Is bitcoin just a giant game of “chicken”?

Zola.

You clearly don't understand the bitcoin value proposition, and that's ok.  Take care!

kuratowski

lozzy1965 said:

However, there are companies with very little in the way of assets, and there are very few companies with enough assets to filter through to an actual payment to shareholders, after all liabilities are met in the event the company is wound up.

It is true that there are often large differences between the "going concern" value of the assets in a company versus the "wind up" value.  However, the point stands that the value of the shares is underpinned by the expectation that there either are now, or will be in the future, profits arising from the company's activities, supported by its assets.

lozzy1965 said:

However, it's just this "zero sum game" thing I have an issue with

Zero sum games arise in many situations.  Economic identities exist (saying the sum of X+Y+Z is always 0) and this isn't a problem in itself.  Malthusian puts the case more strongly than I would!  In my view there is a case that can be made, that the utility of cryptocurrencies will be ongoing indefinitely, in which case there will be a perpetual source of demand, which could in theory underpin some kind of value.

Adyinvestment

sebtomato said:

Adyinvestment said:

A huge catalyst for Bitcoin will be if/when a Bitcoin ETF is approved by the SEC (anticipated by many this year) and eventually FCA.

Once/if this happens and there is easy access in pensions etc I would expect a tremendous amount of money to go into Bitcoin - at this point it will be here to stay.

Sure. Keep repeating to convince yourself. Once the various central banks ban Bitcoin, we will see how much it's worth.

This is a typical Bitcoin hater post, you need to look past your own views and see how widely this has been accepted in the US and other countries.

Canada and Brazil have already approved Bitcoin ETF's

But it is the US that matters the most - 47 million Americans owned Bitcoin in May, and has more than doubled since the month before. A recent survey suggests that 72% of adult Americans owned Cryptocurrency, this is more than the 64% that owned stocks.

In what reality are the US government going to outright ban Bitcoin/Crypto and p off 72% of their voting population? Sure they will work out a way to regulate it but not ban it.

Scottex99

Adyinvestment said:

sebtomato said:

Adyinvestment said:

A huge catalyst for Bitcoin will be if/when a Bitcoin ETF is approved by the SEC (anticipated by many this year) and eventually FCA.

Once/if this happens and there is easy access in pensions etc I would expect a tremendous amount of money to go into Bitcoin - at this point it will be here to stay.

Sure. Keep repeating to convince yourself. Once the various central banks ban Bitcoin, we will see how much it's worth.

This is a typical Bitcoin hater post, you need to look past your own views and see how widely this has been accepted in the US and other countries.

Canada and Brazil have already approved Bitcoin ETF's

But it is the US that matters the most - 47 million Americans owned Bitcoin in May, and has more than doubled since the month before. A recent survey suggests that 72% of adult Americans owned Cryptocurrency, this is more than the 64% that owned stocks.

In what reality are the US government going to outright ban Bitcoin/Crypto and p off 72% of their voting population? Sure they will work out a way to regulate it but not ban it.

They can't ban it anyway. The movement of it. A private key that I have in my head only, which I use to transfer BTC (or alts) to someone else on a decentralised network, it's unstoppable. What are they going to do, put some code in jail?

These two are well known Bitcoin Maxi's but it's still a good watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxFSJZBrclI 

thegentleway

Adyinvestment said:

sebtomato said:

Adyinvestment said:

A huge catalyst for Bitcoin will be if/when a Bitcoin ETF is approved by the SEC (anticipated by many this year) and eventually FCA.

Once/if this happens and there is easy access in pensions etc I would expect a tremendous amount of money to go into Bitcoin - at this point it will be here to stay.

Sure. Keep repeating to convince yourself. Once the various central banks ban Bitcoin, we will see how much it's worth.

This is a typical Bitcoin hater post, you need to look past your own views and see how widely this has been accepted in the US and other countries.

Canada and Brazil have already approved Bitcoin ETF's

But it is the US that matters the most - 47 million Americans owned Bitcoin in May, and has more than doubled since the month before. A recent survey suggests that 72% of adult Americans owned Cryptocurrency, this is more than the 64% that owned stocks.

In what reality are the US government going to outright ban Bitcoin/Crypto and p off 72% of their voting population? Sure they will work out a way to regulate it but not ban it.

Hi, I'm interested in where you get the 47 million Americans own Bitcoin from? and the survey details?
Last time I looked, there wasn't that many wallets worldwide. Those survey % must include pensions, surely there's only a small minority of americans who invest outside their pensions (5-10% I would guess). The majority can't come up with $1,000 for an emergency.

Adyinvestment

thegentleway said:

Hi, I'm interested in where you get the 47 million Americans own Bitcoin from? and the survey details?
Last time I looked, there wasn't that many wallets worldwide. Those survey % must include pensions, surely there's only a small minority of americans who invest outside their pensions (5-10% I would guess). The majority can't come up with $1,000 for an emergency.

Hi, there are many covers of the 46 Million story (7 was a typo), here is one
About 46 Million Americans Now Own Bitcoin | Nasdaq


Here is the link to the 72% survey
More Americans own cryptocurrencies than shares - CreditDonkey data (thearmchairtrader.com)

Malthusian

Scottex99 said:

How is it a minority?

Because if I want to cash out a 5x profit from Bitcoin, either someone has to lose five times as much money as I stake, or five people have to lose as much money as I stake, or ten people have to lose half as much money as I stake, or some equivalent combination.

Every large-scale zero sum game in the world, whether lotteries, poker tournaments or Bitcoin, involves a minority of people cashing out large profits at the expense of a larger number of people making losses.

It is theoretically possible for a majority of players to cash out at a profit if rich schmucks invest vastly more than them and lose it. A rich schmuck might sit down at a poker table with five sharks and get cleaned out, meaning 5/6 players walk away from a zero sum game in profit. On a large scale like Bitcoin it doesn't happen.

Adyinvestment

Here is the link to the 72% survey
More Americans own cryptocurrencies than shares - CreditDonkey data (thearmchairtrader.com)

I just reread that link and it is 72% of "Investors" and not all Americans - my bad

CityBoyTheSecond

Those who got some bitcoin early made a profit. Those getting in now can only profit if some bigger fool buys their bitcoin at a higher price when they want to sell. Bitcoin, in and of itself, cannot increase its value. It is just a speculative token.

Scottex99

Malthusian said:

Scottex99 said:

How is it a minority?

Because if I want to cash out a 5x profit from Bitcoin, either someone has to lose five times as much money as I stake, or five people have to lose as much money as I stake, or ten people have to lose half as much money as I stake, or some equivalent combination.

Every large-scale zero sum game in the world, whether lotteries, poker tournaments or Bitcoin, involves a minority of people cashing out large profits at the expense of a larger number of people making losses.

It is theoretically possible for a majority of players to cash out at a profit if rich schmucks invest vastly more than them and lose it. A rich schmuck might sit down at a poker table with five sharks and get cleaned out, meaning 5/6 players walk away from a zero sum game in profit. On a large scale like Bitcoin it doesn't happen.

I don't care who's on the other side of my trades or how much they "lose". Plus it's not likely an individual investor as it is an exchange or institution. Depends on the order books.

How does your zero sum thesis play out if BTC increases steadily over the next 10-100-1000 years? 

I buy at 5k, sell some at 40k, but the person who buys from me doesn't lose anything as it's now worth 100k. When does the zero sum kick in? Anyone who has bought BTC in 95% of the assets history is in profit, so all the losers only lost out in the last 6 months?

I did actually google it and found the usual BTC FUD from the non-believers, but I also found this:

If not for the fact that Bitcoin serves more uses than simply speculation, I would say yes.

However, Bitcoin does far more than that. It is intrinsically valuable as a store of value and a means of exchange in addition to being a vehicle for speculation.

You can do things with Bitcoin that you can't do with other things. That makes it 'worth' more than just its dollar value. In that sense, it is very much a positive-sum game.

That's better than my answer, but yeah its not zero sum