BITCOIN

User232002

bugbyte_2 said:

You hold BTC, and therefore will make *interesting* mental gymnastics to try and show that BTC has underlying value other than sentiment

A subtle jibe suggesting that I'm stretching the facts. But, on any reasonable reading of my posts, I make arguments based on facts and rational thought. That's inconvenient to non-Bitcoiners because they are arguing from a position of emotion.

bugbyte_2 said:

or that it is a store of wealth that guards against inflation (really? its just dropped 50%)

No asset moves directly and closely in step with CPI, even the accepted inflation hedges. Its volatility has not been glossed over or hidden by anyone here arguing that BTC is a good asset. I'm more than happy to hold an asset when it drops 50% if its also done like a seventy thousand multiple over the last decade. So many logical fallacies present here.

bugbyte_2 said:

or that it has some mystical real world use 

150 million people seem to think it does have a real world use.

bugbyte_2 said:

or that burning through enough electricity to run a medium sized country for no benefit is good 

Ah. A while back, I pointed out that it would be less than 5 pages before someone repeated that Bitcoin was a climate catastrophe. It actually took less than 5 posts. Thanks.

The facts might be inconvenient to you, but the BTC network is currently running on 55% renewable energy and many of the miners have symbiotic relationships with large renewable energy providers. Meanwhile, the UK is running at about 40% renewable energy use. The Bitcoin network is a leader in both using and cultivating renewables.

bugbyte_2 said:

or that if it gets to $100,000 that's somehow impressive

Ah. Thanks again for demonstrating the narrative shift and mental gymnastics needed to justify your emotional position. Go back in time a few years and people would have laughed at you for suggesting that BTC could trade at $100k. It was a worthless ponzi of course! Now, its not impressive if it ever did, so we shouldn't use that to point out that the original idea that it was worthless was incorrect.

bugbyte_2 said:

or that it is a hedge against stocks dropping just like Gold, or......

Gold has outperformed stocks for much of the last 30 years if I remember correctly. Perhaps that says something about your denominator? Gold has of course struggled since around 2010, which is conveniently when BTC was created; an asset that on any reasonable interpretation of the metrics that make gold useful is a better gold than gold.

bugbyte_2 said:

Other people, myself included, do not currently hold BTC but are investors and therefore could be convinced that adding BTC is a sensible move. You do make some valid points but you are a long, long way from convincing me at least on any of the above.

But you've also presumably held that opinion for the last decade and you've also been wrong for the last decade because its gone vertical. Hell, at this point, even if you do think its a ponzi, the real question you should be asking yourself is if its a ponzi good enough to get the leaders of cities & countries speaking about it positively that it might still have a long way to run....

User232002

Hexane said:

Right, but if someone came onto this forum pumping Gamestop by saying something like "Gamestop is going to $200 within the next few months" then they would get pretty short shrift. That's not what this forum is for.

Oh god. Mentioning realistic near term price targets in the midst of a discussion of an assets relative merits is vastly different from saying that "DOGE is going to the moon!!112" If you want to focus on the 3 or 4 posts where hes said that and ignore all the other rational debate hes provided then you are just showing how biased you are.

I also said that BTC will get to $100k. I also said it'll get to $400k eventually.

Hexane said:

Scottex99 is going to remind us that he doesn't need to pump BTC by mentioning it on this forum because that wouldn't make a blind bit of difference and he's busy working for a crypto company that's grown from 4 people to 404 people in ten minutes and so on, but that doesn't change the fact that he can be called out for pumping BTC like that on this forum just the same as someone pumping Gamestop the exact same way isn't really in the spirit of the forum.

If he really wanted to spam this forum and pump BTC, we'd be in every thread with some poster who has just inherited $50k - $150k telling them to buy BTC because its a better choice than the idiots recommending they put it in NS&I. We would not be posting multiple hundred word essays on the machinations of QE, game theory and stock market correlations. You have an emotional opinion that BTC is full of scammers and pumpers, but your argument to our motivations or intentions doesn't hold up to logic.

You can buy market buy tens of millions of dollars of BTC right now with basically no slippage, but you seem to be suggesting that a few people from this forum can meaningfully impact (presumably raise) the BTC price. They can't. The fact that you think this is even possible speaks volumes as to your financial literacy. Again, your insinuations don't stand up to any form of rational thought. 

Hexane said:

Not that I mind ofc, it's just something fun to talk about the 99th time someone mentions "fundamentals" and "technology" and Venezuela.

Oh, you're bored here? But yet, I've seen you thanking basically every anti-Bitcoin post in this thread for the last 50 pages, and other threads, without posting a single thing. Until, of course, you wanted to come in and take your victory lap now that BTC has dropped 50% and not hit $100k - as if that somehow means you were right all along. Never mind of course that logically, even with the 50% drawdown, you'd still have been better off buying in to BTC than whatever UK stocks you have. 

Hexane said:

Ah, but I have done my DD ... enough to know it's not an investment that suits me.

Its an interesting idea to purposely opt out of the best performing asset of the last decade being based on doing DD... 

Hexane said:

Bravado and patience are two different things. If I was seriously worried by my ISA portfolio being down less than 5% (gee I guess my fund managers must not be only buying the S&P and the Nasdaq) then that would mean I was invested way, way above my risk tolerance.

Also I have another big slice of cash that needs to go into equities at some point, so a little correction (or even a big correction) makes me happier deciding that point can be now.

As Scott mentioned, he's doing much the same with BTC and feels much the same about the 50% drop in BTC's value since the last peak, so good for him.

My point is, that a 5% drawdown in equities and a 50% drawdown in BTC are basically the same thing given their respective historical volatility. So acting like you're winning because stocks are only down 5% is again just an emotional argument and not a mathematical one. Stonks are only down 5% because they only go up 10% in a year too.

Likewise, I don't check the price of BTC on most days and my life has not been meaningfully affected by the volatility. 

Hexane said:

Yeah that's probably why the boring people managing my boring pension funds are overweight UK value stocks. Oh well.

Imagine thinking that UK value stocks would outperform if the US equity market tanked. Seems a bizarre take.

The FTSE has basically been a stablecoin for the last two decades. Its not going anywhere.

Hexane said:

darren232002 said:

And this is what Bitcoiner's constantly have to deal with, the constant shifting of 'I'll buy when...' 

This is a really telling comment. As a "bitcoiner" you feel that you "have to deal with" people who don't yet own bitcoin, saying that they'll buy bitcoin "when... (something)"

*why* do you "have to" deal with those people?

*why* is it so frustrating for you that people keep inventing these unreasonable hurdles or requirements that they demand happen before they invest in bitcoin?

why is it so urgent for you that people buy bitcoin now, not at some later time?    ... oh!

Its frustrating because;

(1) Its goalpost shifting based on bad logic. Magic internet money is being bought by trillion dollar fund managers and there's still people saying its a ponzi. If I told you what BTC would become 10 years ago nobody would have believed it, which is understandable. But to ignore or trivialise its current progress is just disingenuous. When I raised this point in this thread a year ago, a poster commented that he would buy BTC when it could be used for an everyday transaction - as if that was something BTC proponents were projecting.

(2) Its far easier for people to look outward and blame others for being 'lucky' rather than introspect and admit they were wrong all along. The levels of cope when it does inevitably succeed are going to be beyond belief, ie. left wing politicians arguing for CGT on unrealised crypto profits.

(3) Its indicative of our current level of discourse where all nuance is discarded from arguments and views become increasingly polarised. Tim Cook recently said that he owns BTC personally, but that he doesn't intend to put it on Apples balance sheet because people don't buy Apple to gain exposure to BTC. That's a reasonable, nuanced take. Similarly, the idea that Bitcoin mining can be a buyer of last resort and form symbiotic partnerships with renewable energy providers that will provide long term emissions benefits is a reasonable, nuanced take. The idea that the El Salvador experiment might fail not because it is a bad idea, but because the IMF have put a lot of pressure on a small nation still dependent on fiat currencies is a nuanced take. But, in our modern world, nuance doesn't sell because people don't have the patience to listen to anything other than soundbites. That's a sad indictment of where we are. 

And to the last bit, as we keep repeating, buyers from this forum can not meaningfully impact the BTC price. 

RolandFlagg

As I've stated before crypto (But let's stick to Bitcoin as all cryptos are not created equal) is a generational trade.

Tom Lee from Fundstrat has been saying for years that Millennials are the key.

Over the next two decades they will become the biggest generation the world has ever seen.

4 in 10 of the World's population will be Millennials. The transfer for wealth to them will be massive.

And it seems they think Gold and Bonds are a waste of time and they are not too hot on stocks either.

So what will they be putting their money in? Well, it doesn't take a genius to work it out.

Anyway, James from InvestAnswers, a guy you should follow if you have an interest in crypto has come to the same conclusions.

So for those interested I have posted his video, and a recap of Tom Lee's

https://youtu.be/tDmUSW-DZvo


https://youtu.be/GGberGnxiJk

Scottex99

Right, but if someone came onto this forum pumping Gamestop by saying something like "Gamestop is going to $200 within the next few months" then they would get pretty short shrift. That's not what this forum is for.

Scottex99 is going to remind us that he doesn't need to pump BTC by mentioning it on this forum because that wouldn't make a blind bit of difference and he's busy working for a crypto company that's grown from 4 people to 404 people in ten minutes and so on, but that doesn't change the fact that he can be called out for pumping BTC like that on this forum just the same as someone pumping Gamestop the exact same way isn't really in the spirit of the forum.

Not that I mind ofc, it's just something fun to talk about the 99th time someone mentions "fundamentals" and "technology" and Venezuela.

I would remind you of it yeah, but you've covered it already.

Called out for what exactly? My stance hasn't changed on BTC or the majority of cryptos I hold since i first replied on the 2nd page or whatever of this saga.

It's going to 100k and beyond, that's my opinion. Have you ever seen me telling people they should buy and guarantee profit? Nope, of course not. I've said that it's fairly insane again IMO to not have some exposure to the fastest growing asset class of all time. Whether that is £50 or £500k, I don't care, whatever suits your financial situation as it's extremely volatile blah blah blah. I also don't care if people never hold BTC in their life, it's not my job to convince people that they are missing out, they'll figure that out themselves in a few years.

And I work in crypto, so what? I joke every day in the office that digital gold is going to zero and we'll all have to work in McDonald's next week. I don't need to shill here or anywhere for new clients, I have a backlog of 20 right now trying to get accounts, I'm having to inform them that onboarding might take weeks because there is so much demand. The details don't matter. What does matter is that I've been working professionally in the space since Feb 2018. That's like 20 years in TradFi world as the space is so hectic. I don't know it all, not even close, but I probably know more than 99% of the people on here, so I like to give my opinion, maybe it will help in some way.

I even offered a bet to you and anyone else reading that BTC would be closer to 100k than 0k at the end of 2021, a bet that I would have lost I think, nobody took me up on it. And I'm giving money to charity when we get to 100k, that's in here somewhere too.
I dont claim to know where the price is going on a daily basis, in fact I have no clue but I'm as bullish as I ever was for the future. Read the Bitcoin Standard, it's honestly really well done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09JD_ZTCKds

Here's the King Sat Stacker on UpOnly. It's interesting as he's the CEO of a public traded company, but he talks too much and it's not actually good viewing as Cobie and Ledger don't get the chance to say much. There's much better episodes but still gives some good insight.

I could probably reflect right now and say hmm I work in the industry, I have a lot of personal wealth already invested, maybe this is too risky? But who cares, it's the future, something has to change and for me, this is it. I'd rather work on something I love and be impressed by the innovation on a weekly basis than sit on the sidelines like you trying to figure out how it can possibly work because DeFi protocols dont pay dividends! I'll be worth 10m in a few years, Or I'll be worth 50k like I was before, but I honestly don't care, I'm already out of the rat race to that extent. 

Cheers

Scottex99

And shout out to Darren for his eloquence and big brain, explaining things properly 

bugbyte_2

@darren72

....If he really wanted to spam this forum and pump BTC, we'd be in every thread with some poster who has just inherited $50k - $150k telling them to buy BTC because its a better choice than the idiots recommending they put it in NS&I. ...

This really shows a complete lack of understanding and maturity. People generally don't want to see their life savings drop by 50% on a whim and most people are content to hold what they have got, and an NS&I account can form one part of that strategy. So why would you call them idiots? Can people not have a different outlook to you? or are you the only person who can be right?  

....Never mind of course that logically, even with the 50% drawdown, you'd still have been better off buying in to BTC than whatever UK stocks you have......

Future PLC, Ashted PLC, Marks & Spencer, Kingspan, Glencore and loads more UK listed companies I hold (and most people that hold a tracker for that matter) have outperformed Bitcoin in the past year, so are you saying that BTC has done well recently? Just because it 'went to the moon' a few years back does not mean it will jump several thousand % from now on.The current price is what market sentiment deems it to be - and future projection will form part of that pricing. Unlike the companies listed above there is no underlying fundamentals and no way to do a value analysis to form an opinion of where it will go, which just leaves you with hope and speculation. That may work for you but until there is a good reason to hold BTC I'm not going to. 

.....Imagine thinking that UK value stocks would outperform if the US equity market tanked. Seems a bizarre take..... 

Well they have. You apparently haven't been paying attention. The concept of rebalancing seems to be completely lost on you. US Tech up, rebalance to other asset classes. Its not difficult. and yes, Vanguard lifestrategy does this for you!

....My point is, that a 5% drawdown in equities and a 50% drawdown in BTC are basically the same thing given their respective historical volatility.....

Yes because dropping £5,000 is the same as dropping £50,000. As I said, mental gymnastics.

.... Similarly, the idea that Bitcoin mining can be a buyer of last resort and form symbiotic partnerships with renewable energy providers that will provide long term emissions benefits is a reasonable, nuanced take....

Do you really believe that? Are you related to Boris?

RolandFlagg

I think the problem people have with BTC is it's volatility, which is pathetic.

Any good investor knows volatility is NOT the same as risk.

John Bogle said that, as did Warren Buffett:

"The lesson has not customarily been taught in business schools, where volatility is almost universally used as a proxy for risk. Though this pedagogic assumption makes for easy teaching, it is dead wrong: Volatility is far from synonymous with risk. Popular formulas that equate the two terms lead students, investors and CEOs astray"

As billionaire investor Bill Miller (who now has 50% of his personal wealth in BTC) says: "Volatility is the price you pay for performance".

I personally have 80% of my investments in passive index funds, as I've done my research (hundreds of hours) and I know that beating the market and trying to time the market is a fools errand, and that most fund managers can't beat the market even before fees.

The other 20% is in crypto (mainly BTC and ETH), because once again I've put in hundred of hours of research and looked at all the data and consider it the best risk/reward I've seen in my 25 years on investing.

The road will be rocky, but I only care out two points in time. The point I buy and the point I sell. I shut out all the CNBC type FUD. I'm as certain as I can be where this road will take us by the end of the decade, and it's going to be bigger than even most bulls imagine.

Scottex99

Bingo. Ofc this is bias but for me, the risk of BTC or ETH going to zero, is actually close to zero. Which leaves a lot of upside.

Now if you’re 65 and protecting your pension money then it adds other factors. But still doesn’t change the fact that everyone pro crypto here will do well in the long run

User232002

bugbyte_2 said:

@darren72

Hes going to be a bit miffed. 

bugbyte_2 said:

....If he really wanted to spam this forum and pump BTC, we'd be in every thread with some poster who has just inherited $50k - $150k telling them to buy BTC because its a better choice than the idiots recommending they put it in NS&I. ...

This really shows a complete lack of understanding and maturity. People generally don't want to see their life savings drop by 50% on a whim and most people are content to hold what they have got, and an NS&I account can form one part of that strategy. So why would you call them idiots? Can people not have a different outlook to you? or are you the only person who can be right?  

Come on. Please debate with a little bit of intellectual honesty. Nobody here is suggesting that a 65 year old pensioner puts their life savings in to Bitcoin, so why you are raising life savings dropping by 50% is nonsensical. And, since comprehension seems to not be your forte, I said that posting those kind of comments in those kind of threads is precisely what we are not doing.

Its not unreasonable to suggest that a pensioner puts 1% - 5% in to BTC though. And yes, an NS&I account running at 0.1% offers a negative real rate of return so its a very narrow set of circumstances where such a strategy would be the best play.

bugbyte_2 said:

....Never mind of course that logically, even with the 50% drawdown, you'd still have been better off buying in to BTC than whatever UK stocks you have......

Future PLC, Ashted PLC, Marks & Spencer, Kingspan, Glencore and loads more UK listed companies I hold (and most people that hold a tracker for that matter) have outperformed Bitcoin in the past year, so are you saying that BTC has done well recently? Just because it 'went to the moon' a few years back does not mean it will jump several thousand % from now on.The current price is what market sentiment deems it to be - and future projection will form part of that pricing. Unlike the companies listed above there is no underlying fundamentals and no way to do a value analysis to form an opinion of where it will go, which just leaves you with hope and speculation. That may work for you but until there is a good reason to hold BTC I'm not going to. 

Again, use some intellectual honesty please. I'd be very surprised if someone managed to buy exactly those stocks and didn't for example buy the index and/or buy some losing or non performing stocks. This shouldn't be something I have to point out, but you want to argue against Bitcoin so badly based on emotion that simple logic like this goes out of the window. My mental framework is to create a fair comparison based on merits, facts and rational thought so please don;t come at me with contrived and clearly flawed examples.

I've yet to see someone say here that bitcoin will go up several thousand percent, so why are you raising that as an argument? I'm just going to yawn and move on from the comments of 'fundamentals' and 'value.' Its been consistently explained but you don't want to know unless it fits your narrow definition of a dividend or whatever. You can use BTC to get 10% per annum as a carry trade without exposure to the volatility but that's not a valid use case or an actual yield apparently.

bugbyte_2 said:

.....Imagine thinking that UK value stocks would outperform if the US equity market tanked. Seems a bizarre take..... 

Well they have. You apparently haven't been paying attention. The concept of rebalancing seems to be completely lost on you. US Tech up, rebalance to other asset classes. Its not difficult. and yes, Vanguard lifestrategy does this for you!

Sir, 'the concept of rebalancing' is like a 12 year old playing with crayons whilst doing some fraction problems. Its not cutting edge knowledge. Anyway, please see above regarding general intellectual honesty; I'm sure I could cherry pick some Turkish stocks that have outperformed the S&P; doesn't mean we should be constructing a Turkish equity portfolio right now.

bugbyte_2 said:

....My point is, that a 5% drawdown in equities and a 50% drawdown in BTC are basically the same thing given their respective historical volatility.....

Yes because dropping £5,000 is the same as dropping £50,000. As I said, mental gymnastics.

Haha. You're accusing me of mental gymnastics? Really? Sure if we put $100k in to both at the absolute top its not great, but do you actually believe that's a fair comparison!?

Tell you what, lets say you put $4k each in to BTC and SPY after their covid crashes near the absolute bottom. That $4k in the SPY got up to like $7500 or something and after the 5% drawdown is now at like $7200 for a $300 drawdown. Meanwhile, your $4k in BTC got up to $70k but is now sitting at only $38k for a $32k drawdown. Wow, I really wish I'd have bought the SPY instead because the BTC drawdown was 100x the SPY! Like I keep saying; its a math test.

Same old, same old.

bugbyte_2 said:

.... Similarly, the idea that Bitcoin mining can be a buyer of last resort and form symbiotic partnerships with renewable energy providers that will provide long term emissions benefits is a reasonable, nuanced take....

Do you really believe that? Are you related to Boris?

Do you have any evidence why its not? Or are you, as I suspect, merely trying to make it seem like you know a lot and my opinion is a clearly incoherent take...

BTC mining farms in Iceland would seem to prove you incorrect, as would all the recent renewable energy investment being done in Texas where many BTC miners moved to. And of course, as I keep saying, BTC mining being 55% renewable (per the BTC mining council with Elon on the board, who I'm sure has got his sums right) is higher than the UK renewable energy use. Thus, it would seem its a leader in renewable energy and not the laggard many people claim it is?

Facts are inconvenient to an emotional argument, I know.

Aegis

Scottex99 said:

Bingo. Ofc this is bias but for me, the risk of BTC or ETH going to zero, is actually close to zero. Which leaves a lot of upside.

Now if you’re 65 and protecting your pension money then it adds other factors. But still doesn’t change the fact that everyone pro crypto here will do well in the long run

Sorry, but no, that is not a fact at all.  If those pro crypto individuals buy the wrong coin and it tanks, they could lose pretty much everything.  And, as I have implied before, all coins could be the wrong coins.