4 ms·

Thinking about investing in Bitcoin? Don't (2018)

15 points by QuadrupleA 6y ago

zmnxos 6y ago
Author ignores the security provided by 10 years of mining. One can clone the bitcoin repo but it would be far easier to attack the network than it would be to attack the bitcoin network. Does this mean bitcoin is worth $50k? Not to me. But there is a definitely a high value to a chain with bitcoin level of security.
thebean11 6y ago
> Government-issued currencies have value because they represent human trust and cooperation. There is no wealth and no trade without these two things, so you might as well go all in and trust people. Hm.. If you bought BTC when this article came out you'd be up 250%
- em3rgent0rdr 6y ago
  And mathematically-issued currencies such as cryptocurrency have value because they represent mathematically-provable trust, which is more reliable than human trust.
  - QuadrupleA 6y ago
    The mathematical trust just ensures the transactions will all add up and history won't be rewritten. You still need the human trust to deliver the sold goods, have your exchange give you USD for your BTC, etc.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Sure, but only if you could stomach to hold onto it for 3 years while being down between 20% and 80%.
- QuadrupleA 6y ago
  If you bought Beanie Babies in 1995 and sold in 1997 you'd be up 16000%
  - thebean11 6y ago
    Maybe, not convinced that market was quite as liquid as BTC. Either way, is it really a useful, interesting, or novel comparison this late in the game?
    - QuadrupleA 6y ago
      Late in the game as in BTC is 12 years old, or late in the game like it's worth $50k so obviously it's actually valuable / not a bubble etc.?
      - thebean11 6y ago
        12 years old, owned by institutions, traded on stock exchanges etc. The price and market cap too. The beanie baby comparison is pretty low effort and doesn't reflect reality at this point
        QuadrupleA 6y ago
        Obviously different scale, but they seem similar in my view - bubbles based on assets of little practical utility (who buys groceries with BTC with $12 transaction fees and your wallet doubling or halving every week?), fueled by unpredictable crowd mania.
        thebean11 6y ago
        You see why that's a useless unfalsifiable narrative? Pick anything successful, call it a bubble, compare to beanie babies. It's not a good argument. One of your claims is falsifiable: Bitcoin has utility for large cross border payments.
        nmfisher 6y ago
- maximente 6y ago
  what does that statement mean, though? for example, if you bought GameStop you would have 6x'd. are we to assume that GME is twice the "investment" that BTC is? twice as impressive? twice as meaningful to the world? no, of course not. all of this is fueled on speculation, and picking arbitrary date ranges and prices on speculation as a basis for comparison outside of relative speculative performance is not super useful - as recent events have shown, things can move quickly based on purely market- and popularity based events.
- gregopet 6y ago
  That's what it always comes to, doesn't it? It can't be that bad if it turns a profit. The same argument used by pirates, slave traders, tobacco CEOs and money printing central bankers.
  - thebean11 6y ago
    Right, Bitcoin is like slave trading, great point
jordhy 6y ago
It breaks my heart how few people in HN appreciate/understand BTC. This technology is creating a new monetary system + Internet for human kind. What would it take to get you to read the bitcoin white paper and comprehend that bitcoin was not created as an investment vehicle but as an electronic cash system. So Wall Street is speculation on bitcoin. What did you expect? Bitcoin is as useful at $100 dollars as it is at $1 million. Why then are we fixated on price when this technology can change millions of lives? Let's talk about the many awesome things we can do by coding trust into a decentralized Internet. Price is just a footnote.
- QuadrupleA 6y ago
  I don't know - in their current forms BTC/ETH offer a stupendously wasteful, environmentally disastrous way to add / subtract numbers or execute bits of code for $10-20 a transaction, for bits of digital data that, based on the mania of the masses may be worth $100 this week and $5000 next week. I've read the white paper and the Ethereum yellow paper - the technology is undeniably fascinating and cool, and I have some hope for proof-of-stake systems curbing the current waste, but in their present form they're almost useless as a monetary / payment system, and the only thing I really see happening in the crypto space is various get-rich-quick schemes based around issuing probably-worthless tokens of data, and a million and one ways to convert them amongst each other.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - thebean11 6y ago
    Ethereum is actively moving away from POW, does that change your opinion of it at all?
    - QuadrupleA 6y ago
      If they can pull off merging mainnet into ETH2 it'll be a big improvement environmentally & scalability-wise, so yes. Supporting ETH/BTC now is pretty harmful to the world. Not sure if the volatility thing will be solved, it's still people bidding at the value of intrinsically meaningless bits of data. But maybe more genuine utility, i.e. a payment solution better/cheaper than cash / credit / brokerages, would help justify the valuation. Ethereum's decentralized computation model might find more actually-beneficial-to-the-world applications if the tx costs weren't so painful. Private keys are dangerously powerful for the average person, i.e. lose or have them stolen and you've lost your money forever. But that's a feature too, you can "open an account" in the few milliseconds it takes for your computer to generate a keypair.
snuffop 6y ago
This internet thing will blow over too

15 points by QuadrupleA 6y ago

Author ignores the security provided by 10 years of mining. One can clone the bitcoin repo but it would be far easier to attack the network than it would be to attack the bitcoin network. Does this mean bitcoin is worth $50k? Not to me. But there is a definitely a high value to a chain with bitcoin level of security.

thebean11 6y ago

> Government-issued currencies have value because they represent human trust and cooperation. There is no wealth and no trade without these two things, so you might as well go all in and trust people. Hm.. If you bought BTC when this article came out you'd be up 250%

em3rgent0rdr 6y ago
And mathematically-issued currencies such as cryptocurrency have value because they represent mathematically-provable trust, which is more reliable than human trust.
- QuadrupleA 6y ago
  The mathematical trust just ensures the transactions will all add up and history won't be rewritten. You still need the human trust to deliver the sold goods, have your exchange give you USD for your BTC, etc.
oh_sigh 6y ago
Sure, but only if you could stomach to hold onto it for 3 years while being down between 20% and 80%.
QuadrupleA 6y ago
If you bought Beanie Babies in 1995 and sold in 1997 you'd be up 16000%
- thebean11 6y ago
  Maybe, not convinced that market was quite as liquid as BTC. Either way, is it really a useful, interesting, or novel comparison this late in the game?
  - QuadrupleA 6y ago
    Late in the game as in BTC is 12 years old, or late in the game like it's worth $50k so obviously it's actually valuable / not a bubble etc.?
    - thebean11 6y ago
      12 years old, owned by institutions, traded on stock exchanges etc. The price and market cap too. The beanie baby comparison is pretty low effort and doesn't reflect reality at this point
      - QuadrupleA 6y ago
        Obviously different scale, but they seem similar in my view - bubbles based on assets of little practical utility (who buys groceries with BTC with $12 transaction fees and your wallet doubling or halving every week?), fueled by unpredictable crowd mania.
        thebean11 6y ago
        You see why that's a useless unfalsifiable narrative? Pick anything successful, call it a bubble, compare to beanie babies. It's not a good argument. One of your claims is falsifiable: Bitcoin has utility for large cross border payments.
      - nmfisher 6y ago
maximente 6y ago
what does that statement mean, though? for example, if you bought GameStop you would have 6x'd. are we to assume that GME is twice the "investment" that BTC is? twice as impressive? twice as meaningful to the world? no, of course not. all of this is fueled on speculation, and picking arbitrary date ranges and prices on speculation as a basis for comparison outside of relative speculative performance is not super useful - as recent events have shown, things can move quickly based on purely market- and popularity based events.
gregopet 6y ago
That's what it always comes to, doesn't it? It can't be that bad if it turns a profit. The same argument used by pirates, slave traders, tobacco CEOs and money printing central bankers.
- thebean11 6y ago
  Right, Bitcoin is like slave trading, great point

jordhy 6y ago

It breaks my heart how few people in HN appreciate/understand BTC. This technology is creating a new monetary system + Internet for human kind. What would it take to get you to read the bitcoin white paper and comprehend that bitcoin was not created as an investment vehicle but as an electronic cash system. So Wall Street is speculation on bitcoin. What did you expect? Bitcoin is as useful at $100 dollars as it is at $1 million. Why then are we fixated on price when this technology can change millions of lives? Let's talk about the many awesome things we can do by coding trust into a decentralized Internet. Price is just a footnote.

QuadrupleA 6y ago
I don't know - in their current forms BTC/ETH offer a stupendously wasteful, environmentally disastrous way to add / subtract numbers or execute bits of code for $10-20 a transaction, for bits of digital data that, based on the mania of the masses may be worth $100 this week and $5000 next week. I've read the white paper and the Ethereum yellow paper - the technology is undeniably fascinating and cool, and I have some hope for proof-of-stake systems curbing the current waste, but in their present form they're almost useless as a monetary / payment system, and the only thing I really see happening in the crypto space is various get-rich-quick schemes based around issuing probably-worthless tokens of data, and a million and one ways to convert them amongst each other.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- thebean11 6y ago
  Ethereum is actively moving away from POW, does that change your opinion of it at all?
  - QuadrupleA 6y ago
    If they can pull off merging mainnet into ETH2 it'll be a big improvement environmentally & scalability-wise, so yes. Supporting ETH/BTC now is pretty harmful to the world. Not sure if the volatility thing will be solved, it's still people bidding at the value of intrinsically meaningless bits of data. But maybe more genuine utility, i.e. a payment solution better/cheaper than cash / credit / brokerages, would help justify the valuation. Ethereum's decentralized computation model might find more actually-beneficial-to-the-world applications if the tx costs weren't so painful. Private keys are dangerously powerful for the average person, i.e. lose or have them stolen and you've lost your money forever. But that's a feature too, you can "open an account" in the few milliseconds it takes for your computer to generate a keypair.

snuffop 6y ago

This internet thing will blow over too