1/ I hate Bitcoin with a probably-unhealthy intensity and have a hook set up so I get notified on big moves (e.g. down 5.3% today). When they come in I glance at the chart and occasionally get stuck for a few minutes. Stock markets have been explained as an argument between buyers & sellers as to the correct value of the underlying real-world thing. But…
#Bitcoin
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@timbray Just amazing how it continues to further crash. and it's crypto pals, too
@timbray I was cornered recently by a cryptobro telling me how financial markets were going to collapse, and only crypto would survive. I said, “if there is that much disruption, then likely internet access would be disrupted, making crypto inaccessible.” That was apparently the secret way to drive him off.
@timbray 100% agree with you. Also: great honeypot thread to attract people I should have blocked ages ago
nice ted talk
but just because bitcoin has no value or purpose for you, doesn't mean that holds true for others
i for example pay rent with bicoin and save in bitcoin. i use it and it has value to me
and i think that bitcoin will save the planet. happy to discuss if you have real arguments
2/ … Btc has no actual value or real-world purpose. So the forces affecting the price are very meta and abstract. It’s an argument between buyers and sellers as to what price people will pay for something that has no real-world utility in the expectation that the price will go up. Pretty clearly more or less comlpletely unpredictable. But …
@timbray I would argue the only purpose of btc is for scamming, ransomware, and other illegal activities. The kicker is this utility exerts no pressure on the price, because all of them are piced in $'s, not bitcoin. The other kicker is that banning btc would be an objectively good thing for the world, for instance it would pretty much instantly get rid of ransomware.
@timbray I disagree about real-world purpose: Bitcoin exists to facilitate relatively infrequent, relatively high-value transactions where the buyer wants to believe that their anonymity can be preserved. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to enumerate those products (none of which, imo, benefit society).
@kdgregory Except for anonymity is generally not preserved. I stand by my claim.
@timbray isn't BTC the currency of choice for extortion and blackmail? E.g. hackers infiltrate a hospital’s system, encrypt some important data, and only restore it for a ransom paid in BTC. Could this be the “real world thing" that grounds the price?
3/3 There are the underlying realities that (a) it has no actual value and (b) if the only reason to hold something is that you think the price will go up, but it's gone down for the past year or so, then what?
I hope it goes to zero for the sake of the planet, but I can’t muster any arguments as to how likely that is to happen, even whether it’s more or less like than it goes up to a million? Maybe best thought of us abstract conceptual art?
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
@timbray in the name of being an alternate voice in an echo chamber… a few points to put out there: 5% is not a big swing for btc. Over the last 12 months, it’s gone way up and way down, not just down. It’s volatile, which seems to make a lot of people uncomfortable. Fiat currency doesn’t have any actual value either…only the agreed upon value. Just print more!
I’m not going to try to convince you because that’s pointless. Mainly, I’m curious what makes people want btc to *fail*.
@timbray This was true in the g’old days where there was exchange friction between USD and BTC.
That’s no longer true, and there is real utility for ability to move large piles of money without regulatory/law enforcement oversight.
I mean not for society, but yes for those using it…
@timbray I have the same feelings about Tesla stock
@timbray Could we have a follow-up talk, comparing crypto/bitcoin to gold/diamonds? (The latter have some intrinsic value but nothing close to their price - but have historically been used as a somewhat portable store of wealth)
@timbray everything crypto related makes much more sense once you remember that money laundering and tax evasion exist.
@timbray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest
Reminds me of the "keynesian beauty contest", but in a purer form than Keynes had seen.
@timbray I think that bitcoin is in most ways a "ransomware futures" contract, with a possible secondary use as capital flight.
@timbray well, a total collapse of global society and technology a la Fallout could be in the cards. That might do it.
@timbray it gets extra interesting when people start getting margin calls from their crypto exchanges.
Honestly, it seems more like things have melded in the other direction: the ordinary stock market is, in parts, indistinguishable from cryptocurrency.
Take TSLA with its ridiculous ~300 P/E ratio, built entirely on one false Musk promise after another. That difference to an automaker stock like Ford (10-12) is so large that you might as well be buying Dogecoin (as Musk did).
Attention economy all the way down.