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Mmm, I think you shouldnt blame yourself here. You probably did a rational thing. BTC largely seems irrational.

by roflyear 4y ago

alchemist1e9 4y ago
Ok I’ll take the bait > BTC largely seems irrational. I’d be interested in which parts are irrational.
- angry_albatross 4y ago
  My argument for why it is irrational is that bitcoin as an asset has nothing backing it. It does not produce anything, it is not a liability on anyone else's balance sheet, and it can't be used for anything other than hoping that a greater fool than you will pay you more for it in the future. Yes, you could say some similar things about government currency, but in that case there is a large organization that is motivated to keep the buying power of the currency relatively stable. Traditional currency also has the benefit of being much easier to transfer between people, unlike bitcoin which cannot scale to serve the needs of the population due to inherent limitations of the technology.
  - alchemist1e9 4y ago
    Bitcoin has the largest decentralized distributed computer network on the planet backing it. Along with numerous technical advancements in the functionality of money. Many serious students on the anthropological history of currency in human history recognize it’s certainly a significant technological innovation in money.
    - angry_albatross 4y ago
      What I meant by nothing backing it is that it cannot be redeemed for any other thing of value, in the same way that at one point we used gold certificates as currency, which were "backed by" gold. At that time you could literally exchange the gold certificate for gold coins at a bank. A share of stock is backed by the value of the company since the stock grants you partial ownership of the company. Bitcoin may have a lot of computers that are burning electricity attempting to mine bitcoin and powering the bitcoin network, but as a bitcoin holder I don't have any ownership of those computers. They just continue to consume resources that we somehow have to pay for by pouring more money into the bitcoin system. Sure, there are some people that think it is a significant innovation. There are also many people who recognize that it is not solving any real world problem, and that up to this point it has just operated as a giant speculative bubble.
      - alchemist1e9 4y ago
        > There are also many people who recognize that it is not solving any real world problem, and that up to this point it has just operated as a giant speculative bubble. Both parts of this statement are completely false. I’m unaware of any system which allows secure pseudonymous online global exchange between two parties without any trusted centralized third party. That seems to be a massive real world problem. Additionally Bitcoin is not a speculative bubble by any stretch, that accusation has been repeatedly been made since early days and with each cycle adoption and value increases, it’s a false accusation.
        angry_albatross 4y ago
        I don't see that problem as being massive. Our society depends on some amount of trust. In order to view this webpage, your browser put some trust in the certificate authority that verified the certificate of the hacker news servers. Sure, in some sense the idea of cryptocurrency is an interesting one, but the downsides are too massive to make it practical. By not trusting anyone, we end up in a situation of constantly trying to resolve a byzantine generals problem, which it turns out is massively inefficient and wasteful. The fact that the price of bitcoin has gone up and down and up again doesn't disprove that it is a bubble. Bubbles don't have to follow a single boom and bust cycle. For example, I think that shares of GME stock are still much higher than the business fundamentals would suggest, due to the stock gaining a cult like following, so now the share price is driven by memes and dreams. In fact, as I argued before, I would say that there is no inherent value to bitcoin so that really only leaves speculation as the driver of the price.
- roflyear 4y ago
  Price of BTC "largely doesn't make sense" really. That's what I mean.
gumby 4y ago
Oh it’s quite rational, just asymmetrically so, just like any other penny stock. Such markets consist of manipulators and the manipulated, and the manipulators are the rational ones. And, apart from price, the crypto markets are just like penny stocks: opaque, obscure, thinly traded, and ripe with manipulation and other fraud.
ursuscamp 4y ago
What makes it irrational?
- komali2 4y ago
  The volatility of any cryptocurrency "investment" makes it more like a gamble pure and simple than any other investment. It's irrational to take 10% of your savings, walk into Caesar's Palace, and put it on red. People are injecting much larger percentages of their savings into cryptocurrency. No matter how many wins, no matter how high the cryptocurrency market has climbed between crashes, the volatility of it makes it irrational for anything above 1% of your savings... If even that.
  - alchemist1e9 4y ago
    This isn’t really true. Even picking the most extreme moves of Bitcoin it has lower volatility than many major tech stocks and many developing country fiat currencies. Now factor in the variable that the most recent bull rally and crash was mostly instigated, in both directions, by a traditional ponzi bad actor as the FTX scam simply used crypto as a mechanism for an age old financial scam, not really caused by crypto, but instead enabled by outright corruption of regulators and governments, then … are you really sure long term natural Bitcoin downward volatility is actually high?
    - komali2 4y ago
      > are you really sure long term natural Bitcoin downward volatility is actually high? It appears to be three times more volatile than NASDAQ in the short term, and twice as volatile in the long term. So, yes. https://medium.com/swissquote-education/bitcoin-vs-risk-understanding-volatility-472efe96e439 https://medium.com/swissquote-education/bitcoin-vs-risk-unde...
      - alchemist1e9 4y ago
        Lot of cherry picking in that analysis and also you are comparing index whereas I meant individual tech stocks. Let’s not forget in speculative bubbles everything has downside volatility but lots of real and important assets undergo manias, real estate, railroads, even 1999 nasdaq then crashing 90%, left out of the analysis conveniently. I’d go as far as the argue that given the grandiose goal of competing with sovereign fiat as modern private currency, the volatility of Bitcoin is likely lower than one could reasonably expect. If we add in the reality that recent mania and crash was overwhelming instigated by perhaps the largest conventional or legacy financial fraud in modern history, FTX, then Bitcoin looks almost sleepy. Even funnier in the cherry picked analysis was they included Turkish Lira and it was 8.83, it’s now 18.89 per dollar. It along with numerous other fiat currencies have much higher volatility than Bitcoin.
ourmandave 4y ago
BTC is completely rational because its controlled by a few whales. Whenever bad news happens in crypto land they pump the price to restore confidence so there isn't a bank run and the money laundering can continue.
- alchemist1e9 4y ago
  How do large owners of an asset, whales as you call them, pump the price of that asset? And what evidence do you have of this? The evidence I’ve seen points a traditional ponzi actor, who corrupted regulators and governments, publishing fake inflated prices to generate a bull market and attract more deposits to steal. Where are the Bitcoin whales you mention?
  - roflyear 4y ago
    "We report that 0.01% of the addresses contain over 58.21% of all Bitcoins in circulation." Pretty bonkers. See: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbloc.2021.730122/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbloc.2021.7301...
    - alchemist1e9 4y ago
      As usual this is nonsense and irrelevant. Satoshi himself had over 1M coins but the vast majority of early coins are lost. According to that analysis many old lost wallets are these supposed whales. The observation that is also unjustified is this idea that whales can prop up the price, how does that work exactly? if they hold the asset then selling it would lower the price, so hold on did they sell earlier and are using USD to buy now, but that would generate tax liabilities they would have to pay now and also lose transaction fees, yet supposedly they are propping up Bitcoin price. It’s a nonsensical theory.
      - roflyear 4y ago
        You're trying to simplify the study, but it isn't that simple - they use pretty complex analysis to present their findings, so replying to what you said here is a little off subject. > The observation that is also unjustified is this idea that whales can prop up the price, how does that work exactly? I don't have interest in getting into this.

Mmm, I think you shouldnt blame yourself here. You probably did a rational thing. BTC largely seems irrational.

alchemist1e9 4y ago

Ok I’ll take the bait > BTC largely seems irrational. I’d be interested in which parts are irrational.

angry_albatross 4y ago
My argument for why it is irrational is that bitcoin as an asset has nothing backing it. It does not produce anything, it is not a liability on anyone else's balance sheet, and it can't be used for anything other than hoping that a greater fool than you will pay you more for it in the future. Yes, you could say some similar things about government currency, but in that case there is a large organization that is motivated to keep the buying power of the currency relatively stable. Traditional currency also has the benefit of being much easier to transfer between people, unlike bitcoin which cannot scale to serve the needs of the population due to inherent limitations of the technology.
- alchemist1e9 4y ago
  Bitcoin has the largest decentralized distributed computer network on the planet backing it. Along with numerous technical advancements in the functionality of money. Many serious students on the anthropological history of currency in human history recognize it’s certainly a significant technological innovation in money.
  - angry_albatross 4y ago
    What I meant by nothing backing it is that it cannot be redeemed for any other thing of value, in the same way that at one point we used gold certificates as currency, which were "backed by" gold. At that time you could literally exchange the gold certificate for gold coins at a bank. A share of stock is backed by the value of the company since the stock grants you partial ownership of the company. Bitcoin may have a lot of computers that are burning electricity attempting to mine bitcoin and powering the bitcoin network, but as a bitcoin holder I don't have any ownership of those computers. They just continue to consume resources that we somehow have to pay for by pouring more money into the bitcoin system. Sure, there are some people that think it is a significant innovation. There are also many people who recognize that it is not solving any real world problem, and that up to this point it has just operated as a giant speculative bubble.
    - alchemist1e9 4y ago
      > There are also many people who recognize that it is not solving any real world problem, and that up to this point it has just operated as a giant speculative bubble. Both parts of this statement are completely false. I’m unaware of any system which allows secure pseudonymous online global exchange between two parties without any trusted centralized third party. That seems to be a massive real world problem. Additionally Bitcoin is not a speculative bubble by any stretch, that accusation has been repeatedly been made since early days and with each cycle adoption and value increases, it’s a false accusation.
      - angry_albatross 4y ago
        I don't see that problem as being massive. Our society depends on some amount of trust. In order to view this webpage, your browser put some trust in the certificate authority that verified the certificate of the hacker news servers. Sure, in some sense the idea of cryptocurrency is an interesting one, but the downsides are too massive to make it practical. By not trusting anyone, we end up in a situation of constantly trying to resolve a byzantine generals problem, which it turns out is massively inefficient and wasteful. The fact that the price of bitcoin has gone up and down and up again doesn't disprove that it is a bubble. Bubbles don't have to follow a single boom and bust cycle. For example, I think that shares of GME stock are still much higher than the business fundamentals would suggest, due to the stock gaining a cult like following, so now the share price is driven by memes and dreams. In fact, as I argued before, I would say that there is no inherent value to bitcoin so that really only leaves speculation as the driver of the price.
roflyear 4y ago
Price of BTC "largely doesn't make sense" really. That's what I mean.

gumby 4y ago

Oh it’s quite rational, just asymmetrically so, just like any other penny stock. Such markets consist of manipulators and the manipulated, and the manipulators are the rational ones. And, apart from price, the crypto markets are just like penny stocks: opaque, obscure, thinly traded, and ripe with manipulation and other fraud.

ursuscamp 4y ago

What makes it irrational?

komali2 4y ago
The volatility of any cryptocurrency "investment" makes it more like a gamble pure and simple than any other investment. It's irrational to take 10% of your savings, walk into Caesar's Palace, and put it on red. People are injecting much larger percentages of their savings into cryptocurrency. No matter how many wins, no matter how high the cryptocurrency market has climbed between crashes, the volatility of it makes it irrational for anything above 1% of your savings... If even that.
- alchemist1e9 4y ago
  This isn’t really true. Even picking the most extreme moves of Bitcoin it has lower volatility than many major tech stocks and many developing country fiat currencies. Now factor in the variable that the most recent bull rally and crash was mostly instigated, in both directions, by a traditional ponzi bad actor as the FTX scam simply used crypto as a mechanism for an age old financial scam, not really caused by crypto, but instead enabled by outright corruption of regulators and governments, then … are you really sure long term natural Bitcoin downward volatility is actually high?
  - komali2 4y ago
    > are you really sure long term natural Bitcoin downward volatility is actually high? It appears to be three times more volatile than NASDAQ in the short term, and twice as volatile in the long term. So, yes. https://medium.com/swissquote-education/bitcoin-vs-risk-understanding-volatility-472efe96e439 https://medium.com/swissquote-education/bitcoin-vs-risk-unde...
    - alchemist1e9 4y ago
      Lot of cherry picking in that analysis and also you are comparing index whereas I meant individual tech stocks. Let’s not forget in speculative bubbles everything has downside volatility but lots of real and important assets undergo manias, real estate, railroads, even 1999 nasdaq then crashing 90%, left out of the analysis conveniently. I’d go as far as the argue that given the grandiose goal of competing with sovereign fiat as modern private currency, the volatility of Bitcoin is likely lower than one could reasonably expect. If we add in the reality that recent mania and crash was overwhelming instigated by perhaps the largest conventional or legacy financial fraud in modern history, FTX, then Bitcoin looks almost sleepy. Even funnier in the cherry picked analysis was they included Turkish Lira and it was 8.83, it’s now 18.89 per dollar. It along with numerous other fiat currencies have much higher volatility than Bitcoin.

ourmandave 4y ago

BTC is completely rational because its controlled by a few whales. Whenever bad news happens in crypto land they pump the price to restore confidence so there isn't a bank run and the money laundering can continue.

alchemist1e9 4y ago
How do large owners of an asset, whales as you call them, pump the price of that asset? And what evidence do you have of this? The evidence I’ve seen points a traditional ponzi actor, who corrupted regulators and governments, publishing fake inflated prices to generate a bull market and attract more deposits to steal. Where are the Bitcoin whales you mention?
- roflyear 4y ago
  "We report that 0.01% of the addresses contain over 58.21% of all Bitcoins in circulation." Pretty bonkers. See: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbloc.2021.730122/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbloc.2021.7301...
  - alchemist1e9 4y ago
    As usual this is nonsense and irrelevant. Satoshi himself had over 1M coins but the vast majority of early coins are lost. According to that analysis many old lost wallets are these supposed whales. The observation that is also unjustified is this idea that whales can prop up the price, how does that work exactly? if they hold the asset then selling it would lower the price, so hold on did they sell earlier and are using USD to buy now, but that would generate tax liabilities they would have to pay now and also lose transaction fees, yet supposedly they are propping up Bitcoin price. It’s a nonsensical theory.
    - roflyear 4y ago
      You're trying to simplify the study, but it isn't that simple - they use pretty complex analysis to present their findings, so replying to what you said here is a little off subject. > The observation that is also unjustified is this idea that whales can prop up the price, how does that work exactly? I don't have interest in getting into this.