Bitcoin is still early

[chucki]

Bitcoin is a store of value -- right now we are in the price discovery phase. You don't go straight line from 1c to $500k or $1M or wherever it finally lands. It would be awesome if we could wave a magical wand and make it fixed to a pre-determined price that the entire world agrees upon. That's not how the world works.

[FreshPaint]

Bitcoin is a store of value -- right now we are in the price discovery phase. You don't go straight line from 1c to $500k or $1M or wherever it finally lands. It would be awesome if we could wave a magical wand and make it fixed to a pre-determined price that the entire world agrees upon. That's not how the world works.

The most convincing arguments I see are based on market cap compared to gold. Gold is 10 trillion, bitcoin recently hit 1 trillion and right now is a little below that. It’s not much of a stretch to think bitcoin takes up 2-3 trillion. Even Mass Mutual bought 100m worth of bitcoin so what happens if other large asset managers follow suit.

[Panscan]

No matter how hard BTC tries, it'll never supplant the US dollar as being a criminal's first choice of currency.

ya it just seems like a terrible argument. A means of exchange where every single transaction is recorded and can be examined by every other person in the world and that is somehow better for criminals than cash?

[Kamban]

Computers as we know it have been around only since the 1980's ( if we exclude the behemoth IBM mainframes). The internet since the 80's and the WWW since the 90's. And bitcoin is less than decade old.

Gold has been around for thousands of years and has other uses than currency. The computers as we know it will change. So will other things like block chain, software to run machines and the like will be quite different in 20-30 years and something else will supplant Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Change is inevitable. Right now everyone is on the bandwagon and Bitcoin is skyrocketing. . But at some point it will hit a plateau and start its decline. Whether it occurs in 10 years or 25 years or 50 years is uncertain. The important thing is to know when to sell it and get to the next standard that is being promoted.

[Panscan]

You don't think it's possible we figure out a means to manufacture or mine more gold in that same time frame?

Something could supplant bitcoin sure. Something could supplant tesla, apple, whatever. Change is inevitable.

[CordMcNally]

But at some point it will hit a plateau and start its decline. Whether it occurs in 10 years or 25 years or 50 years is uncertain.

But that can be said about pretty much anything that has ever existed in the past. Previous currencies, previous technologies, superstar athletes, previous empires, etc.

[jacoavlu]

Computers as we know it have been around only since the 1980's ( if we exclude the behemoth IBM mainframes). The internet since the 80's and the WWW since the 90's. And bitcoin is less than decade old.

Gold has been around for thousands of years and has other uses than currency. The computers as we know it will change. So will other things like block chain, software to run machines and the like will be quite different in 20-30 years and something else will supplant Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Change is inevitable. Right now everyone is on the bandwagon and Bitcoin is skyrocketing. . But at some point it will hit a plateau and start its decline. Whether it occurs in 10 years or 25 years or 50 years is uncertain. The important thing is to know when to sell it and get to the next standard that is being promoted.

you’re right. the earth turns and things change. There are very few constants.

And to extend along your line of thinking. There have been many other dominant groups of people in the world. Perhaps the US does not remain the world superpower forever. Perhaps our private businesses and our stock market doesn’t dominate the world economy forever. Perhaps our fiat currency doesn’t remain as the global unit of account.

you can use the line of thinking for or against bitcoin

[Kamban]

But that can be said about pretty much anything that has ever existed in the past. Previous currencies, previous technologies, superstar athletes, previous empires, etc.

I don't disagree. But some of the posts here make it look like Bitcoin is here to stay forever.Since it is not a physical product like gold and is in a rapidly changing computer industry where standards change from decade to decade, its value 20 years down the line is uncertain. I suspect the precious metals will hold up its value 50 years down the road more than the current cryptocurrencies.

But make hay while the sun shines.

[CordMcNally]

I don't disagree. But some of the posts here make it look like Bitcoin is here to stay forever.Since it is not a physical product like gold and is in a rapidly changing computer industry where standards change from decade to decade, its value 20 years down the line is uncertain. I suspect the precious metals will hold up its value 50 years down the road more than the current cryptocurrencies.

But make hay while the sun shines.

I think one of the things I think about and always get to pondering about is life-changing technologies and investments with exponential returns. I always wonder how people felt about them at various stages and how to apply those feelings in the future and it's incredibly hard because things always seem so different. I've really been thinking a lot lately about those situations and it's still mind-boggling.

[Panscan]

Forever is relevant. 2000 years? I have no idea. 20 years? I feel much more confident.

I don't understand why gold being a physical thing means anything. To me it seems hilarious that women's preference in jewelry is what all these sophisticated people call a store of value. How do you not know gold jewelry will not go completely out of style, which is the majority of it's use. How do you know we won't discover a similar material that can serve the same purposes in the manufacturing end of things? NASA is actively looking into harvesting precious metals from asteroids, which contain amounts that make the amount on earth look like absolute drops in the bucket. What would that do to gold's price?

People who hate BTC and love gold act like gold is rock solid but IMO the things that drive it's demand are also very superficial and in flux. We are aware of gigantic amounts of it that are within our reach in space. To me that seems like a very dangerous long term investment as it has essentially guaranteed obsolescence at some point. Something something about past performance future results. With bitcoin there is no upper bound.

[jacoavlu]

I don't disagree. But some of the posts here make it look like Bitcoin is here to stay forever.Since it is not a physical product like gold and is in a rapidly changing computer industry where standards change from decade to decade, its value 20 years down the line is uncertain. I suspect the precious metals will hold up its value 50 years down the road more than the current cryptocurrencies.

But make hay while the sun shines.

at least to date, the consensus behavior with bitcoin (and that’s really all it is, is consensus) software has been to defend the sovereignty of the user.

This was a significant debate in 2017 when miners (who produce new coins and collect transaction fees) wanted to increase block size (to increase transaction volume capability and associated fees) but the consensus among node operators and the core of software developers was to keep block size small so that it is easy and cheap to run a node and stay backward compatible. (You can run a brand new independent node for less than $200 with a raspberry pi and 1 Tb drive)

the miners and Corp entities that wanted to increase block size lost in this case

that doesn’t mean that it will stay that way forever. But at least to date, that is the history of bitcoin. That the guy who is self custodying his coins that goes into a coma and comes out in the future, doesn’t lose his coins because of some hard fork of the blockchain

there have been forks that happened by groups that wanted bitcoin to be something different. See BCH and BSV. Faster transactions or other “improvement”. They are basically failures. BTC is the consensus that the market has chosen

the origin story of bitcoin also matters. It is critically important that the creator(s) are unknown beyond the pseudonym, and that there was no presale or ICO or whatever that served to enrich some group of angel investors, like most all of these shitcoins and even like ETH. There is no one the feds can go round up and put in jail. No one to sue. A white paper was released, then they started the network. Anyone could mine and participate. The original mined coins have never moved. The code and the creation was about as fair as I could imagine.

it would be extremely difficult to recreate a truly decentralized hard money that is sufficiently superior to bitcoin so as to take over what bitcoin already has

[Chessknt]

ya it just seems like a terrible argument. A means of exchange where every single transaction is recorded and can be examined by every other person in the world and that is somehow better for criminals than cash?

You act like it is easy to figure out who a wallet belongs to and trace transactions when bitcoin mixing exists. Try to imagine tracking down your stolen funds when it goes in to an anonymous untacked pool of funds that gets thrown to multiple addresses and then sent back out to new ones with no logs. Geez seems so stupid to do that when you could just have them wire you cash right?

Why else would these ransomware attacks demand bitcoin for payment?

[jacoavlu]

You act like it is easy to figure out who a wallet belongs to and trace transactions when bitcoin mixing exists. Try to imagine tracking down your stolen funds when it goes in to an anonymous untacked pool of funds that gets thrown to multiple addresses and then sent back out to new ones with no logs. Geez seems so stupid to do that when you could just have them wire you cash right?

Why else would these ransomware attacks demand bitcoin for payment?

it is true that it can still be basically impossible to track people down even though the ledger is right there.

but that's still not a good argument against bitcoin. See my response above.

[Chessknt]

it is true that it can still be basically impossible to track people down even though the ledger is right there.

but that's still not a good argument against bitcoin. See my response above.

It is a good reason and one of many. I did read your response and this argument strikes me like trying to convince a Republican to vote Democrat. There are deeply held beliefs (for example you equating bitcoin's value to the world to motor vehicle travel) underlying positions here and we could argue back and forth all day and neither of us will do any differently so lets skip to the end where we move on .

I just had to logically dismantle the flippant comment(s) in response to the crime angle because it is an extremely shallow argument that can easily be proven wrong.

[jacoavlu]

There are deeply held beliefs (for example you equating bitcoin's value to the world to motor vehicle travel) underlying positions here and we could argue back and forth all day and neither of us will do any differently so lets skip to the end where we move on .

we can agree to disagree. But don't put words in my mouth. I made no comment equating the value of bitcoin to motor vehicle travel. My point was regarding your focus on negative externalities.