Crypto

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What can you buy with cryptocurrency?

One of my friends bought and mined bitcoin, held it, and ended up buying a 600k house with it. Just sayin.

Interesting they accepted bitcoin at settlement.

Clearly, they sold and converted back to USD, but still.

And yes, there are services that accept Bitcoin as payment.

Oh. Cool. So remind me how bitcoin is going to replace “fIaT cUrRenCY”?

Incredible how ignorant some of you can be.

Let it be. I have given up explaining to people. Some of you, please watch Saylor's Prague presentation about Bitcoin.
Fiat currencies are eaten up by inflation. So are all other asset classes. Remember, Bitcoin is in your head. The keys, the passwords you take anywhere you go. Nobody is going to stop you at the border for holding too much B. like they do with cash.
Remember when they stop you to ask if you have enough cash to stay in US/EU for three months. Pull out your phone, show them your millions, and keep walking.

Yes, of course this currency that is designed to be not under the control of governments, will be accepted by those governments as proof of approved currency.

Not to mention people forget their passwords ALL the time. You lose your crypto keys, they are gone with a capital G. You have to remember the 12 phrase word forever, and safeguard it from hackers like your life depends on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What can you buy with cryptocurrency?

One of my friends bought and mined bitcoin, held it, and ended up buying a 600k house with it. Just sayin.

Interesting they accepted bitcoin at settlement.

Clearly, they sold and converted back to USD, but still.

And yes, there are services that accept Bitcoin as payment.

Oh. Cool. So remind me how bitcoin is going to replace “fIaT cUrRenCY”?

Incredible how ignorant some of you can be.

Let it be. I have given up explaining to people. Some of you, please watch Saylor's Prague presentation about Bitcoin.
Fiat currencies are eaten up by inflation. So are all other asset classes. Remember, Bitcoin is in your head. The keys, the passwords you take anywhere you go. Nobody is going to stop you at the border for holding too much B. like they do with cash.
Remember when they stop you to ask if you have enough cash to stay in US/EU for three months. Pull out your phone, show them your millions, and keep walking.

Yes, of course this currency that is designed to be not under the control of governments, will be accepted by those governments as proof of approved currency.

Not to mention people forget their passwords ALL the time. You lose your crypto keys, they are gone with a capital G. You have to remember the 12 phrase word forever, and safeguard it from hackers like your life depends on it.

Good. So less to go around and price goes up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What can you buy with cryptocurrency?

One of my friends bought and mined bitcoin, held it, and ended up buying a 600k house with it. Just sayin.

Interesting they accepted bitcoin at settlement.

Clearly, they sold and converted back to USD, but still.

And yes, there are services that accept Bitcoin as payment.

Oh. Cool. So remind me how bitcoin is going to replace “fIaT cUrRenCY”?

Incredible how ignorant some of you can be.

Let it be. I have given up explaining to people. Some of you, please watch Saylor's Prague presentation about Bitcoin.
Fiat currencies are eaten up by inflation. So are all other asset classes. Remember, Bitcoin is in your head. The keys, the passwords you take anywhere you go. Nobody is going to stop you at the border for holding too much B. like they do with cash.
Remember when they stop you to ask if you have enough cash to stay in US/EU for three months. Pull out your phone, show them your millions, and keep walking.

Yes, of course this currency that is designed to be not under the control of governments, will be accepted by those governments as proof of approved currency.

Not to mention people forget their passwords ALL the time. You lose your crypto keys, they are gone with a capital G. You have to remember the 12 phrase word forever, and safeguard it from hackers like your life depends on it.

Good. So less to go around and price goes up.

I get the supply side being constrained. But I just made a doodle on a piece of paper. It’s very scarce. There’s just one of them. In order for it to be worth anything, someone must be willing to pay for it. Scarcity alone doesn’t drive value.

In order for the demand and value to be there with bitcoin, people have to buy the narrative of a failing dollar, hyper inflation, and a global financial system that is falling apart. That’s what Saylor, et al sell. And so, now, people who have bought this narrative are buying and selling to each other because they think the scarcity means something. But it’s all a construct. If all of this was really so inevitable, why are people selling at all? Who is selling? Only idiots? Bitcoin is a pump and dump scheme and people are making a ton of money on the ride up, but no one is going to send you a memo when the game is over. Once the narrative falls apart for one reason or another, scarcity won’t matter because there won’t be demand. Saylor (and many others who have the liquidity to play this game) won’t care if all his bitcoins go to hell, because while he’s been adding on net along the way (at least through microstrategy, he doesn’t have to disclose his personal investments) he has undoubtedly also sold a lot along the way and locked in his gains. It would not be the first time he has come out wealthier than he went in, while also losing 9 figures of unrealized gains. I get that he has a charismatic personality and a lot of people want to be like him - but he has a lot of market power that those of you with fractional coins or maybe 10 or something simply don’t have.

You’ve all collectively bought into the narrative, created artificial demand for something that is actually scarce. But the price rests on that demand and that should scare you.

[Anonymous]

This is like bragging about your genius because you won the lottery, your number came up on the roulette wheel, or you inherited a large sum. The outcome is nice for you, but the results could easily have been otherwise, and may well be unrepeatable. The nature of crypto makes purchasing it speculation, not investing. Sometimes you'll come out ahead, sometimes you'll lose your shirt. Do you feel lucky?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What can you buy with cryptocurrency?

One of my friends bought and mined bitcoin, held it, and ended up buying a 600k house with it. Just sayin.

Interesting they accepted bitcoin at settlement.

Clearly, they sold and converted back to USD, but still.

And yes, there are services that accept Bitcoin as payment.

Oh. Cool. So remind me how bitcoin is going to replace “fIaT cUrRenCY”?

Incredible how ignorant some of you can be.

Let it be. I have given up explaining to people. Some of you, please watch Saylor's Prague presentation about Bitcoin.
Fiat currencies are eaten up by inflation. So are all other asset classes. Remember, Bitcoin is in your head. The keys, the passwords you take anywhere you go. Nobody is going to stop you at the border for holding too much B. like they do with cash.
Remember when they stop you to ask if you have enough cash to stay in US/EU for three months. Pull out your phone, show them your millions, and keep walking.

Yes, of course this currency that is designed to be not under the control of governments, will be accepted by those governments as proof of approved currency.

Not to mention people forget their passwords ALL the time. You lose your crypto keys, they are gone with a capital G. You have to remember the 12 phrase word forever, and safeguard it from hackers like your life depends on it.

Good. So less to go around and price goes up.

I get the supply side being constrained. But I just made a doodle on a piece of paper. It’s very scarce. There’s just one of them. In order for it to be worth anything, someone must be willing to pay for it. Scarcity alone doesn’t drive value.

In order for the demand and value to be there with bitcoin, people have to buy the narrative of a failing dollar, hyper inflation, and a global financial system that is falling apart. That’s what Saylor, et al sell. And so, now, people who have bought this narrative are buying and selling to each other because they think the scarcity means something. But it’s all a construct. If all of this was really so inevitable, why are people selling at all? Who is selling? Only idiots? Bitcoin is a pump and dump scheme and people are making a ton of money on the ride up, but no one is going to send you a memo when the game is over. Once the narrative falls apart for one reason or another, scarcity won’t matter because there won’t be demand. Saylor (and many others who have the liquidity to play this game) won’t care if all his bitcoins go to hell, because while he’s been adding on net along the way (at least through microstrategy, he doesn’t have to disclose his personal investments) he has undoubtedly also sold a lot along the way and locked in his gains. It would not be the first time he has come out wealthier than he went in, while also losing 9 figures of unrealized gains. I get that he has a charismatic personality and a lot of people want to be like him - but he has a lot of market power that those of you with fractional coins or maybe 10 or something simply don’t have.

You’ve all collectively bought into the narrative, created artificial demand for something that is actually scarce. But the price rests on that demand and that should scare you.

Yeah well paintings by Rothko and Rembrandt and Picasso are scarce. So are baseball cards from the early 20th century, and some first edition comic books, and collectible stamps and coins and fish, and signed jerseys and books, and old cars, airplanes, and violins. Lots of things are scarce and have value b/c enough people assign value to them and collectively buy into the narrative that the object, whatever else it might be, is a store of value. Once enough people agree, all it takes a marketplace and some acceptable mechanism to establish provenance.

It's pretty clear at this point that Bitcoin is scarce and has a very active market - crypto exchanges and ETFs on various stock exchanges - and readily established provenance is sort of the whole point of Bitcoin.

So, how do we figure out what it's worth?

There are 21 million bitcoin, 19 million of which have been mined. I've seen estimates that 3 million or so are likely lost b/c people misplaced hard drives or wallets or lost passwords. So let's say there are 16 million available. Probably another 4 million are held by people or institutions that are not selling - Microstrategy, El Salvador, Nakamoto and other founders or early adopters, etc. So let's say 12 million are for sale. Btw, Microstrategy is a publicly traded company governed by SEC regs, so Saylor can't just BS about how many Bitcoin they hold - it's audited. Yes, he may sell some personally or borrow against the value of his MSTR stock, but that doesn't effect MSTR's holdings.

How much demand is there? Let's say everyone with a net worth of 1 million decides they want just 1 lonely bitcoin. There are 50+ million people globally with that net worth. That means not everyone can have one. And of course people like Musk and Saylor and Cuban, not to mention investment banks and various sovereign wealth funds aren't going to be satisfied with 1, or 10, or even 100. So there is a lot of demand. As Bitcoin becomes more available through ETFs and brokers and asset managers that demand is likely to increase, which is obvious from the massive, virtually unheard of inflow for a new ETF. And just today Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo announced they'd make the ETFs available to their customers, and Vanguard's anti-Bitcoin CEO announced he's stepping down.

So the notion that Bitcoin is a "pump and dump" scheme is clearly off base. This isn't tulips or Florida swamp land or pets.com. Instead, as you concede, it's a scarce item and its value is demand driven. So has gold been for 5,000 years or so. There's no reason an alternative money, based on scarcity and ease of provenance, can't act like digital gold. After 10 years, Bitcoin has pretty well proven itself in that role, which is why every day more large, conservative banks and investment funds are getting comfortable with an allocation. Now we're engaged in price discovery and eventually it will settle at a price based on fully realized demand. Given the very recent introduction of vehicles that make Bitcoin accessible to average investors, it seems likely that price will be much, much higher than where it is today.

[Anonymous]

If you bought Bitcoin 3 years ago today, you'd be up 20% over years.

[Anonymous]

20 % over 3 years, 6.25%/yr

[Anonymous]

It is important to note that the scarcity rationale being attempted re: Bitcoin doesn't really work for most other cryptos though (even if you accept or partially accept it for Bitcoin).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What can you buy with cryptocurrency?

One of my friends bought and mined bitcoin, held it, and ended up buying a 600k house with it. Just sayin.

Interesting they accepted bitcoin at settlement.

Clearly, they sold and converted back to USD, but still.

And yes, there are services that accept Bitcoin as payment.

Oh. Cool. So remind me how bitcoin is going to replace “fIaT cUrRenCY”?

Incredible how ignorant some of you can be.

Let it be. I have given up explaining to people. Some of you, please watch Saylor's Prague presentation about Bitcoin.
Fiat currencies are eaten up by inflation. So are all other asset classes. Remember, Bitcoin is in your head. The keys, the passwords you take anywhere you go. Nobody is going to stop you at the border for holding too much B. like they do with cash.
Remember when they stop you to ask if you have enough cash to stay in US/EU for three months. Pull out your phone, show them your millions, and keep walking.

Yes, of course this currency that is designed to be not under the control of governments, will be accepted by those governments as proof of approved currency.

Not to mention people forget their passwords ALL the time. You lose your crypto keys, they are gone with a capital G. You have to remember the 12 phrase word forever, and safeguard it from hackers like your life depends on it.

Good. So less to go around and price goes up.

I get the supply side being constrained. But I just made a doodle on a piece of paper. It’s very scarce. There’s just one of them. In order for it to be worth anything, someone must be willing to pay for it. Scarcity alone doesn’t drive value.

In order for the demand and value to be there with bitcoin, people have to buy the narrative of a failing dollar, hyper inflation, and a global financial system that is falling apart. That’s what Saylor, et al sell. And so, now, people who have bought this narrative are buying and selling to each other because they think the scarcity means something. But it’s all a construct. If all of this was really so inevitable, why are people selling at all? Who is selling? Only idiots? Bitcoin is a pump and dump scheme and people are making a ton of money on the ride up, but no one is going to send you a memo when the game is over. Once the narrative falls apart for one reason or another, scarcity won’t matter because there won’t be demand. Saylor (and many others who have the liquidity to play this game) won’t care if all his bitcoins go to hell, because while he’s been adding on net along the way (at least through microstrategy, he doesn’t have to disclose his personal investments) he has undoubtedly also sold a lot along the way and locked in his gains. It would not be the first time he has come out wealthier than he went in, while also losing 9 figures of unrealized gains. I get that he has a charismatic personality and a lot of people want to be like him - but he has a lot of market power that those of you with fractional coins or maybe 10 or something simply don’t have.

You’ve all collectively bought into the narrative, created artificial demand for something that is actually scarce. But the price rests on that demand and that should scare you.

Yeah well paintings by Rothko and Rembrandt and Picasso are scarce. So are baseball cards from the early 20th century, and some first edition comic books, and collectible stamps and coins and fish, and signed jerseys and books, and old cars, airplanes, and violins. Lots of things are scarce and have value b/c enough people assign value to them and collectively buy into the narrative that the object, whatever else it might be, is a store of value. Once enough people agree, all it takes a marketplace and some acceptable mechanism to establish provenance.

It's pretty clear at this point that Bitcoin is scarce and has a very active market - crypto exchanges and ETFs on various stock exchanges - and readily established provenance is sort of the whole point of Bitcoin.

So, how do we figure out what it's worth?

There are 21 million bitcoin, 19 million of which have been mined. I've seen estimates that 3 million or so are likely lost b/c people misplaced hard drives or wallets or lost passwords. So let's say there are 16 million available. Probably another 4 million are held by people or institutions that are not selling - Microstrategy, El Salvador, Nakamoto and other founders or early adopters, etc. So let's say 12 million are for sale. Btw, Microstrategy is a publicly traded company governed by SEC regs, so Saylor can't just BS about how many Bitcoin they hold - it's audited. Yes, he may sell some personally or borrow against the value of his MSTR stock, but that doesn't effect MSTR's holdings.

How much demand is there? Let's say everyone with a net worth of 1 million decides they want just 1 lonely bitcoin. There are 50+ million people globally with that net worth. That means not everyone can have one. And of course people like Musk and Saylor and Cuban, not to mention investment banks and various sovereign wealth funds aren't going to be satisfied with 1, or 10, or even 100. So there is a lot of demand. As Bitcoin becomes more available through ETFs and brokers and asset managers that demand is likely to increase, which is obvious from the massive, virtually unheard of inflow for a new ETF. And just today Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo announced they'd make the ETFs available to their customers, and Vanguard's anti-Bitcoin CEO announced he's stepping down.

So the notion that Bitcoin is a "pump and dump" scheme is clearly off base. This isn't tulips or Florida swamp land or pets.com. Instead, as you concede, it's a scarce item and its value is demand driven. So has gold been for 5,000 years or so. There's no reason an alternative money, based on scarcity and ease of provenance, can't act like digital gold. After 10 years, Bitcoin has pretty well proven itself in that role, which is why every day more large, conservative banks and investment funds are getting comfortable with an allocation. Now we're engaged in price discovery and eventually it will settle at a price based on fully realized demand. Given the very recent introduction of vehicles that make Bitcoin accessible to average investors, it seems likely that price will be much, much higher than where it is today.

So is bitcoin an investment vehicle or a currency?

[Anonymous]

I’m dumping $10k into bitcoin tomorrow. Why? Because the entire world knows about it. It’s been around for 20 years. It keeps going up. Why the fk not? It has ETFs now. Think about it. It’s here to stay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m dumping $10k into bitcoin tomorrow. Why? Because the entire world knows about it. It’s been around for 20 years. It keeps going up. Why the fk not? It has ETFs now. Think about it. It’s here to stay.

Ooh, I'm supposed to be impressed that there's a bitcoin etf?

[Anonymous]

So is bitcoin an investment vehicle or a currency?

Both. At this point most people in the US use it as a store of value, i.e., an investment like gold or art or rare coins. It's an alternative to cash that so far has proven to more than keep pace with inflation. Makes sense, since opting out of cash, which is highly susceptible to inflation due to money printing, was the main point of Bitcoin as described by its creator(s).

It can also be used as a currency, but the transaction fees have largely made that use theoretical. Still, there are places that take Bitcoin as payment. Tesla did for a while. El Salvador has an entire town where Bitcoin is used as a currency. There are technologies in development, such as the Lightning Network, that are trying to overcome obstacles to the use of Bitcoin as a currency. But for the foreseeable future, the use case is decidedly on the side of investment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What can you buy with cryptocurrency?

One of my friends bought and mined bitcoin, held it, and ended up buying a 600k house with it. Just sayin.

Interesting they accepted bitcoin at settlement.

Clearly, they sold and converted back to USD, but still.

And yes, there are services that accept Bitcoin as payment.

Oh. Cool. So remind me how bitcoin is going to replace “fIaT cUrRenCY”?

Incredible how ignorant some of you can be.

Let it be. I have given up explaining to people. Some of you, please watch Saylor's Prague presentation about Bitcoin.
Fiat currencies are eaten up by inflation. So are all other asset classes. Remember, Bitcoin is in your head. The keys, the passwords you take anywhere you go. Nobody is going to stop you at the border for holding too much B. like they do with cash.
Remember when they stop you to ask if you have enough cash to stay in US/EU for three months. Pull out your phone, show them your millions, and keep walking.

Yes, of course this currency that is designed to be not under the control of governments, will be accepted by those governments as proof of approved currency.

Not to mention people forget their passwords ALL the time. You lose your crypto keys, they are gone with a capital G. You have to remember the 12 phrase word forever, and safeguard it from hackers like your life depends on it.

Good. So less to go around and price goes up.

I get the supply side being constrained. But I just made a doodle on a piece of paper. It’s very scarce. There’s just one of them. In order for it to be worth anything, someone must be willing to pay for it. Scarcity alone doesn’t drive value.

In order for the demand and value to be there with bitcoin, people have to buy the narrative of a failing dollar, hyper inflation, and a global financial system that is falling apart. That’s what Saylor, et al sell. And so, now, people who have bought this narrative are buying and selling to each other because they think the scarcity means something. But it’s all a construct. If all of this was really so inevitable, why are people selling at all? Who is selling? Only idiots? Bitcoin is a pump and dump scheme and people are making a ton of money on the ride up, but no one is going to send you a memo when the game is over. Once the narrative falls apart for one reason or another, scarcity won’t matter because there won’t be demand. Saylor (and many others who have the liquidity to play this game) won’t care if all his bitcoins go to hell, because while he’s been adding on net along the way (at least through microstrategy, he doesn’t have to disclose his personal investments) he has undoubtedly also sold a lot along the way and locked in his gains. It would not be the first time he has come out wealthier than he went in, while also losing 9 figures of unrealized gains. I get that he has a charismatic personality and a lot of people want to be like him - but he has a lot of market power that those of you with fractional coins or maybe 10 or something simply don’t have.

You’ve all collectively bought into the narrative, created artificial demand for something that is actually scarce. But the price rests on that demand and that should scare you.

Yeah well paintings by Rothko and Rembrandt and Picasso are scarce. So are baseball cards from the early 20th century, and some first edition comic books, and collectible stamps and coins and fish, and signed jerseys and books, and old cars, airplanes, and violins. Lots of things are scarce and have value b/c enough people assign value to them and collectively buy into the narrative that the object, whatever else it might be, is a store of value. Once enough people agree, all it takes a marketplace and some acceptable mechanism to establish provenance.

It's pretty clear at this point that Bitcoin is scarce and has a very active market - crypto exchanges and ETFs on various stock exchanges - and readily established provenance is sort of the whole point of Bitcoin.

So, how do we figure out what it's worth?

There are 21 million bitcoin, 19 million of which have been mined. I've seen estimates that 3 million or so are likely lost b/c people misplaced hard drives or wallets or lost passwords. So let's say there are 16 million available. Probably another 4 million are held by people or institutions that are not selling - Microstrategy, El Salvador, Nakamoto and other founders or early adopters, etc. So let's say 12 million are for sale. Btw, Microstrategy is a publicly traded company governed by SEC regs, so Saylor can't just BS about how many Bitcoin they hold - it's audited. Yes, he may sell some personally or borrow against the value of his MSTR stock, but that doesn't effect MSTR's holdings.

How much demand is there? Let's say everyone with a net worth of 1 million decides they want just 1 lonely bitcoin. There are 50+ million people globally with that net worth. That means not everyone can have one. And of course people like Musk and Saylor and Cuban, not to mention investment banks and various sovereign wealth funds aren't going to be satisfied with 1, or 10, or even 100. So there is a lot of demand. As Bitcoin becomes more available through ETFs and brokers and asset managers that demand is likely to increase, which is obvious from the massive, virtually unheard of inflow for a new ETF. And just today Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo announced they'd make the ETFs available to their customers, and Vanguard's anti-Bitcoin CEO announced he's stepping down.

So the notion that Bitcoin is a "pump and dump" scheme is clearly off base. This isn't tulips or Florida swamp land or pets.com. Instead, as you concede, it's a scarce item and its value is demand driven. So has gold been for 5,000 years or so. There's no reason an alternative money, based on scarcity and ease of provenance, can't act like digital gold. After 10 years, Bitcoin has pretty well proven itself in that role, which is why every day more large, conservative banks and investment funds are getting comfortable with an allocation. Now we're engaged in price discovery and eventually it will settle at a price based on fully realized demand. Given the very recent introduction of vehicles that make Bitcoin accessible to average investors, it seems likely that price will be much, much higher than where it is today.

So is bitcoin an investment vehicle or a currency?

It's an investment vehicle for pump and dumpers, and a currency for money launderers. Simple!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What can you buy with cryptocurrency?

One of my friends bought and mined bitcoin, held it, and ended up buying a 600k house with it. Just sayin.

Interesting they accepted bitcoin at settlement.

Clearly, they sold and converted back to USD, but still.

And yes, there are services that accept Bitcoin as payment.

Oh. Cool. So remind me how bitcoin is going to replace “fIaT cUrRenCY”?

Incredible how ignorant some of you can be.

Let it be. I have given up explaining to people. Some of you, please watch Saylor's Prague presentation about Bitcoin.
Fiat currencies are eaten up by inflation. So are all other asset classes. Remember, Bitcoin is in your head. The keys, the passwords you take anywhere you go. Nobody is going to stop you at the border for holding too much B. like they do with cash.
Remember when they stop you to ask if you have enough cash to stay in US/EU for three months. Pull out your phone, show them your millions, and keep walking.

Yes, of course this currency that is designed to be not under the control of governments, will be accepted by those governments as proof of approved currency.

Not to mention people forget their passwords ALL the time. You lose your crypto keys, they are gone with a capital G. You have to remember the 12 phrase word forever, and safeguard it from hackers like your life depends on it.

Good. So less to go around and price goes up.

I get the supply side being constrained. But I just made a doodle on a piece of paper. It’s very scarce. There’s just one of them. In order for it to be worth anything, someone must be willing to pay for it. Scarcity alone doesn’t drive value.

In order for the demand and value to be there with bitcoin, people have to buy the narrative of a failing dollar, hyper inflation, and a global financial system that is falling apart. That’s what Saylor, et al sell. And so, now, people who have bought this narrative are buying and selling to each other because they think the scarcity means something. But it’s all a construct. If all of this was really so inevitable, why are people selling at all? Who is selling? Only idiots? Bitcoin is a pump and dump scheme and people are making a ton of money on the ride up, but no one is going to send you a memo when the game is over. Once the narrative falls apart for one reason or another, scarcity won’t matter because there won’t be demand. Saylor (and many others who have the liquidity to play this game) won’t care if all his bitcoins go to hell, because while he’s been adding on net along the way (at least through microstrategy, he doesn’t have to disclose his personal investments) he has undoubtedly also sold a lot along the way and locked in his gains. It would not be the first time he has come out wealthier than he went in, while also losing 9 figures of unrealized gains. I get that he has a charismatic personality and a lot of people want to be like him - but he has a lot of market power that those of you with fractional coins or maybe 10 or something simply don’t have.

You’ve all collectively bought into the narrative, created artificial demand for something that is actually scarce. But the price rests on that demand and that should scare you.

Yeah well paintings by Rothko and Rembrandt and Picasso are scarce. So are baseball cards from the early 20th century, and some first edition comic books, and collectible stamps and coins and fish, and signed jerseys and books, and old cars, airplanes, and violins. Lots of things are scarce and have value b/c enough people assign value to them and collectively buy into the narrative that the object, whatever else it might be, is a store of value. Once enough people agree, all it takes a marketplace and some acceptable mechanism to establish provenance.

It's pretty clear at this point that Bitcoin is scarce and has a very active market - crypto exchanges and ETFs on various stock exchanges - and readily established provenance is sort of the whole point of Bitcoin.

So, how do we figure out what it's worth?

There are 21 million bitcoin, 19 million of which have been mined. I've seen estimates that 3 million or so are likely lost b/c people misplaced hard drives or wallets or lost passwords. So let's say there are 16 million available. Probably another 4 million are held by people or institutions that are not selling - Microstrategy, El Salvador, Nakamoto and other founders or early adopters, etc. So let's say 12 million are for sale. Btw, Microstrategy is a publicly traded company governed by SEC regs, so Saylor can't just BS about how many Bitcoin they hold - it's audited. Yes, he may sell some personally or borrow against the value of his MSTR stock, but that doesn't effect MSTR's holdings.

How much demand is there? Let's say everyone with a net worth of 1 million decides they want just 1 lonely bitcoin. There are 50+ million people globally with that net worth. That means not everyone can have one. And of course people like Musk and Saylor and Cuban, not to mention investment banks and various sovereign wealth funds aren't going to be satisfied with 1, or 10, or even 100. So there is a lot of demand. As Bitcoin becomes more available through ETFs and brokers and asset managers that demand is likely to increase, which is obvious from the massive, virtually unheard of inflow for a new ETF. And just today Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo announced they'd make the ETFs available to their customers, and Vanguard's anti-Bitcoin CEO announced he's stepping down.

So the notion that Bitcoin is a "pump and dump" scheme is clearly off base. This isn't tulips or Florida swamp land or pets.com. Instead, as you concede, it's a scarce item and its value is demand driven. So has gold been for 5,000 years or so. There's no reason an alternative money, based on scarcity and ease of provenance, can't act like digital gold. After 10 years, Bitcoin has pretty well proven itself in that role, which is why every day more large, conservative banks and investment funds are getting comfortable with an allocation. Now we're engaged in price discovery and eventually it will settle at a price based on fully realized demand. Given the very recent introduction of vehicles that make Bitcoin accessible to average investors, it seems likely that price will be much, much higher than where it is today.

So is bitcoin an investment vehicle or a currency?

It's an investment vehicle for pump and dumpers, and a currency for money launderers. Simple!

Cool story. Have fun on the sidelines.

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Anonymous wrote:What can you buy with cryptocurrency?

One of my friends bought and mined bitcoin, held it, and ended up buying a 600k house with it. Just sayin.

Interesting they accepted bitcoin at settlement.

Clearly, they sold and converted back to USD, but still.

And yes, there are services that accept Bitcoin as payment.

Oh. Cool. So remind me how bitcoin is going to replace “fIaT cUrRenCY”?

Incredible how ignorant some of you can be.

Let it be. I have given up explaining to people. Some of you, please watch Saylor's Prague presentation about Bitcoin.
Fiat currencies are eaten up by inflation. So are all other asset classes. Remember, Bitcoin is in your head. The keys, the passwords you take anywhere you go. Nobody is going to stop you at the border for holding too much B. like they do with cash.
Remember when they stop you to ask if you have enough cash to stay in US/EU for three months. Pull out your phone, show them your millions, and keep walking.

Yes, of course this currency that is designed to be not under the control of governments, will be accepted by those governments as proof of approved currency.

Not to mention people forget their passwords ALL the time. You lose your crypto keys, they are gone with a capital G. You have to remember the 12 phrase word forever, and safeguard it from hackers like your life depends on it.

Good. So less to go around and price goes up.

I get the supply side being constrained. But I just made a doodle on a piece of paper. It’s very scarce. There’s just one of them. In order for it to be worth anything, someone must be willing to pay for it. Scarcity alone doesn’t drive value.

In order for the demand and value to be there with bitcoin, people have to buy the narrative of a failing dollar, hyper inflation, and a global financial system that is falling apart. That’s what Saylor, et al sell. And so, now, people who have bought this narrative are buying and selling to each other because they think the scarcity means something. But it’s all a construct. If all of this was really so inevitable, why are people selling at all? Who is selling? Only idiots? Bitcoin is a pump and dump scheme and people are making a ton of money on the ride up, but no one is going to send you a memo when the game is over. Once the narrative falls apart for one reason or another, scarcity won’t matter because there won’t be demand. Saylor (and many others who have the liquidity to play this game) won’t care if all his bitcoins go to hell, because while he’s been adding on net along the way (at least through microstrategy, he doesn’t have to disclose his personal investments) he has undoubtedly also sold a lot along the way and locked in his gains. It would not be the first time he has come out wealthier than he went in, while also losing 9 figures of unrealized gains. I get that he has a charismatic personality and a lot of people want to be like him - but he has a lot of market power that those of you with fractional coins or maybe 10 or something simply don’t have.

You’ve all collectively bought into the narrative, created artificial demand for something that is actually scarce. But the price rests on that demand and that should scare you.

Yeah well paintings by Rothko and Rembrandt and Picasso are scarce. So are baseball cards from the early 20th century, and some first edition comic books, and collectible stamps and coins and fish, and signed jerseys and books, and old cars, airplanes, and violins. Lots of things are scarce and have value b/c enough people assign value to them and collectively buy into the narrative that the object, whatever else it might be, is a store of value. Once enough people agree, all it takes a marketplace and some acceptable mechanism to establish provenance.

It's pretty clear at this point that Bitcoin is scarce and has a very active market - crypto exchanges and ETFs on various stock exchanges - and readily established provenance is sort of the whole point of Bitcoin.

So, how do we figure out what it's worth?

There are 21 million bitcoin, 19 million of which have been mined. I've seen estimates that 3 million or so are likely lost b/c people misplaced hard drives or wallets or lost passwords. So let's say there are 16 million available. Probably another 4 million are held by people or institutions that are not selling - Microstrategy, El Salvador, Nakamoto and other founders or early adopters, etc. So let's say 12 million are for sale. Btw, Microstrategy is a publicly traded company governed by SEC regs, so Saylor can't just BS about how many Bitcoin they hold - it's audited. Yes, he may sell some personally or borrow against the value of his MSTR stock, but that doesn't effect MSTR's holdings.

How much demand is there? Let's say everyone with a net worth of 1 million decides they want just 1 lonely bitcoin. There are 50+ million people globally with that net worth. That means not everyone can have one. And of course people like Musk and Saylor and Cuban, not to mention investment banks and various sovereign wealth funds aren't going to be satisfied with 1, or 10, or even 100. So there is a lot of demand. As Bitcoin becomes more available through ETFs and brokers and asset managers that demand is likely to increase, which is obvious from the massive, virtually unheard of inflow for a new ETF. And just today Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo announced they'd make the ETFs available to their customers, and Vanguard's anti-Bitcoin CEO announced he's stepping down.

So the notion that Bitcoin is a "pump and dump" scheme is clearly off base. This isn't tulips or Florida swamp land or pets.com. Instead, as you concede, it's a scarce item and its value is demand driven. So has gold been for 5,000 years or so. There's no reason an alternative money, based on scarcity and ease of provenance, can't act like digital gold. After 10 years, Bitcoin has pretty well proven itself in that role, which is why every day more large, conservative banks and investment funds are getting comfortable with an allocation. Now we're engaged in price discovery and eventually it will settle at a price based on fully realized demand. Given the very recent introduction of vehicles that make Bitcoin accessible to average investors, it seems likely that price will be much, much higher than where it is today.

So is bitcoin an investment vehicle or a currency?

It's an investment vehicle for pump and dumpers, and a currency for money launderers. Simple!

Translation: I have no idea what I’m talking about so I’ll just repeat what BS I read on Fox News last week. Simple!