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There have been numerous Bitcoin theses over the years and they’re all broken. Is it peer-to-peer digital cash like the original white paper claims? Clearly no

• tootie 4y ago
  It's absolutely a pyramid scheme. But that doesn't mean it will actually collapse. A lot of the best known pyramid schemes (Amway, Mary Kay) ended being incredibly durable businesses where all the people who lost their shirts failed to dissuade the next generation.
  • eldenwrong 4y ago
    It's absolutely not. Go google the definition of a pyramid scheme
    • moron4hire 4y ago
      Not a convincing argument.
      • eldenwrong 4y ago
        To engage in rational discourse one has to a at least put minimum effort in the topic
        • moron4hire 4y ago
          Same to you
        • giaour 4y ago
          Your original comment was just an assertion without analysis or argument. Was this exchange meant to be performance art?
          • eldenwrong 4y ago
            Because bitcoin is simply not a pyramid scheme. It has been argued wrongly for over 10 years. Why not read the definition of what pyramid scheme is first? It would clear all doubts, yet people love to parrot dumb headlines
            • deleted 4y ago
              [deleted]
            • tootie 4y ago
              You can argue semantics (I mean you're not really even trying) but the fact is that most pyramid schemes at least give some bottles of herbal supplements or crystals or something. Crypto is valued exactly as much as the rate that people keep buying it (minus a load of wasted electricity) and nothing else. It is literally illegal in the US to advertise investments on TV yet there has been an absolute bombardment of marketing trying to get as many average joes as possible to buy crypto to goose the price. Enticing unsophisticated investors with a promise of massive rewards coupled with badgering FOMO is the exact MO of pyramid schemes.
              • eldenwrong 4y ago
                Its literally not a pyramid scheme. You could call it a scam sure. A pyramid scheme means that you use money from new investors to pay previous investors. Thats not at all what happens with Bitcoin. Bitcoin just trades like a commodity... You can call it a bubble sure. But its simply not a pyramid scheme
    • giaour 4y ago
      I just did, and the first result was https://finance.yahoo.com/news/economist-bitcoin-is-a-pyramid-scheme-204217615.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/economist-bitcoin-is-a-pyrami...
      • eldenwrong 4y ago
        Google the definition not a fucking opinion. Jesus whenever Bitcoin is brought up we get a horde of midwits
  • xyzzy4747 4y ago
    You could use the same argument about gold which is worth over $10 trillion for an amount that fits into a swimming pool.
    • rowanajmarshall 4y ago
      Although people aren't pouring money into gold with the hope of making big profit.
      • ntoskrnl 4y ago
        The folks at ZeroHedge would disagree
        • NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
          The folks at ZeroHedge have also predicted the financial apocalypse about seventeen times since 2008.
    • gonzo41 4y ago
      Gold is ductile and a good conductor. Outside of it's shiny / jewelry uses it's actually a useful metal. Crypto only consumes energy as a product of it's existence.
      • ogogmad 4y ago
        And when the mining stops, all its value vanishes. Value stored on jelly. Bitcoin has a runaway implosion mechanism built in, and no floor on its price except 0.
        • gonzo41 4y ago
          I bet there's a lot of people who've bought bitcoin on leverage. Bitcoin may go to zero and it'll cost a lot of money on it's journey there.
      • xyzzy4747 4y ago
  • gonzo41 4y ago
    Let me tell you about a new NFT I'm launching for our fans so they can own a piece of the ~watever~ and show their support to us. Each NFT will be a AI generated thumbs up that's slightly unique, just like you. # Yep, crypto and it's offshoots are totally not a scam.
  • emurillo510 4y ago
    the us dollar system is the biggest pyramid scheme :D. Ask people in third world countries. Bitcoin is an alternative from US fiat currency. It is not country backed, but run by individual actors around the world. Will there be volatility? yes, welcome to a true free market system in a high inflation world
    • tootie 4y ago
      No fiat is a pyramid. Fiat currencies are actively managed and the managers are at least partially answerable to elected policy makers. If fiat is a pyramid, then all civilized society and representative democracy is a pyramid.
• marban 4y ago
  Is it a system for remittances to the third world?' Even more so, I feel like the third world is becoming more of a dumpster for first world crypto experiments where the number of greater fools is declining.
  • mjburgess 4y ago
    Incidentally, much like the Tabaco industry. No doubt, as western nations increasingly ban this stuff or regulate it out of existence, the scam will move across the ocean.
  • orangepurple 4y ago
    You should check out MMM Global https://behindmlm.com/companies/mmm-global/ https://behindmlm.com/companies/mmm-global/ It appears the main guy behind it died recently, but its still an active movement in Africa. https://behindmlm.com/companies/mmm-global/mmm-globals-sergey-mavrodi-dead-of-a-heart-attack-at-62/ https://behindmlm.com/companies/mmm-global/mmm-globals-serge... The number of people caught up in these scams is just insane: 3 million Nigerians lose $57 million in MMM Nigeria collapse https://behindmlm.com/companies/mmm-global/3-million-nigerians-lose-57-million-in-mmm-nigeria-collapse/ https://behindmlm.com/companies/mmm-global/3-million-nigeria...
  • piva00 4y ago
    Anecdotally, I hadn't visited Brazil in almost 4 years. Went there some months ago and was definitely surprised (and shocked) by how much chatter about cryptocurrencies was going around. Uber drivers, waiters, bartenders, cashiers, I had experience with them and many other people trying to tell me how they were into crypto, showing me graphs of their earnings (or losses), etc. It was really alarming to see how many vulnerable people had bought into this mania in a poor country. The moment this bubble pops and crashes it will bring down a lot of non-cryptobros that are being shilled, either by influencers or other "hodlers" friends or family (that may actually think it's a good "investment"). It's looking pretty ugly for the next recession.
• moduspol 4y ago
  > There have been numerous Bitcoin theses over the years and they’re all broken. Indeed. https://www.bitcoinisdead.org https://www.bitcoinisdead.org
  • marban 4y ago
    Perhaps not as a speculative investment vehicle but in terms of practicality and taking over the world, it's been twelve years already to show us the benefits.
    • moduspol 4y ago
      It doesn't need to take over the world, or even be practical for spending. Simply being a place one can park money that cannot be inflated / printed away is enough to justify it. And besides, twelve recession-free years doesn't mean a whole lot for a brand new class of currency. We'll see where money goes when there's nowhere good to invest it AND fiat currency is being inflated like crazy.
      • jfk13 4y ago
        > a place one can park money ...that can collapse in value at any time, without regard to real-world economics. Should I really park my retirement savings in Bitcoin, to ensure they don't get inflated away?
        • ntoskrnl 4y ago
          There's more than just index funds out there. People park their money in art, stamps, antiques, rare coins, watches, real estate in the tundra. What does a Monet have to do with real-world economics, other than the hope that we all continue to agree it's valuable?
          • giaour 4y ago
            Please don't put your retirement savings in fine art or antiques unless you have spare funds that you can stand to lose. Collectibles consume wealth (maintenance costs) and do not produce it, so the only way you can make money is by accurately predicting what will be popular and paying to hold onto it for years. Most art and antiques decline in value over time, but you can get lucky. You should absolutely buy art that you love and can afford, but you should think of it as a consumable that can retain some resale value (like a car) and not as an investment. Rural land is a slightly different story, as there is some underlying productivity there (e.g. agricultural use, or maybe there's something to mine), but tundra real estate doesn't sound like a great buy.
• ericmay 4y ago
  > Is it a way for North Korea to get paid when extorting Western companies? In fact yes, this use case does seem to work. The "criminals use Bitcoin" while true is the weakest of the arguments against the current or future success of Bitcoin. Criminals still primarily use regular ole' fiat currency for this stuff, or have more sophisticated schemes like selling artwork. In the case of North Korea they'd have to either mine Bitcoin, or they'd have to convert their currency to Bitcoin. But who would sell to take worthless North Korean money? Unless you mean they convert dollars... in which case they were just using the dollars already.
  • abrahamepton 4y ago
    Huh? The argument is that they commit crimes and receive ransoms in BTC that they can then convert to USD, EUR. This is a new incentive to commit crimes that simply didn’t exist before; wire transfers and the like are not a good substitute, by design.
    • twox2 4y ago
      If crypto disappears today, ransoms will still be prevalent, but will be much higher as they will be more difficult to pay. It's not a new incentive at all, it just opened up the ease of payment.
      • abrahamepton 4y ago
        Not only does that not make sense…it doesn’t make sense! Why would unpayable ransoms be higher? And my argument is that in fact, “open[ing] up the ease of payment” enables a new form of monetizing activity, so it is a new incentive because it unlocks a new business model.
        • cableshaft 4y ago
          I think what they're saying is if something is hard to do, you "go big or go home". If something is super easy to do, you'll accept less because you're probably hitting up a lot more people with it. Like they might accept a ransomware of $200 instead of nothing from person X because they're hitting up thousands of people with it, whereas if you go through all the effort to physically kidnap someone and leave a ransom note, you're not going to be able to do that thousands of times, probably just a couple at most, so you're going to demand a large ransom payment to make it worth the effort, like $1 million+. They also didn't say 'unpayable', btw, just more difficult to pay.
• victor22 4y ago
  NGMI
• tejohnso 4y ago
  > Clearly not, with slow settlement and high transaction costs The secondary and tertiary layers are still not worked out yet. I don't follow lightning closely and I'll take your word that it is in a miserable state, however I don't see a fundamental problem. But even now I'm pretty sure Bitcoin is faster and cheaper than anything else for settling high value irreversible, remote transactions. I think Bitcoin has plenty of potential but right now it's at a point where speculators are vastly outnumbering any other uses. So its potential non speculative uses are invisible or even hindered. It's also hindered because it doesn't have the backing of a powerful government forcing its use upon its citizens. The fundamentals are all still valid and nothing you mentioned proves that it cannot ever work as a currency. One that isn't controlled by a central bank and fractional reserve system that continually erodes the currency's purchasing power.
  • lern_too_spel 4y ago
    > But even now I'm pretty sure Bitcoin is faster and cheaper than anything else for settling high value irreversible, remote transactions. Only if you ignore money transfer laws. If your transfer is legal, the alternatives are easier, cheaper, and faster. If you're willing to ignore the law, you might as well set up a bank that ignores the law and have that bank do the transfer orders of magnitude cheaper and quicker than Bitcoin.
• jmull 4y ago
  I think it's also an effective supporting structure for the flourishing crypto "ponzoid" schemes.
• CTDOCodebases 4y ago
  As it stands bitcoin is a decentralised casino.
  • cpurdy 4y ago
    > As it stands bitcoin is a decentralised casino. Casinos serve alcohol.
    • CTDOCodebases 4y ago
      The punters prefer hopium.
• kd913 4y ago
  I think I would argue the decentralized aspect has also failed. Because of limited throughput (350k per day), most transact via exchanges and off chain. Some what 90+% of coins are owned by a ridiculously small volume of wallets, with most concentrated in exchanges with a huge volume of coins. Because of the nature of mining, we are seeing more and more consolidation into fewer parties who can afford the electricity burden and hardware capital. We are long gone the day of people mining btc with their ati cards at home. In fact, I saw a blog about how mining is completely unprofitable. It is massively controlled at this point by few rich parties (exchanges, miners) who have disproportionate sway on it's value (wash trading) and transaction throughput. Why exactly should people trust these guys rather than publicly traded/regulated banks or government bodies?
• eloff 4y ago
  To play devil's advocate here, Bitcoin might be a kind of digital gold. It suffers less inflation (supply grows slower), is more divisible, and is easier to move and store. People might argue gold has other uses, but they don't move the needle, and anyway, so does Bitcoin. The thing is gold has thousands of years track record as a store of value and as money or something to back money. Bitcoin obviously does not, and it remains to be seen if it can replace gold in that way. I don't see central banks stocking up on it yet.
  • shockeychap 4y ago
    This is a fair observation, but every time this comes up, I have to wonder, what advantage does Bitcoin offer over gold? - Gold has no dependency on electricity, computers, or any energy source. Bitcoin ceases to exist without these things. - Gold has a lot of practical uses and applications as a material. Bitcoin has none. - Gold is a naturally occurring element. Bitcoin is not. The only advantage I've ever been able to see is that Bitcoin ownership can be transferred electronically compared to gold that must be moved. However, being able to be moved electronically also means that it can be stolen electronically. A bad actor in North Korea has the potential to steal a person's wallet credentials and transfer Bitcoin out of their possession. They can't do this with physical gold. Gold is not a perfect store of value - it doesn't serve a fundamental need like food or a blanket - but it has served it's purpose over the millennia and I don't see how Bitcoin is improving on it.
    • eloff 4y ago
      I gave four ways it improves over gold in the first couple sentences. Easier to transfer was one. I'm with you, in that I'm very skeptical Bitcoin could replace or supplement gold in that role. It's not impossible though.
      • blitzar 4y ago
        > Easier to transfer was one. I can hand you a piece of gold and the transfer is done. No 74 character address, no keys, no official public ledger of the transaction happening, just a transfer of value between two parties.
• danans 4y ago
  > Is it a store of value based on [insert lurid fantasy about digital energy crystal magic on the blockchain]? No, see above. To play devil's advocate, I do wonder if once the get rich quick ponzi scheme ends, it will come to represent the "value" of it's investors innate skepticism and hostility toward the institutions that govern the global economy. The remaining investors would be a cabal of cheerleaders for the destruction the current institutional structures (probably to replace it with yet another "purer' one more to their liking). Maybe that underlying value isn't $30k but instead is only $5k, or maybe because BTC's only output is destructive (IIUC there is no future revenue stream of consequence - only the burning of fuels), it is $0 once it's "job" is done. I don't know. But its original thesis involved undermining fiat money and bypassing tax levying authority by taking transactions away from the purview of institutions involved in both. At it's most potent, I liken it more to a WMD against those institutions (which seems to be why it is particularly popular among the anti government crowd), not as some kind of basis for a hypothetically productive anarchist economy. And as you say, at it's least potent it's largely, though not exclusively, a means of exchange for illicit and criminal activity. > Is it a way for North Korea to get paid when extorting Western companies? To be fair, Bitcoin didn't invent extortion, it is just a better tool that facilitates it at a distance - no suitcases of cash or diamonds or physical middlemen needed. Also traditional banks have come under scrutiny for looking the other way for all kinds of criminal activity, so it's not as easy to move illicit funds as it used to be.
• drc500free 4y ago
  It is an asset of perceived value in a world where the equity class has trillions of dollars that they don’t know what to do with. Bitcoin’s rise says more about the lack of other good investments, and makes it clear that assets are priced largely based on how much cash is available to invest rather than any underlying fundamentals of the investments.
  • danuker 4y ago
    Still has better fundamentals than cash.