BITCOIN

zagfles

RichTips said:

Sorry, are you honestly saying Apple was "small" in 2008? It was something like the 33rd largest company by market cap in the world in 2007 and 18th in 2008. If that's small, Lord knows what qualifies as big. Perhaps $6 to $197 is indicative of something other than just its growth from "small" to "big".

Well it would have been less than 1% of something like VLS100 then. So "small" relatively.

As for volatility among national currencies, how about the Argentinian Peso? The new president has just devalued the currency by 50%. I hope people in the 22nd largest economy in the world didn't have all their money hidden at the bottom of any barrels.

Nah, 65% down in a year, that's really the bottom of the barrel. Who'd invest in anything like that

Regarding the benefit of hindsight, not much else I've advocated a "gamble" on at very risk-adjusted levels in this forum other the Bitcoin. Thanks, mods, for allowing me to delete all those posts I made recommending buying shares in Credit Suisse

Taking a break for real this time, promise.

Enjoy your break. Never a good idea to recommend any investment, however subtle people think they're being

Scottex99

Yep, someone can buy high and sell low. They can do exactly the same with their house, their car, their clothes, but most of those are not perceived as investments that someone makes and expects to generate returns. We don't start saying that someone is a brilliant investor because they bought a really comfy pair of shoes for £50 that would now cost £150. Instead we say they're a savvy buyer who now has a comfortable pair of shoes to wear and get some use out of.  In fact, someone in that position is likely to expect that after some period of time, the shoes will completely wear out beyond economic repair, at which point they will be worthless. As such, if they managed to get less than £50 of use value out of the shoes during their lifetime, they may well see that as a bad use of money (or a bad product).

The question then is "how much value can someone get out of their bitcoin holding?"  I am still waiting to see any real value from the scheme that I don't already have available to me using fiat currency, but I guess as the value of a pair of shoes will vary from person to person, so might someone's enjoyment of bitcoin. I don't personally see how, but if someone thinks they will get some personal value out of the ownership, then that ultimately is their business.

Valid.

Potential BTC values:
Monetary gain being one (and loss ofc)
Store of value - similar to Gold in the long term (not right now when its too volatile)
Democratised money - Your bank, Visa/MC or any other middle man cant stop you sending it to anyone
Hard money - Inflation hedge possibly like point 2

Something else to mention which I've done before, and not specific to BTC, is stablecoins.

BTC i'd agree isn't a currency right now although of course you can pay for goods and services with it.

USDT/C can be used just like fiat, and in some cases better. I see this through my company 20 times a day.

If I owe you £500 but only have JPY in a Bank of Tokyo account. You bank with Barclays in London. I'll set up the payment (much like the SEPA example above but even worse). It'll take ages putting in all the beneficiary details, then probably go through two clearing banks, take about a week to arrive and cost £50-100 to do so.

If I send USDT/C, I can send it to your wallet in about 2 minutes flat for the cost of $1-10. I can also send 100k-10m in the same timeframe for the same cost.

 

Scottex99

Yep how many times does it have to survive death before people take notice?

I don't track all of my trades but I did notice a good one on eToro.

Open - $17,065.39
04/01/2023 20:19
Current P/L - 147.43%

I'm trying to figure out if its lack of interest, lack of willingness to learn, being skeptical or perhaps being incredulous that the tried and tested TradFi stocks and bonds in a Pension for 40 years system, could possibly have a rival in terms of wealth generation.

Obviously I wouldn't take notice if my friend made a quick $50k in a week trading meme coins like $PEPE or $BONK. But if he had been talking about BTC/ETH for 4-5 years and now Blackrock etc have filed ETFs, I'd probably have a little look.

Not sure what the metrics should be for how the pro camp prove that this is not an internet forum ponzi....

zagfles

Scottex99 said:

Yep how many times does it have to survive death before people take notice?

I don't track all of my trades but I did notice a good one on eToro.

Open - $17,065.39
04/01/2023 20:19
Current P/L - 147.43%

I'm trying to figure out if its lack of interest, lack of willingness to learn, being skeptical or perhaps being incredulous that the tried and tested TradFi stocks and bonds in a Pension for 40 years system, could possibly have a rival in terms of wealth generation.

Obviously I wouldn't take notice if my friend made a quick $50k in a week trading meme coins like $PEPE or $BONK. But if he had been talking about BTC/ETH for 4-5 years and now Blackrock etc have filed ETFs, I'd probably have a little look.

Not sure what the metrics should be for how the pro camp prove that this is not an internet forum ponzi....

Quite a lot of strawmen there. Is anyone predicting the death of Bitcoin? Or that it's a ponzi? Maybe I missed it, it's a long thread. Personally I don't think either. The reason I won't touch it with a bargepole is it's just far too volatile to be considered as anything other than a gamble IMO.

And if I did want a gamble, I think the very worst time to buy anything is after a massive rise in price over a short period. I remember a discussion here about how BG American was the best selling fund on II in Feb 2021, just after it had tripled in price in less than a year. Since then it halved in price. Chasing yesterday's winner is rarely a good investment strategy IMO.

Scottex99

300 pages, congrats to all, haha.

Not you for sure but plenty have people have said its both dead and scam/ponzi.

If I was 20 years older it may be too volatile for me (not assuming your age) but I'm a gambler at heart so maybe not.

That's a point though and why the young team start throwing out the Boomer chat. If you'd worked hard, accumulated wealth in the more traditional ways, you have no reason to be looking at a new and risky asset class.

But if you're young, this kind of volatility is nothing. And also why a lot of them blow up their trading accounts.

But it also feels to me like the older successful really dont want it to work either.

There's much much more to it than the price of BTC or any other coin anyway 

zagfles

Scottex99 said:

300 pages, congrats to all, haha.

Not you for sure but plenty have people have said its both dead and scam/ponzi.

If I was 20 years older it may be too volatile for me (not assuming your age) but I'm a gambler at heart so maybe not.

That's a point though and why the young team start throwing out the Boomer chat. If you'd worked hard, accumulated wealth in the more traditional ways, you have no reason to be looking at a new and risky asset class.

But if you're young, this kind of volatility is nothing. And also why a lot of them blow up their trading accounts.

But it also feels to me like the older successful really dont want it to work either.

There's much much more to it than the price of BTC or any other coin anyway 

I'd quite like it to work as a currency. I can see the benefits in a decentralised currency outside govt control etc.

But to work as a currency people want to use it needs stability. More than halving in value one year then tripling the next makes it frankly useless as a currency (and yes occasionally some fiat currencies have done that too but then they become useless as a currency too and things get priced in stable currencies like USD/EUR). As a lot of people realise hence stablecoins, although they aren't always stable eg TerraUSD

So with that in mind the massive rise in price since a year ago is not a sign of success, it's a sign of failure as a currency. Just as the fall the previous year was. As a tool for speculators, great, as a currency, useless.

Maybe it's the future. But now it's the wild west, just as in the 19th century the wild west was violent, full of snake oil salemen and "gold in them there hills" get rich quick speculators, but now it's generally a nice safe place to live.

Good luck to the pioneers. But you won't convince anyone other than speculators with "there's gold in them there hills" arguments.

Scottex99

I’d agree with that from the anti-camp.

Good knowledge on UST too.

Althoughy USDT has barely moved off its peg in 6 years and ironically the only reason USDC did in the last year or so, was because a load of its reserves were tied up in SVB when it went bust.

its not viable as a currency, well it is because you can transfer it easily and convert it into other assets, but I get the point.

The super maxi counter to that is that’s it’s pair to USD, or GBP or EUR or whatever. If and when (and now)… 1 BTC = 1 BTC.

I think it’s the future, or some derivative of it is and I’m also not trying to convince anyone, I just quite like talking about it, there’s a lot of smart people in the space now, and a lot of scammers/sharks too ofc 

Qyburn

darren232002 said:

But, you're missing the point anyway. There's a great story in 'When Money Dies,' about an old lady in a bank in Austria in the early 1920's. The bank manager informs her that she can trade her Austrian Krone in for gold, pounds or dollars. She says she will think about it. She returns some time later and asks to proceed with the trade. The bank manager tells her that nobody will accept the Krone anymore.

That one can be called out, unless there's some evidence, which I doubt. It's trivial to find out that Austria introduced the Schilling in 1925, and exchanged Krone for Schilling on a set exchange rate. So talking about people being forced to exchange for foreign currency, a few years earlier doesn't sound correct.

So either a made up story which sounds attractive to Bitcoin supporters, or (very far fetched) the lady was scammed. Did the "bank manager" offer to take her Krone off her hands at a derisory exchange rate? 

User232002

Qyburn said:

darren232002 said:

But, you're missing the point anyway. There's a great story in 'When Money Dies,' about an old lady in a bank in Austria in the early 1920's. The bank manager informs her that she can trade her Austrian Krone in for gold, pounds or dollars. She says she will think about it. She returns some time later and asks to proceed with the trade. The bank manager tells her that nobody will accept the Krone anymore.

That one can be called out, unless there's some evidence, which I doubt. It's trivial to find out that Austria introduced the Schilling in 1925, and exchanged Krone for Schilling on a set exchange rate. So talking about people being forced to exchange for foreign currency, a few years earlier doesn't sound correct.

So either a made up story which sounds attractive to Bitcoin supporters, or (very far fetched) the lady was scammed. Did the "bank manager" offer to take her Krone off her hands at a derisory exchange rate? 

I never said 'forced,' and this has nothing to do with the Krone to Schilling exchange, because by that point only the state would take the currency, which is why it must be exchanged in the first place.


When Money Dies; Adam Fergusson; Chapter 3; The Bill Presented
(Quoting from 'Blockade,' a first hand account by Anna Eisenmenger, who was the wife of a doctor and a middle class Austrian woman)

She recorded that in October 1918 when she resolved to cash 20,000 kronen worth for immediate use, her bank manager advised her earnestly to convert all her money into Swiss francs. However, private dealings in foreign currencies were illegal, and she decided that to break the law against the hoarding of fuel and food was enough. [...]

That month Frau Eisenmenger's legless son received 35,000 kronen in 'caution money', which he decided to keep safely until the value of the krone increased again; but in the meantime he converted it into War Loan. In December, too, as an anti-inflationary measure, all paper money had to be overprinted 'Deutschosterreich'. Frau Eisen-menger, who took what remained of her 20,000 kronen to the bank to be stamped, recorded the first evidence she heard that ruin lay in front of her. [...]

I went to see the bank official who always advised me. 'Well, wasn't I right?' he said. 'If you had bought Swiss francs when I suggested, you would not now have lost three-fourths of your fortune'. 'Lost!' I exclaimed in horror. 'Why, don't you think the krone will recover again?' 'Recover!' he said with a laugh … 'Just test the promise made on this 20-kronen note and try to get, say, 20 silver kronen in exchange'. 'Yes, but mine are government securities: Surely there can't be anything safer than that?' 'My dear lady, where is the State which guaranteed these securities to you? It is dead …"

Discovering that her son's War Loan had already become unsaleable, Frau Eisenmenger was then induced to exchange her government securities for industrial shares.




I'll wait for the apology, but I won't be holding my breath.

Qyburn

That's a completely different story, set a few years earlier than your previous.

Although you say it has nothing to do with it, the Krone to Schilling transition clearly contradicts your punchline "nobody will accept the Krone anymore". 

Your extracts above don't actually come from the book. The differences are great enough that I don't think it's just a different translator.