BITCOIN

Sally57

In my humble opinion Ethereum is the one to watch!

Zola.

Ethereum is a centralised mess.... amongst the many issues (such as unscalable gas fees), there is no information available on the total supply, the software so is badly designed its about to fall over and they are trying to rebuild it all over again, unworkable... its has a huge pre-mine going to the owners...its a pump and dump for venture capitalists and is doomed to failure. 

Tell me why you like it?

RogerIrvine

Right, so from that link there are just shy of 19 million Bitcoins in total. And the supply never alters. So the total value of Bitcoin is less than 1 trillion. How are you going to take over the world with that?  It is about a third of the value of Apple Corp. 

Zola.

Who said take over the world?
The next realistic target is to match gold's market cap of $11TN. That could take anywhere from 5-20+ years, who knows...

No other asset has gone from zero to 1T in 12 years...

RogerIrvine

Tesla shares, off the top of my head. 
Apple shares have gone up $2.5t over the same period. 
These companies make tangible things, useful to society and are accountable.

Zola.

Of its type I should have said... 

However, to be in the top ten in any investable category within 12 years is rather impressive, no mater what you think of it as an investment
https://companiesmarketcap.com/assets-by-market-cap/

It's still in its relative infancy and is being continually developed, never sleeps, always open.. 

RogerIrvine

But if I understand you, you believe in time Bitcoin will become mainstream and replace existing currencies? What's the rationale for that happening?

Zola.

It is clearly becoming mainstream, although there is a long way to go.

I never said that it would replace existing currencies, but it may well replace some, especially in developing nations that are heavily reliant on the US Dollar, or those with hyperinflation. I can see it working primarily as a global reserve asset in the nearer term, like gold. Although it can clearly work as a  day to day currency when using a layer 2 solution like the lightning network and a smart phone.. 

The internet has been successfully built on simple, open source protocols, such as TCP/IP, SMPT. Up until recently, the Internet has never had a native money protocol that serves the planet (there are billions without a bank account, yet have smart phones - for many this is the first time they can digitally store value).
Bitcoin is this money protocol.

Many people just don't get it yet. 

RogerIrvine

Have to say that I am among that number, Zola. 

In fact, I don't think Bitcoin can co-exist long-term with existing currencies. I think Govts will act to destroy Bitcoin. Because it threatens their ability to plan and control the economy . How?

 Govt issues a business loan. Business owner straightaway ploughs the money into Bitcoin, effectively beyond the reach of Govt.. Money gone. 

But even if Govt doesn't kill Bitcoin, it certainly isn't going to allow it to rival its own currency. Even that would disrupt the tax system, causing all sorts of problems. So I see more chance of Bitcoin going to zero than $11t.

Good to hear your opinion, though. Will catch up with the thread in a day or two.

Frequentlyhere

Ref:  'I can see it working primarily as a global reserve asset in the nearer term, like gold'.

The thing that stands out to me from this statement is that it's a classic example of how advocates for Bitcoin and all other cryptos are stuck in a loop trying to justify a real world value or at least even a future potential value to this stuff.

The trouble is, it isn't there. Bitcoin isn't young. It has been around for over 12 years and has no real usage for anything, at least nothing that isn't done better by something else.

So instead we're subjected to a frankly embarrassing tirade of contradictory social media interventions full of nonsense and misdirection about it all, when the truth is that if it had any value then no one would need to try and cajole, persuade, browbeat and of course accuse people of being ignorant and of needing to do more research.

I'm surprised anyone still brings up the lightning network. That's 7 years old itself, pretty ancient in tech terms, and they still can't make it work to any sort of scale. I doubt they ever will, it's just a pretense at this stage of another 'potential' use for bitcoin.

Many people just don't get it, btc, indeed because there's nothing to get. No-one can understand why anyone would want to use it in real life, and indeed it isn't used in real life. Not in any meaningful way. No matter how much technobabble you pour over it, nothing can take that basic point away. 

Do we all sit on forums like this bickering about whether Apple, Amazon or Google are actually delivering anything useful to people? No, because they patently are. We do however with crypto because there is no value but an awful lot of people carrying heavy heavy bags would like us to believe there is.

At root, it's a vehicle offering zero real income whilst coming with a very tangible set of costs. It's a negative sum game, as per the FT