OT: This week could be huuuuge

[pseudonym]

No. A deflating currency gives everyone a huge incentive to not spend. Work ceases to have proper value. Society cannot function that way. It's a child's dream on par with a hippie utopia.

Price Deflation and the Horrors of Falling TV Prices | Mises Institute

Deflation empowers the citizen by allowing her modest savings to purchase more goods over time. Inflation empowers the state by reducing the size of its

mises.org

Have TVs gotten better or worse over your lifetime? Have they gotten cheaper or more expensive? Despite this deflation, how many TVs have you purchased? Will you ever purchase one again now that you know that they only get better and less expensive over time?

Inflation, not deflation, distorts the value of labor. That is why I choose to store the output of my labor in a deflationary money. It's also why people who don't hold bitcoin also don't use fiat currency as a long-term store of value. They use subpar proxies for money, like investment real estate and the stock market.

If you want to learn about this, I recommend a book titled The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth.

Home | Jeff Booth

Jeff Booth | Bitcoin | The Price of Tomorrow | The Key to an Abundant Future

www.jeffbooth.ca

 

[pseudonym]

He's dead right.

So the reason bitcoin is going to zero (negative, actually) is because it is going up forever?

 

[Boom Boom]

Price Deflation and the Horrors of Falling TV Prices | Mises Institute

Deflation empowers the citizen by allowing her modest savings to purchase more goods over time. Inflation empowers the state by reducing the size of its

mises.org

Have TVs gotten better or worse over your lifetime? Have they gotten cheaper or more expensive? Despite this deflation, how many TVs have you purchased? Will you ever purchase one again now that you know that they only get better and less expensive over time?

Inflation, not deflation, distorts the value of labor. That is why I choose to store the output of my labor in a deflationary money. It's also why people who don't hold bitcoin also don't use fiat currency as a long-term store of value. They use subpar proxies for money, like investment real estate and the stock market.

If you want to learn about this, I recommend a book titled The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth.

Home | Jeff Booth

Jeff Booth | Bitcoin | The Price of Tomorrow | The Key to an Abundant Future

www.jeffbooth.ca

Tvs aren't currency. Try again.

I recommend you read an economics textbook. Any economics textbook.

 

[Boom Boom]

So the reason bitcoin is going to zero (negative, actually) is because it is going up forever?

No. It is going to zero because it has no intrinsic value and will inevitably be replaced.

 

[engie]

No. It is going to zero because it has no intrinsic value and will inevitably be replaced.

Playing devils advocate as by no means an expert, what is the intrinsic value of the paper in your bank account? Is it not the same exact house of cards?

Hell I recently had someone challenge my thought that gold would be valuable in a doomsday scenario and I’m not at all sure he’s wrong and I haven’t been a victim of too much marketing and too little thought.

 

[ckDOG]

Playing devils advocate as by no means an expert, what is the intrinsic value of the paper in your bank account? Is it not the same exact house of cards?

Hell I recently had someone challenge my thought that gold would be valuable in a doomsday scenario and I’m not at all sure he’s wrong and I haven’t been a victim of too much marketing and too little thought.

Big *** military is behind the USD

 

[Boom Boom]

Playing devils advocate as by no means an expert, what is the intrinsic value of the paper in your bank account? Is it not the same exact house of cards?

Hell I recently had someone challenge my thought that gold would be valuable in a doomsday scenario and I’m not at all sure he’s wrong and I haven’t been a victim of too much marketing and too little thought.

It is the full faith and credit of the US govt. It is a currency that will only be replaced by another govt or our govt. Which inevitably will happen one day.

 

[engie]

It is the full faith and credit of the US govt.

I guess this explains the surge in btc!

I do agree that crypto investing is more akin to gambling. I’ve seen a 20% swing this week in my portfolio. Last Thursday I was questioning myself and today I’m back to wishing I had put a lot more.

I’ve got a good 6/50 match on 401k with current employer that I started too late in life which is soaring right now but doesn’t get me close to replacement income by 65. Wife in much better shape, but we have expensive tastes. Considering starting a Roth now, also 20 years too late.

Only way I am ever ahead in retirement is via some educated gambling. Whether that’s crypto, putting skin into my online LLC, real estate, or something else. Feel like I’m the average 75% of 40 year olds. And this is why I think my money will double in the next year or so via the bitcoin halving — and if I exercise some rare self control(I won’t) — just might survive retirement on it. While fully accepting the potential for the rug pull — and to be out discretionary income we would have blown at restaurants and summer feeding deer, anyway

 

[PBDog]

I guess this explains the surge in btc!

I do agree that crypto investing is more akin to gambling. I’ve seen a 20% swing this week in my portfolio. Last Thursday I was questioning myself and today I’m back to wishing I had put a lot more.

I’ve got a good 6/50 match on 401k with current employer that I started too late in life which is soaring right now but doesn’t get me close to replacement income by 65. Wife in much better shape, but we have expensive tastes. Considering starting a Roth now, also 20 years too late.

Only way I am ever ahead in retirement is via some educated gambling. Whether that’s crypto, putting skin into my online LLC, real estate, or something else. Feel like I’m the average 75% of 40 year olds. And this is why I think my money will double in the next year or so via the bitcoin halving — and if I exercise some rare self control(I won’t) — just might survive retirement on it. While fully accepting the potential for the rug pull — and to be out discretionary income we would have blown at restaurants and summer feeding deer, anyway

with a true inflation rate of 15% something transformational like btc is the only real hope for us cogs. as long as there is electricity, an internet, and computers there will be bitcoin. why does an open sourced, borderless, blockchain need an army or a government. there is no fine print, no shortcuts, or back doors. its the only trustworthy currency that has ever existed. if a fair system is required by the users then it will win eventually

 

[Boom Boom]

with a true inflation rate of 15%

wrong

something transformational like btc is the only real hope for us cogs.

Wrong

as long as there is electricity, an internet, and computers there will be bitcoin.

wrong

why does an open sourced, borderless, blockchain need an army or a government.

Technically a question so not wrong, so congrats!

there is no fine print, no shortcuts, or back doors.

Says who? Maybe not wrong!

its the only trustworthy currency that has ever existed.

Wrong

if a fair system is required by the users then it will win eventually

Wrong.

Sigh. The basic answer to all this is there's ample and good reasons why society uses fiat currency and not gold. And people forgot those lessons.

 

[pseudonym]

Tvs aren't currency. Try again.

I recommend you read an economics textbook. Any economics textbook.

You either didn’t read the article or didn’t understand it. No one is saying TVs are currency. They show that deflation (better TVs for less money over time) doesn’t stop people from buying TVs.

 

[pseudonym]

No. It is going to zero because it has no intrinsic value and will inevitably be replaced.

You said he’s dead right. Did you watch the clip? In one clip he says bitcoin is going to zero AND that bitcoin becomes more expensive because it is deflationary.

 

[pseudonym]

I guess this explains the surge in btc!

People reminding us that the US dollar is backed by the federal government is a great advertisement for bitcoin!

 

[Boom Boom]

You either didn’t read the article or didn’t understand it. No one is saying TVs are currency. They show that deflation (better TVs for less money over time) doesn’t stop people from buying TVs.

You didn't understand the point. If you are arguing that deflation doesn't affect purchasing, then just stop, it's so wrong I can't lower myself enough to argue it.

 

[Boom Boom]

You said he’s dead right. Did you watch the clip? In one clip he says bitcoin is going to zero AND that bitcoin becomes more expensive because it is deflationary.

Both of those things are correct.

 

[pseudonym]

Both of those things are correct.

The commitment to the position that has been wrong for 15+ years is remarkable.

 

[Boom Boom]

Dude, way to double down on missing the point. That the artificial scarcity that will make the price go up will cause it to be replaced by a more viable option, which will take it to zero.

BTC is having a moment. It always was going to. The crash will come eventually. It was always going to. This story is not new.

 

[pseudonym]

Dude, way to double down on missing the point. That the artificial scarcity that will make the price go up will cause it to be replaced by a more viable option, which will take it to zero.

BTC is having a moment. It always was going to. The crash will come eventually. It was always going to. This story is not new.

Honest question: Has an asset ever reached a trillion-dollar market cap and crashed to zero?

Off the top of my head, the largest company I can think of that crashed to zero was Lehman Brothers. Its market cap was about $60 billion at its peak (<5% of bitcoin's current market cap).

 

[Boom Boom]

Honest question: Has an asset ever reached a trillion-dollar market cap and crashed to zero?

Off the top of my head, the largest company I can think of that crashed to zero was Lehman Brothers. Its market cap was about $60 billion at its peak (<5% of bitcoin's current market cap).

Fair question.

The CDO market cap went from $500B (non-adjusted for inflation) to zero during the housing crash.

Probably many other examples. Kodak, Blockbuster, etc. When an asset gets replaced by a better option/competitor, the market hit is stiff and steep. BTC cannot go up forever, basic reality, and when it stops, what then? When people don't see it as a gaining asset, just a stable one even, why buy it over something else? When that happens, a crash is inevitable, and becomes self reinforcing. Potential buyers will turn to stable coins. Unavoidable.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

What the hell did you just say?

all the graphs are telling me that the trapezoidal apex is nearing a full asymptotic tangent

 

[horshack.sixpack]

I mean, there is basically a decade's worth of BTC talk on this forum where I chime in with 'WT17?' or 'Even after reading a dozen articles about the tech, I just dont get it'.
I have straight up said that I dont get it, so I have told 'us' that I dont get it.

I continue to wait for some actual investing fundamentals that can logically work for BTC or any crypto. Up to now, the way of justifying value and claiming fundamentals are used is to highlight the fact that mining will run out- so basically supply is limited. Well ok, but limited supply doesnt directly result in value. Another claim is that it can be used in place of fiat currency...but that has been an abject failure even at the limited scale it has been tried because verification is slow, verification is expensive, and people dont want to give up something that might be worth 20% more in a few days for no actual investment reason.
In reality, a bitcoin has no intrinsic value and is not backed or supported by anything. And in an ironic twist that just seems to be constantly ignored, its value is directly tied to the very currency that so many people claim BTC exists to be an alternative to. Um...yeah.
This is all speculation. Speculators pushed BTC and other crypto into the investment markets and speculators stand to gain the most from that move(shocker**). Thats cool and all, speculate away, but lets not pretend there is sound investment strategy actually going on by most(any?) speculators/investors.
Currently, the value is really all just a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy, a bit of FOMO, a bit of alt sticking it to the man, a heavy dose of social media, and a bit more of FOMO.


As for your comment about FBTC beoing around since the 2nd week of January...I am not sure what you are saying. Are you saying my comment about my Fidelity account is a lie? If thats what you are saying...who lies about investing $646 and only having $1529?

There's a very limited supply of "Horshacks". Let me share my CashApp with all yall.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Kodak is here to stay too. First entrant (or near it), brand recognition, etc. But it could not forever provide a service that others couldn't, and eventually it essentially got left behind. Same will happen with BTC. A better option will displace it, and there will be a bank run to beat all bank runs.

It's really hard to imagine this ending any differently than a game of musical chairs, only with fewer seats and less determinate song length.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Playing devils advocate as by no means an expert, what is the intrinsic value of the paper in your bank account? Is it not the same exact house of cards?

Hell I recently had someone challenge my thought that gold would be valuable in a doomsday scenario and I’m not at all sure he’s wrong and I haven’t been a victim of too much marketing and too little thought.

As long as the US can apply the kind of pressure that we are applying to banking institutions who are supporting Putin and have them stop just because they don't want to lose access to the dollar, it's the clear winner. If ever that is not the case, none of this might matter as the US will have lost so much world influence that we might be seeing unheard of instability, confiscation of private wealth, etc., in which case it won't much matter if they take my $$$ or my BTC.

 

[mstateglfr]

Honest question: Has an asset ever reached a trillion-dollar market cap and crashed to zero?

Huh, I really hadnt thought about bitcoin as an asset, since it is so speculative and volatile. In my simple mind, I tend to think of assets as something that holds relatively stable value(fluctuation can happen, but it is not volatile). I get that my simple view is not a definition that an accountant would give.

Bitcoin really just seems like a way to store value. That value is then tied directly to USD, the very thing many who value bitcoin claim it will replace or free the world from(fiat currency).
It certainly isnt a capital asset since there is no continuing value or physical value. I guess it is a digital asset.


Interesting.

 

[ckDOG]

Honest question: Has an asset ever reached a trillion-dollar market cap and crashed to zero?

Off the top of my head, the largest company I can think of that crashed to zero was Lehman Brothers. Its market cap was about $60 billion at its peak (<5% of bitcoin's current market cap).

A trillion what?

 

[jethreauxdawg]

A trillion what?

 

[pseudonym]

A trillion what?

The dollar is such a sh!tty measuring stick, trillion-dollar assets are a relatively new thing. It's probably better to use some other measuring stick. For example, an asset with a market cap equal to 10% of the market cap of gold or an asset with a market cap equal to that of silver. Has an asset that reached that size in market capitalization ever gone to zero? Honest question.

 

[PBDog]

Dude, way to double down on missing the point. That the artificial scarcity that will make the price go up will cause it to be replaced by a more viable option, which will take it to zero.

BTC is having a moment. It always was going to. The crash will come eventually. It was always going to. This story is not new.

so you’re saying gold will eventually crash too and no longer useful as a store of value? or just the new computer money will crash?

 

[PBDog]

Huh, I really hadnt thought about bitcoin as an asset, since it is so speculative and volatile. In my simple mind, I tend to think of assets as something that holds relatively stable value(fluctuation can happen, but it is not volatile). I get that my simple view is not a definition that an accountant would give.

Bitcoin really just seems like a way to store value. That value is then tied directly to USD, the very thing many who value bitcoin claim it will replace or free the world from(fiat currency).
It certainly isnt a capital asset since there is no continuing value or physical value. I guess it is a digital asset.


Interesting.

it’s a store of value that can be transferred around the world in seconds with very little fee

 

[pseudonym]

so you’re saying gold will eventually crash too and no longer useful as a store of value? or just the new computer money will crash?

Gold and bitcoin are going to zero.

 

[pseudonym]

it’s a store of value that can be transferred around the world in seconds with very little fee

For those who want to learn:

Here is an example on-chain transaction in the last hour. 10 BTC ($685k) moved for less than $10. They actually overpaid by 2x to ensure the transaction was confirmed next block (~10 minutes). Final settlement in 10 minutes for less than 0.0014% transaction fee achieved without the need for a trusted third party. This should be compared to a bank wire transfer fee of $15-30.

The Mempool Open Source Project®

Explore the full Bitcoin ecosystem with The Mempool Open Source Project®. See the real-time status of your transactions, get network info, and more.

mempool.space

This is the kind of thing you miss if you own a bitcoin IOU in a Coinbase or Fidelity account.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

A trillion what?

he meant trillion fiat currency

 

[johnson86-1]

btc is recovering from a healthy correction and the halving is probably on 4/20. this could be setting up to be the week it hits 80K. surely the grayscale genesis turd is flushed.

btc and all proxies especially mstr and clsk could see their ath eclipsed by 20%.

thoughts? what is your market top prediction? my analysis says btc to 150k for this cycle

17ing Tommy John surgeries. I don't even know who mstr or CLSK are. Can we start using full names until we have a bullpen that isn't turning over every month or so?

 

[Boom Boom]

so you’re saying gold will eventually crash too and no longer useful as a store of value? or just the new computer money will crash?

1) gold is not what it once was, as something came along that worked better for many things (fiat money)

2) gold has intrinsic value.

 

[Boom Boom]

For those who want to learn:

Here is an example on-chain transaction in the last hour. 10 BTC ($685k) moved for less than $10. They actually overpaid by 2x to ensure the transaction was confirmed next block (~10 minutes). Final settlement in 10 minutes for less than 0.0014% transaction fee achieved without the need for a trusted third party. This should be compared to a bank wire transfer fee of $15-30.

The Mempool Open Source Project®

Explore the full Bitcoin ecosystem with The Mempool Open Source Project®. See the real-time status of your transactions, get network info, and more.

mempool.space

This is the kind of thing you miss if you own a bitcoin IOU in a Coinbase or Fidelity account.

Please explain why BTC will forever and always provide this service better than any competitor.

 

[pseudonym]

Please explain why BTC will forever and always provide this service better than any competitor.

Bitcoin can adopt any perceived advantage of another project, while those projects cannot adopt the advantages of bitcoin.

Many projects have claimed to improve upon bitcoin. If there is an improvement to be prioritized, bitcoin can change its code to adopt that improvement. If bitcoin hasn't adopted your project's claimed advantage, it's because we don't see it as an advantage. At best, we don't see it as a priority. There are always tradeoffs with these changes. Bitcoin has prioritized decentralization, monetary policy, and security. We won't compromise these to achieve something less important. Other projects have.

Even though I think the crypto projects are sh!tty, they can serve as a sandbox for bitcoin. Maybe one of them will stumble upon an actual good idea. We will be happy to adopt it if and when that happens.

Compare that to the advantages bitcoin has over other projects: first-mover advantage, brand recognition, network effects, security, scarcity, liquidity, and community support. These advantages cannot be overcome with lines of code alone. For example, other projects can't just decide to have the network effect and liquidity of bitcoin. They can't just decide to have a big enough market cap for publicly traded companies to hold billions on their balance sheet. Bitcoin has built to that point over the last 15 years.

That's why I'm skeptical. But I'm happy to listen to theories of how something could supplant bitcoin.

 

[Boom Boom]

Bitcoin can adopt any perceived advantage of another project, while those projects cannot adopt the advantages of bitcoin.

This cannot possibly be true.

Many projects have claimed to improve upon bitcoin. If there is an improvement to be prioritized, bitcoin can change its code to adopt that improvement. If bitcoin hasn't adopted your project's claimed advantage, it's because we don't see it as an advantage. At best, we don't see it as a priority. There are always tradeoffs with these changes. Bitcoin has prioritized decentralization, monetary policy, and security. We won't compromise these to achieve something less important. Other projects have.

Isn't BTC's set code it's supposed advantagem. If the code can so easily be changed, might it be changed to produce more supply? What if the advantage is, the competitor doesn't have a fixed supply?

Even though I think the crypto projects are sh!tty, they can serve as a sandbox for bitcoin. Maybe one of them will stumble upon an actual good idea. We will be happy to adopt it if and when that happens.

Wishful thinking. Ask Blockbuster how well that worked for them.

Compare that to the advantages bitcoin has over other projects: first-mover advantage, brand recognition, network effects, security, scarcity, liquidity, and community support. These advantages cannot be overcome with lines of code alone. For example, other projects can't just decide to have the network effect and liquidity of bitcoin. They can't just decide to have a big enough market cap for publicly traded companies to hold billions on their balance sheet. Bitcoin has built to that point over the last 15 years.

Fair enough.

That's why I'm skeptical. But I'm happy to listen to theories of how something could supplant bitcoin.

Basic human history and known reality. You are stating your position as BTC is literally the best thing there could be and always will be. I guess you have to to support a position of it always going up. Starting to make some (perverted) sense.

 

[Perd Hapley]

The best strategy is to DCA into bitcoin (not crypto) for 5+ years and never sell. This has never not worked.

Well, it didn’t work as recently as 20 years ago.

 

[Perd Hapley]

For those who want to learn:

Here is an example on-chain transaction in the last hour. 10 BTC ($685k) moved for less than $10. They actually overpaid by 2x to ensure the transaction was confirmed next block (~10 minutes). Final settlement in 10 minutes for less than 0.0014% transaction fee achieved without the need for a trusted third party. This should be compared to a bank wire transfer fee of $15-30.

The Mempool Open Source Project®

Explore the full Bitcoin ecosystem with The Mempool Open Source Project®. See the real-time status of your transactions, get network info, and more.

mempool.space

This is the kind of thing you miss if you own a bitcoin IOU in a Coinbase or Fidelity account.

That’s great, but how is that feature useful for anyone who isn’t a drug dealer, mob hitman, cartel overlord, etc.?

I can’t remember the last time I had to wire money to someone other than Venmo or something, which is free. And I’ve damn sure never needed to wire the entire GDP of Equitorial Guinea in like 10 minutes.

 

[pseudonym]

This cannot possibly be true.

What "advantage" do other projects have over bitcoin that can't be addressed with code? Honest question. I'm not aware of any, but I'd be happy to hear arguments.

Isn't BTC's set code it's supposed advantagem. If the code can so easily be changed, might it be changed to produce more supply? What if the advantage is, the competitor doesn't have a fixed supply?

The bitcoin protocol is governed by consensus. It can be changed (and has), but it is not easy to change. The political analogy is the US Constitution.

The consensus mechanism enforces 21 million. Users would have to act against their own self interest to violate 21 million. The reason other projects can (and do) inflate is because they are centrally controlled. Anyone who sees this as an advantage is free to choose those projects. None of them have supplanted bitcoin.

Wishful thinking. Ask Blockbuster how well that worked for them.

The mistake here is thinking that bitcoin is like Blockbuster: A company selling something. Bitcoin is a base layer protocol. TCP/IP is a better analogy. TCP/IP has been the standard since 1983. Are you still waiting for something better to come along?

Basic human history and known reality. You are stating your position as BTC is literally the best thing there could be and always will be. I guess you have to to support a position of it always going up. Starting to make some (perverted) sense.

Bitcoin does one thing really well. Money is a ledger, and bitcoin is the best ledger there is. You are the one making a claim that requires support: Something that may or may not exist yet is inevitably going to supplant bitcoin. I'm not convinced.