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The chances of bitcoin going to zero are zero. You really think there isn't a single person on this planet willing to put in 1-10 million to buy up all the bitc

The chances of bitcoin going to zero are zero. You really think there isn't a single person on this planet willing to put in 1-10 million to buy up all the bitcoin? It will crash. It might even crash all the way back down to pre-pandemic levels. But it wont bankrupt. If you cant see this you are really missing the forest for the trees.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> The chances of bitcoin going to zero are zero. You really think there isn't a single person on this planet willing to put in 1-10 million to buy up all the bitcoin? I mean, one person buying all the bitcoin would be an excellent way to cause the value to go to zero. If every bitcoin is held by a single person, who else would care?
- bsaul 4y ago
  Absolutely agree. Some people still don't realize the difference between a cryptocoin that has no intrinsic value, and a real currency which will always be used for at least two things : - pay the salaries of state workers - pay your tax It may not look like much, but it's the reason why a regular currency is always worth at least something : some people are legally bound to using it.
  - 127 4y ago
    The types of governments we live in are not axiomatic, they are just contracts that have formed over time that seem to work somewhat.
  - jcbrand 4y ago
    why a regular currency is always worth at least something There are many fiat currencies that went to zero and no longer exist. Most recently is the Zimbabwe dollar which ceased to exist some years ago and the country had to start using USD and ZAR. pay the salaries of state workers When the fiat currency collapses like in Zimbabwe, state workers no longer accept salaries in the currency and demand something else.
- DSingularity 4y ago
  Yea I agree that concentrated ownership should make it worth a lot less — but you are missing my point. Crashing to zero means nobody wants to buy what too many people are trying to sell. It’s not going to happen. And also, when I say one person buy it for a million in actuality the probable “floor value” scenario is a million speculators trying to buy it for a billion dollars. Bitcoin has been unleashed on the world and it will forever have a life of its own. Unless, of course, enough governments ban it and enough citizens obey the ban. Eventually even this scenario will become impossible.
bruce511 4y ago
While I agree it might not crash to 0, I'm not sure it has to to become more-or-less irrelevant. Conversely there's an outside chance a really big crash will make it useful. A sufficiently large crash of Bitcoin will leave most current holders burned. Those that have Bitcoin as a purely speculative play will take some big losses, and get out (maybe permanently). Ridding Bitcoin of speculators will maybe improve Bitcoin usefulness as currency - but I think main-stream will ignore it and it'll become niche. At its heart Bitcoin cannot decide if its a fast-appreciating asset, or a currency, and it can't be both. Perhaps a really big correction now can kill the fast-appreciating asset approach for good. Unfortunately though it seems like as a currency its primary benefit seems to be making risky (aka illegal) face-to-face transactions safer, and hence will likely aquire an ever seedier reputation.
- DSingularity 4y ago
  I agree. The big flaw in Bitcoin is technical deficiency which leads to a system which compromises its core value. It’s core value is to democratize via decentralization. It’s supposed to work for the people. That is undermined in two ways. First it is deflationary and that lead to hoarding and malicious market manipulation. If you don’t know that cryptocurrency is owned by the techno-elites then you aren’t paying attention. Second the hardware acceleration makes you totally useless. Can’t get millions in hardware along with state subsidized energy? Sorry, you have no say in the world of miners and protocol evolution. A real solution would be truly decentralized. It needs controlled inflation to avoid incentivizing the capture of the supply and it needs CPU only mining to prevent the eventual emergence of parasitic mafia miners.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
TacticalCoder 4y ago
> The chances of bitcoin going to zero are zero. I think you're right but I'm pretty sure you missed GP's point... > You really think there isn't a single person on this planet willing to put in 1-10 million to buy up all the bitcoin? Of course there are people/companies willing to do this: they'd short squeeze the entire supply if they could but... It's not GP's point: GP's point is that there exist a scenario in which the "work" (the "proof of work") required to find one block would be so expensive compared to the value of BTC that it'd be impossible to ever mine a new block on the blockchain. That's be a "death spiral": a PoW forever too high and nobody willing to put in the $$$ in electricity required to mine one block and let alone the huge number of blocks required before the PoW difficulty is lowered. These blocks would be mined at a gigantic loss. The problem is made worse by the PoW only being able by -75% at most: so should some big miner mine at a loss for a very long time, the -75% difficulty "easing" may not be enough. If anything, of all the dramatic scenario about Bitcoin since it came out, this death spiral has always been the most concerning one. Compared to the rest of the whitepaper/code this part of Bitcoin always seemed very weak due to poorly choosen parameters (way too many blocks before the difficulty adjusts itself). This poor choice of parameters may be Bitcoin's eventual downfall. Now... There's a group of devs who basically control the code and you can bet that should the death spiral happen, these devs would magically agree with miners and big players to "vote" on adopting new parameters / relaunching the chain/mining with a much easier difficulty. That's why I think you're right: it's highly unlikely BTC would go to zero because there'd be an army of people coming to its rescue. But it's quite a range between $18 K (as I type this) and zero.
- DSingularity 4y ago
  Your analysis is wrong. The actors in this system are rational actors incentivized to preserve the system. The algorithm assists difficulty. And even in pathological cases of continuous drop with unsustained price levels — you assume the miners are going to irrationally continue to raise rates because they are too stupid to realize the scenario you are describing? Again: missing the first for the trees.
  - rini17 4y ago
TomSwirly 4y ago
If one person buys all of bitcoin, and no one else wants it, what value does it have? Less than zero, because you have to keep putting energy into the network to keep it running.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> The chances of bitcoin going to zero are zero. You really think there isn't a single person on this planet willing to put in 1-10 million to buy up all the bitcoin? I mean, one person buying all the bitcoin would be an excellent way to cause the value to go to zero. If every bitcoin is held by a single person, who else would care?

bsaul 4y ago
Absolutely agree. Some people still don't realize the difference between a cryptocoin that has no intrinsic value, and a real currency which will always be used for at least two things : - pay the salaries of state workers - pay your tax It may not look like much, but it's the reason why a regular currency is always worth at least something : some people are legally bound to using it.
- 127 4y ago
  The types of governments we live in are not axiomatic, they are just contracts that have formed over time that seem to work somewhat.
- jcbrand 4y ago
  why a regular currency is always worth at least something There are many fiat currencies that went to zero and no longer exist. Most recently is the Zimbabwe dollar which ceased to exist some years ago and the country had to start using USD and ZAR. pay the salaries of state workers When the fiat currency collapses like in Zimbabwe, state workers no longer accept salaries in the currency and demand something else.
DSingularity 4y ago
Yea I agree that concentrated ownership should make it worth a lot less — but you are missing my point. Crashing to zero means nobody wants to buy what too many people are trying to sell. It’s not going to happen. And also, when I say one person buy it for a million in actuality the probable “floor value” scenario is a million speculators trying to buy it for a billion dollars. Bitcoin has been unleashed on the world and it will forever have a life of its own. Unless, of course, enough governments ban it and enough citizens obey the ban. Eventually even this scenario will become impossible.

bruce511 4y ago

While I agree it might not crash to 0, I'm not sure it has to to become more-or-less irrelevant. Conversely there's an outside chance a really big crash will make it useful. A sufficiently large crash of Bitcoin will leave most current holders burned. Those that have Bitcoin as a purely speculative play will take some big losses, and get out (maybe permanently). Ridding Bitcoin of speculators will maybe improve Bitcoin usefulness as currency - but I think main-stream will ignore it and it'll become niche. At its heart Bitcoin cannot decide if its a fast-appreciating asset, or a currency, and it can't be both. Perhaps a really big correction now can kill the fast-appreciating asset approach for good. Unfortunately though it seems like as a currency its primary benefit seems to be making risky (aka illegal) face-to-face transactions safer, and hence will likely aquire an ever seedier reputation.

DSingularity 4y ago
I agree. The big flaw in Bitcoin is technical deficiency which leads to a system which compromises its core value. It’s core value is to democratize via decentralization. It’s supposed to work for the people. That is undermined in two ways. First it is deflationary and that lead to hoarding and malicious market manipulation. If you don’t know that cryptocurrency is owned by the techno-elites then you aren’t paying attention. Second the hardware acceleration makes you totally useless. Can’t get millions in hardware along with state subsidized energy? Sorry, you have no say in the world of miners and protocol evolution. A real solution would be truly decentralized. It needs controlled inflation to avoid incentivizing the capture of the supply and it needs CPU only mining to prevent the eventual emergence of parasitic mafia miners.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

TacticalCoder 4y ago

> The chances of bitcoin going to zero are zero. I think you're right but I'm pretty sure you missed GP's point... > You really think there isn't a single person on this planet willing to put in 1-10 million to buy up all the bitcoin? Of course there are people/companies willing to do this: they'd short squeeze the entire supply if they could but... It's not GP's point: GP's point is that there exist a scenario in which the "work" (the "proof of work") required to find one block would be so expensive compared to the value of BTC that it'd be impossible to ever mine a new block on the blockchain. That's be a "death spiral": a PoW forever too high and nobody willing to put in the $$$ in electricity required to mine one block and let alone the huge number of blocks required before the PoW difficulty is lowered. These blocks would be mined at a gigantic loss. The problem is made worse by the PoW only being able by -75% at most: so should some big miner mine at a loss for a very long time, the -75% difficulty "easing" may not be enough. If anything, of all the dramatic scenario about Bitcoin since it came out, this death spiral has always been the most concerning one. Compared to the rest of the whitepaper/code this part of Bitcoin always seemed very weak due to poorly choosen parameters (way too many blocks before the difficulty adjusts itself). This poor choice of parameters may be Bitcoin's eventual downfall. Now... There's a group of devs who basically control the code and you can bet that should the death spiral happen, these devs would magically agree with miners and big players to "vote" on adopting new parameters / relaunching the chain/mining with a much easier difficulty. That's why I think you're right: it's highly unlikely BTC would go to zero because there'd be an army of people coming to its rescue. But it's quite a range between $18 K (as I type this) and zero.

DSingularity 4y ago
Your analysis is wrong. The actors in this system are rational actors incentivized to preserve the system. The algorithm assists difficulty. And even in pathological cases of continuous drop with unsustained price levels — you assume the miners are going to irrationally continue to raise rates because they are too stupid to realize the scenario you are describing? Again: missing the first for the trees.
- rini17 4y ago

TomSwirly 4y ago

If one person buys all of bitcoin, and no one else wants it, what value does it have? Less than zero, because you have to keep putting energy into the network to keep it running.