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$1k, $10k, $100k. Watching this nonsensical hype at every stage left me in disbelief. Funny thing is after all these years I’m finally realizing there’s no rea

by prng2021 2y ago

$1k, $10k, $100k. Watching this nonsensical hype at every stage left me in disbelief. Funny thing is after all these years I’m finally realizing there’s no reason whatsoever why it couldn’t hit $1M, $1B, or go back to $1. Anytime we see a dollar symbol we assume something has value like a traditional asset, tied to tangible or measurable things like material costs, a company’s quarterly earnings, etc. But cryptocurrencies are totally different. This thing’s dollar value per unit wildly fluctuates literally hourly, because it’s based purely on human emotion and speculation.

Empact 2y ago
There is an upper limit on the aggregate value of money - somehow related to the amount of stored value in the economy. On the other hand, there is no lower limit on the value of a dollar. If bitcoin reaches $1B it will be through some combination of dollar depreciation and bitcoin appreciation. https://www.fiatmarketcap.com https://www.fiatmarketcap.com https://assetmarketcap.com https://assetmarketcap.com
JeremyNT 2y ago
The amount of money flowing into it has been a real shock. I too played with bitcoin many years ago, mining on my CPU. Like a sucker I got rid of it because it clearly was not useful at its stated purpose. Why have we created an economy where this kind of speculation is rewarded so highly, while it contributes nothing back to society? It's nonsensical. But once you accept that finance is kind of ridiculous (and completely decoupled from any meaningful work in the real world), you can see that there is no limit to how high it can go.
- jhrmnn 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania - this one lasted only 3 years though
tim333 2y ago
>no reason whatsoever why it couldn’t hit $1M, $1B, or go back to $1 Not entirely true. The value is driven by number of people invested x average amount they have invested. Most of the historic increase has been as the number of people involved increased. Currently that's probably in the 100 - 200 million people range. It could 10x from here to $1M per bitcoin but is unlikely to go to $1B or $1.
- prng2021 2y ago
  What do you think the number of people and average amount they have invested is based on? I’m saying it’s based purely on emotion and speculation. It could be a sunny day so people feel good and put more money into Bitcoin. That’s quite different from egg prices skyrocketing after chickens get bird flu or stock price skyrocketing after an amazing earnings report or the dollar skyrocketing because of a fast growing economy.
  - tim333 2y ago
    It's changed in fairly predictable ways - the number of people grows fairly stably and the price goes in roughly four year waves, up something like 5x or more then down 85%. So there's emotion and speculation but in a kind of consistent way in practice.

Empact 2y ago

There is an upper limit on the aggregate value of money - somehow related to the amount of stored value in the economy. On the other hand, there is no lower limit on the value of a dollar. If bitcoin reaches $1B it will be through some combination of dollar depreciation and bitcoin appreciation. https://www.fiatmarketcap.com https://www.fiatmarketcap.com https://assetmarketcap.com https://assetmarketcap.com

JeremyNT 2y ago

The amount of money flowing into it has been a real shock. I too played with bitcoin many years ago, mining on my CPU. Like a sucker I got rid of it because it clearly was not useful at its stated purpose. Why have we created an economy where this kind of speculation is rewarded so highly, while it contributes nothing back to society? It's nonsensical. But once you accept that finance is kind of ridiculous (and completely decoupled from any meaningful work in the real world), you can see that there is no limit to how high it can go.

jhrmnn 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania - this one lasted only 3 years though

tim333 2y ago

>no reason whatsoever why it couldn’t hit $1M, $1B, or go back to $1 Not entirely true. The value is driven by number of people invested x average amount they have invested. Most of the historic increase has been as the number of people involved increased. Currently that's probably in the 100 - 200 million people range. It could 10x from here to $1M per bitcoin but is unlikely to go to $1B or $1.

prng2021 2y ago
What do you think the number of people and average amount they have invested is based on? I’m saying it’s based purely on emotion and speculation. It could be a sunny day so people feel good and put more money into Bitcoin. That’s quite different from egg prices skyrocketing after chickens get bird flu or stock price skyrocketing after an amazing earnings report or the dollar skyrocketing because of a fast growing economy.
- tim333 2y ago
  It's changed in fairly predictable ways - the number of people grows fairly stably and the price goes in roughly four year waves, up something like 5x or more then down 85%. So there's emotion and speculation but in a kind of consistent way in practice.