4 ms·

As you increase the time window, the possibility that the wallet is abandoned, the wallet owner is dead, or the bitcoins get scammed or lost in a exchange colla

As you increase the time window, the possibility that the wallet is abandoned, the wallet owner is dead, or the bitcoins get scammed or lost in a exchange collapse quickly reaches 100%.

kristopolous 4y ago
Sure, but similar properties come with almost any store of wealth. Don't take this as advocacy, it's not. There's plenty of strong arguments against crypto without having to resort to such truisms
- danuker 4y ago
  I agree. While in fiat currencies it may go on to inheritance feeding the market with liquidity, unused Bitcoin does nothing, so demand being equal price would increase.
  - kristopolous 4y ago
    I continue to believe crypto operates like a collectibles market; similar to stamps, beanie babies, rare coins, baseball cards, etc. In this model, the "cards" are the actual unit coins and the "players" are the type of coin (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc). So long as there's a vibrant enthusiast community, the assets will hold some value but except for a few mainstays, these things tend to atrophy over time. For instance, yesterday I was helping an 80 year old neighbor clean out her garage. I found some wonderful vintage RadioShack calculators from the late 1970s. They're extremely rare and also, extremely worthless. The supply and price of something can both tend towards zero.
    - danuker 4y ago
      I agree with you completely. But you may be overlooking that they're also liquid, popular, benefit from network effects, the supply is algorithmically defined in many cases, and mostly fungible. This should make for more interested communities.
  - namaria 4y ago
    This distinction is weird to me. Bitcoin is also created by fiat. If trust in government is lost, there is no governance nor money. If trust in bitcoin is lost, there are no running nodes nor tokens.
    - aintgonnatakeit 4y ago
      And if trust in government is lost, there is also no liquidity.
      - namaria 4y ago
        That's not true. You don't need strong government to have circulating and widely accepted metal money for example.
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  Uuuh, no? If you've bought property, it's still gonna be there after you've died, ready to be repossessed. same with gold, shares or anything else, really? And if it's been illegally repossessed you'll have a good chance to retrieve them again through lawful means too. It's a pretty unique attribute that only applies to digital ...things that can only be touched with a cryptographic key
  - kristopolous 4y ago
    Only if you are lucky enough to have a stable state that's favorable to your rights, avoid wars, riots, natural disasters, have a stable currency... One of the primary goals of statecraft is to enshrine stores of wealth with those properties and most don't do that well at it.
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  Err no? Like those things mentioned reach >90% probability for crypto over a ten year period vs what? >.0.00009% probability in US regulated entities?
  - trompetenaccoun 4y ago
    You think over 90% of people who bought Bitcoin in 2013 are down on their investment? In reality the most common regret they have is selling their coins when they should have kept them or trading them for newer hype coins that turned out to be vaporware.
    - brianwawok 4y ago
      Until it all turns to 0 because coins are dumb.
  - kristopolous 4y ago
    Your numbers are problematic but you put time on the argument, which is different. The claim was that all stores of wealth have those properties. Crypto can suffer them faster but someone's real estate investment from say, the 2013 in Ukraine, 2003 in Syria, 1993 in Kosovo, 1983 in Rhodesia... Such things aren't immune. Heck even without war the rules of who can invest in what can change and your assets can be seized like in Venezuela. It's more common in crypto but these problems are perennial. The primary argument against crypto is that it shows why an open, stable, well structured professional governing state is crucial to the preservation of property rights. It painfully highlights all the problems that happen when you create these assets in a way that's ideologically against statecraft. You can see it as the crypto bros are reinventing government without using the g word as they discover the problems that are solved by regulations from first principles.
    - Eisenstein 4y ago
      > The primary argument against crypto is that it shows why an open, stable, well structured professional governing state is crucial to the preservation of property rights. It painfully highlights all the problems that happen when you create these assets in a way that's ideologically against statecraft. I mean, that was my point. It wasn't meant to be a 'truism', it was meant to illustrate that your investment making money isn't nearly as valuable if that value is lost because of problems that don't exist with other investments. If I put money into a fund and the owner dies I can still get my money through the courts. If a crypto wallet owner dies and has the keys in his head, it is gone forever. Same thing with options for investing. If I have to use a crypto exchange to do my trading, then the chances of losing my assets increases exponentially.
- kortilla 4y ago
  No it’s not. Most forms of wealth are transferable without requiring the owner to be alive, let alone present.
cinntaile 4y ago
You moved the goal posts and went from the price of an asset to something entirely different.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  But survival chance is an important part of the asset. In the trading card / comic case, destruction of most of the asset is a major source of price appreciation. It may be true for Bitcoin/crypto too.
- temp2022account 4y ago
  Can't buy what nobody owns, and bitcoin does have builtin caps for total amount with no way to recover coins sent to lost wallets. It's a nice clean proof that the price must trend to $0.
- rwmj 4y ago
  It's a concern for equities - the company might go bankrupt - so why not for bitcoin?

As you increase the time window, the possibility that the wallet is abandoned, the wallet owner is dead, or the bitcoins get scammed or lost in a exchange collapse quickly reaches 100%.

kristopolous 4y ago

Sure, but similar properties come with almost any store of wealth. Don't take this as advocacy, it's not. There's plenty of strong arguments against crypto without having to resort to such truisms

danuker 4y ago
I agree. While in fiat currencies it may go on to inheritance feeding the market with liquidity, unused Bitcoin does nothing, so demand being equal price would increase.
- kristopolous 4y ago
  I continue to believe crypto operates like a collectibles market; similar to stamps, beanie babies, rare coins, baseball cards, etc. In this model, the "cards" are the actual unit coins and the "players" are the type of coin (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc). So long as there's a vibrant enthusiast community, the assets will hold some value but except for a few mainstays, these things tend to atrophy over time. For instance, yesterday I was helping an 80 year old neighbor clean out her garage. I found some wonderful vintage RadioShack calculators from the late 1970s. They're extremely rare and also, extremely worthless. The supply and price of something can both tend towards zero.
  - danuker 4y ago
    I agree with you completely. But you may be overlooking that they're also liquid, popular, benefit from network effects, the supply is algorithmically defined in many cases, and mostly fungible. This should make for more interested communities.
- namaria 4y ago
  This distinction is weird to me. Bitcoin is also created by fiat. If trust in government is lost, there is no governance nor money. If trust in bitcoin is lost, there are no running nodes nor tokens.
  - aintgonnatakeit 4y ago
    And if trust in government is lost, there is also no liquidity.
    - namaria 4y ago
      That's not true. You don't need strong government to have circulating and widely accepted metal money for example.
411111111111111 4y ago
Uuuh, no? If you've bought property, it's still gonna be there after you've died, ready to be repossessed. same with gold, shares or anything else, really? And if it's been illegally repossessed you'll have a good chance to retrieve them again through lawful means too. It's a pretty unique attribute that only applies to digital ...things that can only be touched with a cryptographic key
- kristopolous 4y ago
  Only if you are lucky enough to have a stable state that's favorable to your rights, avoid wars, riots, natural disasters, have a stable currency... One of the primary goals of statecraft is to enshrine stores of wealth with those properties and most don't do that well at it.
SilverBirch 4y ago
Err no? Like those things mentioned reach >90% probability for crypto over a ten year period vs what? >.0.00009% probability in US regulated entities?
- trompetenaccoun 4y ago
  You think over 90% of people who bought Bitcoin in 2013 are down on their investment? In reality the most common regret they have is selling their coins when they should have kept them or trading them for newer hype coins that turned out to be vaporware.
  - brianwawok 4y ago
    Until it all turns to 0 because coins are dumb.
- kristopolous 4y ago
  Your numbers are problematic but you put time on the argument, which is different. The claim was that all stores of wealth have those properties. Crypto can suffer them faster but someone's real estate investment from say, the 2013 in Ukraine, 2003 in Syria, 1993 in Kosovo, 1983 in Rhodesia... Such things aren't immune. Heck even without war the rules of who can invest in what can change and your assets can be seized like in Venezuela. It's more common in crypto but these problems are perennial. The primary argument against crypto is that it shows why an open, stable, well structured professional governing state is crucial to the preservation of property rights. It painfully highlights all the problems that happen when you create these assets in a way that's ideologically against statecraft. You can see it as the crypto bros are reinventing government without using the g word as they discover the problems that are solved by regulations from first principles.
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    > The primary argument against crypto is that it shows why an open, stable, well structured professional governing state is crucial to the preservation of property rights. It painfully highlights all the problems that happen when you create these assets in a way that's ideologically against statecraft. I mean, that was my point. It wasn't meant to be a 'truism', it was meant to illustrate that your investment making money isn't nearly as valuable if that value is lost because of problems that don't exist with other investments. If I put money into a fund and the owner dies I can still get my money through the courts. If a crypto wallet owner dies and has the keys in his head, it is gone forever. Same thing with options for investing. If I have to use a crypto exchange to do my trading, then the chances of losing my assets increases exponentially.
kortilla 4y ago
No it’s not. Most forms of wealth are transferable without requiring the owner to be alive, let alone present.

cinntaile 4y ago

You moved the goal posts and went from the price of an asset to something entirely different.

hgsgm 4y ago
But survival chance is an important part of the asset. In the trading card / comic case, destruction of most of the asset is a major source of price appreciation. It may be true for Bitcoin/crypto too.
temp2022account 4y ago
Can't buy what nobody owns, and bitcoin does have builtin caps for total amount with no way to recover coins sent to lost wallets. It's a nice clean proof that the price must trend to $0.
rwmj 4y ago
It's a concern for equities - the company might go bankrupt - so why not for bitcoin?