Crypto Dabble.

adam06_2

Malthusian said:

adam06_2 said:

I was hoping the media attention that the taproot upgrade on bitcoin has happened would push us up to a new ATH... But doesn't seem to have done much.

As the upgrade has been in progress for years and has been a done deal for several months, i.e. everyone already knew it was going to happen and factored that in to how much they were willing to pay for a Bitcoin, why would the fact that it's happened make number go up?

Is crypto meant to be immune to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, along with central bank manipulation etc etc?

The bitcoin futures etf was planned for a while and everyone know when it was going to happen a few weeks before... But  the price didn't pop until it went live... Potentially because of media attention.

london21

To me bitcoin is like a ponzi scheme.
Only buy what you are ok to lose.

tebbins

london21 said:

To me bitcoin is like a pyramid scheme.
Only invest what you are ok to lose.

I think ponzi is more accurate, and I would say "buy" rather than invest.

Malthusian

adam06_2 said:

The bitcoin futures etf was planned for a while and everyone know when it was going to happen a few weeks before... But  the price didn't pop until it went live... Potentially because of media attention.

I think you have answered your own question about why number no go up despite Bitcoin making the news again. Anyone who was going to put new money on the table because they'd seen Bitcoin in the news had already done so when the ETF story was published. Not enough time has passed for them to put even more money into the system because they've seen Bitcoin in the news again. Their enthusiasm and bank accounts still need recharging.

Fundamentally the reason number no go up despite there being a news story is because it's random, like all price movements in a speculative asset.

london21

tebbins said:

london21 said:

To me bitcoin is like a pyramid scheme.
Only invest what you are ok to lose.

I think ponzi is more accurate, and I would say "buy" rather than invest.

you are right. will change it lol.

adam06_2

Could the growth stocks not also be considered to be a ponzi scheme?

Malthusian

adam06_2 said:

Could the growth stocks not also be considered to be a ponzi scheme?

Sure, if you try hard enough. If you are good enough at rationalising the Bishop of Ely could be considered to be a purple banana from Neptune. There is a special incentive to try to believe that is the case if you are trying to justify membership of a Ponzi scheme on the basis of "wah wah everything is a Ponzi scheme".

In the real world, however, growth stocks are not a Ponzi scheme because withdrawals from a growth stock do not have to be funded by new investors' money in. They may be funded by the profits earned by the company by adding value to its inputs, which increase the value of the company and therefore investors' shares.

Moreover the process of adding value to its inputs benefits its customers who gain value by exchanging their money for the product. By contrast a Ponzi scheme (or any zero sum game) benefits only the net-winners who cash out at the expense of net-losers.

(FAOD, Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme. All Ponzi schemes are zero sum games but not all zero sum games are Ponzis.)

janefitzjane

Crypto generally is not a scam, but it's quite bad in other ways, and the currencies that are a joke are often scams, as are these weird NFT things. I worry it's all a front through which to launder money...

Thrugelmir

adam06_2 said:

Could the growth stocks not also be considered to be a ponzi scheme?

If they aren't profitable in the longer term. Then like any business concept they will turn to ashes. Companies after all are nothing without people.  Who remembers Xerox, Kodak, Polaroid now. Once the forerunners of new technology. 

Aegis

adam06_2 said:

Could the growth stocks not also be considered to be a ponzi scheme?

If the shares ultimately do nothing in terms of the underlying value, then the price is likely to collapse.  At that point, any holders of shares will get a share of the wind-up value, which may well sum to nothing after costs.  Certainly this is a risk, which is why investing in growth stocks is riskier than something already established and producing underlying revenues.  If they have a good idea and can bring it to market, though, the value of the underlying company is boosted by external cash flows, and entitlement to those values becomes attractive, which then boosts the share price. 

If all goes according to plan, investing in shares is a positive-sum game.  Investing in commodities and currencies is typically zero-sum, meaning the only increases you will ever see are as a result of someone else losing money (this is ignoring the slight cost of transactions, which technically pushed these into negative-sum territory).  Gambling is a negative-sum game, in that the system is set up to, on average, separate money from participants in the system to increase the house's wealth.  Within that there are obviously still winners and losers, and there may be all sorts of people out there claiming to have a great system, which is only to be expected if you consider a typical bell curve of outcomes, but ultimately gambling is the redistribution of wealth among participents with a take for the house.