5 ms·

The anti-crypto case is not that it's "worse" than some other speculative investment asset (gold, comic books, etc), it's that crypto is a speculative asset, as

The anti-crypto case is not that it's "worse" than some other speculative investment asset (gold, comic books, etc), it's that crypto is a speculative asset, as opposed to the things it's sometimes claimed to be (e.g. currency, a new way to do finance, etc).

wyager 5y ago
All monetized assets like USD or gold are "speculative". I speculate that my dollar probably won't lose more than 10-20% of its value in the next year.
- compiler-guy 5y ago
  The value of the dollar has a floor in that the US government requires that you remit your taxes in dollars. Sure, the US could cease to exist, but that is far less likely than any scenario where bitcoin goes to zero.
  - wyager 5y ago
    The demand introduced by US tax obligations is a vanishingly small fraction of USD demand.
- ineptech 5y ago
  Anything that hasn't happened yet is "speculative" I guess, but in this context speculative means you bought it because you think you can sell it for more tomorrow, as opposed to buying it for its intrinsic value.
  - wyager 5y ago
    Right, like USD, except replace "for more" with "not too much less".
    - ineptech 5y ago
      Ah, I think I see the misunderstanding now. I argued that cryptocurrency is only speculative, and hence unlike a currency which has other uses. I did not argue the inverse (that currency only has other uses, and is not speculative).
thewarrior 5y ago
This is something I’m stumped myself about. HN etc says crypto has no value and I wonder about other things in conventional finance that are of speculative value : Gold - Sure it’s a good store of value as a metal but so is bitcoin. If Gold can be valuable because lots of people value it as a store of value so can Bitcoin. In fact bitcoin is arguably better than Gold. The total wealth of the world is 1000 trillion. Bitcoin is easily worth 0.1 - 0.5 % of that because of its permissionless advantage. Bitcoin has a non zero floor price. I think anyone would agree with this. This is unlike say NFTs which are not likely worth anything with a potential floor of 0. Loss making stocks like Snapchat - A company that said in its IPO filing that we may never be profitable and is still struggling with profitability is worth 100B. If conventional finance is 50 % a Casino based on social factors why can’t there be one more ? Are the purveyors of the current system afraid that they’ll lose their cut ? What is the right mental model here ?
- acjohnson55 5y ago
  One huge difference between Bitcoin and gold is that gold can be possessed purely on one's own. Bitcoin requires the continuous expenditure of energy to maintain the record of ownership.
  - ur-whale 5y ago
    > energy to maintain the record of ownership. That is entirely incorrect. Energy is expended to allow transfer of ownership, not to maintain the record. If all miners save one dude with a laptop stopped to mine transactions tomorrow, you still wouldn't be able to spend Bitcoins for which you don't own the private key.
    - acjohnson55 5y ago
      I agree with your technical clarification, but there would be no point in owning a balance if the ability for someone to receive it in a transaction without fear of double spend disappeared. Therefore, I stand by my statement. Bitcoin has no value without continuous expenditure of energy.

wyager 5y ago

All monetized assets like USD or gold are "speculative". I speculate that my dollar probably won't lose more than 10-20% of its value in the next year.

compiler-guy 5y ago
The value of the dollar has a floor in that the US government requires that you remit your taxes in dollars. Sure, the US could cease to exist, but that is far less likely than any scenario where bitcoin goes to zero.
- wyager 5y ago
  The demand introduced by US tax obligations is a vanishingly small fraction of USD demand.
ineptech 5y ago
Anything that hasn't happened yet is "speculative" I guess, but in this context speculative means you bought it because you think you can sell it for more tomorrow, as opposed to buying it for its intrinsic value.
- wyager 5y ago
  Right, like USD, except replace "for more" with "not too much less".
  - ineptech 5y ago
    Ah, I think I see the misunderstanding now. I argued that cryptocurrency is only speculative, and hence unlike a currency which has other uses. I did not argue the inverse (that currency only has other uses, and is not speculative).

thewarrior 5y ago

This is something I’m stumped myself about. HN etc says crypto has no value and I wonder about other things in conventional finance that are of speculative value : Gold - Sure it’s a good store of value as a metal but so is bitcoin. If Gold can be valuable because lots of people value it as a store of value so can Bitcoin. In fact bitcoin is arguably better than Gold. The total wealth of the world is 1000 trillion. Bitcoin is easily worth 0.1 - 0.5 % of that because of its permissionless advantage. Bitcoin has a non zero floor price. I think anyone would agree with this. This is unlike say NFTs which are not likely worth anything with a potential floor of 0. Loss making stocks like Snapchat - A company that said in its IPO filing that we may never be profitable and is still struggling with profitability is worth 100B. If conventional finance is 50 % a Casino based on social factors why can’t there be one more ? Are the purveyors of the current system afraid that they’ll lose their cut ? What is the right mental model here ?

acjohnson55 5y ago
One huge difference between Bitcoin and gold is that gold can be possessed purely on one's own. Bitcoin requires the continuous expenditure of energy to maintain the record of ownership.
- ur-whale 5y ago
  > energy to maintain the record of ownership. That is entirely incorrect. Energy is expended to allow transfer of ownership, not to maintain the record. If all miners save one dude with a laptop stopped to mine transactions tomorrow, you still wouldn't be able to spend Bitcoins for which you don't own the private key.
  - acjohnson55 5y ago
    I agree with your technical clarification, but there would be no point in owning a balance if the ability for someone to receive it in a transaction without fear of double spend disappeared. Therefore, I stand by my statement. Bitcoin has no value without continuous expenditure of energy.