3 ms·

If I had money in bitcoin I'd find this movement terrifying. It is not correlated with broader economic movements or the inflation rate of USD, and has all the

by Mahn 13y ago

If I had money in bitcoin I'd find this movement terrifying. It is not correlated with broader economic movements or the inflation rate of USD, and has all the classic hallmarks of a bubble, including true believers telling everyone it is different this time, increasingly wild oscillations, and exponential growth. I have money in bitcoin, I believe in its future, and I acknowledge we are in a bubble. Nothing to be terrified of; the aftermath of the last April bubble left the prices much higher than when it started. And with every single bubble bitcoin kept going no matter how big the crash was. Those two things mean people can engage in bitcoin theft, fraud, laundering, cornering the market, setting up bogus or insecure exchanges/banks, with impunity and anonymity. Without proper regulation, insurance, compensation, which means identification of users and verification of transactions and everything that goes with that, I can't see bitcoin spreading beyond enthusiasts. You have to consider that this is a new way of thinking of money. No regulation and a decentralized nature does not necesarily mean all sort of bad things will happen at once; this thought is what comes naturally when you think of money in a traditional sense, but people can adapt and start seeing and thinking of money in a different way. Let me give you an example: Email. It's unregulated and decentralized, and anyone, anytime, can write anything to any email address with almost zero effort. In paper this sounds like a terrible idea, because the moment my email address is public anyone can send all sorts of crap to it, not to mention that malicious people could completely trash my inbox by sending thousands of crap emails having no repercussions. But, as a society, we still adapted and embraced it.

grey-area 13y ago
I have money in bitcoin, I believe in its future, and I acknowledge we are in a bubble. Nothing to be terrified of; As long as you don't have significant money in it, it's no big problem, but say you had your savings in it or were paid a salary in it - at that point the volatility would be a nightmare and the prospect of a bubble seriously troubling (bubbles always burst badly, and frequently go through successive waves of euphoria before they do). That the price has returned to a new high does not mean it will stay that high. To supplant other currencies bitcoin would have to deal with the volatility and perhaps more importantly the lack of regulation and verification - with the current setup and community that'll be a huge issue, and perhaps impossible. It'll be really interesting to follow the trajectory of bitcoin and similar currencies as they negotiate these problems but I don't trust them just yet. I do think email is broken for precisely the same reason - it thrived in spite of its anonymous insecure nature, not because of it, they simply didn't think about having to verify identity at the start, which has led to all sorts of problems with phishing and spamming. A lack of verified identity is at the heart of both these systems and causes issues for both of them, so I think email is a great example of a system which has problems of abuse (spoofing, spamming, phishing, fraud) because of anonymity being allowed.
- yebyen 13y ago
  So, some people were meant to play craps and others blackjack. Some people don't have the stomach for a casino at all. I have played SatoshiDice and it's thrilling, I have never actually lost there, or if I did it was overtaken by winning. Still, I never bet anything like when I go to a casino. The bitcoins will still be there tomorrow. By and large I have made a lot more money holding bitcoins and not selling them, than by gambling or actual market activities like trading or selling actual goods and services. I can't say I trust it, but when you take your first $50 and turn it into $500, only to spend it all on mining equipment that doesn't expect to make you 5BTC because other people are out there betting extra zeros, well hell, sometimes you gotta double down and make money. I have no illusion that it's not a bit risky. I could also be paying bank fees. Today it looks like the last three years there has never been a bad day to buy bitcoins.

by Mahn 13y ago

grey-area 13y ago

I have money in bitcoin, I believe in its future, and I acknowledge we are in a bubble. Nothing to be terrified of; As long as you don't have significant money in it, it's no big problem, but say you had your savings in it or were paid a salary in it - at that point the volatility would be a nightmare and the prospect of a bubble seriously troubling (bubbles always burst badly, and frequently go through successive waves of euphoria before they do). That the price has returned to a new high does not mean it will stay that high. To supplant other currencies bitcoin would have to deal with the volatility and perhaps more importantly the lack of regulation and verification - with the current setup and community that'll be a huge issue, and perhaps impossible. It'll be really interesting to follow the trajectory of bitcoin and similar currencies as they negotiate these problems but I don't trust them just yet. I do think email is broken for precisely the same reason - it thrived in spite of its anonymous insecure nature, not because of it, they simply didn't think about having to verify identity at the start, which has led to all sorts of problems with phishing and spamming. A lack of verified identity is at the heart of both these systems and causes issues for both of them, so I think email is a great example of a system which has problems of abuse (spoofing, spamming, phishing, fraud) because of anonymity being allowed.

yebyen 13y ago
So, some people were meant to play craps and others blackjack. Some people don't have the stomach for a casino at all. I have played SatoshiDice and it's thrilling, I have never actually lost there, or if I did it was overtaken by winning. Still, I never bet anything like when I go to a casino. The bitcoins will still be there tomorrow. By and large I have made a lot more money holding bitcoins and not selling them, than by gambling or actual market activities like trading or selling actual goods and services. I can't say I trust it, but when you take your first $50 and turn it into $500, only to spend it all on mining equipment that doesn't expect to make you 5BTC because other people are out there betting extra zeros, well hell, sometimes you gotta double down and make money. I have no illusion that it's not a bit risky. I could also be paying bank fees. Today it looks like the last three years there has never been a bad day to buy bitcoins.