BITCOIN

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. 

User232002

Qyburn said:

That's a completely different story

Please articulate explicitly what about the extract above and the abridged version I originally posted (from memory) make these stories 'completely different.'

Qyburn said:

set a few years earlier than your previous.

On what grounds do you believe October to December of 1918 is substantially different to 'early 1920s'? When you answer this, bear in mind the fact that you immediately jumped to something that happened in 1925 in your response...

Qyburn said:

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". 

1. Why do you think the war loan had to be converted to shares, as mentioned in the extract above? It was because nobody was willing to trade a foreign currency for it anymore but Austrian shares have to be denominated in Austrian currency.

2. Do you think a state changing its failed currency in to a new one qualifies as somebody 'accepting the currency'?

Qyburn said:

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. 

What on earth are you on about? When Money Dies, Chapter 3. Its trivially easy to confirm that the extracts above do, indeed, come from the book. A quick google search will pull up a full copy of the book, (hint: Penn) but I won't post it for copyright reasons.

I'm still waiting for that apology.... You said the story was made up and that you doubted there was any evidence for it.

Qyburn

darren232002 said:

Qyburn said:

That's a completely different story

Please articulate explicitly what about the extract above and the abridged version I originally posted (from memory) make these stories 'completely different.'

(1) Early 1920s becomes 1918
(2) First story "The bank manager informs her that she can trade her Austrian Krone in for gold, pounds or dollars". Second version "her bank manager advised her earnestly to convert all her money into Swiss francs"
(3) First story "She returns some time later and asks to proceed with the trade." No such reference in the second version."

I don't think any more is needed.

I think you misunderstand what I mean by the book, I was referring to the source cited, "Blockade".  If you read that you will understand the context.

Qyburn

darren232002 said:

2. Do you think a state changing its failed currency in to a new one qualifies as somebody 'accepting the currency'?

Of course it does. They accepted Krone in exchange for Schillings.

User232002

Qyburn said:

(1) Early 1920s becomes 1918

Again, why do you think 13 - 15 months affects this? You were very keen to jump to 1925 in your response...

Qyburn said:

(2) First story "The bank manager informs her that she can trade her Austrian Krone in for gold, pounds or dollars". Second version "her bank manager advised her earnestly to convert all her money into Swiss francs"

Really? You think GBP/USD/Gold is different to CHF in this context?

The rest of the chapter contains references to GBP, USD, Cigars, Potatoes & Piano's btw being used as money.

Qyburn said:

(3) First story "She returns some time later and asks to proceed with the trade." No such reference in the second version."

Do you think it matters whether she realised and then returned to the bank, or realised whilst in the bank when her bank manager laughed at her and told her the Krone was going to zero?

Qyburn said:

I don't think any more is needed.

I posted the original story from memory from a book I read 3 years ago. None of these very minor differences detract from the point of the story and I think anyone reading this exchange will know this. By 'I don't think any more is needed,' you mean "I have no more to give."

Qyburn said:

I think you misunderstand what I mean by the book, I was referring to the source cited, "Blockade".  If you read that you will understand the context.

That's lovely. However, also completely irrelevant.

I said that there was a story in 'When Money Dies,' and you said I had made it up and that it didn't exist. Now you are changing the goalposts about another book.

Had you originally posted that the story wasn't an accurate translation of some original source material, that might be at least in some way defensible. However, you flat out said the story I posted was 'made up,' which has been shown to be complete nonsense. I'd like an apology please.

The relevant extracts in the source book are October 26th, 1918 and December 15th 1918. I have no idea how someone can read the full extracts and think the abridged version is in any way a misrepresentation of what happen. Given that this book was published in the early 1930's, reading complete versions free of charge on Google is trivially easy since the copyright has likely expired in many jurisdictions. Others can go and see for themselves...

Qyburn said:

darren232002 said:

2. Do you think a state changing its failed currency in to a new one qualifies as somebody 'accepting the currency'?

Of course it does. They accepted Krone in exchange for Schillings.

The only reason I asked this is because I wanted you to admit it. Its a pretty indefensible position, but now others can see what you believe to be true and value your contributions accordingly.

IvanOpinion

Now now children, learn to play nicely.