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Hmm. It’s interesting to note that skeptics seem much more invested in being right about crypto being a scam than proponents are in it being here to stay. The

by K0balt 5y ago

Hmm. It’s interesting to note that skeptics seem much more invested in being right about crypto being a scam than proponents are in it being here to stay. The more time passes, the shriller the cries of skeptics become, leading me to believe that skeptics are emotionally invested to the extreme in the failure of crypto. I rarely see any carefully considered, informed opinions just tulips and drugs and money laundering lol. You know what is used for drugs? Cash. You know how money is laundered? Banks. You know what is worthless? Venezuelan currency. Sure, crypto, just like any fungible asset, is used in these ways... but none nearly as much a fiat is. I’m becoming convinced that naysayers are more and more afraid of having been wrong and missing the boat as time goes on. Every day Bitcoin fails to go to 0, it gains legitimacy as a store of value and means of payment. I guess that is pretty nerve wracking if you made a hasty decision early on to pretend it wasn’t happening, and now it seems like you’re being left in the dust, still preaching from your soap box. It’s been more than a decade. It’s here to stay. It will get better, but it’s not going anywhere.

tyre 5y ago
> Every day Bitcoin fails to go to 0, it gains legitimacy as a store of value and means of payment. Bitcoin is a horrible store of value. It might not go to zero, but it’s fluctuates wildly. I think for people who predicted from a decade ago that this was all nonsense, the case is there that it is. Realistically, what are we looking at? What runs on smart contracts? What is being bought and sold with Bitcoin. This answer is not nothing, but…I mean really? This is the revolution? As far as legal uses, the only one that has any amount of traffic is speculation. That’s it. Are there other people using it occasionally for other things? Sure! But then we’re looking at, checks ledger NFTs? All of this while burning through tremendous amounts of electricity. We’re talking over half a percent of the total energy consumption of human civilization. What have we gotten in return? This isn’t like people pushing back against airplanes or paper or rice. There’s no denying that a lot of money is thrown around, but you can only talk about people being “left in the dust” if you can point to something worth, again, >0.5% of electricity consumption of the PLANET.
roca 5y ago
Every time a Musk tweet swings the value of BTC by 20% --- in either direction --- Bitcoin loses credibility as a store of value. "Price greater than zero" is not enough to make something a good store of value. BTC as a means of payment is a joke. Most Bitcoin fans I engage with have actually given up on that. In fact, the scaling limitations of Bitcoin transactions are now touted as a good thing because that bounds the eventual energy usage of the network. The Bitcoin cult is strong enough that I have no doubt Bitcoin is here to stay. It's sad, but it doesn't bother me. On the other hand it's obvious why Bitcoin HODLers have a deep financial interest in crypto being "here to stay".
- imtringued 5y ago
  The store of value concept makes no sense because such a thing cannot exist. When you buy Bitcoin you hope the seller does something that maintains the existence of an economy that exchanges their currency for Bitcoin. You can't just pile up gold and then expect to get something for it if everyone else is dead. You need a group of people (aka economy) willing to work for the gold.
  - nly 5y ago
    Gold is a store of value insofar as 'value' is something that can be stored. All people mean by this is the demand and supply for Gold is very predictable, relatively speaking.
    - jodrellblank 5y ago
      One difference between Gold and Bitcoin which I don't see discussed often is that it's pretty clear the people who got in first get the most gains. With gold, you can't do anything about that until you invent time travel. With BitCoin, as soon as you realise that, you have an incentive to spin up your own cryptocoin with the only difference being that you get in first. Other people have an incentive to get into your cryptocoin speculating that they can be in first, and then because they are in they have an incentive to hype it to others. https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/ https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/ I clicked "load more" until I saw 1400 cryptocurrencies, if Bitcoin is 12 years old, that's averaging a new cryptocurrency every 3 days since Bitcoin's creation. There's probably a lot more than that.
ergot_vacation 5y ago
They really have cranked up the propaganda against crypto recently haven't they? I've honestly been lukewarm on it for a while: maybe someday it'll be a workable tech, but too many issues at present. But the way these people talk (or are being paid to talk), you'd think Bitcoin breathed fire and had horns. Which begs the question: what are they afraid of? And they ARE afraid of something. You don't launch a propaganda campaign against something you think is a joke.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Yes I am afraid, I am afraid that I won't be able to acquire some real estate properties to rent them out at reasonable prices. This literally has nothing to do with Bitcoin. Oh, I am also worried about not completing that robotics project I started, because I don't have enough time. Thanks for your comment.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  A shitcoin wasting electricity and causing absolutely massive emissions of greenhouse gases is a first point. I'm not looking forward to the planet I live on being utterly fucked. And I'm even less happy about frat tech bros pumping bitcoin because it makes them money.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > you'd think Bitcoin breathed fire That's exactly what it does. Most electrical power plants are still coal-, oil-, or gas-fired.
doom 5y ago
I've evaluated Bitcoin probably 10 separate times. I regret not getting in at time #1 when it was $30, but I know I would've sold at $35 or $50 or $100 or $1000 based on where I was economically then. I have no regrets investing in broad market index funds, because I know what they represent, how they work, and how even if Amazon drops to 1/10th of its value I still own a small slice of the company. If bitcoin drops I own a bitcoin, which no adherent can explain the purpose of. There's no "there" there. It doesn't do what it's supposed to do, most of the adherents don't know what they're buying, the "store of value" argument just makes it a worse version of fine art, gold, or real estate. The economic case for bitcoin is anti-fiat. Fine, but that's a minority opinion. Hundreds of millions of Americans buzz along in a fiat system and don't seem much worse for the wear. The massive COVID bailout kept millions out of poverty, kept food on the table, kept businesses open, etc. "Failed states print money and crash the economy so they need bitcoin". Why Bitcoin and not another crypto? I can never answer that. Hardly anything in tech is forever. BASIC was once cool, now it's Python. Would I bet $30,000 that Python is the language of choice 50 years from now? No. Bitcoin is a cool proof of concept that is eclipsed tech wise by dozens of other coins. I'm still skeptical of other coins, and hardcore skeptical of PoW when the W is useless (hashing). Bitcoin is the top of the skepticism pyramid. There's no point.
imtringued 5y ago
As a Bitcoin skeptic: I'll take my shitcoin money (or lose it) and that's all there is to it.
jodrellblank 5y ago
> "I’m becoming convinced that naysayers are more and more afraid of having been wrong and missing the boat as time goes on." "Bitcoin value has changed 200,000x in a decade and just halved in a few weeks." "You're envious because you didn't get rich quick." "I thought this wasn't a get rich quick scheme?" "It isn't, how could you suggest such a thing? It's a currency used to buy groceries in Venezuela." "Then why do you care about it - do you put your savings into the Mongolian Tugrik because it's a currency used to buy groceries? Do you go round singing its praises on the internet?" "No, because they won't get me rich quick. It's still a currency, deal with it." "Doesn't that rapid change in value make it a poor thing to use as currency?" "It's unquestionably better than a hyperinflationary fiat currency in a collapsing state." "Almost anything would be." "You're just dissing it out of envy because you didn't get rich quick. Look at that - over $30,000/coin, nothing that valuable could be nonsense or scammy!" "Tulips?" "That's all you ever say, Tulips, Madoff, Ponzi, Pyramid." "They were all things that had high valuations and were nonsense. At least tulips have some inherent value, unlike Bitcoin, you can't grow or eat Bitcoin." "Ah! Ah! You can't eat gold!" "Indeed you can't. If you like that kind of thing, do you hold any gold?" "No, gold won't get me rich quick." > "It’s been more than a decade. It’s here to stay." I guess this is why you're religious - it's been here for a long time, many people believe in it, that's enough to convince you, yes?
- CRConrad 5y ago
  I deeply regret that HN's system gives me at most one upvote to bestow upon this. (Hey, couldn't it be something like one potential upvote per comment I read, in stead? And then I could give several of those from comments I don't deem worthy of upvoting to those I do.)

by K0balt 5y ago

tyre 5y ago

> Every day Bitcoin fails to go to 0, it gains legitimacy as a store of value and means of payment. Bitcoin is a horrible store of value. It might not go to zero, but it’s fluctuates wildly. I think for people who predicted from a decade ago that this was all nonsense, the case is there that it is. Realistically, what are we looking at? What runs on smart contracts? What is being bought and sold with Bitcoin. This answer is not nothing, but…I mean really? This is the revolution? As far as legal uses, the only one that has any amount of traffic is speculation. That’s it. Are there other people using it occasionally for other things? Sure! But then we’re looking at, checks ledger NFTs? All of this while burning through tremendous amounts of electricity. We’re talking over half a percent of the total energy consumption of human civilization. What have we gotten in return? This isn’t like people pushing back against airplanes or paper or rice. There’s no denying that a lot of money is thrown around, but you can only talk about people being “left in the dust” if you can point to something worth, again, >0.5% of electricity consumption of the PLANET.

roca 5y ago

Every time a Musk tweet swings the value of BTC by 20% --- in either direction --- Bitcoin loses credibility as a store of value. "Price greater than zero" is not enough to make something a good store of value. BTC as a means of payment is a joke. Most Bitcoin fans I engage with have actually given up on that. In fact, the scaling limitations of Bitcoin transactions are now touted as a good thing because that bounds the eventual energy usage of the network. The Bitcoin cult is strong enough that I have no doubt Bitcoin is here to stay. It's sad, but it doesn't bother me. On the other hand it's obvious why Bitcoin HODLers have a deep financial interest in crypto being "here to stay".

imtringued 5y ago
The store of value concept makes no sense because such a thing cannot exist. When you buy Bitcoin you hope the seller does something that maintains the existence of an economy that exchanges their currency for Bitcoin. You can't just pile up gold and then expect to get something for it if everyone else is dead. You need a group of people (aka economy) willing to work for the gold.
- nly 5y ago
  Gold is a store of value insofar as 'value' is something that can be stored. All people mean by this is the demand and supply for Gold is very predictable, relatively speaking.
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    One difference between Gold and Bitcoin which I don't see discussed often is that it's pretty clear the people who got in first get the most gains. With gold, you can't do anything about that until you invent time travel. With BitCoin, as soon as you realise that, you have an incentive to spin up your own cryptocoin with the only difference being that you get in first. Other people have an incentive to get into your cryptocoin speculating that they can be in first, and then because they are in they have an incentive to hype it to others. https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/ https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/ I clicked "load more" until I saw 1400 cryptocurrencies, if Bitcoin is 12 years old, that's averaging a new cryptocurrency every 3 days since Bitcoin's creation. There's probably a lot more than that.

ergot_vacation 5y ago

They really have cranked up the propaganda against crypto recently haven't they? I've honestly been lukewarm on it for a while: maybe someday it'll be a workable tech, but too many issues at present. But the way these people talk (or are being paid to talk), you'd think Bitcoin breathed fire and had horns. Which begs the question: what are they afraid of? And they ARE afraid of something. You don't launch a propaganda campaign against something you think is a joke.

imtringued 5y ago
Yes I am afraid, I am afraid that I won't be able to acquire some real estate properties to rent them out at reasonable prices. This literally has nothing to do with Bitcoin. Oh, I am also worried about not completing that robotics project I started, because I don't have enough time. Thanks for your comment.
ohgodplsno 5y ago
A shitcoin wasting electricity and causing absolutely massive emissions of greenhouse gases is a first point. I'm not looking forward to the planet I live on being utterly fucked. And I'm even less happy about frat tech bros pumping bitcoin because it makes them money.
CRConrad 5y ago
> you'd think Bitcoin breathed fire That's exactly what it does. Most electrical power plants are still coal-, oil-, or gas-fired.

doom 5y ago

I've evaluated Bitcoin probably 10 separate times. I regret not getting in at time #1 when it was $30, but I know I would've sold at $35 or $50 or $100 or $1000 based on where I was economically then. I have no regrets investing in broad market index funds, because I know what they represent, how they work, and how even if Amazon drops to 1/10th of its value I still own a small slice of the company. If bitcoin drops I own a bitcoin, which no adherent can explain the purpose of. There's no "there" there. It doesn't do what it's supposed to do, most of the adherents don't know what they're buying, the "store of value" argument just makes it a worse version of fine art, gold, or real estate. The economic case for bitcoin is anti-fiat. Fine, but that's a minority opinion. Hundreds of millions of Americans buzz along in a fiat system and don't seem much worse for the wear. The massive COVID bailout kept millions out of poverty, kept food on the table, kept businesses open, etc. "Failed states print money and crash the economy so they need bitcoin". Why Bitcoin and not another crypto? I can never answer that. Hardly anything in tech is forever. BASIC was once cool, now it's Python. Would I bet $30,000 that Python is the language of choice 50 years from now? No. Bitcoin is a cool proof of concept that is eclipsed tech wise by dozens of other coins. I'm still skeptical of other coins, and hardcore skeptical of PoW when the W is useless (hashing). Bitcoin is the top of the skepticism pyramid. There's no point.

imtringued 5y ago

As a Bitcoin skeptic: I'll take my shitcoin money (or lose it) and that's all there is to it.

jodrellblank 5y ago

> "I’m becoming convinced that naysayers are more and more afraid of having been wrong and missing the boat as time goes on." "Bitcoin value has changed 200,000x in a decade and just halved in a few weeks." "You're envious because you didn't get rich quick." "I thought this wasn't a get rich quick scheme?" "It isn't, how could you suggest such a thing? It's a currency used to buy groceries in Venezuela." "Then why do you care about it - do you put your savings into the Mongolian Tugrik because it's a currency used to buy groceries? Do you go round singing its praises on the internet?" "No, because they won't get me rich quick. It's still a currency, deal with it." "Doesn't that rapid change in value make it a poor thing to use as currency?" "It's unquestionably better than a hyperinflationary fiat currency in a collapsing state." "Almost anything would be." "You're just dissing it out of envy because you didn't get rich quick. Look at that - over $30,000/coin, nothing that valuable could be nonsense or scammy!" "Tulips?" "That's all you ever say, Tulips, Madoff, Ponzi, Pyramid." "They were all things that had high valuations and were nonsense. At least tulips have some inherent value, unlike Bitcoin, you can't grow or eat Bitcoin." "Ah! Ah! You can't eat gold!" "Indeed you can't. If you like that kind of thing, do you hold any gold?" "No, gold won't get me rich quick." > "It’s been more than a decade. It’s here to stay." I guess this is why you're religious - it's been here for a long time, many people believe in it, that's enough to convince you, yes?

CRConrad 5y ago
I deeply regret that HN's system gives me at most one upvote to bestow upon this. (Hey, couldn't it be something like one potential upvote per comment I read, in stead? And then I could give several of those from comments I don't deem worthy of upvoting to those I do.)