Crypto Currency

[BreadManPanarin]

Bitcoin is c u r r e n t l y winning. Who knows what the landscape will look like in 5 years, or 20 years.

The difference between us is that you think there is still a competition.

We can agree to disagree.

[forumname]

The difference between us is that you think there is still a competition.

We can agree to disagree.

Things like this have happened over and over and over throughout history. The leader of some particular industry looks untouchable, and then something new comes along and completely changes the whole landscape. I'm not saying one of the 'competitors' will take over as the top dog and bitcoin will fall, I'm saying eventually, something else will likely come along that is bigger, better and brighter than bitcoin (or cryptocurrency in general). Something entirely new and different that will make bitcoin and cryptocurrency look outdated or obsolete. Nothing lasts forever.

[BreadManPanarin]

Things like this have happened over and over and over throughout history. The leader of some particular industry looks untouchable, and then something new comes along and completely changes the whole landscape. I'm not saying one of the 'competitors' will take over as the top dog and bitcoin will fall, I'm saying eventually, something else will likely come along that is bigger, better and brighter than bitcoin (or cryptocurrency in general). Something entirely new and different that will make bitcoin and cryptocurrency look outdated or obsolete. Nothing lasts forever.

Again, you are looking at this from the point of view of competition between technology companies. I think that is the wrong lens entirely.

Gold won the monetary competition and held the crown for thousands of years because it was the most credibly scarce good that was reasonably portable, divisible and recognizable, and whose supply could not be inflated easily. Fiat currency briefly took over the crown this past century by co-opting gold and marginalizing it, as it has done a few other times in history for brief but unsustainable periods. Bitcoin is the invention/discovery of absolute digital scarcity and is practically perfect at what it does in nearly every way. It is more portable than gold or fiat, more divisible than gold or fiat, more recognizable than gold or fiat, and is the first thing in history that cannot be inflated at all beyond its known fully diluted supply. It is extremely unlikely to be reproduceable in a way that is a significant enough improvement to be disrupted any time soon. In the very distant future I agree that anything could happen. I can't really look out any further than 50 years here. I am merely looking at how the game theory has the highest probability of playing out during a reasonable time frame.

The "anything could happen" approach is not really actionable from an investing standpoint, but I do assign a non-zero probability to bitcoin somehow failing. It just isn't a high enough probability to outweigh the absurd asymmetric upside.

[forumname]

Again, you are looking at this from the point of view of competition between technology companies. I think that is the wrong lens entirely.

Gold won the monetary competition and held the crown for thousands of years because it was the most credibly scarce good that was reasonably portable, divisible and recognizable, and whose supply could not be inflated easily. Fiat currency briefly took over the crown this past century by co-opting gold and marginalizing it, as it has done a few other times in history for brief but unsustainable periods. Bitcoin is the invention/discovery of absolute digital scarcity and is practically perfect at what it does in nearly every way. It is more portable than gold or fiat, more divisible than gold or fiat, more recognizable than gold or fiat, and is the first thing in history that cannot be inflated at all beyond its known fully diluted supply. It is extremely unlikely to be reproduceable in a way that is a significant enough improvement to be disrupted any time soon. In the very distant future I agree that anything could happen. I can't really look out any further than 50 years here. I am merely looking at how the game theory has the highest probability of playing out during a reasonable time frame.

The "anything could happen" approach is not really actionable from an investing standpoint, but I do assign a non-zero probability to bitcoin somehow failing. It just isn't a high enough probability to outweigh the absurd asymmetric upside.

I mean, you're kind of illustrating my point here. It was gold, then it was fiat, then it was crypto, then it was _______. It might take more than 50 years but with ever-increasing rates of change, it might not. Either way, none of this adds up to "go up in value forever".

[BreadManPanarin]

I mean, you're kind of illustrating my point here. It was gold, then it was fiat, then it was crypto, then it was _______. It might take more than 50 years but with ever-increasing rates of change, it might not. Either way, none of this adds up to "go up in value forever".

I will scrap the word "forever", since forever is not a reasonable term to use.

I think that bitcoin will go up in value for generations, and may end up being the last money we ever need.

There were massive improvements that could be made upon both gold and fiat currency in terms of their monetary properties.

There are not many improvements that could be made upon bitcoin in terms of its monetary properties.

[forumname]

I will scrap the word "forever", since forever is not a reasonable term to use.

I think that bitcoin will go up in value for generations, and may end up being the last money we ever need.

There were massive improvements that could be made upon both gold and fiat currency in terms of their monetary properties.

There are not many improvements that could be made upon bitcoin in terms of its monetary properties.

Much more reasonable, thank you! lol. I still struggle to see it as a functional replacement for our current system of money though. It's just not really reasonable as a currency right now. What needs to happen to stabilize the price so that we can actually use it?

[BreadManPanarin]

Much more reasonable, thank you! lol. I still struggle to see it as a functional replacement for our current system of money though. It's just not really reasonable as a currency right now. What needs to happen to stabilize the price so that we can actually use it?

No, it is not a functional replacement for currency (medium of exchange) right now for the same reason that it is such a good investment: price volatility. It is much too early in the adoption phase and is too volatile to the upside, which incentivizes long term holding for value appreciation rather than spending. It makes way more sense to hold your bitcoin and spend your fiat rather than spending your bitcoin. At this point it is out of the innovator phase and into the early adopter phase, but still hasn't even reached the early majority phase yet. By the time it gets through the early majority phase and is well into the late majority phase it will start to stabilize to the point that it is much more reasonable for use as a medium of exchange (used to trade other goods) and eventually a unit of account (used to price other goods). It will probably have to increase in price by 50-200x before it reaches this point. We've got quite a long ways to go before bitcoin replaces the US dollar, assuming the issue isn't pushed sooner by the fiat system collapsing through hyperinflation in the meantime.

[Mr. Guru]

Bitcoin already won. It has the strongest network effects, has the benefit of the Lindy effect, and has ironclad game theory. Nothing else is credibly decentralized enough, nothing else is leaderless, and nothing else had the benefit of growing from being worth literally nothing for more than a year to naturally growing into a trillion dollar asset. And almost every alt coin these days is a security by the SEC's definition (Howe test), whereas bitcoin is unquestionably a global commodity.

It is important to compartmentalize this. Bitcoin is competing with gold, USD, bonds, etc. as a monetary store of wealth. It currently makes up about .1% of that global market. If it outcompetes negative yielding sovereign debt bonds and takes just a quarter of their market share it goes from .1% to 5%, or $40k per bitcoin to $2m per bitcoin.

Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, and a whole ton of others are competing as tech companies trying to provide utility. These are very different things. No crypto currency is credibly competing with bitcoin as a global commodity for store of wealth purposes.

Bonds lol

I can't believe people still own bonds.

[doulos]

Again, you are looking at this from the point of view of competition between technology companies. I think that is the wrong lens entirely.

Gold won the monetary competition and held the crown for thousands of years because it was the most credibly scarce good that was reasonably portable, divisible and recognizable, and whose supply could not be inflated easily. Fiat currency briefly took over the crown this past century by co-opting gold and marginalizing it, as it has done a few other times in history for brief but unsustainable periods. Bitcoin is the invention/discovery of absolute digital scarcity and is practically perfect at what it does in nearly every way. It is more portable than gold or fiat, more divisible than gold or fiat, more recognizable than gold or fiat, and is the first thing in history that cannot be inflated at all beyond its known fully diluted supply. It is extremely unlikely to be reproduceable in a way that is a significant enough improvement to be disrupted any time soon. In the very distant future I agree that anything could happen. I can't really look out any further than 50 years here. I am merely looking at how the game theory has the highest probability of playing out during a reasonable time frame.

The "anything could happen" approach is not really actionable from an investing standpoint, but I do assign a non-zero probability to bitcoin somehow failing. It just isn't a high enough probability to outweigh the absurd asymmetric upside.

I don't often get to hear directly from people who still believe these things about Bitcoin, so it's interesting to hear it still. As someone who sold off 90% of my BTC in 2017, and the rest of it this year, I obviously don't agree with the position, but I can appreciate that there are those who still do. When did you first buy Bitcoin? I am always curious when in this entire story folks who feel this way bought in. Cheers!

[Mr. Guru]

You sold off your Bitcoin/crypto?!

Back when I started this thread I was using crypto currencies as a trading vehicle. I'm changed my stance probably early 2021 and pretty much echo what breadman is saying

[doulos]

You sold off your Bitcoin/crypto?!

Back when I started this thread I was using crypto currencies as a trading vehicle. I'm changed my stance probably early 2021 and pretty much echo what breadman is saying

I sold off all of my Bitcoin but am VERY involved in Crypto, though it's nearly all Ethereum now.

Interesting though, would you say that your views on Bitcoin specifically echo Breadman's views? You entered the space in 2017?

[Mr. Guru]

Correct

[Mr. Guru]

Although I don't think it will replace the USD.

It will work along side Central Bank Digital Coins.

[doulos]

Correct

Very interesting!

I have to admit I honestly know very few people who are in this camp these days unless they are extremely new to crypto AND did not get on boarded through Ethereum for NFT purchases. So it's interesting to see one "in the wild"

I'm obviously very biased here, having exited my Bitcoin position entirely and being of the belief that the "flippening" could come as soon as this year. I don't have much hope for Bitcoin long term except perhaps as a hedge against markets, though recently even that benefit is weakening as it starts to correlate more and more with traditional markets. Retail speculators seem to be onboarded more and more to Ethereum due to NFTs, though I am not in tune with what much larger/richer funds are looking at when it comes to these things. It's very possible that Bitcoin retains its position as the top dog a little longer than I think due to it's first mover advantage.

[BreadManPanarin]

I don't often get to hear directly from people who still believe these things about Bitcoin, so it's interesting to hear it still. As someone who sold off 90% of my BTC in 2017, and the rest of it this year, I obviously don't agree with the position, but I can appreciate that there are those who still do. When did you first buy Bitcoin? I am always curious when in this entire story folks who feel this way bought in. Cheers!

I started buying bitcoin in 2020. I’ve spent at least 500 hours studying and learning about every aspect of the thesis, and I intend to keep dollar cost averaging in forever.

You rarely meet bitcoiners in the wild, and I rarely meet Ethereans in the wild. This isn’t surprising because neither of us are really seeking the other contingent out. If you’d like to, there are very large Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse rooms about bitcoin basically 24/7 with extremely knowledgeable hosts and speakers who discuss monetary history, game theory, macro economics, geopolitics, and every other facet of the bitcoin thesis, and there are thousands of hours worth of podcasts, audiobooks, etc. that cover all of these topics as well. The thesis is far stronger now than it has ever been in the past due to accelerating adoption by corporations, institutions and nation states, and the advances in mining infrastructure and tech are pretty much non-stop.

Despite all the “boomer coin” and “web3” and defi-obsessed mentality that is prevalent out there, the future for bitcoin has never looked brighter. I think a lot of people just fail to understand that store of value is by far the greatest and most valuable form of “utility” that exists in the world by multiple orders of magnitude. Hopefully I don’t need to explain the difference in amount of value that can be driven by retail speculators into Ethereum vs. the amount of value that can be driven by corporate treasuries, pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign treasuries and central banks into bitcoin. It is very much possible (and game theoretically quite likely) that bitcoin not only retains its position as top dog, but becomes worth many orders of magnitude more than Ethereum or any other alt coin over the coming decades.