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I am not the OP, but like him, I though Bitcoin was a scam until early this year. What changed my mind when a centralized entity like Robinhood took away the bu

I am not the OP, but like him, I though Bitcoin was a scam until early this year. What changed my mind when a centralized entity like Robinhood took away the buy button of an equity in most capital-friendly country on Earth. I wasn't even involved, so I wasn't mad. But rationally, if someone can wake up one day and decide you can't buy an equity with little consequences, then it is entirely possible for a bank to take away the withdraw button. Even if we assume competence and good sense of the state and the banks (big if!), they will always act for the good of the majority - which is not always good for you or your family. (take the pros and cons of inflation for example) Follow the logic of what's possible with the centralization of money, and quickly you would realize that you really own nothing, except what's in a cold-wallet secured by a decentralized, global network and mathematical facts. There is nothing stopping any central bank from inflating ANY national currency to 0, except good sense and competence. You can and should still believe in their competence and good sense if you are in a democratic country with stable regime, but it would be irrational to not insure against it. Also, it is completely irrational to believe in the good sense and competence of someone like Erdogan or any of the many clown head of states around.

hiq 5y ago
I think this comment is on point and related to your points: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29646492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29646492 I'm not familiar with Robinhood, but I think it's mostly about buying stocks. Blockchains won't help you do this, at least not in a decentralized manner. You'll be stuck buying tokens with no real connection to e.g. the US economy, until it's been approved legally. > Follow the logic of what's possible with the centralization of money, and quickly you would realize that you really own nothing Inflation is a problem, and has had dramatic impact historically, but there's no indication that bitcoin is a solution to this. Just look at the USD/BTC rate over the last year.
- jonathan-adly 5y ago
  > I'm not familiar with Robinhood, but I think it's mostly about buying stocks. Nope. You missed the point. It's about a company (or centralized entity) being in control of your money. > Blockchains won't help you do this, at least not in a decentralized manner. You'll be stuck buying tokens Blockchains and tokens are non-sense words. Bitcoin is a protocol and a network, the first blockchain. It is an open-ledger that facilitates value exchange between two willing participants (you don't have to take part if you don't want). > it's been approved legally Bitcoin is approved legally in the US, and has the world's smartest and most experienced money managers and hedge funds invested in it. Just a few names: 1. Stanley Druckenmiller 2. Ray Dalio 3. Geroge Soros 4. Paul Tudor Jones 5. Steve Cohen 6. Louis Bacon Would recommend reading this: https://saifedean.com/thebitcoinstandard/ https://saifedean.com/thebitcoinstandard/ Written by a PhD from Columbia University with an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Engineering.
  - hiq 5y ago
    > > I'm not familiar with Robinhood, but I think it's mostly about buying stocks. > Nope. You missed the point. It's about a company (or centralized entity) being in control of your money. Sorry, I meant that the company Robinhood is mostly about buying stocks. I was trying to say that people used Robinhood because they wanted to buy some products that it was offering, such as stocks, but decentralized systems won't help prevent the situation you deplored. You could imagine having tokens representing stocks, but it'd just mean that a centralized entity issues them. > Would recommend reading this: https://saifedean.com/thebitcoinstandard/ https://saifedean.com/thebitcoinstandard/ I just read chapter 9, I haven't seen arguments I hadn't read before. Any particular reason why you're recommending this book? What are the takeaways you hadn't seen elsewhere? Just an anecdote, but I find it interesting that the foreword was written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who as of 2021 seems to have completely changed his mind about bitcoin and is now highly critical of it, to say the least.

hiq 5y ago

I think this comment is on point and related to your points: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29646492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29646492 I'm not familiar with Robinhood, but I think it's mostly about buying stocks. Blockchains won't help you do this, at least not in a decentralized manner. You'll be stuck buying tokens with no real connection to e.g. the US economy, until it's been approved legally. > Follow the logic of what's possible with the centralization of money, and quickly you would realize that you really own nothing Inflation is a problem, and has had dramatic impact historically, but there's no indication that bitcoin is a solution to this. Just look at the USD/BTC rate over the last year.

jonathan-adly 5y ago
> I'm not familiar with Robinhood, but I think it's mostly about buying stocks. Nope. You missed the point. It's about a company (or centralized entity) being in control of your money. > Blockchains won't help you do this, at least not in a decentralized manner. You'll be stuck buying tokens Blockchains and tokens are non-sense words. Bitcoin is a protocol and a network, the first blockchain. It is an open-ledger that facilitates value exchange between two willing participants (you don't have to take part if you don't want). > it's been approved legally Bitcoin is approved legally in the US, and has the world's smartest and most experienced money managers and hedge funds invested in it. Just a few names: 1. Stanley Druckenmiller 2. Ray Dalio 3. Geroge Soros 4. Paul Tudor Jones 5. Steve Cohen 6. Louis Bacon Would recommend reading this: https://saifedean.com/thebitcoinstandard/ https://saifedean.com/thebitcoinstandard/ Written by a PhD from Columbia University with an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Engineering.
- hiq 5y ago
  > > I'm not familiar with Robinhood, but I think it's mostly about buying stocks. > Nope. You missed the point. It's about a company (or centralized entity) being in control of your money. Sorry, I meant that the company Robinhood is mostly about buying stocks. I was trying to say that people used Robinhood because they wanted to buy some products that it was offering, such as stocks, but decentralized systems won't help prevent the situation you deplored. You could imagine having tokens representing stocks, but it'd just mean that a centralized entity issues them. > Would recommend reading this: https://saifedean.com/thebitcoinstandard/ https://saifedean.com/thebitcoinstandard/ I just read chapter 9, I haven't seen arguments I hadn't read before. Any particular reason why you're recommending this book? What are the takeaways you hadn't seen elsewhere? Just an anecdote, but I find it interesting that the foreword was written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who as of 2021 seems to have completely changed his mind about bitcoin and is now highly critical of it, to say the least.