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> They’re buying them to horde so they can resell to other speculators when the price goes up. It's almost like all interest in cryptocurrency is driven by gre

by notJim 5y ago

> They’re buying them to horde so they can resell to other speculators when the price goes up. It's almost like all interest in cryptocurrency is driven by greed and speculation. I've been learning more about it, and I'm pretty convinced this is the case. Go into any crypto space, and all people are talking about is yield, price action, how much their tokens have grown etc. I think the only thing I've seen that isn't purely about speculation is NFTs, oddly enough, which seem to be basically a fad.

wonderwonder 5y ago
To be fair though that's most things. That's the very purpose of the stock market. When you buy a stock most of the time most people don't care what the company it represents does, they just want the stock to go up. Same thing can be applied to most things there are vast warehouses full of art people will never see as its just owned as a tax dodge / speculation. Heck most of us work jobs we hate for nothing but money. Greed / speculation and the need for income make the world go round.
- XorNot 5y ago
  All those things still produce tangible goods at the end though, is the difference. I can hate my job but at the end of the day I still created value for my employer. Companies on the stock market still create actual value for people, even if shareholders don't particularly care how they do it.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
    Does Facebook produce tangible goods?
    - jokethrowaway 5y ago
      Yes, a social network
      - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
        How do you define tangible?
      - epinephrinios 5y ago
        Bitcoin and Ethereum are also... networks!
  - uh-quan 5y ago
    Bitcoin produces a money that cannot be debased by inflation on a whim and which is very hard to forcibly confiscate. It can be transferred in minutes to any place on the globe, across any number of borders and past any capital controls, with transactions that cannot be stopped or censored by even the most powerful and invasive government on Earth. It's a safe haven from fiat currencies and almost a perfect medium of savings. Unless we are working with a weird and strict definition of "tangible," I'd say it's tangible good that is, rightly, valued by many millions of people.
    - notJim 5y ago
      This seems detached from reality. * Governments can and have confiscated bitcoin * they can stop transactions by blocking access to wallets and exchanges etc * They're a terrible medium for savings, unless you want your savings account to routinely swing wildly up and down in value * 99.9% of people interested in Bitcoin do not care about these supposed benefits (which I'm skeptical even exist.) Yes there are the handful of goldbugs and libertarians, but most just want to see the number go up.
      - uh-quan 5y ago
        This is all well-trodden ground. First, if you are concerned about things like confiscation, then you take the recommended security steps such as running your own node. At that point confiscation is indeed difficult (not impossible) and blocking access is essentially impossible. A government would have to prevent you and anyone who could act on your behalf from having any access to the Internet in order to stop the transaction being propagated on the network. As for savings: I stand by my assertion. In its early years, yes, bitcoin is going to be volatile. But as anyone who has held bitcoin for 3+ years knows, it retains and grows value over the course of years exceptionally well. Savings implies a medium- and longer-term horizon — think years, not months — and on that horizon bitcoin has always been a winner. I think there are more people in this world who care about the harms of inflation and capital controls than you are giving credit to. I care about preserving my wealth from debasement, as do all of the people I happen to know who hold bitcoin. And I suspect I might have a better feel for the "pulse" of bitcoin users than your 99.9% estimate, which (forgive me) strikes me as being detached from reality.
  - wonderwonder 5y ago
    They do, but is the stock an actual tangible good? Companies with identical financials are not valued the same way. Look at a company like Tesla, its stock is pure speculation. I cannot physically hold my stock other than a piece of paper maybe that says I hold it. I cannot really do anything with it except hope to sell it to someone else for more money. It does not really grant me ownership If I tried to walk into an amazon warehouse screaming I an owner, I would be locked up and committed.
ipnon 5y ago
Cryptocurrencies fundamentally are about transactions. So I don't think it's appropriate to claim cryptocurrencies are any more driven by greed and speculation than any other common transactional activities, such as saving money in a bank account, mortgaging a home or buying a cup of coffee.
aero- 5y ago
EXACTLY. Name one crypto project making any sort of impact.
celticninja 5y ago
It wasn't always this way, in the early days there was genuine excitement around the technology. bitcointalk.org was a hive of ideas and opportunities. Bitcoin was used to transact internationally to trade goods, it was a payment medium as it was supposed to be. Even the bitcoin subreddit was good, but that turned first. Then all forums became dominated by price. I shudder at the posts I read these days about newbies to bitcoin. You are right it has become all about greed, nothing about the technology. When BTC hit $20k I remember telling a friend that while I was happy with the price it was ridiculous, bitcoin hadn't changed sufficiently to be worth that, but I also knew that if it hit $20k it would hit $50k and $100k, but I alway thought it would take longer because I assumed it would come from adoption of the technology. But it is all speculation now, you only have to love at dogecoin to see that. It is a virtually limitless coin, if it hits $10 it is through sheer madness. The same things said about bitcoin are being said about dogecoin. "It will be the payment medium of the internet, you can buy a coffee with it etc. But every post in the subreddit is about Lambos and moons. It's a real shame.
celticninja 5y ago
NFTs are the same thing though, yes the medium differs, but these high benchmark prices are being paid by people with hundreds of millions in cryptocurrency, with the aim pretty much of minting their own NFTs and selling them. Those big ticket items are just painting the tape. Likely bought and sold by the same people in many cases (if we take the crypto markets in general as a guide).
- grey-area 5y ago
  Exactly, they are pure price speculation and manipulation, this recent NFT being a perfect example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27038275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27038275
figassis 5y ago
That would happen if you call something a currency. Maybe we should have called it something else, and derived its value from its application. But hindsight, etc. The plan was btc would be insanely liquid and decentralized it would collapse the banking system. So we went 200% with cryptocurrency. Now we’re trying to force the planet to ignore the potential sunk cost of having invested their life savings into it, to instead look at more useful tokens.

by notJim 5y ago

wonderwonder 5y ago

To be fair though that's most things. That's the very purpose of the stock market. When you buy a stock most of the time most people don't care what the company it represents does, they just want the stock to go up. Same thing can be applied to most things there are vast warehouses full of art people will never see as its just owned as a tax dodge / speculation. Heck most of us work jobs we hate for nothing but money. Greed / speculation and the need for income make the world go round.

XorNot 5y ago
All those things still produce tangible goods at the end though, is the difference. I can hate my job but at the end of the day I still created value for my employer. Companies on the stock market still create actual value for people, even if shareholders don't particularly care how they do it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
  Does Facebook produce tangible goods?
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    Yes, a social network
    - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
      How do you define tangible?
    - epinephrinios 5y ago
      Bitcoin and Ethereum are also... networks!
- uh-quan 5y ago
  Bitcoin produces a money that cannot be debased by inflation on a whim and which is very hard to forcibly confiscate. It can be transferred in minutes to any place on the globe, across any number of borders and past any capital controls, with transactions that cannot be stopped or censored by even the most powerful and invasive government on Earth. It's a safe haven from fiat currencies and almost a perfect medium of savings. Unless we are working with a weird and strict definition of "tangible," I'd say it's tangible good that is, rightly, valued by many millions of people.
  - notJim 5y ago
    This seems detached from reality. * Governments can and have confiscated bitcoin * they can stop transactions by blocking access to wallets and exchanges etc * They're a terrible medium for savings, unless you want your savings account to routinely swing wildly up and down in value * 99.9% of people interested in Bitcoin do not care about these supposed benefits (which I'm skeptical even exist.) Yes there are the handful of goldbugs and libertarians, but most just want to see the number go up.
    - uh-quan 5y ago
      This is all well-trodden ground. First, if you are concerned about things like confiscation, then you take the recommended security steps such as running your own node. At that point confiscation is indeed difficult (not impossible) and blocking access is essentially impossible. A government would have to prevent you and anyone who could act on your behalf from having any access to the Internet in order to stop the transaction being propagated on the network. As for savings: I stand by my assertion. In its early years, yes, bitcoin is going to be volatile. But as anyone who has held bitcoin for 3+ years knows, it retains and grows value over the course of years exceptionally well. Savings implies a medium- and longer-term horizon — think years, not months — and on that horizon bitcoin has always been a winner. I think there are more people in this world who care about the harms of inflation and capital controls than you are giving credit to. I care about preserving my wealth from debasement, as do all of the people I happen to know who hold bitcoin. And I suspect I might have a better feel for the "pulse" of bitcoin users than your 99.9% estimate, which (forgive me) strikes me as being detached from reality.
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  They do, but is the stock an actual tangible good? Companies with identical financials are not valued the same way. Look at a company like Tesla, its stock is pure speculation. I cannot physically hold my stock other than a piece of paper maybe that says I hold it. I cannot really do anything with it except hope to sell it to someone else for more money. It does not really grant me ownership If I tried to walk into an amazon warehouse screaming I an owner, I would be locked up and committed.

ipnon 5y ago

Cryptocurrencies fundamentally are about transactions. So I don't think it's appropriate to claim cryptocurrencies are any more driven by greed and speculation than any other common transactional activities, such as saving money in a bank account, mortgaging a home or buying a cup of coffee.

aero- 5y ago

EXACTLY. Name one crypto project making any sort of impact.

celticninja 5y ago

It wasn't always this way, in the early days there was genuine excitement around the technology. bitcointalk.org was a hive of ideas and opportunities. Bitcoin was used to transact internationally to trade goods, it was a payment medium as it was supposed to be. Even the bitcoin subreddit was good, but that turned first. Then all forums became dominated by price. I shudder at the posts I read these days about newbies to bitcoin. You are right it has become all about greed, nothing about the technology. When BTC hit $20k I remember telling a friend that while I was happy with the price it was ridiculous, bitcoin hadn't changed sufficiently to be worth that, but I also knew that if it hit $20k it would hit $50k and $100k, but I alway thought it would take longer because I assumed it would come from adoption of the technology. But it is all speculation now, you only have to love at dogecoin to see that. It is a virtually limitless coin, if it hits $10 it is through sheer madness. The same things said about bitcoin are being said about dogecoin. "It will be the payment medium of the internet, you can buy a coffee with it etc. But every post in the subreddit is about Lambos and moons. It's a real shame.

celticninja 5y ago

NFTs are the same thing though, yes the medium differs, but these high benchmark prices are being paid by people with hundreds of millions in cryptocurrency, with the aim pretty much of minting their own NFTs and selling them. Those big ticket items are just painting the tape. Likely bought and sold by the same people in many cases (if we take the crypto markets in general as a guide).

grey-area 5y ago
Exactly, they are pure price speculation and manipulation, this recent NFT being a perfect example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27038275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27038275

figassis 5y ago

That would happen if you call something a currency. Maybe we should have called it something else, and derived its value from its application. But hindsight, etc. The plan was btc would be insanely liquid and decentralized it would collapse the banking system. So we went 200% with cryptocurrency. Now we’re trying to force the planet to ignore the potential sunk cost of having invested their life savings into it, to instead look at more useful tokens.