4 ms·

> The other way to get enough buy pressure would be if many people started deciding they want to hold bitcoin as a hedge or a speculation. This spurs occasiona

by Ologn 12y ago

> The other way to get enough buy pressure would be if many people started deciding they want to hold bitcoin as a hedge or a speculation. This spurs occasional bubbles, but we haven’t yet seen it work long term. Bitcoin is doomed because it has no value. Commodities have value. Modern trade began by people trading commodities for each other. Some commodities had attributes which made them good currencies - they were portable, fungible, divisible etc. Gold is an example of a commodity which makes a good currency, other precious metals like silver are good as well. Bitcoins are worthless. They are hashes, that's it. Gold can be used to fill teeth, to conduct electricity and so forth. Bitcoins can do nothing. It's funny to see his discussion of bubbles. If anything is a sign of a tech bubble, it's these worthless Bitcoins having a market cap of $5+ billion. For people who are saying its value is that it is a currency, you have no understanding of the value of commodities and currencies. Bitcoin's inevitable collapse will be a sign of this. My argument is falsifiable - if Bitcoins retain value, I'm wrong (of course Keynes said markets seemed to remain irrational longer than he himself could remain solvent). The Bitcoin's advocates are making an argument that is not falsifiable. "It's worth something because it's worth something" or "it's worth something because people think it's worth something". So if it goes to zero, their theories for why it had value still hold. Scientific arguments are falsifiable (mine is), there's are not. Also the rise of Dogecoin, Litecoin, Peercoin or whatnot point to the lack of value of Bitcoins. Anyone can create these valueless currencies - even joke ones like Dogecoin reach market caps in the tens of millions. The only semi-rational argument for Bitcoin is the one that goes "1971 paper currencies like the dollar, yen etc. have not been backed by gold (or some other commodity) since 1971, so why can't Bitcoins have value"? That argument is a rather long thing to go into. Also, not to make a big thing of it, but that posts like this questioning the value of Bitcoin are regularly downvoted on HN are instructive. I guess I'll have to live with losing some worthless HN karma to point out that Bitcoin hashes are ultimately even more worthless.

gnaritas 12y ago
You have no idea what you're talking about. Bitcoin has value as a remittance network, especially internationally, your argument is trivially invalid.
- Ologn 12y ago
  Can you tell me of any currencies or commodities, from antiquity to 1971, that had any price or value associated with them due to "value as a remittance network"? Bitcoin's market cap was $13.9 billion four months ago. Now it is less than $6 billion. Bitcoin has only grown as a remittance network over the past four months, so if it derives its value from being a remittance network, why is its price sinking? You say my argument is "trivially invalid", but people realizing Bitcoins are worthless has made Bitcoins worth half what they were four months ago.
  - gnaritas 12y ago
    > Can you tell me of any currencies or commodities, from antiquity to 1971, that had any price or value associated with them due to "value as a remittance network"? Can you tell me any currency or commodity, from antiquity to 2009, that is a trust-less distributed payment network? No, that's the point, Bitcoin is something new to the world; your trying to compare it to those things is invalid. You don't seem to realize Bitcoin is a new asset class that's never before existed, it's simultaniously a stock, a currency, and a commodity because it's a distributed decentralized corporation providing a trustless distributed decentralized service that is of extreme value to anyone on the planet who wants to move money around. Your thinking is stuck in the past and thus blinding you to something new. > You say my argument is "trivially invalid", but people realizing Bitcoins are worthless has made Bitcoins worth half what they were four months ago. No, markets generally retrace sudden gains, that's simply the nature of markets and it says nothing about Bitcoin other than that people are speculating on it which was both known, planned for, and has been occurring since it launched. Speculation and hoarding are necessary to create a market cap large enough to function as a payment network.
philrapo 12y ago
>Gold can be used to fill teeth, to conduct electricity and so forth. Bitcoins can do nothing. If that's why gold has value, then $1290 an ounce seems quite pricey for fillings!
- Ologn 12y ago
  But people are paying $1290 an ounce for fillings. You might find it pricey, but plenty of people are getting gold fillings. Of course, not every filling needs a full ounce. You can also go to an electronics store and find audio equipment etc. which uses gold. Too pricey for some, but others buy it. When price flies away from value, like for subprime mortgages, a reckoning is always coming sooner or later. And collectively, even subprime mortgages have some value. Bitcoins have no value.

by Ologn 12y ago

gnaritas 12y ago

You have no idea what you're talking about. Bitcoin has value as a remittance network, especially internationally, your argument is trivially invalid.

Ologn 12y ago
Can you tell me of any currencies or commodities, from antiquity to 1971, that had any price or value associated with them due to "value as a remittance network"? Bitcoin's market cap was $13.9 billion four months ago. Now it is less than $6 billion. Bitcoin has only grown as a remittance network over the past four months, so if it derives its value from being a remittance network, why is its price sinking? You say my argument is "trivially invalid", but people realizing Bitcoins are worthless has made Bitcoins worth half what they were four months ago.
- gnaritas 12y ago
  > Can you tell me of any currencies or commodities, from antiquity to 1971, that had any price or value associated with them due to "value as a remittance network"? Can you tell me any currency or commodity, from antiquity to 2009, that is a trust-less distributed payment network? No, that's the point, Bitcoin is something new to the world; your trying to compare it to those things is invalid. You don't seem to realize Bitcoin is a new asset class that's never before existed, it's simultaniously a stock, a currency, and a commodity because it's a distributed decentralized corporation providing a trustless distributed decentralized service that is of extreme value to anyone on the planet who wants to move money around. Your thinking is stuck in the past and thus blinding you to something new. > You say my argument is "trivially invalid", but people realizing Bitcoins are worthless has made Bitcoins worth half what they were four months ago. No, markets generally retrace sudden gains, that's simply the nature of markets and it says nothing about Bitcoin other than that people are speculating on it which was both known, planned for, and has been occurring since it launched. Speculation and hoarding are necessary to create a market cap large enough to function as a payment network.

philrapo 12y ago

>Gold can be used to fill teeth, to conduct electricity and so forth. Bitcoins can do nothing. If that's why gold has value, then $1290 an ounce seems quite pricey for fillings!

Ologn 12y ago
But people are paying $1290 an ounce for fillings. You might find it pricey, but plenty of people are getting gold fillings. Of course, not every filling needs a full ounce. You can also go to an electronics store and find audio equipment etc. which uses gold. Too pricey for some, but others buy it. When price flies away from value, like for subprime mortgages, a reckoning is always coming sooner or later. And collectively, even subprime mortgages have some value. Bitcoins have no value.