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Immaculate Vibes

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Posts posted by Immaculate Vibes

  1. 52 minutes ago, elfenix said:

    in fits and spurts with runs and reversals.  maybe good for speculators, but all bad from a use for cash standpoint.  if we're nearly in crisis mode because inflation is at 6% on an annualized basis then the solution isn't this:

     

    BTC_3M_graph_coinmarketcap.jpg

    It’s actually 7% CPI but anyway. A more accurate representation would be to look at it since Covid and the money printer went overdrive. Up almost 10x even after the current 50% dip. Bitcoin has wilder swings because it’s a thinner market and runs 24-7 with no stops. It seems to me that bitcoin actually led the rest of the markets in pricing in both inflation and the Fed’s ongoing attempt at tightening policy. 

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  2. 1 minute ago, elfenix said:

    would you take your paycheck in bitcoin?  do you think most people would take their paycheck in bitcoin?  do you think even a sizeable plurality would take their paycheck in bitcoin?

    Of course not. As currently structured spending it is a taxable event. The more appropriate thing to track would be how many people put some of their savings in Bitcoin. How many dollar cost average a set amount into it? It’s a small number but will grow over time. 

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  3. 1 hour ago, Blotto said:

    While this is certainly true, Satoshi (whoever the fuck that was) just decide to create this magical digital entity known as BTC and said we'll have 21 million of them max. thats the ultimate brrrrrrrrrrt. And then another 8000 crypto currencies popped up, also created out of nothing, more brrrrrrrt. BTC deriving its value due to its scarcity is foolish. What if the crypto world decides BTC is trash and anoyther crypto ( ETH, Cardano, or some other creation yet to be brrrrrrrrrrt'ed) is the way to go. What intrinsic value would BTC have at that point. ETH market cap has been catching up to BTC and it has no "cap" that I am aware of. People keep creating new crypto all the time. Its value is purely determined by financial speculation. I would guess that 90%+  of BTC transactions are purely to buy or sell to make money off the crypto itself, rather than the exchange of BTC for real goods or services. 

    I get the promise that blockchain and other technologies underlying the crypto market can offer. But its a mistake to confuse  BTC or any of the other 8000 cryptos  with the promise of the technology. If I use the analogy of digital music, the mp3 format existed long before Ipods, and there were other mp3 manufacturers. Who knows if BTC is the Ipod, or the Zune? Companies like spotify dont even use mp3 compression any longer. Who gives a fuck if there can only be 21 million BTCs if everyone is using something else. If BTC is the pinnacle of crypto, why are so many newer crypto developments based on other blockchains? Its value is derived purely from financial speculation. 

    IMO the best framework to look at cryptocurrencies from a high level is to put them into two buckets. There's BTC and then everything else. Here's why. BTC has already won the store of value, monetary network race. It has been attacked through multiple vectors over a decade and has only gotten stronger over time. It's been bought for that purpose by multiple companies and one sovereign nation (although soon there will be others). It's by far the most decentralized of all of them. You also say oh they'll just make a new bitcoin but that has already been tried and failed spectacularly. It's just very unlikely to be displaced in this segment of the industry.

    The rest of the coins have a myriad of proposed uses, but most of the biggest ones are smart contract platforms. They're pursuing innovation in different directions whether it be NFTs or lending or whatever. They're much more centralized in who holds the coins, who makes the rules, and who's building on the platforms. It's just much more of silicon valley VC mindset behind it all. Some may be wildly successful, but their addressable market is still smaller than bitcoin. 

    1 hour ago, elfenix said:

    not exactly great for a store of value

    Its value continues to go up year after year.

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  4. 1 minute ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

    so your bank doesn't also maintain backups? off-site redundancy? audit division? employ a bunch of people? light it's buildings? spend money on envelopes?  BTC mining happens subsecond too if just looking at the end product and not considering everything else involved in the process.

    😂 exactly

    I love people up in arms attempting to determine what is a valid use of energy in the market. Always comes up. It requires energy to secure a monetary network.

    Whats the carbon footprint of the petrodollar? 

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  5. 6 minutes ago, Captainant said:

    .

    It'll go brrrrrrrt for as long as there's more new dumb money willing to keep the line going up. Cashing out of BTC is a zero-sum game. There's going to be bagholders. 

    No, the brrrrt comes from the unelected central bankers that determine the strength of our economy and how much inflation we get. Fed meeting today with Powell speaking. 

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  6. 1 minute ago, GW Hayduke said:

    Yeah, that is cool. It is probably the right mindset to have. I’m honestly new to all of this so appreciate the discussion

    Click the link in post 255 to get quick explainer on how Bitcoin is monetary breakthrough. 
     

    As to whether or not to invest in BTC, “It might make sense to get some, just in case it catches on”

     

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  7. 3 minutes ago, Captainant said:

    Fucking hell it's like talking to dyed in the wool evangelicals in here. Yall have not yet been able to articulate why BTC is valuable aside from scarcity. 

    The utility of those things is what gives them value. USD's are valuable because they spend all over the world. Gold is valuable because of its scarcity AND its industrial utility. 

    As covered at length already (and agreed upon as far as I can tell), BTC is not a very useful thing. It's slow, expensive, and complicated to use - and has been for more than a decade now lol. Its value is propped up purely by speculation. It's an apples to assholes comparison.

    The Lightning network on top of bitcoin is fast, cheap, not difficult to use.
     

    But you’re right I don’t think anyone is changing minds here. You’ll have to come to it in your own time. Just remember the money printer is always going brrrrrrrrrrt

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  8. 1 minute ago, Captainant said:

    You're not addressing the same point as me here. The fundamental thing underpinning a stock's value is the company it represents. Sure, it can be affected by manipulation, but ultimately, it represents a real portion of a real thing.

    What is the fundamental thing that underpins the value of BTC?

    What gives gold or the dollar value? There’s nothing inherent that gives any money value. It’s all what we agree on.

     

    I guess I’d say what gives bitcoin value is that it’s an open, permissionless system for transmitting value that has no rulers and is only governed by math. As more people see that as something valuable its value will increase. 

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  9. 2 minutes ago, Captainant said:

    I disagree - stocks in themselves represent fractional ownership of a (ideally) revenue generating business. BTC represents fractional ownership of..... what? A number on a ledger that represents....? What? What utility is granted to you by holding that BTC but the ability to send it to someone else? It does not represent any usable computational capacity and it is not a store of physical utility (IE: you can't spend a BTC to get a MWh of electricity back).

    With stock, its value will increase when the business it represents becomes more valuable. Sure, it can also increase in value when there's market hype (which is pretty typical of contemporary markets), but it still represents an actual REAL thing with a REAL utility. 

    When there's a big DIY boom, Home Depot stock goes up because more people are buying tools and lumber. When BTC booms, what's driving it but speculation?

    You're getting high on your own supply if you don't think BTC is vulnerable to manipulation. It has happened multiple times, and it's always been at the interface between "real" and "crypto" currency. MTgox was the first most notable of these because it nearly caused a fork of the original blockchain, but you can see this behavior in virtually every exchange.

    Where did I say price can’t be manipulated? I said it couldn’t be debased. You can’t just make more of them. 
     

    2 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

    So you are under the impression that bitcoin is infallible and can’t be debased? Ok, I guess.

    Either way, that is all fine.  It doesn’t mean bitcoin isn’t an obvious ponzi pyramid scheme.  IMO folks should be ok with that if they want to participate. 

    Your half hearted concession of the first point shows your basic knowledge deficit in this topic. Given that, it makes it hard to take your criticisms/points very seriously. 

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  10. 3 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

    Rental properties provide an actual legitimate purpose. They provide housing. People need housing.

    Art is art. People obtain benefit and enjoyment from it.  I purchased some music a few days back.  

    If you are referring to high value art pieces that are used to mask wealth transfers for things like money laundering, then yeah I agree that isn’t an actual legitimate purpose.  I can see how that could be somewhat analogous to bitcoin.  

    If someone is able to save in an asset that they hold themselves and can’t be debased then they don’t have to speculate in stock markets or real estate markets to try to generate returns that equal inflation. Again, that is a purpose. You may not appreciate it, but it is.
     

    And y’all keep talking about selling it, but there’s plenty of people that aren’t going to sell the majority of their holdings. If I sell my bitcoin what am I going to buy? Some real estate? Pour it in stock market? Those are inflated markets. They could go higher but they could get pricked too and real estate can be illiquid if you want out. 

  11. 1 minute ago, Captainant said:

    .

    Again, what real world utility does BTC represent that is not already serviced more effectively and efficiently by existing mechanisms? I'm not disagreeing that BTC is a very useful and interesting technology - but it's just waaaayyyy too inefficient and slow to even start competing with existing mechanisms. By and large, he people who are buying BTC aren't doing so for the utility. They're doing so only because they hope to sell it at a higher price later to someone else for real-world currency.

    That's not a characteristic of a highly useful and valuable commodity. 

    Bitcoin is superior to gold in every characteristic other than the amount of time/history supporting its usage. That’s it. 
     

    An asset that cannot be debased in this era of fiscal and monetary policy is inherently useful and valuable. 

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  12. 3 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

    Isn’t bitcoin simply an investment where future returns are contributed by new investors?  And that investment doesn’t have any actual legitimate purpose - like it isn’t to increase production capacity of a good? There might not be any “fraud” in that someone isn’t out there promising a certain return, but it still fits the ponzi pyramid model.

    I get that folks think it is school and that they are creating or maintain wealth, but isn’t it still just ponzi/pyramid model?  How is it not?

    By your definition things like fine art are ponzis. Or how about rental properties. Sure you can make small amount of cash flows but you’re buying them to sell higher to someone later. 

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  13. 2 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

    But why would anyone use bitcoin rather than a bank? To create/maintain wealth from rubes through a ponzi scheme?

    For wealth preservation? 
     

    Hold your own bitcoin vs having depreciating cash in bank account earning minimal interest?

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  14. 32 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

    I get there are lots of folks pushing crypto to create some wealth from rubes using a ponzi scheme, but other than purchasing illegal things and considering the amount of fraud and theft going on, why wouldn’t anyone just use a bank for their purchases?  

    As Bravo said USD, cash money is by far the best way to buy something illegal. The only cryptocurrencies that I would recommend trying to do that with are Monero or ZCash, but they are smaller shitcoins. 
     

    Again, by far the best use case so far for any cryptocurrencies is bitcoin. Censorship resistant wealth preservation outside of the financial system. Almost all the rest is hand waving VC promises as I think Ant said. Maybe they’ll deliver, but for example the Eth 2.0 update has been in the works for 5 years I think. 

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  15. 1 hour ago, Captainant said:

    (note, using BTC as shorthand for cryptos in general. I know it's somewhat limiting in the conversation, happy to get more specific if you'd prefer)

    .

    I really try to focus on Bitcoin. It’s the real innovation that is likely to affect the most lives. While others may end up providing advances to society, bitcoin is what is most urgently needed. Most other cryptos are pretty scammy, including the two other historically big ones Eth and Xrp. I don’t begrudge people who are dabbling in those trying to make money. I do those that are big players that are scammers and hostile to bitcoin. 
     


     

    2 hours ago, Captainant said:

     

    It's only a store of value because the currency is designed to be deflationary by definition. Each BTC becomes more valuable over time - you're disincentivized to actually use your BTC. I bought a video card with BTC to double my hashrate back in 2013. I would have been better off just HODLing and not using it as currency. The only reason its price goes up is because new money continues to come in and facilitate fractional exits for early adopters.

    To frame it another way: if you don't plan to exit your BTC position, then it's not a store of value. If it's not a store of value, there's not any other functional use for it. It's strictly worse and less efficient than other record keeping methods, and there is no novel utility granted to it by being distributed.

     

     

     
    Here’s a good video from back when you spent your BTC that explains briefly the history of money and why bitcoin is a monetary technology breakthrough. 
     

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/IAFKJVLNVQA
     

    The first step in adoption is as a store of value. As more users hold it the value will stabilize somewhat and a medium of exchange will come next.

     

    2 hours ago, Captainant said:

     

    What is the marginal benefit of this over current systems? There's a constant theme of "this cannot be manipulated by the government" to the rhetoric, but BTC isn't something that you can just go and spend for good and services like normal currency. The transaction fees are too high, take too long to become confirmed, and the energy cost per transaction is outrageous. By design.

    I appreciate how neat the technology is from a nerd perspective - it's what drew me in when I was learning academically what distributed systems are - but tech and novel features aren't intrinsically valuable. There has to be an actual utility and improvement over the existing status quo - and the fact that there will only ever be just under 21 million BTC mined is more of a "so what?" than some groundbreaking functionality.

    Fees are much lower and you can send quicker on the Lightning network. It’s a newer innovation since you left the space. 
     

    Also, there’s no energy cost per transaction. 
     

    For your other points see the video I linked. 

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  16. 2 hours ago, Captainant said:

     

    I agree with you that BTC/crypto is nowhere near failure - it hasn't hit market saturation yet and there's enough new money coming in to cash out the early investors still. But it's got a shelf life that is directly correlated to the number of new users (and by connection, their funds) coming in.

     

    This viewpoint assumes that everyone that buys has an exit in mind, but most Bitcoin investors view it as verifiably scarce asset that will function as store of value. It’s not all money in, money out. As more and more people globally decide to store value in it the price will continue to go up since supply cannot be increased in the face of increased demand. 
     

    2 hours ago, Captainant said:

     

    And also: lmao arguing that BTC/crypto is "immune from government manipulation" the very next post after talking about how a governments actions directly affected the price of the crypto.

     

    2 hours ago, Bravo said:

    asset independent of gov't manipulation like the printing of money or transfers

    He meant that the supply is fixed and it is extremely for the government to seize or move if people are holding their own coins. 

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  17. 1 hour ago, JohnnyRage said:

    The right above NFT's video? Started it.

    And the vibe on the future question was more a general economic question of how close to failure are we rather than where what price point crypto stabilizes. But that is important too.

    Bitcoin is a long term bet/investment. If you think government money printing is done, then you shouldn’t considerate it. If you think our debt levels and future financial obligations necessitate money printing, then it is worth a look. 
     

    Bitcoin is nowhere near failure. It continues to survive and thrive after repeated tests. The latest one this year was the Chinese ban of mining. A large percentage of the miners moved and plugged in elsewhere and the hash rate has made new highs since then. 
     

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