Bitcoin Forum

Not a newb, but I haven't got any tulips :)

I sense you guys are still in the denial phase

I sense you are in the newb troll phase  :D. Bitcoins aren't comparable to tulips because you can't send tulips around the world in seconds for little to no fee. Just because the price is low doesn't mean the denial face is operational. Give it time newb then we'll see who's right.

I sense you guys are still in the denial phase

It's the internet that sends thing round the world instantly and computers that enable cheap transactions. To capitlise Bitcoin in billions is why its like tulips.

Yes, there are THAT many threads about tulips.

Please, OP...point out another example.  Got none? Because that's the only one in history.

And what is it that processes those transactions? The blockchain. Do tulips have a blockchain? No. As for bitcoins being a store of wealth they store their 1btc wealth pretty good. 1btc is always worth 1btc, what others pay in fiat for it is a different matter.

Oh not this shit again, last time I checked tulips didn't have an ease of sending around the world, do not die/expire, have a limit on how many produced and a produced amount with difficulty.

Granted Bitcoin is limited, but it's a cryptocoin. Just like any of the other 500 coins out there including Paycoin which I think you believe in. There is no fundamental reason why bitcoin should have any more value then any other coin other then it was first to market.

And there is no limit to the number of crypto coins that could be made, hell, we could each have our own coin, and why should it be worth any less than bitcoin? Answer, it shouldn't, they're all worthless.

At least with a bulb I can grow a flower and give it to my wife.

btc and ltc are the strongest therefore exponentially worth more than alts

we don't have our own coin each because team work is far superior

I'm Dutch and this is utter ridiculous analogy.

Oh great. Another tuplipmania analogy by a newb. They're completely different as has been explained zillions of times.

But alts are worth nothing :)

I repeat, bitcoin per se cannot have value, it is not an asset. It's data on hard drives, end off.

Lol. Guess who didn't do his homework  :)

err, you :)

Just for our enlightenment and entertainment, what's exactly on my hard drive?

Precisely  :) You've been proving that you have no idea how the Bitcoin network actually works. Go read up before opening silly topics like this one. Thank you.

I think I said bitcoin is purely data, which in turn is stored on a disk, albeit distributed across many machines. Never said anything about your hard disk other than I don't know what's on it so apologise at your leisure.

Anyway, this is off topic, the point is bitcoin is as valuable as a tulip bulb. (I mean intrinsic value, I know it's currently worth $200)

This should be in off topic....

and bitcoin is crashing because cryptodouble scammers are selling all their bitcoins even cheap because they dont care about nothing

At the time bulb growers thought the price would keep going up. When the market went down they thought it was a blip.

The analogy is this is a bubble that has popped. Where is it ridiculous.

And what is it that processes those transactions? The blockchain. Do tulips have a blockchain? No. As for bitcoins being a store of wealth they store their 1btc wealth pretty good. 1btc is always worth 1btc, what others pay in fiat for it is a different matter.

the intrinsic value is the price of all the mining equipment, peoples computers, their education, their food they ate in their lifetime, their generational history,

you really picked the wrong word,

now lets look at the intrinsic value of a tulip, its a seed you drop in the ground walk away come back and its their,

I think I said bitcoin is purely data, which in turn is stored on a disk, albeit distributed across many machines. Never said anything about your hard disk other than I don't know what's on it so apologise at your leisure.

Anyway, this is off topic, the point is bitcoin is as valuable as a tulip bulb. (I mean intrinsic value, I know it's currently worth $200)

So my car should be worth a fortune now then? I mean I paid for the factory to make it, 20 years of servicing, all that petrol I put in it etc. But when I go to sell it I'm told its only worth 200.

Go figure!

Or is it chinese miners selling to pay their bills

Or is it the lack in demand with the closure of silk road

Or is it the likely crack down post Paris massacre as to prevent funds reaching ISIS

Or is it the general feeling that this was a bubble, fed by the fears of a global economic collapse that doesn't appear to have happened. e.g. Investors not wanting to be in any currency bought anything tangible, creating spikes in oil, food and bitcoin?

There is no such thing as "intrinsic value". What's the intrinsic value of a $100 bill?

Hint



There is no such thing as "intrinsic value". What's the intrinsic value of a $100 bill?

1 printer some ink and a blank note

It's not perfect, but there is nothing behind bitcoins value at all other than speculation, or a need to use it to avoid detection. Drugs, money laundering etc.

I did a search for "tulips" in the search box on here yesterday and it crashed bitcointalk.

Yes, there are THAT many threads about tulips.


Please, OP...point out another example.  Got none? Because that's the only one in history.

That plus a couple thousand war planes, battle ships, a million heavily armed loons in matching green outfits, some nuclear weapons and the attitude of, "it's whatever I tell you it is, bitch".

And consider that Bitcoin did not have any kind of value for its first one and a half years of existence... Then it just caught on, spontaneously.

Like a bubble then.

Just a stupid comment OP. You should be ashamed.

When the crowd notices it is way too late to be selling, then BTC will have a dramatic rally.
Bitcoin is falling because scared people are still selling.

When the crowd notices it is way too late to be selling, then BTC will have a dramatic rally.
Bitcoin is falling because scared people are still selling.

By "scared people" do mean thieves that don't give a shit what price they sell for?

Yes, they should be included:
Hopefully, some of the major thieves have finished selling, so those numbers are no longer waiting to be unloaded.

Yes, they should be included:
Hopefully, some of the major thieves have finished selling, so those numbers are no longer waiting to be unloaded.

Air is worth a lot to a suffocating person.  Water is worth a lot to a thirsty person.  Food is worth a lot to a hungry person.  ...  What do you really need?  Does anyone need a tulip bulb?

Once the most basic needs are met then wants rise up.  One could want a tulip bulb.

A tool is worth a lot to a person who can use that tool to fulfill a need.  A well, a bucket and a rope are three excellent tools and worth a lot to a thirsty person.  A tulip bulb is an excellent tool for growing a tulip and worth a lot to someone who wants a tulip.

Money is a tool.  It is an excellent tool for a person that wants to transact reliably and accurately with other folks.  It can also be an excellent tool for storing wealth until a future need or want arises.  The attributes of a specific kind of money can make it a better tool.  Few would find the attributes of a tulip bulb desirable for using it as money.

Bitcoin is an excellent form of money.  The utility of Bitcoin as a tool makes it worth some amount to the folks that know how to use it.

The exchange rate of Bitcoin with other currencies is a measure of confidence.

Speculation, panic buying, panic selling, etc., contribute to price bubbles and crashes.  Both tulip bulbs and Bitcoin are subject to the same dynamics.  Recognizing the similarities is hardly brilliant.  Recognizing the differences isn't hard.

OP, what's your point?  Tulip bulbs and Bitcoins will follow different paths.  To invoke the tulip bulb analogy yet again is rather boring.

To point out it was a bubble, bitcoin will be worthless, sure there is a limit on the number of bitcoins out there, but not on cryptocurrenices. It's like limiting the number of 10 cent coins in circulation, you just go and use another coin.

Even tulip bulbs are worth something today.  And this despite there are numerous other kinds of flower bulbs in circulation.

To point out it was a bubble, bitcoin will be worthless, sure there is a limit on the number of bitcoins out there, but not on cryptocurrenices. It's like limiting the number of 10 cent coins in circulation, you just go and use another coin.

But last time I filled my car up they wouldn't take tulip bulbs. They were selling flowers though!

A long time ago in Holland people bought flowers pretty much as they do now. By chance a farmer cultivated a tulip whose flowers were unusual, as such his flowers commanded a great premium and the farmer became rich. Other farmers saw this and bought his bulbs so they could cultivate their own. These farmers also became rich

A few intelligent farmers, rather then invest in the original bulb tried to create their own hybrids and many succeeded creating bulbs that were even better than the first. These farmers also became rich.

Within a couple of years, there were 500 or so different varieties and traders bought and sold bulbs and with all the excitement and publicity the price went up. These traders also became rich.

Some people realised that instead of leaving their money under the bed that if they bought a few bulbs and sold them a month later they could double their money. These people also became rich.

After 3 years the market was booming, strangely the original bulb was still worth more than the newer, improved varieties. Who knows why?

After 4 years everyone knew that bulbs were worth pretty much the same, you buy them to produce flowers in your garden.

TL;DR
The ones and zeros that programmers create are there to provide a service, a transaction. They are not for storage of wealth.

I guess people who are hurt most are the ones posting +ve, they say be happy when you are out of luck. Bitcoin did this to you, for once I thought we got a great currency to rely upon but silly its not yet widely accepted and then there are people who are storing it like gold. Mining getting expensive only chosen few can mine it but that is not the reason of crash, the crash I think happened due to more supply than demand.

A long time ago in Holland people bought flowers pretty much as they do now. By chance a farmer cultivated a tulip whose flowers were unusual, as such his flowers commanded a great premium and the farmer became rich. Other farmers saw this and bought his bulbs so they could cultivate their own. These farmers also became rich

A few intelligent farmers, rather then invest in the original bulb tried to create their own hybrids and many succeeded creating bulbs that were even better than the first. These farmers also became rich.

Within a couple of years, there were 500 or so different varieties and traders bought and sold bulbs and with all the excitement and publicity the price went up. These traders also became rich.

Some people realised that instead of leaving their money under the bed that if they bought a few bulbs and sold them a month later they could double their money. These people also became rich.

After 3 years the market was booming, strangely the original bulb was still worth more than the newer, improved varieties. Who knows why?

After 4 years everyone knew that bulbs were worth pretty much the same, you buy them to produce flowers in your garden.

TL;DR
The ones and zeros that programmers create are there to provide a service, a transaction. They are not for storage of wealth.

Wow, if you really think BTC is comparable to freaking tulips then just wave goodbye dave.
Sorry, couldnt resist.

No offence taken. I just see it as a bubble and can't see a long term future for bitcoin. I'm not alone on this. Conversely there is a huge number of people who believe in it.

History will prove one of us right

A long time ago in Holland people bought flowers pretty much as they do now. By chance a farmer cultivated a tulip whose flowers were unusual, as such his flowers commanded a great premium and the farmer became rich.
Man invents BTC


Other farmers saw this and bought his bulbs so they could cultivate their own. These farmers also became rich

Miners start to mine BTC at a frantic pace

A few intelligent farmers, rather then invest in the original bulb tried to create their own hybrids and many succeeded creating bulbs that were even better than the first. These farmers also became rich.

Man invents LTC/PPC/Nubits/other crap coin

Within a couple of years, there were 500 or so different varieties and traders bought and sold bulbs and with all the excitement and publicity the price went up. These traders also became rich.

Bitcoin booms in 2014

Some people realised that instead of leaving their money under the bed that if they bought a few bulbs and sold them a month later they could double their money. These people also became rich.

Your average Joe starts to hear about BTC and invests in BTC or mining equipment

After 3 years the market was booming, strangely the original bulb was still worth more than the newer, improved varieties. Who knows why?

2015 and BTC is still the most valuable crypto

After 4 years everyone knew that bulbs were worth pretty much the same, you buy them to produce flowers in your garden.

Right now, people seem to be starting to realise BTC doesn't need a high price to work

TL;DR
The ones and zeros that programmers create are there to provide a service, a transaction. They are not for storage of wealth.

Fair enough, it has some bubble characteristics. But surely you can agree that there are more facets and depth to BTC than most other bubbles (tulips especially)? I assume youre talking about BTC as an investment (the 'buy coins just to sell them, lets get rich quick' side). Id agree that is the aspect of BTC that is most at risk of 'popping' long term imo, but just cos the price is falling hard now its far from likely to be a 'popped bubble' failure - even at 10$ per coin people can get a good return with good trading strategy - as they do with other commodities & currencies.

In the broader sense,(at the very least) BTC as a technology is very unlikely to 'fail', even if it just ends up being a back end system supporting transactions where the banks/money transmitters 'rent' the use of system from miners.

Maybe you shouldve pick something from the 90's .com bubble that flopped to compare it to :p

As you said, lets see what history has to say:)

Let's see if you have balls.
Bet that Bitcoin goes to zero ?

A long time ago in Holland people bought flowers pretty much as they do now. By chance a farmer cultivated a tulip whose flowers were unusual, as such his flowers commanded a great premium and the farmer became rich. Other farmers saw this and bought his bulbs so they could cultivate their own. These farmers also became rich

A few intelligent farmers, rather then invest in the original bulb tried to create their own hybrids and many succeeded creating bulbs that were even better than the first. These farmers also became rich.

Within a couple of years, there were 500 or so different varieties and traders bought and sold bulbs and with all the excitement and publicity the price went up. These traders also became rich.

Some people realised that instead of leaving their money under the bed that if they bought a few bulbs and sold them a month later they could double their money. These people also became rich.

After 3 years the market was booming, strangely the original bulb was still worth more than the newer, improved varieties. Who knows why?

After 4 years everyone knew that bulbs were worth pretty much the same, you buy them to produce flowers in your garden.

TL;DR
The ones and zeros that programmers create are there to provide a service, a transaction. They are not for storage of wealth.

I believe it will become near to worthless at some point but that might take 5 years or it might take 100.
Eventually it might still be worth something just to own it for bragging rights, although if there is no miners out there is that possible!

The future holds what?

A bubble is a bubble, people buy in to it on the hope of it will be worth more in the future. I don't see a great deal of re-use in the technology behind btc either, yes its decentralised but it takes a lot of energy to maintain the block chain. Is this really the best way to have a global currency?

A bubble is a bubble, people buy in to it on the hope of it will be worth more in the future. I don't see a great deal of re-use in the technology behind btc either, yes its decentralised but it takes a lot of energy to maintain the block chain. Is this really the best way to have a global currency?

As per the analogy, when bulbs lost favour with speculators then they returned to their real function, to produce flowers.

So, some may think that the same may happen with bitcoin, we just use it for transactions. But bitcoin is a combination of currency and transaction system. Can the two be separated? Even if you could I can't see a need for a system like this.

If all you want is reliable instant transactions accepted anywhere then maybe something like apple pay is the future. Google pay anyone?

Any global currency not overseen by a central or distributed (stakeholders) authority needs to be based on some sort of work to be scarce and neutral towards all the participants. I believe Bitcoin is a pure form of money in that sense.

The next step is getting rid of resource scarcity through technological advancements, in which case the idea of "money" and "economy" as a whole may no longer apply. How long will it take? Time will tell. But we are getting there :).

But why do we need a decentralised system. I'm sure there are some people out there who don't trust banks and support btc for this reason. But the resulting technology has resulted in a system that makes it easy to buy drugs and launder money. I think the vast majority of people want to be able to make safe, reliable payments electronically where they don't have to gamble on exchange rates or being ripped of by exchanges. Having a decentralised system has not achieved

Transactions would imply some sort of currency. If you're willing to use fiat, then it has it's own problems, as it keeps accumulating debt, which cannot be resolved entirely without breaking the integrity of the system.

Other forms of crypto-currencies have one or another form of overseeing authority, which might not be censorship resistant.

So Bitcoin is really an ideal form of money, that we could possible have.
Do we need one? Everyone decides for themselves.

My vision is that it needs to grow into something bigger. When it is used by nation states as a global settlement system, then we can judge how useful and successful it is. We are still at an early stage right now.

Yeah, but most of us get paid in fiat and have to pay our bills in the same currency. What benefit does changing into a different currency have for this? So maybe for my savings then, but I'd have to have faith in bitcoins as an asset, and as per original post, it's not gold, its a tulip bulb.

Ive been reading your posts throughought this thread and it strikes me that you appear to be quite oblivious of a couple of principles that make money work.

First of all, the term 'intrinsic value' is an ambiguous term. It means different things to different people so is usually subjective and not of much analytical use. From the point of view of analysing money, it's more instructive to split everything in the universe into 2 types of value:

[1] - utility value
[2] - monetary value

i.e. You would acquire something of 'utility value' because you wanted to keep it and make use of it whereas you would acquire something that had 'monetary value' because you could exchange it for something else.

Note one very important thing here - in an ideal world, these two are almost mutually exclusive. i.e. things which are used as money should have little utility value, otherwise they'd go out of circulation. Conversely things of high utility value do not get used as money. In a less than ideal world, something which functions well as money would possibly have some utility value but its monetary value (i.e. its value to the economy as a token of exchange) should be far higher than its utility value.

Now, if we consider gold, we can observe that most of the world's gold supply is locked up in vaults not doing anything. That's because it's of more value as a token of exchange than as a tooth filling/hi-fi connector or whatever.

Gold does not have 'intrinsic value' in the sense that its value is independent of its role in the economy, rather it acquired monetary value because it possessed certain qualities that made it work as a token of exchange - namely that it was uncounterfeitable, fungible, reasonably attractive etc etc. There is absolutely nothing distinguishing gold from any other metal other than those qualities. It is the fact that it was adopted over time in a monetary role that gave it value.

It's a fundamental principle that any 'token' which becomes adopted in such a monetary role will acquire an associated monetary value that is far in excess of its utility value. There are loads of examples of this throughout the commercial world. Take for example a kids funfair that uses plastic tokens to get on the rides. You have to buy one of those plastic tokens at a premium of many hundreds of percent over what it costs in the hardware shop because at the funfair it is operating in a monetary role.

Now consider the case of cryptocurrencies. If we think of an electronic market to be the kids funfair above (i.e. a closed economic platform) then cryptocurrencies are THE only form of asset that can perform a monetary role on that platform. Up until now we have needed counterparties (banks) to 'mimic' electronic money by simply holding a single number which represents an account balance. When someone transfers money from one account to another, there's no sense electronically in which a transfer occurs - all that happens is that the two counterparties holding balances on behalf of their respective clients agree to decrement one balance and increment the other. This requires a monumental amount of co-ordinated and labour intensive infrastructure and at the end of it all there's no audit trail apart from what each bank happens to record in their own books.

This is why cryptocurrencies are bound to become extremely valueable - precisely because they have *very little* utility value but function superbly as an uncounterfeitable monetary token that does not require counterparties.

Intrinsic value has nothing to do with it. Any medium that can function well as a monetary unit without counterparties is of immense value to a commercial economy. Precious metals have already proven that over millenia, only precious metals cannot travel through wires. Their 'monetary role' worked in the physical world, but now that the world's markets have been transported onto electronic platforms there is a gaping need for a monetary asset that is electronic in origin and independent of counterparties.

Bitcoin isn't the first. It's the first one that worked. Man was attempting to do this for about 25 years before bitcoin came on the scene and there were several spectacular failures, but Bitcoin worked - the double spend problem was solved and the blockchain parameters turned out to be reasonably stable.

The tulips could have worked fine in a monetary role but the problem they had was that they couldn't compete with precious metals. They were not ubiquitous enough, not durable enough and not distinct enough so they lost adoption, and with that their associated monetary value.

With Bitcoin, on the other hand, the opposite applies. Precious metals cannot complete with cryptocurrencies, even though that may seem a profound statement to make right at this moment in time. It is however a true statement because the electronic crypto token posses all the monetary properties that precious metals did plus one crucial addition - it originates on and has mobility in an electronic trading network.

The electronic trading platform has only been around for a few decades and new forms of money take time to accrue value which they can only do through adoption into a monetary role (like the plastic funfair tokens).

So if you want to judge whether bitcoin has monetary value or not, don't look at the price, look at the adoption. If that starts declining then you might have a point with the tulip analogy.

Until then all bets are off.

A bubble is a bubble, people buy in to it on the hope of it will be worth more in the future. I don't see a great deal of re-use in the technology behind btc either, yes its decentralised but it takes a lot of energy to maintain the block chain. Is this really the best way to have a global currency?

...
Peace to you all...

Plot twist...

The tulip thing wasn't really a tulip thing... it was more about options/futures that had a very cheap 3% penalty to void.... basically a 33:1 longshot bet. With this leverage, market went to moon BUT, nobody really had anything like that amount of money committed, it was all smoke and mirrors.

But even if it was a tulip thing, worldwide "flower" market now 100s of Billions annually, about 2 Billion of that is made on tulips by the good people of the Netherlands today.... it all started back then.

Plot twist...

The tulip thing wasn't really a tulip thing... it was more about options/futures that had a very cheap 3% penalty to void.... basically a 33:1 longshot bet. With this leverage, market went to moon BUT, nobody really had anything like that amount of money committed, it was all smoke and mirrors.

But even if it was a tulip thing, worldwide "flower" market now 100s of Billions annually, about 2 Billion of that is made on tulips by the good people of the Netherlands today.... it all started back then.

Why is my wretched tulip continuing grow?  It was supposed to shrivel up and go to zero already!  ???

http://alidavies.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Growing-tulips.jpg

We were in the hundreds now we're going back up.  This is madness, I want my Bitcoinmania dead already!!! >:(

Dumbest thing I ever seen.  Here, fixed it up for you a bit...

http://s9.postimg.org/3oasbxdnz/tulip.jpg

so it's a touch closer to what's happening IRL...

http://s4.postimg.org/7s2pbqjhp/Capture.jpg

Protip:  When your tulip's shrinking, it's not resting or sleeping--it's DYING :(

Protip:  When your tulip's shrinking, it's not resting or sleeping--it's DYING :(

...
What if Bitcoinmania is around for another 6 years?  What would you say then, Lamby?

"Back!  Back to the grave from whence you came, monstrosity!  You don't belong in this world!"

 Here, fixed it up for you a bit...
http://s9.postimg.org/3oasbxdnz/tulip.jpg

so it's a touch closer to what's happening IRL...

Protip:  When your tulip's shrinking, it's not resting or sleeping--it's DYING :(

Is btc a bubble?

most in altcoin trading, fuck those scam devs, they destroy btc

Good job! Did you learn something? Except litecoin (and crappy dodgecoin) they offer nothing. It is always a big pump and then to hell with the coin  :D
You can mine every crapcoin that releases and wait till it hits an Exchange -> and then just DUMP for BTC.

I really don't understand the whole tulip-bitcoin parallelism.

Bitcoin is like gold, there's a limited supply.
While tulips would be like fiat, you can print (plant) more.

The beartards keep comparing Bitcoin to the great Tulip crash in the 17th century, "Tulipmania".  At one point, I think you could've bought houses with Tulips.

https://historicalmarketmovement.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/tulipmania.jpg

Looks like that had a 4 year life cycle, this Bitcoin on the other hand is year 6 and growing....shit won't die.

Yeah I understand why they compare the graphs.
But it seems just dumb to compare such different assets.
Oh well, trolls gonna troll!

I really don't understand the whole tulip-bitcoin parallelism.

Bitcoin is like gold, there's a limited supply.
While tulips would be like fiat, you can print (plant) more.

I really don't understand the whole tulip-bitcoin parallelism.

Bitcoin is like gold, there's a limited supply.
While tulips would be like fiat, you can print (plant) more.

I really don't understand the whole tulip-bitcoin parallelism.

Bitcoin is like gold, there's a limited supply.
While tulips would be like fiat, you can print (plant) more.

How do you think all the coins came into being, if not "printing [mining] more"? 
Bitcoin is being "printed" at a hefty rate of 10% extra coinz per year.
If that's not enough, Bitcoin could be forked to make *any* number of coins.  No harder than [already proposed] fix for 7 transactions per second limit.

Now it is 'hefty' 10% inflation. In 2016 it is a 'hefty' 5%. In 2020 it is a 'hefty' 2.5%'. In 2024 it is a 'hefty' 1.25%.
Inflation wasn't a problem in 2009, nor is it a problem now. It is simply a method of coin distribution.

I could fork the bitcoin blockchain and make a maximum number of coins of 16 million instead. But as you know, no one would mine it or accept it.

You sound like you are giving up NLC. When to buy in? Have I missed the bottom? It is probably eating you up inside because you know the moment has been and passed you by.

How do you think all the coins came into being, if not "printing [mining] more"? 
Bitcoin is being "printed" at a hefty rate of 10% extra coinz per year.
If that's not enough, Bitcoin could be forked to make *any* number of coins.  No harder than [already proposed] fix for 7 transactions per second limit.

I hear this a lot
Tulips -- Ponzi -- Bitcoin

That tulip story have really got too much attention. It can not possibly have been the first bubble. The world is big.

I really don't understand the whole tulip-bitcoin parallelism.

Bitcoin is like gold, there's a limited supply.
While tulips would be like fiat, you can print (plant) more.

Bitcoins are not for storage of wealth, yes, but symbol and scale

and the end of this story is, that holland is the world leader in flowers today  :D ! thats the part most people dont tell.