Bitcoin has value simply because it has the qualities that enable people to attribute value to it. It is transferrable, scarce, somewhat fungible, and used by enough people. Paper currency is similar. The systems that create these qualities are very different between BTC and paper currency, but the product is similar. Of course, paper currencies fail. Bitcoin could too. As all that hardware is ASIC, I don't think they are useful beyond the walls, roof, and cooling systems.Personally I think that Bitcoin has been a successful subsidization for building huge data centers that will power our digital future, but I don’t think it will exist past that purpose.
How that description don't apply to tulip bulb? For what I heard BTC is used (as a currency) by criminals, period. for the first few month you could barely buy coffee, and now it is not even a thing So it is not a mean of exchange. Without that, it is not a currency Edit: But i'm not a theorist. My real question is: If I want to short BTC, what am I suppose to do? Sell Electricity?Bitcoin has the qualities that enable people to attribute value to it. It is transferrable, scarce, somewhat fungible, and used by enough people
Fund a Coinbase Pro account. Seriously. All this pearl-clutching and high dudgeon is ridiculous. "I can't buy coffee with it therefore it isn't a currency." Go to Starbuck's with a Krugerrand and tell me how that works out.
Pardon the snark, but sounds like a fancy gift card rather than a revolution in currency. Last time I used BTC was to buy LSD off the Silk Road 10 years ago. After that the rest I converted into dollars so I could pay the rent in college, made 80 bucks off the price swing.
I own zero BTC. I think. No, I believe I have some fraction of BTC left in Coinbase. At the time it was a rounding error, now it's probably worth a couple pizzas. My BTC holdings were never worth more than like $700, and that's back when that was like 3 BTC. But I also don't pretend that the idea of a blockchain is irrelevant because it makes me mad.
Yeah...I don’t think there enough lengths I could make to thank people like mk, insomniasexx, and kleinbl00 for all the crypto discussions years ago when ETH was just breaking into news cycles. Fundamentally altered the course of my life.
I’m sorry, I still don’t get it. I don’t dispute blockchain is valuable technology and here to stay, but I set my eyes on Bitcoin specifically as an unknown factor. Is it meant sit in vaults, like gold? Or is it meant to transact regularly, like a currency? I don’t think you can have both at the same time and it be a stable investment vehicle with better returns than real asset classes. Per the hardware question, the building and energy management systems are valuable, probably more so than the chips. Chips fail, hard drives fail, and like the Argo they are remade, the result of which has been a market created that supports developing these chips for miners, trains professionals in the maintenance of these data centers and chip fabrication, and identifies geographies amenable to cheap high volume data processing. Regardless, to speak of the specific chips, they can serve institutional backed crypto currencies performing similar operations. I just can’t shake the feeling Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme
It's meant to launder money. I say that in all seriousness. Piketty burned an entire chapter in Capital in the 21st Century determining the size of the black market and estimated it at 50% of the white market. If 10% of black market transactions are executed in bitcoin, Bitcoin's market cap would be 70 trillion dollars. There are 18b bitcoin in circulation with a market cap of $430b. There can never be more than 21b BTC. We're looking squarely at Drake's Equation here: we have a stack of bullshit factors that give us a scientific number but "ponzi scheme" or not there's a fair amount of runway even if you presume BTC will never be anything but thermonuclearly illegal. "Stable investment vehicle" is a relative term. No matter how you define it, though, it certainly doesn't apply to Bitcoin at the moment. "Real asset classes" is also a relative term. There was a time when ETFs weren't "real asset classes." The 401(k) is an accidentally-discovered tax loophole. Pets.com is a cautionary tale; Chewy.com has a $43b market cap doing the exact same fucking thing 20 years later. You're effectively saying "it must be bad since I don't understand it, and since it must be bad I don't have to understand it." mk can talk at length about crypto. So can I. Been there, done that. But you're never going to get more than a beatdown when your basic approach to the discussion is "this is stupid and illegal, and everyone involved in it is a stupid criminal." I've been called a stupid criminal by accountants, financial planners and immediate family members for owning crypto so if I want someone to berate me for making money I can get that job done by far more important opinions than yours.Is it meant sit in vaults, like gold? Or is it meant to transact regularly, like a currency?
I don’t think you can have both at the same time and it be a stable investment vehicle with better returns than real asset classes.