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and yet Bitcoin is up 10% so far this year

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
I can’t tell if this is sarcastic or not But it’s incredibly fascinating to see how much the Bitcoin fans can ignore all of the fraud and the collapse of crypto markets, instead focusing on hypothetically perfect retroactive market timing. So much of the Bitcoin propaganda is different versions of “Well if you had bought Bitcoin on <specific date in the past> then you’d be up right now!”
- jrsj 4y ago
  “Bitcoin fans” != “crypto fans”. Much higher % of Bitcoin fans were skeptical of yield products from the beginning, prefer to hold their own coins, and are generally distrustful of the crypto market in general. It’s far from a monolithic group of people. But yes that last part is right, people are always saying stuff like that and it’s a terrible argument if you can even call it that.
  - warinukraine 4y ago
    > skeptical of yield products Yield products aren't the problem, they're a symptom. The problem is wanting to buy something that has no value and hoping to sell it to someone else who in turn is also hoping to sell it to someone else even higher. Bitcoin, NFT, yield products, etc, they're all manifestations of the same thing.
    - jrsj 4y ago
      You just described basically the entirety of finance
      - warinukraine 4y ago
        You just showed you don't know anything about finance.
- smcl 4y ago
  Bitcoin going up: this is good for bitcoin! Bitcoin going down: this is good for bitcoin! It's probably one of the less shady ones out there (i.e. it wasn't "invented" by a twitch streamer, hyped up and sold to their audience then abandoned) but I think a few people are maybe a little bit too hopeful and optimistic about it.
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  I'm not a Bitcoin fan, I'm a Bitcoin critic. I'm just saying Bitcoin is up 15% off of lows from 15,760. All of the bad news about it and people are clearly still buying it/most likely dollar cost averaging into it.
  - raesene9 4y ago
    or, more thinly traded markets are easier for remaining participants (e.g. Binance, Tether) to manipulate :) I'm not saying that is the case, but it's an alternate hypothesis.
jrsj 4y ago
[flagged]
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  > Majority here at HN seems to lack any intellectual curiosity on this topic though and are just rabidly opposed to anything crypto related. Ahh yes, the time honored "HN is so mean to crypto" complaint. The moment someone can show me realistic benefits to crypto that aren't total scams, happy to change my opinion. I mean, just look at the BTC community. Yes, they are generally the most conservative, but they are also are the most cultishly wedded to proof-of-work, which is so blatantly an eventual dead end for broad adoption that it's hard to take it seriously.
  - danuker 4y ago
    Alternatives to PoW are centralization (i.e. Linden Dollars or national currencies) and proof-of-stake (Ethereum). With centralization, there is the problem of trust. The issuer can just dilute the currency supply, go bankrupt, get bribed, or shut down. With proof-of-stake, the tokens themselves are used to distribute trust. But during an interruption of service or a network split, if the two subnets diverge, there is no objective way to decide the most legitimate state of the tokens. Choosing the wrong one might end in losing your stake. It might keep working with long-term trusted peers and reliable networks. But if those peers become centralized enough, they can then be bribed. Proof-of-work provides an objective and unforgeable measure of legitimacy: work i.e. resources burned. In absence of a legitimacy measure, the network is vulnerable to Sybil attacks.
    - akiselev 4y ago
      In one ear, out the other.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- celtoid 4y ago
  > Majority here at HN seems to lack any intellectual curiosity on this topic though and are just rabidly opposed to anything crypto related. Ironic given how many tech start ups basically just operate as pump and dump schemes that create little to no real value either. Agreed. It's doubly ironic as Coinbase probably wouldn't exist but for Y Combinator.
lalaland1125 4y ago
And down 60% over the last year.
- randiantech 4y ago
  And literally ∞ up since its release.
Hamuko 4y ago
As far as I can see, Bitcoin is 7.8% up year-to-date, and 56.5% down in the past 365 days. Not really great numbers.
DonHopkins 4y ago
Not sarcastic, just wrong. This is the guy who keeps asking ChatGPT and "MAGA crazed conspiracy theorist weirdos" to write his comments for him. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34335017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34335017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334902 >If ChatGPT doesn’t get a better grasp of facts, nothing else matters: https://www.fastcompany.com/90833017/openai-chatgpt-accuracy-gpt-4 https://www.fastcompany.com/90833017/openai-chatgpt-accuracy... >OpenAI’s astoundingly glib bot is going to change the world. Before it does, let’s hope it gets far better at knowing what it’s talking about.
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  Wow, how is this behavior tolerated/allowed? Aren't you basically cyber-bullying at this point? Do I need to like... report you to a moderator or something? Would really not want to waste their precious time but like... how else can I get you to stop/leave me alone? I was trying to prove (in a conversation how crypto isn't trustworthy) that some people commonly believe 1. the government isn't perfect in terms of being trustworthy (especially when it comes to money) and 2. neither can Wall Street. Please, leave me alone. I'm asking nicely.

I can’t tell if this is sarcastic or not But it’s incredibly fascinating to see how much the Bitcoin fans can ignore all of the fraud and the collapse of crypto markets, instead focusing on hypothetically perfect retroactive market timing. So much of the Bitcoin propaganda is different versions of “Well if you had bought Bitcoin on <specific date in the past> then you’d be up right now!”

jrsj 4y ago
“Bitcoin fans” != “crypto fans”. Much higher % of Bitcoin fans were skeptical of yield products from the beginning, prefer to hold their own coins, and are generally distrustful of the crypto market in general. It’s far from a monolithic group of people. But yes that last part is right, people are always saying stuff like that and it’s a terrible argument if you can even call it that.
- warinukraine 4y ago
  > skeptical of yield products Yield products aren't the problem, they're a symptom. The problem is wanting to buy something that has no value and hoping to sell it to someone else who in turn is also hoping to sell it to someone else even higher. Bitcoin, NFT, yield products, etc, they're all manifestations of the same thing.
  - jrsj 4y ago
    You just described basically the entirety of finance
    - warinukraine 4y ago
      You just showed you don't know anything about finance.
smcl 4y ago
Bitcoin going up: this is good for bitcoin! Bitcoin going down: this is good for bitcoin! It's probably one of the less shady ones out there (i.e. it wasn't "invented" by a twitch streamer, hyped up and sold to their audience then abandoned) but I think a few people are maybe a little bit too hopeful and optimistic about it.
MuffinFlavored 4y ago
I'm not a Bitcoin fan, I'm a Bitcoin critic. I'm just saying Bitcoin is up 15% off of lows from 15,760. All of the bad news about it and people are clearly still buying it/most likely dollar cost averaging into it.
- raesene9 4y ago
  or, more thinly traded markets are easier for remaining participants (e.g. Binance, Tether) to manipulate :) I'm not saying that is the case, but it's an alternate hypothesis.

jrsj 4y ago

[flagged]

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> Majority here at HN seems to lack any intellectual curiosity on this topic though and are just rabidly opposed to anything crypto related. Ahh yes, the time honored "HN is so mean to crypto" complaint. The moment someone can show me realistic benefits to crypto that aren't total scams, happy to change my opinion. I mean, just look at the BTC community. Yes, they are generally the most conservative, but they are also are the most cultishly wedded to proof-of-work, which is so blatantly an eventual dead end for broad adoption that it's hard to take it seriously.
- danuker 4y ago
  Alternatives to PoW are centralization (i.e. Linden Dollars or national currencies) and proof-of-stake (Ethereum). With centralization, there is the problem of trust. The issuer can just dilute the currency supply, go bankrupt, get bribed, or shut down. With proof-of-stake, the tokens themselves are used to distribute trust. But during an interruption of service or a network split, if the two subnets diverge, there is no objective way to decide the most legitimate state of the tokens. Choosing the wrong one might end in losing your stake. It might keep working with long-term trusted peers and reliable networks. But if those peers become centralized enough, they can then be bribed. Proof-of-work provides an objective and unforgeable measure of legitimacy: work i.e. resources burned. In absence of a legitimacy measure, the network is vulnerable to Sybil attacks.
  - akiselev 4y ago
    In one ear, out the other.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
celtoid 4y ago
> Majority here at HN seems to lack any intellectual curiosity on this topic though and are just rabidly opposed to anything crypto related. Ironic given how many tech start ups basically just operate as pump and dump schemes that create little to no real value either. Agreed. It's doubly ironic as Coinbase probably wouldn't exist but for Y Combinator.

lalaland1125 4y ago

And down 60% over the last year.

randiantech 4y ago
And literally ∞ up since its release.

Hamuko 4y ago

As far as I can see, Bitcoin is 7.8% up year-to-date, and 56.5% down in the past 365 days. Not really great numbers.

DonHopkins 4y ago

Not sarcastic, just wrong. This is the guy who keeps asking ChatGPT and "MAGA crazed conspiracy theorist weirdos" to write his comments for him. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34335017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34335017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334902 >If ChatGPT doesn’t get a better grasp of facts, nothing else matters: https://www.fastcompany.com/90833017/openai-chatgpt-accuracy-gpt-4 https://www.fastcompany.com/90833017/openai-chatgpt-accuracy... >OpenAI’s astoundingly glib bot is going to change the world. Before it does, let’s hope it gets far better at knowing what it’s talking about.

MuffinFlavored 4y ago
Wow, how is this behavior tolerated/allowed? Aren't you basically cyber-bullying at this point? Do I need to like... report you to a moderator or something? Would really not want to waste their precious time but like... how else can I get you to stop/leave me alone? I was trying to prove (in a conversation how crypto isn't trustworthy) that some people commonly believe 1. the government isn't perfect in terms of being trustworthy (especially when it comes to money) and 2. neither can Wall Street. Please, leave me alone. I'm asking nicely.