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One of the great things about living in a liberal economic system is that you, I, or anyone else can bet on something that's right, but unpopular. A lot of peo

One of the great things about living in a liberal economic system is that you, I, or anyone else can bet on something that's right, but unpopular. A lot of people started off not understanding Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies, and were annoyed by those who did. As more data accumulates suggesting they might have missed something, they seem to only grow more livid, rather than more curious. It's a funny pattern. I'm glad that I live in an economic environment in which I don't have to waste time convincing them, but can instead simply put my own skin in the game and get back to work.

anonporridge 6y ago
Critics are getting caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the evidence is mounting that bitcoin is here to stay and will become an increasingly important part of civilization. This means they severely missed out on the investment opportunity of a lifetime. There's still tons of upside, but you're probably not going to get absurdly rich from it. On the other hand, they still don't fully understand why it's not some kind of scam/ponzi scheme/tulip mania and don't want to buy in and be the sucker left holding the bag when it all collapses. I suspect this cognitive dissonance is what causes long term critics to become increasingly livid and frantic in their criticism.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pureliquidhw 6y ago
  I'm openly a skeptic, and this is a great mental reframe for me. I knew about bitcoin since it was shared at defcon as a 30/40 minute presentation in the middle of an afternoon. I want to guess around 2010, sub $1 for sure. As I have watched it be a bad buy(in my opinion) year after year and repeatedly being wrong to the tune of multiple retirement opportunities, I still think it is a bad buy. Why? Not anger, but fear. Fear not that I've been wrong, but that I've been right. I don't want to be left holding the bag, and the $20k I might or might have thrown at bitcoin I would sell shortly after making a 20% profit, same as I would have regardless of the price. I just don't get it. I probably won't ever get it. And I hope those making fortunes with it put the money behind things more worthwhile than NFTs and other energy intensive proofing "products." I saw you were downvoted, but thanks for helping me better understand, and in the future articulate, my no-coiner stance.
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    Read the Bitcoin Standard book. It was created for openly sceptic people as yourself. And you're right, you shouldn't buy Bitcoin until you understand why you would buy it.
  - anonporridge 6y ago
    And this is the problem. You shouldn't buy in if you don't understand why you would want to hold it for years and decades. If you're just looking to scalp some gains off the mania, then you're very likely to exit at a loss when you experience your first 30% correction that happens over a couple days. The best explanation I've ever read about why smart, well educated people can be so diametrically opposed in their opinion on bitcoin, is the level of trust they have in the establishment system. For various reasons in my personal experience and resulting philosophy on life, I have severe issues in relying on systems of human trust. As much as feasible, I don't want to give others power to abuse and use me without my consent, and bitcoin is a vessel of that need. I see bitcoin as a new, incorruptible foundation of trust from which human cooperation can build off and flourish. If you don't have a similar kind of lived experience, you might not ever understand the value of bitcoin. Or at least, you won't realize the value until it's too late.
  - louloulou 6y ago
    Generally in investment it's helpful to recognise we're not infallible and ask: what is the probability I'm wrong on this? And that's generally a good way to size positions for things you don't want to own, but that the market is telling you to. If I was in you're position, I'd think there's at least a 0.1% chance I'll be proven wrong (after all money is based on social consensus). So I'll take 0.1% of my investable assets and dump it into Bitcoin to hedge myself, and then forget about it.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  > There's still tons of upside, but you're probably not going to get absurdly rich from it. There's still about 100x potential upside, which is absurdly rich for people who at this point decide to sell their house for BTC or put all their money in some other way. But sure, it's not the same as people holding since under $10K
  - dwaltrip 6y ago
    You think Bitcoin could be 10x as valuable as gold? On what basis? 100x from here would be an aggregate value of $100 trillion (20m coins * $5m per coin), while all the gold in the world is only valued at $10 trillion.
    - tekdemon 6y ago
      If it actually someday achieves adoption as a currency that's used in at least many nations then the total aggregate value would have to be a significant amount larger than gold. I think many people have a very US centric point of view where they sort of take it for granted that their currency is used as a global currency standard for trade and is relatively stable and strong, but this isn't the case for many countries on the planet. So it's not entirely implausible that someday this sort of adoption could occur. It is of course, still quite a longshot, but then again I thought $10,000 Bitcoin was a longshot and somehow it's at $60,000 now. If this ever occurred this would likely be something many years off, but my guess is that a lot of the larger institutions moving in see this sort of possible incredible future return so they're putting small amounts in since it's a reasonably good asymmetric bet. Even if you think the actual chance for success is something like 20%, if you believe that if this actually did occur that it would give you 20X or 50X returns then it's still considered a reasonable bet, you'd just bet a small amount of the money you have. And that's pretty much what you're seeing the braver companies do now.

anonporridge 6y ago

Critics are getting caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the evidence is mounting that bitcoin is here to stay and will become an increasingly important part of civilization. This means they severely missed out on the investment opportunity of a lifetime. There's still tons of upside, but you're probably not going to get absurdly rich from it. On the other hand, they still don't fully understand why it's not some kind of scam/ponzi scheme/tulip mania and don't want to buy in and be the sucker left holding the bag when it all collapses. I suspect this cognitive dissonance is what causes long term critics to become increasingly livid and frantic in their criticism.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pureliquidhw 6y ago
I'm openly a skeptic, and this is a great mental reframe for me. I knew about bitcoin since it was shared at defcon as a 30/40 minute presentation in the middle of an afternoon. I want to guess around 2010, sub $1 for sure. As I have watched it be a bad buy(in my opinion) year after year and repeatedly being wrong to the tune of multiple retirement opportunities, I still think it is a bad buy. Why? Not anger, but fear. Fear not that I've been wrong, but that I've been right. I don't want to be left holding the bag, and the $20k I might or might have thrown at bitcoin I would sell shortly after making a 20% profit, same as I would have regardless of the price. I just don't get it. I probably won't ever get it. And I hope those making fortunes with it put the money behind things more worthwhile than NFTs and other energy intensive proofing "products." I saw you were downvoted, but thanks for helping me better understand, and in the future articulate, my no-coiner stance.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  Read the Bitcoin Standard book. It was created for openly sceptic people as yourself. And you're right, you shouldn't buy Bitcoin until you understand why you would buy it.
- anonporridge 6y ago
  And this is the problem. You shouldn't buy in if you don't understand why you would want to hold it for years and decades. If you're just looking to scalp some gains off the mania, then you're very likely to exit at a loss when you experience your first 30% correction that happens over a couple days. The best explanation I've ever read about why smart, well educated people can be so diametrically opposed in their opinion on bitcoin, is the level of trust they have in the establishment system. For various reasons in my personal experience and resulting philosophy on life, I have severe issues in relying on systems of human trust. As much as feasible, I don't want to give others power to abuse and use me without my consent, and bitcoin is a vessel of that need. I see bitcoin as a new, incorruptible foundation of trust from which human cooperation can build off and flourish. If you don't have a similar kind of lived experience, you might not ever understand the value of bitcoin. Or at least, you won't realize the value until it's too late.
- louloulou 6y ago
  Generally in investment it's helpful to recognise we're not infallible and ask: what is the probability I'm wrong on this? And that's generally a good way to size positions for things you don't want to own, but that the market is telling you to. If I was in you're position, I'd think there's at least a 0.1% chance I'll be proven wrong (after all money is based on social consensus). So I'll take 0.1% of my investable assets and dump it into Bitcoin to hedge myself, and then forget about it.
xiphias2 6y ago
> There's still tons of upside, but you're probably not going to get absurdly rich from it. There's still about 100x potential upside, which is absurdly rich for people who at this point decide to sell their house for BTC or put all their money in some other way. But sure, it's not the same as people holding since under $10K
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  You think Bitcoin could be 10x as valuable as gold? On what basis? 100x from here would be an aggregate value of $100 trillion (20m coins * $5m per coin), while all the gold in the world is only valued at $10 trillion.
  - tekdemon 6y ago
    If it actually someday achieves adoption as a currency that's used in at least many nations then the total aggregate value would have to be a significant amount larger than gold. I think many people have a very US centric point of view where they sort of take it for granted that their currency is used as a global currency standard for trade and is relatively stable and strong, but this isn't the case for many countries on the planet. So it's not entirely implausible that someday this sort of adoption could occur. It is of course, still quite a longshot, but then again I thought $10,000 Bitcoin was a longshot and somehow it's at $60,000 now. If this ever occurred this would likely be something many years off, but my guess is that a lot of the larger institutions moving in see this sort of possible incredible future return so they're putting small amounts in since it's a reasonably good asymmetric bet. Even if you think the actual chance for success is something like 20%, if you believe that if this actually did occur that it would give you 20X or 50X returns then it's still considered a reasonable bet, you'd just bet a small amount of the money you have. And that's pretty much what you're seeing the braver companies do now.