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In the movie “Quicksilver,” Kevin Bacon plays some kind of (commodities) trader who lost an enormous amount of money betting the wrong way and retires from trad
by a4isms 4y ago
In the movie “Quicksilver,” Kevin Bacon plays some kind of (commodities) trader who lost an enormous amount of money betting the wrong way and retires from trading to become a bike courier.
He has a friend over at his loft, and while looking at pictures from his finance days, she asks, “What happened to all the money?”
His reply is a classic:
“It’s still there, it’s just in other people’s pockets.”
——
That’s all I see in crypto speculation. It’s a game that involves shuffling money between players, without actually creating new wealth.
(Also, the casino is betting against you and sometimes isn’t satisfied with their rake, so they “rug pull” and leave everyone holding worthless chips. But that is another issue.)
This is very different from, say, selling software that runs a business. Your software is not just transferring money from your customer to you, it’s literally creating new wealth by making your customer more productive.
- jaywalk 4y agoAnd the "new wealth" being "created" for your customer comes from... other people's pockets.
- eldritch_4ier 4y agoThis is obviously not true. If there was no new wealth in the world than there was 50 years ago, we wouldn’t be so much more well off despite have billions more people.
- wmf 4y agoNew wealth is being created in the world but not by crypto.
- darepublic 4y agoIt's definitely subjective. I.e. if we harm the livability of the earth to create new tech saying there is more wealth is not false per se but based on your pov
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- WeylandYutani 4y agoThat's just humanity being parasites. Apparently the only possible growth we can come up with is population increase.
- inawarminister 4y agoPopulation increase came after we unlocked unprecedented, crazy growth. The industrial revolution demographics might be an interesting read.
- diegocerdan 4y agoThe function of Store of Value (SoV) of any money is acquired by common belief of it's worth. It happened with gold in a very long time-span. People holding gold would not benefit of the increase of price as it took too long. Gold... what if this common belief can be upgraded to a better form of money? Bitcoin is energy quite energy intense and slow in the number of transactions but gold has many drawbacks too! It's a heavy rock, can't be easily split for payments, you have to spend efforts in custody and can't be transferred digitally. Bitcoin... what if this common belief can be upgraded to a better form of money? Ethereum is way more complex than Bitcoin but solves through clever engineering most of it's drawbacks. Let the Market decide which form of money is best.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- a4isms 4y agoI spoke about crypto speculation, and I was explicit about that. I choose not to debate speculative claims about crypto's potential for becoming a useful "store of value" or "currency for commerce" at this time and in this place. As to letting the market decide things, I lived through the Bre-X scandal, where the market decided to invest in a fake mine, and real lives were ruined. I believe in regulated marketplaces.
- hungryforcodes 4y agoCanadians are overly protective of market places. It's my money -- not yours. I'll trade it or speculate it as I want.
- phs318u 4y agoThe common belief of worth is where similarities between bitcoin and gold end. What you list as drawbacks of gold are exactly the thing that preclude it being so easily weaponised for scams/fraud/rapid-wealth-redistribution. You call bitcoin a SoV but further down describe it as a form of money. You also have an implicit assumption about what makes a "better" form of money. I'd like to read a bit more about what defines "better" in your opinion.
- ElectricalUnion 4y ago> That’s all I see in crypto speculation. It’s a game that involves shuffling money between players, without actually creating new wealth. Just shuffling money between players is downplaying it. "Crypto" often just sends "value" to the bitbucket either intentionally or because of operational errors.
- me_me_me 4y ago> It’s a game that involves shuffling money between players, without actually creating new wealth. You can replace "shuffling money" with "shuffling commodities" and you have equally valid statement. Commodities trades are just middleman between middleman, they dont do anything but inflate prices of goods. Historically futures were good idea and were exchanged between producer and manufactures as a bet for more stable future (for both parties), not anymore.