5 ms·

BadEconomics: Putting $400M of Bitcoin on your company balance sheet

paulpauper 3y ago
What would happen if a publicly traded company reported finding a thumb drive purportedly containing a billion dollars of bitcoin that had been mined from 2010 or whatever by an employee but forgotten. But said Bitcoin does not exist. How long would it take for the ruse to be uncovered; would the company be forced to show the SEC that they control the wallet of the bitcoin? Could the subsequent rise in the share price be used to buy the bitcoin, filling the original promise?
- npoc 3y ago
  This is done all the time - just look at the dollar. It used to represent the value of gold, but then the central banks started printing dollars like no tomorrow with no gold for them to represent. Bitcoin's a publicly auditable (on an opt-in basis) bearer asset that can be digitally transferred orders of magnitudes faster and cheaper than anything like it before, a fundamental that is missed by the OP.
  - lifeisstillgood 3y ago
    Honestly I don’t get the “gold standard” thing - why is the number of factories built on an arbitrary piece of land got to do with whether an asteroid hit the planet a billion years ago.
    - npoc 3y ago
      Assuming that you're asking why we need a relatively fixed quantity of money, then you need to consider what happens to the value of the money in our savings accounts, wages, pensions etc when new money is created. And secondly, by what means or effort is this new money created? Is it done fairly (i.e. through performing work of equal value) or is it created to the advantage of those having the power to create it (therefore making them unjustly even more powerful)?
- lifeisstillgood 3y ago
  I think it’s the other way round. Before the auditors signed off on it, they would have to satisfy the auditors the bitcoin existed (and the ex-employee had no claim, and why the fuck did they not keep better track of their assets and …) So no, simply claiming as a company you have an extra billion is similar to me claiming Inhave an extra billion - found it last night on a hard drive not seen since 2011 actually :-)
npoc 3y ago
This episode featuring the man himself offers a solid rebuttal: https://youtu.be/3S86lGIeWc4?t=86 https://youtu.be/3S86lGIeWc4?t=86

What would happen if a publicly traded company reported finding a thumb drive purportedly containing a billion dollars of bitcoin that had been mined from 2010 or whatever by an employee but forgotten. But said Bitcoin does not exist. How long would it take for the ruse to be uncovered; would the company be forced to show the SEC that they control the wallet of the bitcoin? Could the subsequent rise in the share price be used to buy the bitcoin, filling the original promise?

npoc 3y ago
This is done all the time - just look at the dollar. It used to represent the value of gold, but then the central banks started printing dollars like no tomorrow with no gold for them to represent. Bitcoin's a publicly auditable (on an opt-in basis) bearer asset that can be digitally transferred orders of magnitudes faster and cheaper than anything like it before, a fundamental that is missed by the OP.
- lifeisstillgood 3y ago
  Honestly I don’t get the “gold standard” thing - why is the number of factories built on an arbitrary piece of land got to do with whether an asteroid hit the planet a billion years ago.
  - npoc 3y ago
    Assuming that you're asking why we need a relatively fixed quantity of money, then you need to consider what happens to the value of the money in our savings accounts, wages, pensions etc when new money is created. And secondly, by what means or effort is this new money created? Is it done fairly (i.e. through performing work of equal value) or is it created to the advantage of those having the power to create it (therefore making them unjustly even more powerful)?
lifeisstillgood 3y ago
I think it’s the other way round. Before the auditors signed off on it, they would have to satisfy the auditors the bitcoin existed (and the ex-employee had no claim, and why the fuck did they not keep better track of their assets and …) So no, simply claiming as a company you have an extra billion is similar to me claiming Inhave an extra billion - found it last night on a hard drive not seen since 2011 actually :-)

npoc 3y ago

This episode featuring the man himself offers a solid rebuttal: https://youtu.be/3S86lGIeWc4?t=86 https://youtu.be/3S86lGIeWc4?t=86