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how is BTC not fundamentally sound. You can literally take 1 Billion dollars worth of BTC and cross the border without anyone questioning you. How does that not

by odsb 4y ago

how is BTC not fundamentally sound. You can literally take 1 Billion dollars worth of BTC and cross the border without anyone questioning you. How does that not change how you see things ?

arcticbull 4y ago
Fundamentally sound as what? - As a currency, it's garbage. Currencies are inflationary to incentivize spending. A deflationary currency incentives hoarding, and harms the economy by dropping velocity. All the worst periods in history have been deflationary, not inflationary. Currencies benefit from being able to respond to changes in population, to shocks, to changing demographics. And they shouldn't cost a fully-realized (inc. block reward) $200+ to transact. - As a 'hedge against inflation,' it's garbage. In the most inflationary period in decades, it went from 69K to 28K. That's a drop of 60% in nominal terms. While the dollar dropped 9%. That means it dropped 69% in real dollar terms in a few months. RIP. - As a 'store of value,' it's garbage. A store of value must be predictable. You should have a reasonable expectation that you can extract the same amount of value from it in the future. See above. - It's an environmental catastrophe, wasting as much power as an entire nation (and yielding kilotons of e-waste per year) to achieve 6tps. Millions of times less efficient than Visa, or FedNow or RTP. It has sufficient throughput at the L1 level to service a large flea market or a mid-sized Costco, not the world economy. Lightning is a nothing burger. It would take 75 years, 2/3 of a trillion dollars in fees, and the entire rest of the block reward to open a channel for everyone on earth. And LN has quadratic routing complexity meaning even if you did, it wouldn't be functional in the first place. Even your example of smuggling money across the border doesn't make sense - you need to buy Bitcoin at one exchange in one country, then sell it at another exchange in another country in order to spend the value. That takes days, costs percentage points, exposes you to huge counter party risk and massive forex swings ... and KYC. And being a public ledger, both governments can fire up chainalysis and see exactly who moved it where. So even if they don't ask you questions as you move across the border, they'll follow up. Just give it time. In exactly what narrative does it come across as 'fundamentally sound'?
- randomhodler84 4y ago
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    I did, but it's kind of the empty set. I guess, you could say it's a high-beta play on liquidity, plus an army of Herbalife type salespeople.
    - randomhodler84 4y ago
      Funny. The day is yours arctic, and I feel I have no power to argue. Still, I lost a larger percentage in stonks today, so I don’t really know where we should be putting our fiat.
      - arcticbull 4y ago
        heh, I was overexposed to high-growth tech stocks the whole time, so I probably lost just as much over the same period of time. If somebody won, it sure wasn't me! I've also watched this space long enough to know that crypto is the T-1000 of financial schemes. I've no doubt she'll be back - probably stronger than ever - no matter what I think. This is my third crypto boom/bust cycle. I'm not dancing on graves here, so I hope it didn't come across that way. I want us all to win. These market conditions suck. But they'll be over soon. [edit] what frustrates me the most is I feel like the crypto folks often really want to make the world better, and I just wish we were all pointed in the same direction.
        randomhodler84 4y ago
        Thank you, yes us all to win too. A lot of folks think the games are all rigged, and maybe this and everything else is too. I want the money to liberate folks, not control them.
- robocat 4y ago
  > A deflationary currency incentives hoarding Really… Do people hoard value shares which have predictable returns that beat inflation? Is most gold or property hoarded, or is it traded? (Either is expected to rise in “value” over time, expected that is by the average person). I suspect most people try to get the best returns. Hoarding might occur in a depression, but otherwise the concept is questionable?
SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
The sibling comment gets everything right. I want to add one… - there are at least 12 people that could absolutely destroy BTC in a variety of ways. Elon, some developers, some mining coop, whatever whoever, it’s not impossible. For example, what do you think would happen if the original Satoahi coins started to get used? Look how many / how much is there, it would be pandemonium. It’s a weak system that people want to trust, but there are no guns backing it up.

by odsb 4y ago

how is BTC not fundamentally sound. You can literally take 1 Billion dollars worth of BTC and cross the border without anyone questioning you. How does that not change how you see things ?

arcticbull 4y ago

Fundamentally sound as what? - As a currency, it's garbage. Currencies are inflationary to incentivize spending. A deflationary currency incentives hoarding, and harms the economy by dropping velocity. All the worst periods in history have been deflationary, not inflationary. Currencies benefit from being able to respond to changes in population, to shocks, to changing demographics. And they shouldn't cost a fully-realized (inc. block reward) $200+ to transact. - As a 'hedge against inflation,' it's garbage. In the most inflationary period in decades, it went from 69K to 28K. That's a drop of 60% in nominal terms. While the dollar dropped 9%. That means it dropped 69% in real dollar terms in a few months. RIP. - As a 'store of value,' it's garbage. A store of value must be predictable. You should have a reasonable expectation that you can extract the same amount of value from it in the future. See above. - It's an environmental catastrophe, wasting as much power as an entire nation (and yielding kilotons of e-waste per year) to achieve 6tps. Millions of times less efficient than Visa, or FedNow or RTP. It has sufficient throughput at the L1 level to service a large flea market or a mid-sized Costco, not the world economy. Lightning is a nothing burger. It would take 75 years, 2/3 of a trillion dollars in fees, and the entire rest of the block reward to open a channel for everyone on earth. And LN has quadratic routing complexity meaning even if you did, it wouldn't be functional in the first place. Even your example of smuggling money across the border doesn't make sense - you need to buy Bitcoin at one exchange in one country, then sell it at another exchange in another country in order to spend the value. That takes days, costs percentage points, exposes you to huge counter party risk and massive forex swings ... and KYC. And being a public ledger, both governments can fire up chainalysis and see exactly who moved it where. So even if they don't ask you questions as you move across the border, they'll follow up. Just give it time. In exactly what narrative does it come across as 'fundamentally sound'?

randomhodler84 4y ago
- arcticbull 4y ago
  I did, but it's kind of the empty set. I guess, you could say it's a high-beta play on liquidity, plus an army of Herbalife type salespeople.
  - randomhodler84 4y ago
    Funny. The day is yours arctic, and I feel I have no power to argue. Still, I lost a larger percentage in stonks today, so I don’t really know where we should be putting our fiat.
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      heh, I was overexposed to high-growth tech stocks the whole time, so I probably lost just as much over the same period of time. If somebody won, it sure wasn't me! I've also watched this space long enough to know that crypto is the T-1000 of financial schemes. I've no doubt she'll be back - probably stronger than ever - no matter what I think. This is my third crypto boom/bust cycle. I'm not dancing on graves here, so I hope it didn't come across that way. I want us all to win. These market conditions suck. But they'll be over soon. [edit] what frustrates me the most is I feel like the crypto folks often really want to make the world better, and I just wish we were all pointed in the same direction.
      - randomhodler84 4y ago
        Thank you, yes us all to win too. A lot of folks think the games are all rigged, and maybe this and everything else is too. I want the money to liberate folks, not control them.
robocat 4y ago
> A deflationary currency incentives hoarding Really… Do people hoard value shares which have predictable returns that beat inflation? Is most gold or property hoarded, or is it traded? (Either is expected to rise in “value” over time, expected that is by the average person). I suspect most people try to get the best returns. Hoarding might occur in a depression, but otherwise the concept is questionable?

SV_BubbleTime 4y ago

The sibling comment gets everything right. I want to add one… - there are at least 12 people that could absolutely destroy BTC in a variety of ways. Elon, some developers, some mining coop, whatever whoever, it’s not impossible. For example, what do you think would happen if the original Satoahi coins started to get used? Look how many / how much is there, it would be pandemonium. It’s a weak system that people want to trust, but there are no guns backing it up.