. It seems certain to collapse, though I can’t predict when.

atwebb 6y ago
Sounds like the Ford story: The fable about Henry Ford has rarely been as apposite as now. During an American recession, the shoeshine boy on the sidewalk gave Ford some tips on the stock market. Ford's response: "When the shoeshine boy is telling you what to buy, it's time to sell!" For what it's worth the first hit I got searching for it was from January 2008...
- tkgally 6y ago
  Yes, the shoeshine boy! That was the story I read. Probably it was in 2008, too. Thanks for the clarification.
- mtalantikite 6y ago
  I’ve also heard it attributed to Joe Kennedy, who supposedly went on to short the market as the Great Depression was about to hit.
- cafard 6y ago
  The version I heard had Joseph Kennedy.

judge2020 6y ago

As I understand it, Doge works on auxpow now so it's not nearly as bad as it used to be, or as bad as eth/btc is currently (and asic mining is not as profitable as daggerhashimoto for retail miners; ASIC miners will already be located in a DC where electricity is cheap/likely underutilized).