It's a deflationary currency. The opposite of "USD always decreases in value because of inflation". Not a red flag at all. Even the idea that it's deflationary is debatable since exchanges now offer loans, a service which effectively creates new bitcoins out of nowhere.
Deflationary currencies cannot be deflationary forever. Think for 5 seconds: if that was true, then the person who sold the pizza for bitcoin will eventually have enough value to buy everything on the planet. So will the person whose CPU was mining to keep the pizza warm. Can there be two planets of value on the planet?
The value on the planet is not increasing as a result of bitcoin. Available bitcoins with which to buy valuable things are decreasing. There is a finite amount and people constantly lose bitcoins which takes them out of circulation.
People speak of the value of bitcoins increasing, as if it's some kind of universal law. If it was a universal law, you could just hold onto 1 BTC for long enough and then buy the entire planet. It's not.
It's not the value of BTC that's increasing. It's the value of USD and all other fiat currencies that are decreasing. Governments print trillions of them while fractional reserve banking and loans create even more. If you have a steadily decreasing supply of bitcoin and a steadily increasing supply of fiat, it's only reasonable to expect that more fiat will buy less bitcoin over time.
This is false. 10000 bitcoins used to buy $10 or a pizza. If USD's value was decreasing, 10000 bitcoins would buy $100 or a pizza. But no. Actually 10000 bitcoins buys $300,000,000 or 30,000,000 pizzas.
Not a law, but it's part of the design, because "omg inflation is bad, the government are taking your money!" theories from people who left before Economics 102
USA has natural resources, advanced technologies, and a standing armed forces that are stationed all over the world. These extract value and serve as utility.
Bitcoin is better at laundering money than many fiat currencies but otherwise it’s only wide scale utility is a speculative investment asset that only increases in value if more people create demand for its limited supply.
I don't think it really qualifies as a Ponzi scheme, functionally it's not all that different from any other speculative asset. You're not giving your money to the 'blockchain' expecting it to give back X amount of dollars, you're trading your money for bitcoins and that's the end of it. Whether you want to keep your bitcoins forever, or attempt to find someone else to sell them to is up to you.
As an occasional bitcoin holder, I don't think it's a Ponzi scheme. Who's the Ponzi schemer? How come every time it collapses it comes back bigger in a year or two?
It's not a Ponzi scheme. It's a multi-level marketing or pyramid scheme. A percentage of every sale (transaction fees) of crypto goes to the other coin owners of the crypto. For every crypto coin it works slightly different.
For Bitcoin, the original design was that everybody could be a miner and (potentially) receive transaction fees. Now it's in the hands of a few with the computing power.
70% of Bitcoin holders bought in last year. A continuous stream of greater fools is necessary for its price to even remain at the current level
Also, every ponzi scheme gives amazing returns, before it inevitably collapses. For example Madoff was able to give decent returns to his investors for 17 years! 'Number go up' is not a refutation of a ponzi scheme.
Yeah but with a Madoff/Ponzi scheme the thing collapses, Madoff goes to jail, it ends. Bitcoin seems more like other assets that don't make things, stuff like fiat money, gold, fine art and so on.
> stuff like fiat money, gold, fine art and so on.
This comment is a great example of how little bitcoin enthusiasts tend to understand about investing. One of this things is very much not like the others.
"Fiat currency" is virtually never used as an investment asset. Even in the FOREX market you purchases pairs of currency rather than just a big pile of dollars. In your 401k when you want to go all "cash" you very often end up choosing investment vehicles that track cash.
The entire function of a currency is as a medium of exchange, it only has value in the process of exchanging. It makes no sense, at the individual investor level, to 'hold' dollars.
If you don't understand how a fiat currency differs from gold and fine art then you absolutely should not be "investing" in bitcoin.
> A continuous stream of greater fools is necessary for its price to even remain at the current level.
I think HN is going to need a good explanation for this. The value is intrinsic, and can go up without any activity happening... I think there are other fools scouring about here in the comments.
I think it comes back bigger each time because more people get involved. From a handful of tech geeks at the start to maybe 100m people this time around.
Please explain to me how Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme while USD after 1971 (going away from the gold standard) is not.
More so explain to me how the USD is less of a Ponzi scheme when it is the super wealthy banks/institutions that are getting zero interest loans allowing them to make even more money while at the same time devaluating the currency.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have ~zero inherent value, due to their non-speculation use-cases like payment being very limited or still early development (smart contracts). Unless you count BTC in black market I guess.
USD has inherent value, it's the only currency where you can pay taxes in, and if you want to do business with government or government employees - who are ever only paid in USD - you must accept USD.
Its more complicated than that. If you already have some maybe having more of that specific thing is more a hassle than a benefit. Or maybe you don't value that thing at all.
What value has a premium steak to a vegan?
If your house is on 0.5 acre of land and you add another acre it might great but if you had 500 acres of land and added another one you wound't even notice.
Why people tend to value diamonds more than water which is essential to live? If you receive two copies of the same magazine you like to read does the second copy holds some value to you?
Inherent value is real. Market value of the thing is dependent on a million things but an axe has inherent value in the same way a feeble banknote hasn’t.
The steak has calories and nutrients, regardless of who holds it (until it goes bad). Those are inherently valuable to any human being.
Your secondary point is about the law of diminishing returns, it’s a non-sequitur.
Water is inherently valuable for obvious reasons. Diamonds have inherent value in their hardness although that has little to do with their market value, that isn’t based on inherent value.
The magazine isn't inherently valuable. The information in it could be if one can decipher it. But additional copies of information don't make new information, so one or a hundred magazines, it makes no difference in inherent value.
> 4. Independence of governments, nations, banks, institutions, corporations
Here is a very direct question:
How does BTC or any other currency protect itself from a goverment?
Imagine that a very big government decides to mine BTCs, will not they control the BTC if they have enough miners? And when I say a government controls imagine: slowing down mining, making it illegal, or limiting it in general population, forcing people to declare thei cryptocurrencies, putting a cap on how much one person can hold personally and forcing you to keep them in an official wallet ...
So how can a crypto currency be independent from a government. The government makes laws and as a citizen you are forced to follow them. Crypto cannot escape this, no matter the technology as the control is not technological, is legal, political and social. It is a social contract that I agree a technology can make it harder to discover some nasty business a citizen is doing, but that does not mean it cannot be control.
Don't get me started on corporations. Imagine Google or AWS decides to use his computing power to mine BTCs or whatever crypto. They will in fact control de market.
Please hypothetically prove me wrong with arguments.
> and when I say a government controls imagine: slowing down mining, making it illegal, or limiting it in general population, forcing people to declare thei cryptocurrencies, putting a cap on how much one person can hold personally and forcing you to keep them in an official wallet
This all already happened multiple times, but miners are so distributed across the globe that this has nearly no impact.
It’s also pretty hard for a country to spin up this much mining power, because it simply takes a lot of time to manufacture ASICs.
That's not "value". Those are "attributes". A person may value those attributes or not, but they do not have inherent monetary value.
The currency of a nation has inherent monetary value because it is backed by the state; the details of what that means will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but except in states undergoing massive crises, you can still be sure that if you hold their currency, you have something of value and can transact business.
Bitcoin is backed by nothing but other people holding Bitcoin.
As for the attributes you list:
1. Immutability is a double-edged sword. There are legitimate situations where you want mutability.
2. Artificial scarcity of a digital thing is only beneficial if you are among those holding large amounts of it.
3 & 4 (basically the same). This is both a huge negative for many people, and only true until those institutions' policies, laws, regulations, etc catch up with Bitcoin and either fit it within their existing structures or ban it entirely.
5. It's really not that accessible unless you're already fairly wealthy and digitally savvy.
All of those things are true (to varying degrees) of all of the thousands of crypto currencies. That's inherently the problem. As soon as another one comes along, the *value* of the earlier iterations gets reduced. There's no limit on the creation of new crypto currencies.
Bitcoin supply is not effectively limited until a satoshi is no longer adequate to express the price of a good. The 'supply' of Bitcoin doesn't only increase with mining, it effectively also rises with Bitcoin's price. Say I need to order one pizza per week. In late 2011, one BTC lasts me one week. At today's price, the same coin lasts me more than 50 years. There's no need to bid up the price of a whole coin in a (hypothetical) world where whole coins are scarce. You just buy less of it, because nothing is actually denominated in BTC - that would be unsustainable. Everything is still denominated in fiat.
Why did you list Bitcoin negatives instead of positives?:)
1. Immutability - clearly a negative feature, no way for humans to manage transactions and correct mistakes.
2. Limited supply - very bad for a "currency"
3. No censorship resistance in bitcoin, but ease of tax evasion due to exterritorial nature. IRS may find you easily but can't do anything. On the other hand oppressive regimes can both find you can prosecute you because in that case you are physically in the regime's country.
4. Dependence on a handful of anonymous guys in the non extradition offshore printing tokens to pump price with zero oversite. I pick governments. Also Bitcoins are not really independent from governments for the lawful citizens.
5. Zero accessibility after more than a decade in production.
You forget to mention the cost of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The cost of electricity, the environment. The cost of securing your assets. I can guarantee you, if a clever goon comes across you in the middle of the night in Amsterdam, and they know you got cryptocurrency assets with you, they'll get them off you (que XKCD ref. of what happens when you get coerced to give away your private key). And I bet they'll be able to smell the hipsters from miles away. Oh wait, these don't frolic around in those neighborhoods in Amsterdam. Cause stuff there goes via (small amounts of) cash, mainly.
Independence, you are very much dependent on the internet, miners, etc. Yes, you can use the tool to avoid detection of a nefarious state actor. But you'd be breaking the local law, willingly and knowingly. That's a risk. At one point, police are going to recognize these sweet 'lil Ledger and Trezor hardware wallets. Furthermore, if a large local economy would collapse, like say in my case EUR, it'd take Bitcoin with it. I admit, it makes sense to avoid currency in small economies in crook countries, but you're choosing for your own benefit instead of the state you live in.
Accessibility, since a lot of people use mobile smartphones, they cannot sync the blockchain to it. Many are dependent on third party like exchanges. Hardly independent of corporations.
Immutability, you can lose your private key and be done with it. If I lose my bank card, I can disable it and just get a new one. With NFTs, these depend on a third party resource. Which depends on USD or EUR or whatever in order to be paid. These also depend on authority of whoever made the blockchain or smart contract.
You didn't mention anonymity, because Bitcoin isn't. Yes, it takes effort, but it can be anonymized. The reason it supposedly doesn't happen is 1) if you are investigator and know a vulnerability to do so, you're best to keep it private for reuse 2) you apply parallel construction instead. But specialists who can do this exist. Its just that they're expensive, so they only go after big fish not Pablo who sends some Bitcoin from El Salvador to USA.
> You can also pay your taxes in crypto in many countries.
(It is called cryptocurrency, not crypto, but yes you can recognize cryptocurrency proponents by the way they call their asset.)
No, I cannot, as Bitcoin is not a currency. I have to pay my tax in EUR.
A Ponzi scheme is a specific type of scam where new investors are lure in with the promise of great returns and portions of their deposits are used by the scammer to pay off early investors who ask to realize some of their returns. The central scammer pockets the difference and eventually runs off with all of the deposits.
Crypto currencies if anything are a bit like distributed pump and dumps, but at that point you're just talking about asset speculation.
I'd say Ponzi-scheme is a justified classification, since returns are funded by new entrants or additional purchases, instead of the asset producing value itself like a company stock or a house.
Even something like gold with no value production - whose price is quite stable because of that by the way - has value because people want it for jewellery and industry.
You could say the same for overvalued stock like TSLA but I don't think anyone would call Tesla a Ponzi scheme. Most of it's value is speculation not actual profits or sales.
> Most of it's value is speculation not actual profits or sales.
“Most” is the key difference: a share of Tesla is fractional ownership in a real business which has proven capable of selling real products which people want. Some fraction of that is definitely speculative but far from all of it, and there's no reason to think that the value would decline to zero under any feasible economic situation.
A Bitcoin, in contrast, has no value other than what you can convince someone else to buy it for. Nobody needs it to conduct business, it's trivial to set up competing blockchains, and the deflationary model is designed to make you profitfrom everyone who starts buying later despite not having created any new value.
> USD has inherent value, it's the only currency where you can pay taxes in
I don't know, I pay my taxes in EUR, I live in EU. But I get your point. Moreover, USD is the most dominant coin in the world. Even outside USA, a lot of people depend on it.
I'm curious about one thing as far as this statement goes... it's a little bit of a nonsequiter though. When/if the US starts to tax crypto and crypto gains, does that show that they have more of a legitimate value?
Switzerland's currency is quite strong and considered a safe heaven. Do you think Switzerland has the capability or would invade another country to collected tax from a few billion people?
I am not an expert in how currencies work, but it's worth nothing that Switzerland, like most countries, keeps most of it's own reserves in USD (presumably treasury bills), and has around 1 trillion in USD in reserve. Which is not unrelated to the value of it's own currency and their ability to stabilize it. But I am not claiming to be able to explain the details myself.
That number you're looking at is "total Swiss foreign currency reserves in units of USD" not "Swiss foreign currency reserves that are USD". Switzerland, for reasons that are fairly obvious, holds large Euro reserves. At the end of 2020 USD was only ~35% of that total amount.
I mean, it's sort of like that though isn't it? Maybe not quite so literally, but, yes, you'd have to admit that the USD gets its strength from being able to take 330M Americans.
It’s value is in how robust it’s value it is. It isn’t robust at all and has lost 30% or more of its value since the start of the pandemic if you look at commodities.
Well the Houthi movement's official slogan is "God is Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam". Can't be a coincident?
"Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken.[2] Funding [..] rose to $630 million per year in 1987,[1][4][5] described as the "biggest bequest to any Third World insurgency".
Would you excuse Hitler with the same sentence?
You can switch islam with white supremacy, it's a similar supremacist ideology in search of a boogeyman. Protocol of Zion is still cited as a legitimate source in the middle east.
I actively encourage you to participate in BDS of the states you have an issue with, as I do myself.
I think you should read more in the history of this relationship and compel your representatives to stop this policy of arming dictatorships just so your uncle in the mid-west can keep his job of machining parts for tanks and missiles.
There is chaos in the M.E and it is fueled by your weak politicians putting jobs (among other things) over peace.
If they came through legally, they'll be just fine. Maybe not before a few years ago (valid criticism). If they snuck in then that may be a different story - then you can go into how the Kingdom treats and abuses illegal migrants and expatriates (more room for valid criticisms)
Drew Binsky is of Jewish background and he is welcomed, which is counter to your insinuation that.... he would be beheaded on the spot (???)
Even pre-reform not much would've happened to him on the ground by the people.
It is true however, that generally Jewish people were not allowed into the country. Of course there were exceptions back then also.
I think your sentiment is on the right side, you just need to make sure you keep up to date with what's happening so as to not invalidate your own position/talking point
To be fair they're not US funded, they're US supplied. US and Uk weapons manufacturers are making lots of money because Saudi Arabia and the UAE are buying weapons from them. They're not using money from the USA to do this.
The journalists who have disclose this fact were summoned by our intelligence services (DGSI). It was a scandale and freedom of speech was trampled with this case.
Simply eating more omega-3, while it can lead to more robust synthesis of endocannabinoids, really has nothing to do with the study at hand. Generally we use drugs because they have different or greater degrees of their mechanism than the endogenous compounds. Not to mention we don't know if endocannabinoids such as anandamide or 2-AG even have the same effect as high doses of CBD shown in this study. Also the concentrations of the endogenous molecules are likely nowhere near high enough
Correct, you also need to lower Omega 6 fats dramatically, and probably focus on long chain Omega 3.
> while it can lead to more robust synthesis of endocannabinoids, really has nothing to do with the study at hand. Generally we use drugs because they have different or greater degrees of their mechanism than the endogenous compounds.
You can either excite these receptors or not. Exciting the receptor more than needed, which is what these overly high levels of exogenous cannabinols do, leads to degraded receptor sensitivity (dependance) and probably a rebound effect when the drug is stopped. It is not that I feel the drugs do not work, but they are not needed and are lacking the sensitivity.
> Not to mention we don't know if endocannabinoids such as anandamide or 2-AG even have the same effect as high doses of CBD shown in this study. Also the concentrations of the endogenous molecules are likely nowhere near high enough
The arachidonic acid (Omega 6) derivatives (anandamide) are known to not be as anti-inflammatory and is more in line with THC, not CDB, in its action. Which is my point of having to get the 3/6 ratio much higher, and has nothing to do with this study other than showing that we need LESS anandamide and more docosahexaenoyl and eicosapentaenoyl ethanolamides.
If someone has enough omega 3 endocannabinoids it is likely that they would not need the heavy hammer of CBD to get them out of the inflammation. I am not saying CBD does not work, but endocannabinoids are more than just one molecule, and CBD cannot compare.
For a overall robust immune system we should be studying Omega 3's/Omega 6 balance more deeply.
As I stated in another comment, the study at hand was not about activity at CBRs 1 or 2. Plus when endogenous transmitters are concerned, these only stay in the local synapse. A pharmacological treatment has greater tissue distribution. If we want to effect cells that are exposed to a pathogen we need compounds that act at those cells
We also don't know the mechanism of CBD preventing infection, this is only a preliminary study which shows that CBD has some effect through some mechanism. CBD's receptor profile has not been fully characterized afaik
You seem to be jumping to an awful lot of conclusions
I have no idea what you've become. I've learned to understand that there are not binary outcomes dies / is perfectly fine, but a spectrum in between from "won't do well for a long time, maybe forever" up to "all well after a few days".
You're overlooking the somewhere between 1% and 30% chance of becoming disabled from Long Covid. I've been unable to sustain vigorous activity since March 2020, and it's dropped me from the workforce. I used to be on my feet making gears 8 hours per day.
There's more to this than the risk of dying. It would be far, far better for my family, financially, if I had died.
> You're overlooking the somewhere between 1% and 30% chance of becoming disabled from Long Covid.
As a Daoist how can I not see the good in this? Maybe now now that everyone knows they can suffer a chronic disease they will find a cure for those of us suffering with ME/CFS for all these years?
This is the arrogance that amazes me. Suddenly everyone cares about chronic disease. the ME/CFS community has been crying for help for years. Am I glad this happened to you or anyone? No. But as I said, maybe some good will come out of it.
By the way, if you want to get out of your situation the only answer is nutrition.
