say what now? wrote:
yargle wrote:
Theres nothing to fall for. If you've held Bitcoin for any amount of time >= 1 year you are much richer because of it.
If you haven't, you just have fomo.
What if you bought at $19,650 on Dec. 15, 2017 and then sold at $5,165 on March 13, 2020? Would you be much richer then?
How does selling on 3/13/20 relate to having held Bitcoin in your current portfolio for over one year?
Tatar... wrote:
Bitcoin doesn't seem rational.
1) No intrinsic value - you won't be eating or living in, or able to sell ₿ during a crisis. No internet and you've got nothing to redeem against.
2) Doesn't represent any labor hours or work, although some people could argue it's some sort of robotic labor [This point could probably be its own thread].
3) It can't make you more money, it's not like holding corporate stock, where production will create dividends
Why do libertarians like it? It doesn't have any of the features of commodity money that they are usually attracted to and has entirely artificial monetary rules.
Are people buying it because they think it will become the medium of exchange? What if it doesn't?
I have a lot of questions.
I'll try and answer a few bits, it will be simplified as the crypto world is hugely complex, and often people just think of Bitcoin alone and not what's tied in with it...
1) Firstly, the intrinsic value thing is a red herring. "Currencies" don't typically have intrinsic value. Fiat has no intrinsic value, nor any use value, most aren't backed by anything. It's just a method of exchange, and really the value is what you can exchange for it, alongside the confidence in it etc.
What about Bitcoin ? Well, I can't buy any toilet roll with it, so it must be useless right ? Well, no. There's a whole massive ecosystem with the cryptoworld and Bitcoin just happens to be the daddy. To buy into that crypto world, whether it's transferring money between countries (with low fees), "investment", buying NFTs, duff memecoins, entering the world of decentralised finance, making money by loaning, staking, gaming, sharing files, sharing space, sharing resources, advertising, chances are you will buy Bitcoin or similar.
So the value, comes from all of that. Is it overvalued because a lot of people speculate ? Quite possibly, but there's a value in that also.
What happens if no internet ? As been as there's no use case in that value if there is no internet, then it's completely irrelevant. It's a bit like saying what's the point of fiat if the shops are shut at 4am. Do you think the internet is going to grow and get more entangled in our lives or less ?
2) I'm not sure what the point here is. It's not "designed" to. Dollars don't represent hours worked either. I suspect there's some miscommunication there though.
3) Why does it need to make you more money ? Sure, people may invest hoping the price goes up, just like stocks without dividends. That's where a lot of the money comes from, business and people ultimately thinking there's a future in it, and the price will go up.
I think libertarians is a redherring, no need to label people to make a point. To try and answer a bit though. I think many people have a dream of a better system that's not loaded in the same way (it's loaded in others, make no mistake, there's a lot of money from big corporations in it influencing things). You can shove all your money in a bank/building society and get a few percent and slowly watch it devalue, or maybe get an account with stocks and shares and hope it does a bit better. Kickass, not exactly the things the young folk dream of (maybe they should be that's another matter). Many people just thing in the current age, they will get screwed over in the future, and they feel like they want to be part of a system that's changing. Ultimately I actually think the volume of money from these folks are small potatoes though. There's a LOT more money from big business in this than people realise.
The crypto world has a market cap of 2.6 Trillion. 112 Billion dollars a day is traded. Do you think that's just libertarians ?
Nobody (well very few) is buying Bitcoin because they think it will be the medium of exchange (assuming you mean the publics medium of exchange on a day to day basis for goods).
Btw, not trying to come over as some authority on it all, just some answers to pose some thoughts and discovery on the whole area, as I find it quite fascinating and have a lot to learn myself.
If you sold for a loss then you're an idiot. And yes, these are my realized gains. I have double in unrealized gains:
yargl wrote:
If you sold for a loss then you're an idiot. And yes, these are my realized gains. I have double in unrealized gains:
https://imgur.com/Ugv8I0m
Sometimes selling at a loss is the right call (until 6 months later ;)). Easy with hindsight. If you can't afford to lose more than your loss point, it's the right call though. There again, one shouldn't be putting more money than you can afford to lose in either :D.
/me shrugs
It's quite likely that some unscrupulous people are using it for very bad things, but that idea doesn't fit the typical anti-american conspiracy narrative promoted by the resident trolls on LRC.
carmine9 wrote:
say what now? wrote:
What if you bought at $19,650 on Dec. 15, 2017 and then sold at $5,165 on March 13, 2020? Would you be much richer then?
How does selling on 3/13/20 relate to having held Bitcoin in your current portfolio for over one year?
Are you kidding me? Maybe because 12/15/17 to 3/13/20 is more than a year? Do you notice in the post I'm responding to that yargle wrote "If you've held Bitcoin for any amount of time >= 1 year you are much richer because of it."
Maybe...... wrote:
Tatar... wrote:
Bitcoin doesn't seem rational.
1) No intrinsic value - you won't be eating or living in, or able to sell ₿ during a crisis. No internet and you've got nothing to redeem against.
2) Doesn't represent any labor hours or work, although some people could argue it's some sort of robotic labor [This point could probably be its own thread].
3) It can't make you more money, it's not like holding corporate stock, where production will create dividends
Why do libertarians like it? It doesn't have any of the features of commodity money that they are usually attracted to and has entirely artificial monetary rules.
Are people buying it because they think it will become the medium of exchange? What if it doesn't?
I have a lot of questions.
I'll try and answer a few bits, it will be simplified as the crypto world is hugely complex, and often people just think of Bitcoin alone and not what's tied in with it...
1) Firstly, the intrinsic value thing is a red herring. "Currencies" don't typically have intrinsic value. Fiat has no intrinsic value, nor any use value, most aren't backed by anything. It's just a method of exchange, and really the value is what you can exchange for it, alongside the confidence in it etc.
What about Bitcoin ? Well, I can't buy any toilet roll with it, so it must be useless right ? Well, no. There's a whole massive ecosystem with the cryptoworld and Bitcoin just happens to be the daddy. To buy into that crypto world, whether it's transferring money between countries (with low fees), "investment", buying NFTs, duff memecoins, entering the world of decentralised finance, making money by loaning, staking, gaming, sharing files, sharing space, sharing resources, advertising, chances are you will buy Bitcoin or similar.
So the value, comes from all of that. Is it overvalued because a lot of people speculate ? Quite possibly, but there's a value in that also.
What happens if no internet ? As been as there's no use case in that value if there is no internet, then it's completely irrelevant. It's a bit like saying what's the point of fiat if the shops are shut at 4am. Do you think the internet is going to grow and get more entangled in our lives or less ?
2) I'm not sure what the point here is. It's not "designed" to. Dollars don't represent hours worked either. I suspect there's some miscommunication there though.
3) Why does it need to make you more money ? Sure, people may invest hoping the price goes up, just like stocks without dividends. That's where a lot of the money comes from, business and people ultimately thinking there's a future in it, and the price will go up.
I think libertarians is a redherring, no need to label people to make a point. To try and answer a bit though. I think many people have a dream of a better system that's not loaded in the same way (it's loaded in others, make no mistake, there's a lot of money from big corporations in it influencing things). You can shove all your money in a bank/building society and get a few percent and slowly watch it devalue, or maybe get an account with stocks and shares and hope it does a bit better. Kickass, not exactly the things the young folk dream of (maybe they should be that's another matter). Many people just thing in the current age, they will get screwed over in the future, and they feel like they want to be part of a system that's changing. Ultimately I actually think the volume of money from these folks are small potatoes though. There's a LOT more money from big business in this than people realise.
The crypto world has a market cap of 2.6 Trillion. 112 Billion dollars a day is traded. Do you think that's just libertarians ?
Nobody (well very few) is buying Bitcoin because they think it will be the medium of exchange (assuming you mean the publics medium of exchange on a day to day basis for goods).
I appreciate the answers but I'm not sure I'm any clearer. I get that fiat money isn't backed by anything either but Bitcoin seems to be fiat money without a central bank, the one thing that gives fiat money its legitimacy.
When I say it doesn't represent labor what I mean is there's no human effort to manufacture the wealth. This is unlike any investment anywhere, profits and dividends are only made because someone somewhere does something to necessitate an exchange. Things that are difficult or time consuming or to manufacture or use rare materials attract a higher value. It's not the whole story but it's factored into the price of everything. Blockchain can be generated for free or at super low cost and is unlimited (apart from an artificial number to create scarcity) but sell for tens of thousands? It's just seems off.
Capital wealth is generated by people wanting a slice of the pie of a valuable asset. I understand why people want property or a commodity or to own a business or control utilities or even to hold foreign currency. I don't know what people are seeing in Bitcoin for them to want it. There must be some future for it in our lives for it to be needed. It can't be circular - we want Bitcoin because Bitcoin is valuable and that's why we want Bitcoin?
Again, appreciate the answers, I'm always skeptical of people who just say they know everything and only stoopid people don't.
carmine9 wrote:
say what now? wrote:
What if you bought at $19,650 on Dec. 15, 2017 and then sold at $5,165 on March 13, 2020? Would you be much richer then?
How does selling on 3/13/20 relate to having held Bitcoin in your current portfolio for over one year?
Many have lost by selling at a loss. This security is no different than any other stock or etf because there is always the possibility that you can lose all of your money or make a huge profit.
Trade it just like any other stock. TAKE PROFITS
Tatar... wrote:
I appreciate the answers but I'm not sure I'm any clearer. I get that fiat money isn't backed by anything either but Bitcoin seems to be fiat money without a central bank, the one thing that gives fiat money its legitimacy.
When I say it doesn't represent labor what I mean is there's no human effort to manufacture the wealth. This is unlike any investment anywhere, profits and dividends are only made because someone somewhere does something to necessitate an exchange. Things that are difficult or time consuming or to manufacture or use rare materials attract a higher value. It's not the whole story but it's factored into the price of everything. Blockchain can be generated for free or at super low cost and is unlimited (apart from an artificial number to create scarcity) but sell for tens of thousands? It's just seems off.
Capital wealth is generated by people wanting a slice of the pie of a valuable asset. I understand why people want property or a commodity or to own a business or control utilities or even to hold foreign currency. I don't know what people are seeing in Bitcoin for them to want it. There must be some future for it in our lives for it to be needed. It can't be circular - we want Bitcoin because Bitcoin is valuable and that's why we want Bitcoin?
Again, appreciate the answers, I'm always skeptical of people who just say they know everything and only stoopid people don't.
I feel like the backing thing is a redherring....what difference does the central bank really make ?
The labor thing, I kinda disagree, the only real value is what people themselves value it at. If I spend 30 years making a piece of art, someone may say it's worth $1. Someone else may spend 5 mins working on it, and it could be worth a million ?
I think the missing part is you aren't seeing what people can do with Bitcoin, there's a whole massive ecosystem connected to it, so people just think you buy some Bitcoins, and as long as others buy it higher, that's all there is to it. This is very far from the case. There's a whole financial world building upon it. It's very likely it's overvalued...but who knows.
Let's take the El Salvador simplistic case. They have introduced it as a legit currency to be accepted, mainly because ~24% of their GDP is incoming money transfers from abroad, which typically attract large fees. So now people can transfer money via Bitcoin at lower fees (and I think that's just the start, I suspect as the ecosystem plays out, those fees will drop further), and convert to local currency. So that's more income into the country that isn't grabbed by some third party.
But mainly it's the other related crypto ecosystem that gives it increased value imo. If you are doing something with another cryptocurrency, and want to convert it, you pretty much have to convert it to Bitcoin or a stable coin like USDT (or maybe Eth these days). You can't really talk about the value of Bitcoin without talking about all the other currencies tied into it.
Digital currency is the future. Banks are in the process of creating their own digital currencies right now. This only fortifies bitcoin's strength. Fiat currency could be obsolete very soon. There's many alt coins and i think a lot of them will go to zero value eventually. Dogecoin and Shiba included. But if you get in and out with good timing you'll profit off Dogecoin and Shiba to name a couple. Bitcoin and ethereum are here to stay though and will continue to go up with ebbs and flows throughout the cycles.
Bitcoin is quite literally the greatest scam of the 21st century.
In the end, it will make a small class of uber-criminals much, much richer, and a very large class of idiots much, much poorer.
(And along the way, it'll do a whole lot to destabilize democracies even further than they've already been --which is the *primary point*, to a large portion of the profoundly scumbaggy movers behind it.)
Tatar... wrote:
The US Dollar doesn't seem rational.
1) No intrinsic value - you won't be eating or living in, or able to sell dollars during a crisis unless you have huge stacks of cash. No internet and you've got nothing to redeem against.
2) Doesn't necessarily represent any labor hours or work due to it having unlimited supply at the whim of central bankers [This point could probably be its own thread].
3) It can't make you more money, it's not like holding corporate stock, where production will create dividends
Why do governments like it? It doesn't have any of the features of commodity money that they are usually attracted to and has entirely artificial monetary rules.
Are people buying it because it is the current medium of exchange? What if it loses value due to central banking policy?
I have a lot of questions.
Yes, I agree with all your points. If only there was a decentralized currency with a fixed supply to deal with these problems that the US dollar faces
sp2 wrote:
Bitcoin is quite literally the greatest scam of the 21st century.
In the end, it will make a small class of uber-criminals much, much richer, and a very large class of idiots much, much poorer.
(And along the way, it'll do a whole lot to destabilize democracies even further than they've already been --which is the *primary point*, to a large portion of the profoundly scumbaggy movers behind it.)
I would rather be a rich idiot then.
The inventor of bitcoin can't access 1 million bitcoins because he lost his key? Wow, nothing to see here.
Tatar... wrote:
I appreciate the answers but I'm not sure I'm any clearer. I get that fiat money isn't backed by anything either but Bitcoin seems to be fiat money without a central bank, the one thing that gives fiat money its legitimacy.
No a central bank does not give money its legitimacy. Are you saying US dollars had no legitimacy until 1913?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/247280/number-of-bitcoins-in-circulation/https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SLAmerica's fury wrote:
The inventor of bitcoin can't access 1 million bitcoins because he lost his key? Wow, nothing to see here.
He didn't invent bitcoin... he "lost his key" because it wasn't his, duh.
Hardloper wrote:
Tatar... wrote:
I appreciate the answers but I'm not sure I'm any clearer. I get that fiat money isn't backed by anything either but Bitcoin seems to be fiat money without a central bank, the one thing that gives fiat money its legitimacy.
No a central bank does not give money its legitimacy. Are you saying US dollars had no legitimacy until 1913?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/247280/number-of-bitcoins-in-circulation/https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL
US Dollar wasn't a fiat currency in 1913
Superspikesposter wrote:
Tatar... wrote:
The US Dollar doesn't seem rational.
1) No intrinsic value - you won't be eating or living in, or able to sell dollars during a crisis unless you have huge stacks of cash. No internet and you've got nothing to redeem against.
2) Doesn't necessarily represent any labor hours or work due to it having unlimited supply at the whim of central bankers [This point could probably be its own thread].
3) It can't make you more money, it's not like holding corporate stock, where production will create dividends
Why do governments like it? It doesn't have any of the features of commodity money that they are usually attracted to and has entirely artificial monetary rules.
Are people buying it because it is the current medium of exchange? What if it loses value due to central banking policy?
I have a lot of questions.
Yes, I agree with all your points. If only there was a decentralized currency with a fixed supply to deal with these problems that the US dollar faces
Okay but dollars are a safe haven during a storm not an investment that you expect to make money off, unlike Bitcoin.
And my larger point was I don't understand how this is an alternative currency - Bitcoin functions like a fiat currency but without a central bank. There's no underlying value and no wide acceptance. We'll have to trust each other to accept Bitcoin like we do with fiat currencies and we have to assume 21 million is the right amount to be in circulation according to an anonymous internet celebrity. I mean it seems like madness.
lol ikr. Anyone who actually thinks Craig Wright created bitcoin is a fool.