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Are you implying that no rational person should ever buy Bitcoin? That seems a bit far-fetched, no? At this point, considering that it's stronger than ever and

Are you implying that no rational person should ever buy Bitcoin? That seems a bit far-fetched, no? At this point, considering that it's stronger than ever and it's pretty clear it's not going away, I would expect a rational person to allocate even a small percentage to it for diversification, in case they happen to be wrong on their conclusions or understanding of Bitcoin.

outside1234 5y ago
There are rational reasons for buying Bitcoin - most of them revolve around money laundering, drug trades, and ransomware. This is the reason we should enforce "know your customer" laws on Bitcoin such that we have government ID for everyone for every transaction that hits the chain.
- rawtxapp 5y ago
  > most of them revolve around money laundering, drug trades, and ransomware. You need a citation for that, because according to experts “In 2020, the illicit share of all cryptocurrency activity fell to just 0.34%,” reported Chainalysis [1]. For many, it's a hedge against inflation, for others it's the next potential global reserve currency, for some it's just a savings mechanism. There are more rational reasons than just crime that you're ignoring. 1: https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/investigation-fraud-and-risk/crypto-crime-caveats/ https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/investigation-fra...
  - Jensson 5y ago
    > In 2020, the illicit share of all cryptocurrency activity fell to just 0.34%, Is the takeaway that the crypto bubble stands for 99.76% of the activity?
- cdiddy2 5y ago
  Tell that to the people in Turkey who had there currency fall 10% against the dollar just this week. Tell that to Argentinians, or Nigerians, or Afghanistan. You might be surprised by the places where crypto has the most penetration. https://bitcoinist.com/cryptocurrency-adoption-highest-5-countries/ https://bitcoinist.com/cryptocurrency-adoption-highest-5-cou...
AlexandrB 5y ago
Couldn't you make the same argument for pets.com stock in early 2000? "Diversification" is a conveniently vague reason to invest in something when there are no "fundamentals" that can be evaluated. At the very least pets.com had some assets that could be sold off after the company went under. Bitcoin can't even claim to have that.
- rawtxapp 5y ago
  If this was 2013, I would agree with you, because the risk of it being worth nothing was much larger, but today the Bitcoin blockchain moves thousands of bitcoin per day (worth billions of dollars in value) and it's network effects are stronger than ever before and you can see usage go high through on-chain metrics (like # wallets, transfers) and increase in lightning network usage (1ml.com). So I would say, investing in Bitcoin in 2013 probably has the same risk as investing in pets.com, but today, it would be like investing in Amazon a couple years after the dot com bubble when the trajectory is clearer. Just my 2 cents.
  - AlexandrB 5y ago
    I think this is actually an argument for investing in crypto.com, other exchange companies, or some of the huge bitcoin mining operations. These are the entities creating value by keeping the bitcoin network running and moving $millions worth of bitcoin around between wallets. Owning bitcoin itself does not grant you any equity in these profit-making entities that actually make bitcoin work.
    - rawtxapp 5y ago
      That's one way of looking at it, but most stocks don't pay dividends, so that "equity" is also not that tangible either, unless you're like a majority shareholder that you can change company direction. When you buy a stock, that money doesn't go to the company, it goes to previous investor, unless the company issues more stock (usually the opposite happens). Also, Bitcoin's success doesn't mean those companies will succeed because it's decentralized and there's thousands of companies across the world and competition is very stiff. But those companies can't succeed without Bitcoin.

outside1234 5y ago

There are rational reasons for buying Bitcoin - most of them revolve around money laundering, drug trades, and ransomware. This is the reason we should enforce "know your customer" laws on Bitcoin such that we have government ID for everyone for every transaction that hits the chain.

rawtxapp 5y ago
> most of them revolve around money laundering, drug trades, and ransomware. You need a citation for that, because according to experts “In 2020, the illicit share of all cryptocurrency activity fell to just 0.34%,” reported Chainalysis [1]. For many, it's a hedge against inflation, for others it's the next potential global reserve currency, for some it's just a savings mechanism. There are more rational reasons than just crime that you're ignoring. 1: https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/investigation-fraud-and-risk/crypto-crime-caveats/ https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/investigation-fra...
- Jensson 5y ago
  > In 2020, the illicit share of all cryptocurrency activity fell to just 0.34%, Is the takeaway that the crypto bubble stands for 99.76% of the activity?
cdiddy2 5y ago
Tell that to the people in Turkey who had there currency fall 10% against the dollar just this week. Tell that to Argentinians, or Nigerians, or Afghanistan. You might be surprised by the places where crypto has the most penetration. https://bitcoinist.com/cryptocurrency-adoption-highest-5-countries/ https://bitcoinist.com/cryptocurrency-adoption-highest-5-cou...

AlexandrB 5y ago

Couldn't you make the same argument for pets.com stock in early 2000? "Diversification" is a conveniently vague reason to invest in something when there are no "fundamentals" that can be evaluated. At the very least pets.com had some assets that could be sold off after the company went under. Bitcoin can't even claim to have that.

rawtxapp 5y ago
If this was 2013, I would agree with you, because the risk of it being worth nothing was much larger, but today the Bitcoin blockchain moves thousands of bitcoin per day (worth billions of dollars in value) and it's network effects are stronger than ever before and you can see usage go high through on-chain metrics (like # wallets, transfers) and increase in lightning network usage (1ml.com). So I would say, investing in Bitcoin in 2013 probably has the same risk as investing in pets.com, but today, it would be like investing in Amazon a couple years after the dot com bubble when the trajectory is clearer. Just my 2 cents.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  I think this is actually an argument for investing in crypto.com, other exchange companies, or some of the huge bitcoin mining operations. These are the entities creating value by keeping the bitcoin network running and moving $millions worth of bitcoin around between wallets. Owning bitcoin itself does not grant you any equity in these profit-making entities that actually make bitcoin work.
  - rawtxapp 5y ago
    That's one way of looking at it, but most stocks don't pay dividends, so that "equity" is also not that tangible either, unless you're like a majority shareholder that you can change company direction. When you buy a stock, that money doesn't go to the company, it goes to previous investor, unless the company issues more stock (usually the opposite happens). Also, Bitcoin's success doesn't mean those companies will succeed because it's decentralized and there's thousands of companies across the world and competition is very stiff. But those companies can't succeed without Bitcoin.