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Can you clarify “ Contrary to "store of value" claims, literally all money invested into bitcoin either gets burned up, or goes to pay someone who entered bitco

by 542458 5y ago

Can you clarify “ Contrary to "store of value" claims, literally all money invested into bitcoin either gets burned up, or goes to pay someone who entered bitcoin previously.”? I think I get what you’re saying, but I’m not confident in my interpretation and I’d like to get your take if that’s possible.

graeme 5y ago
What I mean it this: 1. If you buy a bitcoin, and sell it, the money can only come from a new purchaser. Bitcoin generates no yield on its own 2. However, the network costs a fair bit to administer and this scales with price. At $40,000 per bitcoin this costs $40,000 * 900 * 365 = $13.14 billion per year. You can imagine a simple thought experiment. Suppose miners sell all 900 coins a day, and there are 100 trades happening apart from the miners. (This is NOT accurate, but the idea doesn’t change if there were 1,000,000 trades) * The 100 non miner trades simply trade $40,000 for a bitcoin, back and forth, ad infinitum. You can see there is no wealth generated, it is merely a shuffling of wealth. This is the purported “store” aspect. As long as people want in, you may find someone to trade. * Meanwhile, 900 people come up to the miners with $40,000 each. Each person hands the miner $40,000. With that, each miner goes to the open market, purchases coal, and burns it in a fire pit. I think when people think of bitcoin as a store of value they think somehow capital has entered into the market. But it hasn’t. 100% of entering capital is immediately used to burn coal. Anyone who wants out has to compete for the limited supply of new money entering. Could an individual cash out their bitcoin for millions? Absolutely, there’s enough new money entering to allow for them to swap places with someone. Could Satoshi cash out billions and billions in bitcoin? No, absolutely not. There isn’t the requisite amount of new money entering, and the miners need most of it to burn coal. This is obviously a simplification but I think it is instructive.
- 542458 5y ago
  Thank you! I appreciate the clarification.
ItsMonkk 5y ago
In a friendly Poker game, everyone comes in with some amount of money, and by the end of the night the money changes hands. Some are winners, some are losers. That's a zero-sum game. When you go to a casino to play Poker, as condition to play you must pay chips every hand called a "rake". When you and everyone else walks out of the casino while there may still be winners there will likely be more losers, and the total is negative. The casino has some of your money. That's a negative sum game. With mining bitcoin is equivalent to the casino scenario. Except instead of the casino keeping the money as profit, it's using that money to buy energy. Then you add onto that the exchanges taking a fee on top of that.

by 542458 5y ago

graeme 5y ago

What I mean it this: 1. If you buy a bitcoin, and sell it, the money can only come from a new purchaser. Bitcoin generates no yield on its own 2. However, the network costs a fair bit to administer and this scales with price. At $40,000 per bitcoin this costs $40,000 * 900 * 365 = $13.14 billion per year. You can imagine a simple thought experiment. Suppose miners sell all 900 coins a day, and there are 100 trades happening apart from the miners. (This is NOT accurate, but the idea doesn’t change if there were 1,000,000 trades) * The 100 non miner trades simply trade $40,000 for a bitcoin, back and forth, ad infinitum. You can see there is no wealth generated, it is merely a shuffling of wealth. This is the purported “store” aspect. As long as people want in, you may find someone to trade. * Meanwhile, 900 people come up to the miners with $40,000 each. Each person hands the miner $40,000. With that, each miner goes to the open market, purchases coal, and burns it in a fire pit. I think when people think of bitcoin as a store of value they think somehow capital has entered into the market. But it hasn’t. 100% of entering capital is immediately used to burn coal. Anyone who wants out has to compete for the limited supply of new money entering. Could an individual cash out their bitcoin for millions? Absolutely, there’s enough new money entering to allow for them to swap places with someone. Could Satoshi cash out billions and billions in bitcoin? No, absolutely not. There isn’t the requisite amount of new money entering, and the miners need most of it to burn coal. This is obviously a simplification but I think it is instructive.

542458 5y ago
Thank you! I appreciate the clarification.

ItsMonkk 5y ago

In a friendly Poker game, everyone comes in with some amount of money, and by the end of the night the money changes hands. Some are winners, some are losers. That's a zero-sum game. When you go to a casino to play Poker, as condition to play you must pay chips every hand called a "rake". When you and everyone else walks out of the casino while there may still be winners there will likely be more losers, and the total is negative. The casino has some of your money. That's a negative sum game. With mining bitcoin is equivalent to the casino scenario. Except instead of the casino keeping the money as profit, it's using that money to buy energy. Then you add onto that the exchanges taking a fee on top of that.