ETH = Game Over

[man0faction]

ETH will be over sometime but i don't think it is near the end yet.

[nindie]

until now ethreum eth still is good coin
good community, good volume transaction and good price

[JayJuanGee]

Wow, if you think pow is better than pos then you're stupid. A network can achieve a better decentralization much easier in POS because you don't need specialized hardware. So it's not only about saving energy.

Yeah, go spewing out your ethereum pumping slogans regarding the supposed benefits of proof of stake, and alleging a decentralization that does not exist.  Only bitcoin, so far, has achieved a kind of true decentralization.. or at least the closest fucking thing in the world that is secure decentralized immutable value transfer and storage.

Are you so caught up in your ethereum pumping assertions that you cannot even recognize that the reality of the matter is that so far bitcoin is the only system in the whole fucking world that is secure decentralized immutable value transfer and storage.  The reason for the achievement of such seems to be largely because of proof of work, and NOT proof of stake.

You name one other system in the world, anythin, go ahead, that allows for secure decentralized immutable value transfer and storage.  Go ahead.  name one. come on.  I am waiting.

Even if proof of work causes some inefficiencies and energy to be burned, as you allege, there remains some value creation to such a system that has never before in the world been invented, implemented and achieves secure decentralized immutable value transfer and storage. 

I am not really expecting you to agree with my fact based assertions, because you seem to be in a kind of fantasy land in your last post that is pumping proof of stake without any real basis for such assertions.

[dinofelis]

I wonder if someone gave you this crazy idea, or did you come up with it on your own?  Sure industries are going to be different, yet any kind of industry that is innovative and potentially popular is going to start out with a certain amount of speculative investments, and possibly bitcoin is a bit more subject to this kind of phenomenon because one of it's main utilities is currency/storage of value.  Even Satoshi recognized that speculation was going to be part of early stages of bitcoin.

A monetary asset is by definition a "speculative" asset in that one speculates on "the other guy accepting it for value".  But there are two kinds of speculation: "same fool theory" (which is the basis of a monetary asset) and "greater fool theory" which is the basis of a speculative bubble.

In principle, a monetary asset gets its price from its usage, through Fisher's formula.  The more it is used as a store of value, the more "hold time times value storage" there is, and hence, the higher the market cap of the monetary asset.  As such, when a monetary asset has more adoption for its usage, its price will rise.

And of course, as with anything where the price will rise, there is (good) speculation in trying to foretell the future price of the asset, and hence buy it already right now.   This is then something that makes the price of the asset rise more quickly to its "final" value, but with the idea that that final value is sustained by its real usage demand (here, by Fisher's formula).  

The point however, is, that if the price rises speculatively to a certain height, the rise should be determined by a kind of analysis of its future fundamentals (here, genuine usage in "same fool theory"), and not so much by an analysis of its future *speculative* value, because then we are in a speculative bubble (where the price comes mainly from "greater fool theory").

You see, if I buy stock of a small company, called Apple, and I believe in these guys, then at the moment I buy stock, I'm willing to offer much more than the actual "fundamentals" of the small company, because I believe that *their fundamentals* will be much, much larger in the future, and hence, I'm willing to buy at higher prices than a normal fundamentals analysis would allow for.  If several "visionaries" like me do the same, then at a certain point, Apple shares will soar, and one might think that it is a speculative bubble, but it isn't: it is a belief in future value.  If the price falls, that's just an occasion to buy more Apple stock.

But if my "speculation target" is, say, 15 years, I'm counting on the fact that 15 years later, Apple will REALLY deliver value at the price I estimated.  If not, I was wrong, and I bought stock of a company that didn't behave as I expected.  So I'm willing to buy Apple stock at prices that are much higher than "current value analysis" would suggest, because I believe in real, fundamental value 15 years later.  I'm not really counting on finding a "greater fool" 15 years later ; I'm thinking that I'm just seeing things earlier, and make a profit from that early vision.

If Apple doesn't deliver 15 years later, I've lost a lot of money, and I've pumped up the price of the Apple shares by mistake.  If Apple does deliver, I will have no problems selling my shares at the "normal fundamentals market price" at that moment, and cash in on my vision.

With bitcoin, if I'm willing to offer $600 for a coin, and assuming that only 5% is "real usage" by now, I'm already taking a bet that bitcoin's real currency usage will increase 20-fold in the next 15 years, say.  $600 is already a very speculative price of a serious value increase over the actual "fundamentals" value of bitcoin right now.

If I really believe that bitcoin will be used 20 times more than right now, I will break even in 15 years.  If it will be used 40 times more, I will double my money in 15 years because then its fundamental price will be even higher: $1200.

I see bitcoin as the Apple share of a company whose share, with fundamental analysis, should be $30, and actually costs $600, because people are speculating on a 20-fold increase of its usage.

If you are hoping for $6000,-, then you are imagining a 200-fold increase of its usage as a currency as compared to today.  Maybe.

However, if you hope for $6000, because people that bought at $60, got $600 out of it, then you are in a speculative bubble thinking, and I think most bitcoin investors are thinking that way.  I wonder how many of them are convinced of a 200 fold increase in actual bitcoin usage, like early believers in Apple hoped for a 200 fold increase of Apple's fundamentals value increase.

However, the funny thing is that with bitcoin, there's no difference between "the shares" and "the company", and higher shares make for higher company costs (mining).

Now, you are coming off as some kind of Ethereum pumper nut job, who some how believe that proof of stake is better than proof of work because it is more energy efficient.

No, I'm not.  If you would have read some of my contributions, you'd see that I have a very, very low opinion of ETH.  I also think that PoS is an error.  It seems to me that it is sufficient to say something negative about bitcoin's market situation, and this triggers emotional reactions.

Yeah, sure there is going to be volatility, and volatility is exciting.

No, volatility is a pain for a monetary asset's usage.  It induces exchange risk, which brings in costs to cover them.  This reply indicates that you're not in the bitcoin usage paradigm, but in the speculative ripping-one-another-off paradigm.

Nobody wants a piece of bread to be $1 one day, $3 the other, and $0.5 next week.  Volatility is terrible for a currency.

 As the market cap goes up, volatility is going to continue to be likely to decrease because it becomes more and more expensive to attempt to create volatility.  There are a large number of ways to protect oneself from volatility, and one of them may be to choose to not use such asset (bitcoin) as a storage of value, but surely in the end, if upwards volatility is anticipated to be more likely than downward volatility, then any calculating person would error on the side of keeping a little more of their disposable assets in bitcoin.

Here we are again: greater fools.

Personally, I always have enough fiat cash flow projected and on hand for at least 1-2 months in order to not be forced to cash out of bitcoin (except to the extent that I willfully want to cash out of bitcoin).   I may not be the greatest example in the world, because I am a bit nerdy, but  in about the next 18 months, I anticipate about three points in which I may possibly need to cash out some bitcoin.  I have back up plans in place as well, but there is a possibility that I may have to cash out during any or all of those three points.  Most people are not going to project their cashflow beyond one or two months, but I would suggest that folks do not hold too much in bitcoin or leverage in such a way that causes situations in which they would have emergency needs to cash out of their bitcoin because they had either invested too much or they had attempted to leverage their investment.  On the other hand,they could become rich from such use of leverage, but I personally find such behaviors as too risky, and really I doubt that a large portion of bitcoin users are in fact engaging in leveraging behaviors in respect to their bitcoin investment (even though there are certainly some folks doing just that).

Replace "bitcoin" by "Euro" or "dollar" and you see the problem.  "cashing out of a currency" sounds strange, no ?

You know bitcoin has already been in existence for more than 7 years, and there has been time for growth, and I would argue that bitcoin is still in a very early adopter stage, but yeah, it has also gotten a certain amount of attention from each of the kinds of players that you list.  Such attention remains part of the dynamics, so why fight the "is" with projections of the "ought to be."

Sure, bitcoin has become what it is now.  The initial reason for it to be a freedom currency seems, however, quite remote now, and it has become a financial gamblers' item.  I fail to see what it brings in that case.  Just another financial toy.  Not something that will bring freedom to people.

Yes, you are showing yourself as a real pie in the sky wisher to have an "ought to be" world that is other than what "is happening"

Again, my analysis is simply "what it ought to be" if it were to be a freedom tool, which was the reason for its invention, and what could have made it special in the history of humankind.  Maybe the lesson is simply that it is quite naive to think that inventing a tool that could be used to free people, will not be abused by TPTB and the greedy crowd to turn it into something that kills its original proposition, and maybe this is, in the end, the very reason why TPTB are what they are.

In other words, what was the original value of bitcoin was that it was potentially a fundamental element in the regaining of freedom of people from what has been taken from them for millenia: economic freedom, which needs a free currency.  My "ought to be" is simply the path that it would have taken if it was still on that track.  It clearly isn't any more (or, as I said above, it actually never was, for more fundamental reasons of people being such that they always corrupt their chances for freedom, to exchange it for a quick profit).

Come on.  Even you know that it is not very likely that bitcoin is going to sustain a price of $600 or $200 or $1,000 for the next 15 years.  

I have no idea.  It could go up (for sure it will go up temporarily in "bigger fool theory") ; however, if no genuine adoption takes place (I mean: use as a currency), then for sure it has to come down in the end ; maybe we are already near the top.  If current usage remains, it should in principle drop to something like $30.  If usage increases 10-fold, it will be $300.
If usage increases a thousand-fold, it will be $30 000.

However, the blocks are full already.  So my idea is that bitcoin might very well be hitting its ceiling (not its speculative price, but its real potential for usage).  Or it might indeed, one day, become used a lot.  I have absolutely no idea.

[shield132]

ETH will be over sometime but i don't think it is near the end yet.

Yes, I agree you, game will be over for etherium in future but not now. Nowdays it's good altcoin but now they aren't near to bitcoin with price and popularity. I think etherium will be a little stable also in near future and hope it's price will be up but despite this there isn't future for many altcoins but this one is healthy concurent of them in today's market of coins.

[erickkyut]

This post is almost 4 months already but ethereum is still doing good! I think the life of coins depends on its supply and demand therefore, ethereum still has a long way to go because there are lots of people using and buying it.

[JayJuanGee]

I wonder if someone gave you this crazy idea, or did you come up with it on your own?  Sure industries are going to be different, yet any kind of industry that is innovative and potentially popular is going to start out with a certain amount of speculative investments, and possibly bitcoin is a bit more subject to this kind of phenomenon because one of it's main utilities is currency/storage of value.  Even Satoshi recognized that speculation was going to be part of early stages of bitcoin.

A monetary asset is by definition a "speculative" asset in that one speculates on "the other guy accepting it for value".  But there are two kinds of speculation: "same fool theory" (which is the basis of a monetary asset) and "greater fool theory" which is the basis of a speculative bubble.

You are continuing to talk nonsense.  Sure there are various kinds of speculation based on various kinds of motivations that folks have.  Any kind of speculative asset or speculative phenomenon is going to have a spectrum of speculation motivations going on within in it.  Likely, we have already come to a kind of consensus that we don't have any kind of meaningful grasp or data on the variations of motives that folks have, and we are even speculating that potentially up to 95% or so of bitcoin's investors are composed of various kinds of speculators.  So, you are continuing to spew nonsense when you attempt to characterize the kinds of speculators that supposedly exist within bitcoin.  

Furthermore, your assertion that all monetary assets by definition include speculation, is another kind of nonsense statement.  You are almost completely spewing out nonsensical ideas when you make such kind of broad generalizations that are not even close to describing any kind of comprehensible meaning.

In principle, a monetary asset gets its price from its usage, through Fisher's formula.  The more it is used as a store of value, the more "hold time times value storage" there is, and hence, the higher the market cap of the monetary asset.  As such, when a monetary asset has more adoption for its usage, its price will rise.

O.k.  so what?  When there are certain national currencies, by default folks are keeping a large portion of their cashflow in their national currency.  Depending on their cash flow situation, they may or may not have options regarding which currencies they use or the amount of funds within that are discretionary. In fact, the large majority of folks in the world do not have significant savings and/or discretionary funds and assets, and even within the groups that have discretionary funds/assets, there is going to exist a range of introspection concerning whether they think through their investment plans in any kind of methodical way.  So, yeah some of the behavior is going to be speculative, and other behavior is going to be just going with various considerations of minimizing risk with default categories of investment without extensive contemplations regarding speculation.  In sum, variation and characterizing as largely speculative seems to suggest that folks are engaging in more weighing of options and even that they are willing to take risks with their funds in order for the chance of making money out of whatever discretionary funds that they have at their disposal.

And of course, as with anything where the price will rise, there is (good) speculation in trying to foretell the future price of the asset, and hence buy it already right now.   This is then something that makes the price of the asset rise more quickly to its "final" value, but with the idea that that final value is sustained by its real usage demand (here, by Fisher's formula).  

The point however, is, that if the price rises speculatively to a certain height, the rise should be determined by a kind of analysis of its future fundamentals (here, genuine usage in "same fool theory"), and not so much by an analysis of its future *speculative* value, because then we are in a speculative bubble (where the price comes mainly from "greater fool theory").

you are not going to get out of reality by arguing what should be..   The reality of the matter is that there is a combination of speculation and usage value in determining present value and expected future value and even that actual future value that comes about.  The mere fact that speculation may comprise a large percentage of such calculations does not necessarily cause some asset to be overly speculative.  Yeah, in determining whether any such asset is overly speculative or not may have to consider how much actual utility is present at the moment and how much is expected in the future and then how much actually arises in the future, and each person who assesses any asset will likely come to differing conclusions depending on information that he has and information that he thinks that he has (whether erroneous or not).. also some folks are going to wrongly conclude that some assets are in a speculative bubble.. in the end also, even if some asset is in a speculative bubble, it may not matter too much, so long as a person may chose to use (buy and then sell) a particular asset within a timeline that does not even matter to whether some speculative bubble may crash 10 years later.. who fucking cares about 10 years or even 1 year, as long as I am trading the asset within 30 days?

You see, if I buy stock of a small company, called Apple, and I believe in these guys, then at the moment I buy stock, I'm willing to offer much more than the actual "fundamentals" of the small company, because I believe that *their fundamentals* will be much, much larger in the future, and hence, I'm willing to buy at higher prices than a normal fundamentals analysis would allow for.  If several "visionaries" like me do the same, then at a certain point, Apple shares will soar, and one might think that it is a speculative bubble, but it isn't: it is a belief in future value.  If the price falls, that's just an occasion to buy more Apple stock.

But if my "speculation target" is, say, 15 years, I'm counting on the fact that 15 years later, Apple will REALLY deliver value at the price I estimated.  If not, I was wrong, and I bought stock of a company that didn't behave as I expected.  So I'm willing to buy Apple stock at prices that are much higher than "current value analysis" would suggest, because I believe in real, fundamental value 15 years later.  I'm not really counting on finding a "greater fool" 15 years later ; I'm thinking that I'm just seeing things earlier, and make a profit from that early vision.

If Apple doesn't deliver 15 years later, I've lost a lot of money, and I've pumped up the price of the Apple shares by mistake.  If Apple does deliver, I will have no problems selling my shares at the "normal fundamentals market price" at that moment, and cash in on my vision.

The same can be said for any asset regarding how it's fundamentals may measure up and the extent to which such asset has fundamentals, whether that is producing technical communications and computing devices and services or whether that is providing secure decentralized immutable value transfer/storage.

With bitcoin, if I'm willing to offer $600 for a coin, and assuming that only 5% is "real usage" by now, I'm already taking a bet that bitcoin's real currency usage will increase 20-fold in the next 15 years, say.  $600 is already a very speculative price of a serious value increase over the actual "fundamentals" value of bitcoin right now.

If I really believe that bitcoin will be used 20 times more than right now, I will break even in 15 years.  If it will be used 40 times more, I will double my money in 15 years because then its fundamental price will be even higher: $1200.

I see bitcoin as the Apple share of a company whose share, with fundamental analysis, should be $30, and actually costs $600, because people are speculating on a 20-fold increase of its usage.

If you are hoping for $6000,-, then you are imagining a 200-fold increase of its usage as a currency as compared to today.  Maybe.

However, if you hope for $6000, because people that bought at $60, got $600 out of it, then you are in a speculative bubble thinking, and I think most bitcoin investors are thinking that way.  I wonder how many of them are convinced of a 200 fold increase in actual bitcoin usage, like early believers in Apple hoped for a 200 fold increase of Apple's fundamentals value increase.

However, the funny thing is that with bitcoin, there's no difference between "the shares" and "the company", and higher shares make for higher company costs (mining).

You are talking nonsense when you are attempting to put some kind of actual objective value on bitcoin as if it were $30.  

Also, you are continuing to fail and refuse to really grapple with the matters of probably values coming on a spectrum of a whole shit load of possibilities, and after weighing all the probabilities, people decide what portion of their disposable funds to hold in bitcoin and for what period of time and even considering various exit scenarios.. they are not locked into their initial assessment, and people cash out early to lock in profits, and sometimes people cash in early to preserve value (even at a loss).  What they calculate about what they are planning to do, and how they actually act can have a lot of variations.. including that they failed/refused to actually calculate in an accurate way regarding their own financial circumstances in light of life events that can come about.

Now, you are coming off as some kind of Ethereum pumper nut job, who some how believe that proof of stake is better than proof of work because it is more energy efficient.

No, I'm not.  If you would have read some of my contributions, you'd see that I have a very, very low opinion of ETH.  I also think that PoS is an error.  It seems to me that it is sufficient to say something negative about bitcoin's market situation, and this triggers emotional reactions.

Well, I was commenting about your assertions of lack of efficiencies in bitcoin, which you were characterizing energy consumption through proof of work as some kind of inefficiency, which is the same kind of nonsense we hear from various ETH/POS pumpers.

I have no problem if you make substantiated criticisms of bitcoin or even if some of your negative assertions regarding bitcoin are inaccurate, and I am merely reacting to a variety of your all over the place assertions, and it is nonsense if you are suggesting that I am being overly emotional about bitcoin, because I could give a ratt's ass about bitcoin in particular as if it were the chosen one.  The issue with bitcoin remains that it is providing a value that no other asset class is providing and that is secure decentralized immutable value transaction/storage.  Name one?  go ahead.  You cannot.  You are coming to the wrong conclusion if you believe that I am being emotional just because I am asserting that there is no other asset class in the whole fucking world that provides anything close to bitcoin.  In that regard, bitcoin is paradigm changing, yet if something better comes along, I have no problem diversifying my investment into that other asset, if such a thing were to exist.  That is not emotional, that is just my personal assessment of this specific asset that has no (NONE) competition at the moment, even though there are a variety of aspirants, claimed aspirants and phoney aspirants (Ethereum being one of the most prominent immitators, in recent times).

By the way, it could appear that I am getting emotional based on a certain level of frustration that I may demonstrate regarding engaging in what seems to be a conversation that is repeating themes over and over and over  .. .and sometimes I get the perception that some of the issues that I am addressing should either be a kind of common sense or addressing some fantasy world speculations that describe the "ought" as if it were the "is."  Emotional? probably, but such emotion is not that I give a ratt's ass about pumping some kind of fantasies in respect to bitcoin.  I think that my assessment if fairly accurate at the moment, and that is that bitcoin is providing something that no other asset is providing or every has provided.

We did not have sufficiently powerful or ubiquitous internet, previously that would have allowed for a bitcoin to arise, let's say even 10 or 20 years ago.  There is a certain kind of power in bitcoin that comes merely from the fact that the internet has evolved in considerable ways and on a global scale (even though there still remain a considerable amount of underserved areas in the world).

Yeah, sure there is going to be volatility, and volatility is exciting.

No, volatility is a pain for a monetary asset's usage.  It induces exchange risk, which brings in costs to cover them.  This reply indicates that you're not in the bitcoin usage paradigm, but in the speculative ripping-one-another-off paradigm.

I am just attempting to embrace the "is" which remains of the fact that in any kind of growing asset class (such as bitcoin), its early stages are going to experience a whole hell of a lot of volatility.  Instead of complaining about it, and suggesting that they asset is not useful, etc etc etc, figure out ways to deal with volatility, accept it and prepare for it (even when not being clear at all about its exact direction merely beyond the fact that it is going to continue to exist for quite a long time to come).

Nobody wants a piece of bread to be $1 one day, $3 the other, and $0.5 next week.  Volatility is terrible for a currency.

who fucking cares.  Bitcoin has like .01%, if that, adoption.  It is a whole hell of a long way to becoming any kind of stable currency in the near future - even though built into it is such future currency application.

You are expecting way too much from bitcoin if you consider it to serve as a currency now or a currency in the very near future... yeah, some folks likely have volatility levels with their currency that can be greater than bitcoin, but expecting bitcoin to not be volatile, any time soon, is a very unrealistic mindset.

So, yeah if you are buying bread, then you need to have some currency in dollars, you should not be holding your daily spending money in a likely ongoing volatile asset, such as bitcoin.  In fact, I already asserted, several times, that it remains prudent to only hold a certain percentage of quasi-liquid investment funds in bitcoin.  I would suggest 1% to 10%, depending on your own views, risk tolerance, etc.  Some folks are going to chose outside of the range that I suggest, and I believe that it is quite extreme (bordering on idiotic) if some folks are placing all their assets/value (and holding such in bitcoin), even though I understand that there are some folks that have such a risky (that could possibly pay off) mindset.  In the end, people need to assess and choose for themselves regarding their bitcoin allocations, if any.

 As the market cap goes up, volatility is going to continue to be likely to decrease because it becomes more and more expensive to attempt to create volatility.  There are a large number of ways to protect oneself from volatility, and one of them may be to choose to not use such asset (bitcoin) as a storage of value, but surely in the end, if upwards volatility is anticipated to be more likely than downward volatility, then any calculating person would error on the side of keeping a little more of their disposable assets in bitcoin.

Here we are again: greater fools.

nonsense.  You can keep saying "greater fools" until you are blue in the face, but your continued assertion of such does not make it any more real, even though it may make it more real in your own mind or more real in the minds of folks who identify with such failures and refusals to recognize value in either bitcoin, it's utility and even the inclusion or considerable amounts of speculation within the bitcoin space.

Personally, I always have enough fiat cash flow projected and on hand for at least 1-2 months in order to not be forced to cash out of bitcoin (except to the extent that I willfully want to cash out of bitcoin).   I may not be the greatest example in the world, because I am a bit nerdy, but  in about the next 18 months, I anticipate about three points in which I may possibly need to cash out some bitcoin.  I have back up plans in place as well, but there is a possibility that I may have to cash out during any or all of those three points.  Most people are not going to project their cashflow beyond one or two months, but I would suggest that folks do not hold too much in bitcoin or leverage in such a way that causes situations in which they would have emergency needs to cash out of their bitcoin because they had either invested too much or they had attempted to leverage their investment.  On the other hand,they could become rich from such use of leverage, but I personally find such behaviors as too risky, and really I doubt that a large portion of bitcoin users are in fact engaging in leveraging behaviors in respect to their bitcoin investment (even though there are certainly some folks doing just that).

Replace "bitcoin" by "Euro" or "dollar" and you see the problem.  "cashing out of a currency" sounds strange, no ?

It is not called cashing out.  It is called allocation and diversification.  And, since about October 2015, I have begun to trade bitcoin in order to protect my own holdings from some levels of expected ongoing volatility.  Prior to October 2015, my only investments in regards to bitcoin was to buy and accumulate (and not sell any, except to replace right away what I had sold).  Since October 2015, I still am accumulating bitcoin with some new funds, but a quite a bit of my ongoing BTC accumulation seems to be selling as the prices go up and buying as the prices go down (without really investing much more in regards to my total holdings and my total diversification of my own various asset holdings).  

Even though there are ways that would be less involved and less time consuming than my own personal strategy for folks to buy on the way down and sell on the way up, I found a system that is currently working pretty well for me.  I am not locked into such a situation, and I can adapt my approach if I believe that it needs to be adapted in regards to changes in the bitcoin market, whether that is directly bitcoin or some other asset and its present valuation or future expected valuation relative to bitcoin.

You know bitcoin has already been in existence for more than 7 years, and there has been time for growth, and I would argue that bitcoin is still in a very early adopter stage, but yeah, it has also gotten a certain amount of attention from each of the kinds of players that you list.  Such attention remains part of the dynamics, so why fight the "is" with projections of the "ought to be."

Sure, bitcoin has become what it is now.  The initial reason for it to be a freedom currency seems, however, quite remote now, and it has become a financial gamblers' item.  I fail to see what it brings in that case.  Just another financial toy.  Not something that will bring freedom to people.

Yes, that could be the key to your own myopic focus on this bullshit "freedom" crap of a lot of nut job libertarians who like to knock down a variety of existing systems and to suggest that they have not opted for them or consented to such, and therefore, they want to criticize without really providing any kind of realistic solutions.  

For example, let's get rid of government, blah blah blah..

If you are expecting some kind of global solution to "freedom", then you are going to be searching for a whole hell of a long time in some kind of fantasy world that is detached from real dynamics and real power factors that already exist.

Bitcoin has potential to be freeing to the extent that you incorporate freedom aspects, and if you are also including other freedom aspects in your life, then you could likely find some kind of "freedom" balancing that works for you on a personal level, rather than attempting to proscribe what others should value or not in some kind of fantasy world thinking.

There are a whole hell of a lot of freedom sucking institutions that exist and there are a wide-variety of ways to modify your own behaviors in order to lessen the restrictions of such institutions and even to hopefully enhance your own freedoms, but criticizing bitcoin on the freedom scale seems to be quite misplaced, especially when bitcoin has a lot of tools that are quite potentially powerful in the freedom space to the extent to which people are able to find out about such tools and to incorporate such tools into their lives (hopefully moderately and with an appropriate accounting of risk/benefits).

Yes, you are showing yourself as a real pie in the sky wisher to have an "ought to be" world that is other than what "is happening"

Again, my analysis is simply "what it ought to be" if it were to be a freedom tool, which was the reason for its invention, and what could have made it special in the history of humankind.  

Yes.  Admit it.  I don't know why the fuck we are having this lengthy conversation when you are admitting that you are talking about what "ought to be".. so fucking what?  Let's deal with the "is" and go from there, no?  Sure there is some role for "ought to be" and wishful thinking, but in my thinking we gotta start from the "is", and then sporadically incorporate discussions of the "ought to be" rather than starting from the "ought to be", because if we start from the "ought to be" that just leaves us in fantastical and unrealistic thinking - especially in a public forum like this (rather than just dream discussions with friends, which can have its own utility if you know that it what you are doing).

Maybe the lesson is simply that it is quite naive to think that inventing a tool that could be used to free people, will not be abused by TPTB and the greedy crowd to turn it into something that kills its original proposition, and maybe this is, in the end, the very reason why TPTB are what they are.

Of course, there is always going to be some mischief and delving in of the powers that be (TPTB), and if they did not see it useful in some kind of way, then there would be a considerable attack from them.  We just gotta deal with a variety of ambiguous, contradictory and mischievous behaviors from TPTB.  Such facts doesn't mean that we cannot find certain kinds of ways to get some freedom utility from bitcoin.

In other words, what was the original value of bitcoin was that it was potentially a fundamental element in the regaining of freedom of people from what has been taken from them for millenia: economic freedom, which needs a free currency.  

The original value can be a variety of things, including freedom, but it is not going to achieve any kind of "original value" without going through some growing pains, possible diversions and even lessening some of it's earlier utility while increasing utility in other sometimes ambiguous ways.

My "ought to be" is simply the path that it would have taken if it was still on that track.  It clearly isn't any more (or, as I said above, it actually never was, for more fundamental reasons of people being such that they always corrupt their chances for freedom, to exchange it for a quick profit).

You cannot lock any real world decentralized system into some kind of "original" vision.  If it is useful, it becomes whatever is put upon it by people who are attempting to ascribe utility to it.

Come on.  Even you know that it is not very likely that bitcoin is going to sustain a price of $600 or $200 or $1,000 for the next 15 years.  

I have no idea.  It could go up (for sure it will go up temporarily in "bigger fool theory") ; however, if no genuine adoption takes place (I mean: use as a currency), then for sure it has to come down in the end ; maybe we are already near the top.

snap out of it.  Bitcoin already has utility, and currency is only one potential aspect, and who gives a shit if it achieves higher level currency or not?  

It does in fact seem pretty likely, though, that more and more people are going to use bitcoin, and that the currency aspect is nearly inevitable at some point.. but we do not need to sit around waiting for it or prescribing it or anything because the currency aspect is just very likely to happen (we prepare for either direction while recognizing what is more or less probable with the information that we currently have at our disposal).

  If current usage remains, it should in principle drop to something like $30.  If usage increases 10-fold, it will be $300.
If usage increases a thousand-fold, it will be $30 000.

Yeah, right.. you are talking pie in the sky.  Currently, upward price pressures seem quite a bit more likely than downward price pressures, and even though we could experience more price dips into the $500s and even potentially some periods of below $500, you are talking nonsense with your $30 to $300 valuations and projections that there is some kind of current stagnant bitcoin state of affairs.

However, the blocks are full already.

O.k.. here is that "blocks are full" nonsense. What the fuck are you talking about?  There is no actual factual information, besides some folks whining about it, that "full blocks" has any kind of real world significance that is hampering bitcoin in any kind of meaningful ways in respect to transaction times or fees.  

Accordingly, block sizes are full assertions don't really mean much of anything in the real world state of bitcoin... beyond some folks continuing to make assertions that bitcoin is broken or debilitated or hampered by such non-existing nonsense.  Wake me up when there is an actual bitcoin blocksize full problem rather than one that supposedly exists in theory.

Furthermore, there are a lot of creative, interesting and innovative upcoming developments in the bitcoin space with segregated witness (seg wit) and other related developments that are going to be built on top of seg wit, after it goes live.  These should be exiting times in bitcoin, rather than suggesting that there is some kind of state of broken due to mythical blocksize limit claims.

 So my idea is that bitcoin might very well be hitting its ceiling (not its speculative price, but its real potential for usage).  Or it might indeed, one day, become used a lot.  I have absolutely no idea.

Yeah.. you have no idea, especially when you are asserting that "bitcoin might very well be hitting its ceiling."  Good luck with that viewpoint, and maybe you may want to enter some shorts in bitcoin, just to invest in accordance with your viewpoint of what you believe to be likely (maybe just take a small position to hedge in that direction that is reflective of your present/future bitcoin view).

[dinofelis]

You are talking nonsense when you are attempting to put some kind of actual objective value on bitcoin as if it were $30.  

It is quite simple, but you refuse to see that simple point.
1) demand for an asset *because of expectation of price rise* is unsustainable in the long term.  It is the definition of "greater fool theory": you want to find someone who is going to pay more for the asset (to you) than you paid to acquire it.  EVIDENTLY that is going to stop one day.
2) demand for an asset for every other reason is potentially sustainable.  If it is a consumable commodity, it is for its consumption.  If it is production capital, it is for the value of the consumables that that production capital will help make.  And if it is a monetary asset, it is for the store of value function that it can provide.

Now, only "2" is the ultimate source of demand (and hence market value) of an asset.  So for a monetary asset, it is only in its quality as a store of value (short term, "currency" or long term "gold") that it can have a genuine, sustainable demand, and hence a "fundamental value".

Of course, "visionaries" can invest in an asset at lower market price than the future demand they expect in 2) would indicate.  That's true speculative investment, and the information these visionaries bring to the market is good.  The guy who recognizes the value of Steve Jobs garage store will be able to buy shares in it at a much lower market price, because he anticipates the big company Apple.  He makes a lot of profit by a speculative investment, and he's right.  That's not "greater fool", that's speculative investment.  The benefit he makes comes from the vision he had earlier than most market players.    He didn't buy an asset "just to find someone who will buy it at a larger price", he bought it because he knew before the others that the *fundamental value* (given by 2) would, one day, be much larger than the market price at which it was traded at that moment.

Suppose that Steve Jobs garage shop shares were traded at $2.- at a point, and that our visionary saw that one day, that company would be worth $1000,- a share.  Our visionary will buy stock at any price below $200.- (to still have a comfortable margin of a factor of 5).  That will make Steve's garage's stock rise far above its "current fundamental value", eventually a hundred-fold.  It is true that during that time, people are "sitting on a bubble", but they are not just "waiting for a greater fool", they are waiting for the company Apple to grow to their expectations.   When that will be the case, the fundamental value of the share will be $1000.- because of the accumulated capital and the dividends one can expect.

This is, what I would call, "sound speculation".  People expecting fundamentals to be much higher in the future than right now, and anticipating the price, buying lower right now, and hence boosting the price of the asset as compared to its current fundamentals.  But with the idea that one day, the price they have in mind WILL be fundamental.

However, if the only reason to buy an asset is to expect it to rise because more people will want it and expect it to rise, we are fully in "greater fool theory".  There is then no vision of fundamental value on the horizon.  There's just expectation for it to rise, and hope that more people will want it, because they also expect it to rise.  The last row will be disappointed, and get rid of it, and that's then the end of the inevitable bubble.

For a monetary asset, the funny thing is of course that the "company" and the "shares" are one and the same thing.  But we shouldn't make a mistake: the *fundamental* value of a currency comes from its usage as a store of value, a means of transporting value from one moment in time (and space) to another moment in time (and space).   This is the only source of value of a monetary asset, like the only source of value of Apple is the computers and software/services they sell in the end.

And for a monetary asset, the "usage value" derived from its use as a store of value is given by Fisher's formula, who tells us that the price of the monetary asset is given by how much value for how long is stored in it *as a store of value*.

We both agreed that that demand in bitcoin must be of the order of 5%, and so according to Fisher's formula, the current fundamental value of bitcoin would be $30,- (5% of its actual market price). 

So why are people paying $600,- for it ?

A) they are visionaries who expect bitcoin's usage to rise 20 times, like the visionary that saw Steve in his garage, and saw that one day, it would grow to a big company.  They all know that the true price of bitcoin is $600 or maybe even higher, and already want to store their value in it at that price.

B) they are only interested in selling it higher.

If it is true that bitcoin's usage will grow 20 fold or more (to buy stuff on the internet, to hold value for when one is an old person, for your children), then indeed, bitcoin's true fundamental value in the future will be higher than $600 and the people buying it now are like our Apple visionaries.

If the bitcoin community remains essentially consisting of people in class B, then we are fully in "greater fool theory".

And the way to distinguish both, is to answer honestly the following question: "would you still hold / demand coins when you would know that the current price level is "final" ?".  If the answer is yes, we are in "fundamental" mode, if the answer is "no" we are in greater fool theory mode.

Also, you are continuing to fail and refuse to really grapple with the matters of probably values coming on a spectrum of a whole shit load of possibilities, and after weighing all the probabilities, people decide what portion of their disposable funds to hold in bitcoin and for what period of time and even considering various exit scenarios.. they are not locked into their initial assessment, and people cash out early to lock in profits, and sometimes people cash in early to preserve value (even at a loss).  What they calculate about what they are planning to do, and how they actually act can have a lot of variations.. including that they failed/refused to actually calculate in an accurate way regarding their own financial circumstances in light of life events that can come about.

You are explaining me how a market works. Thank you.  But that's not the point.  The fundamental point is this:
will most people demanding/holding bitcoin, still demand/hold when they know the ceiling is reached ?  If yes, the system is sustainable, if no, it will collapse like a bubble.

Well, I was commenting about your assertions of lack of efficiencies in bitcoin, which you were characterizing energy consumption through proof of work as some kind of inefficiency, which is the same kind of nonsense we hear from various ETH/POS pumpers.

Of course PoW is an inefficiency.  It is a necessary inefficiency, but one should only use so much as is really needed, namely to destroy seigniorage.  The market cap of bitcoin is actually something that is a nuisance: the lower it is, the better, until one reaches a point where it is too low to be used to buy stuff: you cannot buy a $20 000 car with a monetary asset that has only a market cap of say, $1000 000.  So it must be high enough.  But not too high.  The market cap is an inevitable problem that comes from Fisher's formula, but the lower it is, the better.
As PoW becomes more and more expensive as a function of the market cap (actually, as a function of the bloc reward that has to be destroyed in value), the lower it is, the more efficient bitcoin is and the less wasteful it is.

 The issue with bitcoin remains that it is providing a value that no other asset class is providing and that is secure decentralized immutable value transaction/storage.

I think this is wrong.  That's not bitcoin's value, that's its technical way to achieve a system of transactable tokens without needing a gouvernment or other violence monopolist.

 Name one?  go ahead.  You cannot.  You are coming to the wrong conclusion if you believe that I am being emotional just because I am asserting that there is no other asset class in the whole fucking world that provides anything close to bitcoin.  In that regard, bitcoin is paradigm changing, yet if something better comes along, I have no problem diversifying my investment into that other asset, if such a thing were to exist.

The ONLY paradigm shift that bitcoin could propose, is that one has a monetary asset without gouvernment interference, because it has no central point of failure (like banks) where the gouvernment can attack, and it is less material, so that one can hide it better from government than for instance gold, and take it abroad without it being confiscated when traveling.   So only as an anarchist money, it has any value.  For the rest, it is worse than what we already have.

nonsense.  You can keep saying "greater fools" until you are blue in the face, but your continued assertion of such does not make it any more real, even though it may make it more real in your own mind or more real in the minds of folks who identify with such failures and refusals to recognize value in either bitcoin, it's utility and even the inclusion or considerable amounts of speculation within the bitcoin space.

If its main demand comes from people expecting its price to rise, and if that continues like this, then this is the schoolbook example of "greater fool theory".   Your argument that there will still be a lot of adoption only means that you expect the bubble to blow up much higher than today, but that is not an argument that it isn't a bubble.  This kind of argument is also typical for every bubble in history: the ceiling is still far away.  At a certain point, that is true of course, and at another point, it is not true any more.

Yes, that could be the key to your own myopic focus on this bullshit "freedom" crap of a lot of nut job libertarians who like to knock down a variety of existing systems and to suggest that they have not opted for them or consented to such, and therefore, they want to criticize without really providing any kind of realistic solutions.  

For example, let's get rid of government, blah blah blah..

To me, that's the only true value proposition bitcoin has.  Without that vision, it is just a financial gamblers' toy.  One more toy in their toolset, after futures, options, swaps, and other derivatives, now they have funny internet tokens too.  Another table in the big financial casino has opened, and the players are standing around it.

If it is not to get in the end, rid of gouvernment and law, I fail to see bitcoin's point, honestly.

[JayJuanGee]

You are talking nonsense when you are attempting to put some kind of actual objective value on bitcoin as if it were $30.  

It is quite simple, but you refuse to see that simple point.

When I see a sentence like this, including the descriptive, "simple" I must know I am dealing with someone who is failing/refusing to deal with the complexity of reality, and removes specifics in order to "simplify" the explanation of the situation.

1) demand for an asset *because of expectation of price rise* is unsustainable in the long term.  It is the definition of "greater fool theory": you want to find someone who is going to pay more for the asset (to you) than you paid to acquire it.  EVIDENTLY that is going to stop one day.

Is anyone saying that?   I doubt it.  You are creating a strawman argument.

2) demand for an asset for every other reason is potentially sustainable.  If it is a consumable commodity, it is for its consumption.  If it is production capital, it is for the value of the consumables that that production capital will help make.  And if it is a monetary asset, it is for the store of value function that it can provide.

Yes, any asset needs to have some of two in order to have some fundamental value, beyond pure speculation.

Now, only "2" is the ultimate source of demand (and hence market value) of an asset. 

There is no such thing as "only 2."  As should be realized value is going to have a lot of facets, but i will agree with you at least in terms that some of 2 likely needs to be present for there to be value beyond pure speculation.

So for a monetary asset, it is only in its quality as a store of value (short term, "currency" or long term "gold") that it can have a genuine, sustainable demand, and hence a "fundamental value".

There you go with some more "only" bullshit.

Of course, "visionaries" can invest in an asset at lower market price than the future demand they expect in 2) would indicate.  That's true speculative investment, and the information these visionaries bring to the market is good.  The guy who recognizes the value of Steve Jobs garage store will be able to buy shares in it at a much lower market price, because he anticipates the big company Apple.

Sure, Apple had a lots of ups and downs along the way, including the 90s, and there is no guarantee that apple was going to become what it had become without a coincidence of a whole lot of events, and maybe even some of the ups and downs along the way were necessary.. who knows?  There is no way anyone knows how history is going to play out in the garage with steve jobs and therefore, there are likely needs to reassess at various times and maybe even hold through the bad times with a kind of hope about the less likely outcome to play out into creating a better outcome.. and maybe even sell at times and buy back in at lower prices..  can be both luck and good readings of fundamentals that cause one to profit from various investment strategies.

  He makes a lot of profit by a speculative investment, and he's right.  That's not "greater fool", that's speculative investment.  The benefit he makes comes from the vision he had earlier than most market players.    He didn't buy an asset "just to find someone who will buy it at a larger price", he bought it because he knew before the others that the *fundamental value* (given by 2) would, one day, be much larger than the market price at which it was traded at that moment.

He doesn't know shit.  He is just investing based on various probabilities, and his investment pays off because his bet plays out in his favor.  Doesn't necessarily mean that he knew anything.

Suppose that Steve Jobs garage shop shares were traded at $2.- at a point, and that our visionary saw that one day, that company would be worth $1000,- a share.  Our visionary will buy stock at any price below $200.- (to still have a comfortable margin of a factor of 5).  That will make Steve's garage's stock rise far above its "current fundamental value", eventually a hundred-fold.  It is true that during that time, people are "sitting on a bubble", but they are not just "waiting for a greater fool", they are waiting for the company Apple to grow to their expectations.   When that will be the case, the fundamental value of the share will be $1000.- because of the accumulated capital and the dividends one can expect.

This is, what I would call, "sound speculation".  People expecting fundamentals to be much higher in the future than right now, and anticipating the price, buying lower right now, and hence boosting the price of the asset as compared to its current fundamentals.  But with the idea that one day, the price they have in mind WILL be fundamental.

you are not really saying anything new or adding anything to the conversation with your discussion of the above scenario and attempts to differentiate asset classes and kinds of assets.

However, if the only reason to buy an asset is to expect it to rise because more people will want it and expect it to rise, we are fully in "greater fool theory".  There is then no vision of fundamental value on the horizon.  There's just expectation for it to rise, and hope that more people will want it, because they also expect it to rise.  The last row will be disappointed, and get rid of it, and that's then the end of the inevitable bubble.

Again, nothing new here.

For a monetary asset, the funny thing is of course that the "company" and the "shares" are one and the same thing.  But we shouldn't make a mistake: the *fundamental* value of a currency comes from its usage as a store of value, a means of transporting value from one moment in time (and space) to another moment in time (and space).   This is the only source of value of a monetary asset, like the only source of value of Apple is the computers and software/services they sell in the end.

You could be correct or not about the various ways to assess what is valuable about an investment, but so what?

And for a monetary asset, the "usage value" derived from its use as a store of value is given by Fisher's formula, who tells us that the price of the monetary asset is given by how much value for how long is stored in it *as a store of value*.

We both agreed that that demand in bitcoin must be of the order of 5%, and so according to Fisher's formula, the current fundamental value of bitcoin would be $30,- (5% of its actual market price). 

I don't know if we both agree.  I think that we agreed that there could be a possibility that 95% of bitcoin is speculation.  I don't really know how we arrived at such a number, but I am thinking that such a number could be possible.  But that potential for 95% speculation does not cause the actual value to be $30 because we do not agree on the terms of what is the value of speculation and just because you are giving zero value to it does not mean that I agree with that arbitrary and nonsensical assessment...

I could give a ratt's about anyone named Fisher, too, because if you are using some theory that gives zero value to speculation, then something is wrong with your theory and Fisher's theory too.      

So why are people paying $600,- for it ?

Because that is the current price for the last couple of months. If you want some then you have to pay $600, otherwise, you are not getting any.

A) they are visionaries who expect bitcoin's usage to rise 20 times, like the visionary that saw Steve in his garage, and saw that one day, it would grow to a big company.  They all know that the true price of bitcoin is $600 or maybe even higher, and already want to store their value in it at that price.

We already covered this.  People come to varying assessments of value and they have various timelines for their potential exit strategy, if they have considered one.

B) they are only interested in selling it higher.

Yep.  they may or may not have considered price points that they may sell all or some of it.

If it is true that bitcoin's usage will grow 20 fold or more (to buy stuff on the internet, to hold value for when one is an old person, for your children), then indeed, bitcoin's true fundamental value in the future will be higher than $600 and the people buying it now are like our Apple visionaries.

If the bitcoin community remains essentially consisting of people in class B, then we are fully in "greater fool theory".

I have no idea regarding what all of the motivations are, and I don't really give too many shits about why and what are the various motivations.

I already said that I personally expect prices to go up, but I am prepared my own BTC portfolio for either price direction.

And the way to distinguish both, is to answer honestly the following question: "would you still hold / demand coins when you would know that the current price level is "final" ?".  If the answer is yes, we are in "fundamental" mode, if the answer is "no" we are in greater fool theory mode.

You compare bitcoin to other assets, and you decide how to apportion what you got available to apportion, if any.

Also, you are continuing to fail and refuse to really grapple with the matters of probably values coming on a spectrum of a whole shit load of possibilities, and after weighing all the probabilities, people decide what portion of their disposable funds to hold in bitcoin and for what period of time and even considering various exit scenarios.. they are not locked into their initial assessment, and people cash out early to lock in profits, and sometimes people cash in early to preserve value (even at a loss).  What they calculate about what they are planning to do, and how they actually act can have a lot of variations.. including that they failed/refused to actually calculate in an accurate way regarding their own financial circumstances in light of life events that can come about.

You are explaining me how a market works. Thank you.  But that's not the point. 

Yes it already seems that we are talking passed each other, so the point of interacting seems kind of meaningless.

The fundamental point is this:
will most people demanding/holding bitcoin, still demand/hold when they know the ceiling is reached ? 

I doubt it.  If you believe you are at a ceiling then you sell if you think that it is going down.  If you think that it is staying flat at the ceiling, then you may hold, but that does not seem to be the definition of ceiling.

 If yes, the system is sustainable, if no, it will collapse like a bubble.

Another strawman argument.  It is pretty unlikely that there is going to be any kind of consensus about "ceiling."  If there is a consensus, then yeah of course the price is going to crash at that point until there is no longer consensus.  

Well, I was commenting about your assertions of lack of efficiencies in bitcoin, which you were characterizing energy consumption through proof of work as some kind of inefficiency, which is the same kind of nonsense we hear from various ETH/POS pumpers.

Of course PoW is an inefficiency.  It is a necessary inefficiency, but one should only use so much as is really needed, namely to destroy seigniorage. 

At least you concede that there exists a kind of necessary inefficiency in bitcoin,.. great!!!!!

Sure there could be ways to create efficiency incentives, but there are a lot of inefficiencies in decentralized markets that are frequently able to achieve greater efficiencies with the passage of time and even built in efficiencies from matters that seem quite inefficient.  winners and losers also exist in such betting market driven decentralized systems.

The market cap of bitcoin is actually something that is a nuisance: the lower it is, the better, until one reaches a point where it is too low to be used to buy stuff: you cannot buy a $20 000 car with a monetary asset that has only a market cap of say, $1000 000.  So it must be high enough.  But not too high.  The market cap is an inevitable problem that comes from Fisher's formula, but the lower it is, the better.

I don't know what nonsense is causing you to conclude that the lower the market cap the better... sounds like illogical baloney to me.

the greater the market cap, the more difficult it is to manipulate prices, the less volatile is the asset in terms of high liquidity demands, such as employing a billion dollar transaction.  If the market cap is 1 trillion then a billion dollar transaction is going to have less of an impact in comparison with an asset that has a 10 billion dollar market cap.

As PoW becomes more and more expensive as a function of the market cap (actually, as a function of the bloc reward that has to be destroyed in value), the lower it is, the more efficient bitcoin is and the less wasteful it is.

Yeah, right, you are getting caught on one aspect of the matter, and that is cost of securing and mining bitcoins.  That is not the whole of bitcoin's utility.

 The issue with bitcoin remains that it is providing a value that no other asset class is providing and that is secure decentralized immutable value transaction/storage.

I think this is wrong.  That's not bitcoin's value, that's its technical way to achieve a system of transactable tokens without needing a gouvernment or other violence monopolist.

O.k... whatever.  We differ on our assessment of what makes bitcoin valuable.  What else is new?

So if we have different assessments of its value, then we are likely going to conclude differently about the value of its future too.

I would not expect any two people to value bitcoin in any kind of equal way, anyhow.  And between some folks there are going to be considerable gaps, but that does not matter too much because people can come to their own value assessments and chose how or if to invest in any of their view(s) of the present or future.

 Name one?  go ahead.  You cannot.  You are coming to the wrong conclusion if you believe that I am being emotional just because I am asserting that there is no other asset class in the whole fucking world that provides anything close to bitcoin.  In that regard, bitcoin is paradigm changing, yet if something better comes along, I have no problem diversifying my investment into that other asset, if such a thing were to exist.

The ONLY paradigm shift that bitcoin could propose, is that one has a monetary asset without gouvernment interference, because it has no central point of failure (like banks) where the gouvernment can attack, and it is less material, so that one can hide it better from government than for instance gold, and take it abroad without it being confiscated when traveling.   So only as an anarchist money, it has any value.  For the rest, it is worse than what we already have.

You are talking nonsense.

Bitcoin has already achieved considerable aspects of its paradigm shifting invention, and the toothpaste is out of the tube.

Sure there are likely going to be more developments on what has already been invented, improvements and implementations, and sure we are going to see how a lot of this plays out into the future, but one should already recognize that there has already been a lot of innovation in solving the double spend problem when it comes to any kind of digital asset, and accordingly the whole system of the secure decentralized immutable value transfer and storage comes from that solving of the double spend problem.  It surely is a great thing, even though we still have quite a bit to witness in terms of how the whole phenomenon is going to play out in the coming years, if we are so lucky to live so long and to be able to see these kinds of ongoing developments and implementations (whether favorable, progress or otherwise).

nonsense.  You can keep saying "greater fools" until you are blue in the face, but your continued assertion of such does not make it any more real, even though it may make it more real in your own mind or more real in the minds of folks who identify with such failures and refusals to recognize value in either bitcoin, it's utility and even the inclusion or considerable amounts of speculation within the bitcoin space.

If its main demand comes from people expecting its price to rise, and if that continues like this, then this is the schoolbook example of "greater fool theory".   Your argument that there will still be a lot of adoption only means that you expect the bubble to blow up much higher than today, but that is not an argument that it isn't a bubble.  This kind of argument is also typical for every bubble in history: the ceiling is still far away.  At a certain point, that is true of course, and at another point, it is not true any more.

You are not saying anything new here or adding any value to the conversation.

Yes, that could be the key to your own myopic focus on this bullshit "freedom" crap of a lot of nut job libertarians who like to knock down a variety of existing systems and to suggest that they have not opted for them or consented to such, and therefore, they want to criticize without really providing any kind of realistic solutions.  

For example, let's get rid of government, blah blah blah..

To me, that's the only true value proposition bitcoin has. 

Yes. When you limit your assessment of what is valuable, then you are likely going to miss some value that others are going to see, utilize and implement.. which is not speculation, it is merely different perspectives regarding what is valuable and to whom and for what and for whom.

Without that vision, it is just a financial gamblers' toy.  One more toy in their toolset, after futures, options, swaps, and other derivatives, now they have funny internet tokens too.  Another table in the big financial casino has opened, and the players are standing around it.

If it is not to get in the end, rid of gouvernment and law, I fail to see bitcoin's point, honestly.

Yes.  You fail to see the point, because you fail to see that others can find value in something that you find no value.  There is nothing wrong with finding value based on ideology and investing accordingly, but that does not mean that others are crazy merely because they find value in something that you fail/refuse to recognize value.

[ArdiPrabowo]

ethreum game over
much altcoin game over too
because much altcoin use technology ethreum can share and selling token
you can see this big selling in ico iconomi coin, use ethreum token too is dev coin

[dinofelis]

Because that is the current price for the last couple of months. If you want some then you have to pay $600, otherwise, you are not getting any.

Ha.  It is not because the market prices something at market value X, that you have to pay X for it.  You can just as well decide that the asset simply isn't worth X.  You have to have a specific motivation to want that asset.  Now, this is where financial assets distinguish from most other assets/commodities: they don't have (or shouldn't have) any subjective value beyond their estimated market value in the future.

I adhere to subjective value theory of course, which says that the value of something is not a property of a good or service, but a relationship between a subject and an object: something has value FOR someone.  This is why a fair deal is not an "equal exchange of value" but is actually a value creation: if I have an apple, and you have an orange, but I value an orange more than an apple, and you value an apple more than an orange, then, by exchanging an apple for an orange, we both win in value.  The *market value* is just a kind of average relative value estimation by a large group of actors, which make up the market.  If my personal value is higher than the market value, I buy ; if it is lower, I sell.

The point, however, is that that is not true for a *financial* asset.  A financial asset has no "subjective value".  A financial asset has only an "estimated future market value".  Well, there IS some subjective part to it, which is related to its fluidity.  But if for a moment, we assume the markets fluid, and start from the idea that any financial asset can, at any moment, be traded for another, then the *only* value a financial asset has, is the estimated future market value of it (including volatility, risk, ...).   There shouldn't be much "personal preferences" like with apples or oranges.  Some financial asset that I estimate at $1000 next week is perfectly equivalent to any other financial asset that I estimate at $1000.  Of course, my estimations are different from yours, and that makes that they look somewhat like they are subjective.  But if I somehow would *know* that the asset is $1000,- next week, then it is indistinguishable in value from any other asset for which I would know that they are also $1000,- next week.

Simply because the *only* thing that I can do with a financial asset, is to sell it to the market.  I cannot enjoy it, I cannot use it as a capital good, I cannot do anything with it, but sell it to the market.  So a financial asset doesn't have subjective value.  The subjective part of it only comes from my different expectation of its future market value from your expectation.  But there are no "personal preferences" involved: if it can be sold for $1000, then that's what it is worth.

So my *only* reason to get a financial asset is to think that I will get more out of it next week, next month, next year, than by obtaining another financial asset.

However, my decision to want to put value in a financial asset or not, on the other hand, IS totally subjective.  It depends on my personal desires to consume right away what I earn, or to store value for later.  In other words, the total DEMAND for financial assets is subjective.  But which asset to use to store that value, is not a matter of subjective preferences, but of estimated future market value of the assets between one has to chose.  What looks subjective, is our different ways to make those estimations.  But they are not "fundamentally subjective".  One will be more right than another one in his estimations.  This is different between "I being right in preferring an orange".   My preference for an orange over an apple is fundamentally subjective, and is not "right" or "erroneous".  However, my future estimate of market value of an asset is right or erroneous, as it will turn out.  That's what makes it non-subjective.

So, essentially, a financial asset doesn't have any "subjective" value at first approximation: it only has "estimated future market value".   The whole point now, is where this "future estimated market value" comes from.  If this future estimated market value has some fundamental basis (such as stock in a company that really will be a solid company, returning solid dividend for instance), then that's OK.  However, if the *main* future estimated market  value has is based upon a demand that finds its roots in an expectation of higher future market value, we are in "greater fool theory".

So it is *essential* to know what is the main reason of estimation of future market value of bitcoin, that motivates people to buy it at the current market price.  If that motivation is that people think that the future fundamental value will be the current or higher price, then bitcoin's market value is sustainable.  If that motivation is only that there will be even more demand for bitcoin because of an expectation of price rise, then we are in the school book example of greater fool theory.

So one shouldn't "care less of why people buy bitcoin".  It is essential.  The motivations to buy at current price are essential to determine whether most people (the market) estimates that bitcoin's fundamental value in the future will be higher or equal to current market price, or whether most people simply estimate that more people will do like they do: expect a higher market price in the future.

As said before, the fundamental value of a monetary asset (as a sub class of financial assets) is the market share it can capture for  "store of value" (without expectation of "more").  There is no other sustainable fundamental value for a monetary asset.  It is the only thing it can do: store value.  That storage of value induces, through Fisher's formula, a market cap for its tokens.

So the whole question is, whether most bitcoin demanders WANT bitcoin at current market price because they want to use it as a store of value, and/or because they think that the future fundamental value of bitcoin will be equal or larger than the current market price, or whether they simply think that more people will demand bitcoin because more people will expect it to rise.

One shouldn't "not care" about that.  It is, as I said, essential.

And as to what market share it will capture in the "store of value" pie, will depend entirely on the competitive edge this store of value brings over all other existing stores of value.  Now, the point is that as long as one is law-abiding and statist, there's not much of a store of value competitive edge that bitcoin can bring over many other competitors issued by banks.  It is only if one wants the states' nozy nose, and sticky fingers, to stay away from your financial stores, that bitcoin has a genuine proposition.  It is only if you want to use a currency in state-prohibited or limited trades, that it has a true value proposition.  Otherwise, use banks and VISA, it works better, I'd say.

[Pattberry]

when bitcoin price started rising it went up to $1000 plus dollars and came down because everyone holding the coins were selling off to book massive profits and it went down to $230 at one point and i do think this is the case with ETH,it will take some time to see a potential rise

[JayJuanGee]

Because that is the current price for the last couple of months. If you want some then you have to pay $600, otherwise, you are not getting any.

Ha.  It is not because the market prices something at market value X, that you have to pay X for it.  You can just as well decide that the asset simply isn't worth X.  You have to have a specific motivation to want that asset.  Now, this is where financial assets distinguish from most other assets/commodities: they don't have (or shouldn't have) any subjective value beyond their estimated market value in the future.

There you go with more of your "should" crap in regards to pricing.

Yeah, right bitcoin "should not have any subjective value" but the truth of the matter is that value is a complex set of factors, and in the end it is worth what folks are willing to pay for it.

Merely, because folks are willing to overpay with what "should be the value" does not mean that value is not going to catch up or that they are going to get screwed because of their decision to allocate a certain amount of their assets in order to have some stake in the game. If you don't buy at $600, you may well get caught trying to catch the train at $700 or even $2,000.  Therefore, it would likely be a bit more prudent to have a little bit at $600, even if you may have a hunch that it could possibly be a little over valued.. yet in the end, whether you decide to put .05% in or 1% or 10% of your semi-liquid assets will be a combination of factors including subjective and objective considerations, and likely incomplete information, as I already mentioned several times.

I adhere to subjective value theory of course, which says that the value of something is not a property of a good or service, but a relationship between a subject and an object: something has value FOR someone.  This is why a fair deal is not an "equal exchange of value" but is actually a value creation: if I have an apple, and you have an orange, but I value an orange more than an apple, and you value an apple more than an orange, then, by exchanging an apple for an orange, we both win in value.  The *market value* is just a kind of average relative value estimation by a large group of actors, which make up the market.  If my personal value is higher than the market value, I buy ; if it is lower, I sell.

You are not really going to get any disagreement with me regarding the existence of objective and subjective values and the use of such calculations by folks in order that many times, there are going to be situations in which each of them are going to end up splitting a certain amount of surplus value in that each of the traders are going to feel that they got a good deal and that they were better off because they made the trade.   Later, they may change their mind, but anyhow at the time of the trade, they likely calculate a bit of surplus value for themselves, otherwise they would not go through the energies of making the trade.

The point, however, is that that is not true for a *financial* asset.  A financial asset has no "subjective value".  

You are again talking nonsense.  There is no true and perfect financial asset that is not going to have some subjective value in a lot of circumstances and depending on subjective circumstances.

A financial asset has only an "estimated future market value".  Well, there IS some subjective part to it, which is related to its fluidity.  But if for a moment, we assume the markets fluid, and start from the idea that any financial asset can, at any moment, be traded for another, then the *only* value a financial asset has, is the estimated future market value of it (including volatility, risk, ...).   There shouldn't be much "personal preferences" like with apples or oranges.  Some financial asset that I estimate at $1000 next week is perfectly equivalent to any other financial asset that I estimate at $1000.  

I don't really disagree with this part of your quasi tangential theoretical discussion.

Of course, my estimations are different from yours, and that makes that they look somewhat like they are subjective.  But if I somehow would *know* that the asset is $1000,- next week, then it is indistinguishable in value from any other asset for which I would know that they are also $1000,- next week.

That's the part that we are not going to come to equal conclusions, especially when the asset is volatile and dependent on a large number of factors, including subjective and objective evaluations.

Simply because the *only* thing that I can do with a financial asset, is to sell it to the market.  I cannot enjoy it, I cannot use it as a capital good, I cannot do anything with it, but sell it to the market.  

You seem to be over simplifying again because you can leverage against other assets and store, too and you can even play around with attempts to accumulate based on trading, which may cause some additional value or even a kind of hobby.

So a financial asset doesn't have subjective value.  The subjective part of it only comes from my different expectation of its future market value from your expectation.  But there are no "personal preferences" involved: if it can be sold for $1000, then that's what it is worth.

You seem to be getting too much caught up in theory and trying to purify what financial assets "should be," but the fact of the matter is that if the financial asset is used to acquire or to prepare for acquiring or to insure or to hedge various matters that have both objective and subjective value, then the financial asset is likely to acquire some of those subjective attributes, even if the actual achievement of subjective value could be one or two steps removed.

So my *only* reason to get a financial asset is to think that I will get more out of it next week, next month, next year, than by obtaining another financial asset.

You are repeating this point over and over and over, and you are not really saying anything by your narrow expectation of greater value when the fact of the matter is that one asset is valued relative to other assets and there are a lot of probabilities involved in holding various assets whether those be bitcoins, fiat, stocks gold, property, etc.

However, my decision to want to put value in a financial asset or not, on the other hand, IS totally subjective.  It depends on my personal desires to consume right away what I earn, or to store value for later.  In other words, the total DEMAND for financial assets is subjective.  But which asset to use to store that value, is not a matter of subjective preferences, but of estimated future market value of the assets between one has to chose.  What looks subjective, is our different ways to make those estimations.  But they are not "fundamentally subjective".  One will be more right than another one in his estimations.  This is different between "I being right in preferring an orange".   My preference for an orange over an apple is fundamentally subjective, and is not "right" or "erroneous".  However, my future estimate of market value of an asset is right or erroneous, as it will turn out.  That's what makes it non-subjective.

you are seeming to make some sense, but then you come to the idiotic conclusion that financial assets are not subjective, hello?  goofy.

So, essentially, a financial asset doesn't have any "subjective" value at first approximation: it only has "estimated future market value".   The whole point now, is where this "future estimated market value" comes from.  If this future estimated market value has some fundamental basis (such as stock in a company that really will be a solid company, returning solid dividend for instance), then that's OK.  However, if the *main* future estimated market  value has is based upon a demand that finds its roots in an expectation of higher future market value, we are in "greater fool theory".

could be that we are saying some similar things, here, but just phrasing it in different ways.

So it is *essential* to know what is the main reason of estimation of future market value of bitcoin, that motivates people to buy it at the current market price.  

Seems to me that you are wasting a lot of time to attempt to get into the heads of a bunch of people and to figure out how their assessments change over time.

surely those assessments could be important in determining how much value that you personally put on any particular asset and the odds that you place on various possible future values.

If that motivation is that people think that the future fundamental value will be the current or higher price, then bitcoin's market value is sustainable.  If that motivation is only that there will be even more demand for bitcoin because of an expectation of price rise, then we are in the school book example of greater fool theory.

Whenever you are mentioning the greater fool theory, you are coming off as nonsensical and non factual, especially when you are attempting to apply such to bitcoin.. seeming to start with the conclusion that you want to reach first... and then reasoning backwards.. hahahhahahaha           

So one shouldn't "care less of why people buy bitcoin".  It is essential.

People are only going to do as much analysis as they think is necessary for them to come to their own conclusions.  Very few people analyze in detail, they just get gut reactions and act accordingly, and maybe as time passes they may chose to perform a bit more tailored analysis.

 The motivations to buy at current price are essential to determine whether most people (the market) estimates that bitcoin's fundamental value in the future will be higher or equal to current market price, or whether most people simply estimate that more people will do like they do: expect a higher market price in the future.

Yes, it is part of the factors to consider.

As said before, the fundamental value of a monetary asset (as a sub class of financial assets) is the market share it can capture for  "store of value" (without expectation of "more").  There is no other sustainable fundamental value for a monetary asset.  It is the only thing it can do: store value.  That storage of value induces, through Fisher's formula, a market cap for its tokens.

Here you go with more of this "only" crap.

So the whole question is, whether most bitcoin demanders WANT bitcoin at current market price because they want to use it as a store of value, and/or because they think that the future fundamental value of bitcoin will be equal or larger than the current market price, or whether they simply think that more people will demand bitcoin because more people will expect it to rise.

yes.. partly true, especially if you calculate that folks are going to consider a range of probabilities and apportion accordingly, and maybe even engage in only a superficial analysis, including considering whether they are already set up to buy bitcoins and how much work it may take to get set up to hold some bitcoins.

One shouldn't "not care" about that.  It is, as I said, essential.

could be essentially part of the considerations, especially if considered in terms of probabilities.

And as to what market share it will capture in the "store of value" pie, will depend entirely on the competitive edge this store of value brings over all other existing stores of value.  Now, the point is that as long as one is law-abiding and statist, there's not much of a store of value competitive edge that bitcoin can bring over many other competitors issued by banks.  It is only if one wants the states' nozy nose, and sticky fingers, to stay away from your financial stores, that bitcoin has a genuine proposition.  It is only if you want to use a currency in state-prohibited or limited trades, that it has a true value proposition.  Otherwise, use banks and VISA, it works better, I'd say.

What the fuck are you talking about?  We already discussed this several times.  Banks and visas and a lot of these forms of modern credit work fine and dandy when you have it and you have access to it, but surely not everyone has access to such modern banking.   In fact there are a whole hell of a lot of folks who do not and who also feel that they get screwed on a regular basis by such modern financial institutions, and that is part of the current utility niche of bitcoin and part of its likely future utility niche and likely there is going to be evolution in many regards of each of these kinds of financial institutions because they do not exist in a vacuum or even as a place that you would be prudent to place all of your eggs.

Furthermore, you may still have access to modern banking and credit and achieve a lot of utility from such usage, but that does not necessarily mean that you put all your eggs in that basket and that you may decide to invest in bitcoin because of the utility that it is likely to bring to others rather than any particular utility that you get in the short term (especially if you are already well embedded in modern banking and feeling that you are being served well by such modern bank / credit institutions). 

[dinofelis]

Whenever you are mentioning the greater fool theory, you are coming off as nonsensical and non factual, especially when you are attempting to apply such to bitcoin.. seeming to start with the conclusion that you want to reach first... and then reasoning backwards.. hahahhahahaha           

If someone says that "greater fool theory can apply to a lot of stuff, but NOT to < fill in name of asset class > " then that means that most probably that asset class already has reached that stage.  I still remember the talk about the "new economy" stuff back in the 90-ies and early 2000 when every suggestion that maybe the dot-com stuff was a big bubble was taken as coming from someone oldfashioned who couldn't come to grips with the fantastic new economic paradigm.  Same with the South Sea bubble centuries before.

I'm not saying that bitcoin is in a speculative bubble per se, but let us say that many things indicate that it could very well be, especially if most people demanding it, do so because they expect a strong rise in price and not because they want to use it.   That doesn't exclude, as I said before, that most of these people are visionaries, and that the true usage price of bitcoin will still be orders of magnitude higher than today, but there's not much that points in that direction right now (that's why they have to be visionaries, of course ).  It also doesn't mean that even if bitcoin is in a speculative bubble phase, that the bubble cannot still inflate a factor of 10 or 100 or so before it bursts.  So I'm not saying that bitcoin doesn't have the potential to still rise a lot (before stabilising, or before crashing).

But the way its demand seems to be organized, and the main reasons people seem to have behind its demand, are definitely indicating a great risk that "greater fool theory" is at work.

So one shouldn't "care less of why people buy bitcoin".  It is essential.

People are only going to do as much analysis as they think is necessary for them to come to their own conclusions.  Very few people analyze in detail, they just get gut reactions and act accordingly, and maybe as time passes they may chose to perform a bit more tailored analysis.

That doesn't matter.  The main motivation will be "it's going to rise" (whether that analysis is profound of superficial doesn't matter) --> greater fool theory.  If the main motivation is "I want to put this amount of value aside for later, and bitcoin is a great store of value to get out what I put in"  --> sustainable price.

It is essentially that simple.  You buy the stuff because you expect it to rise --> danger for greater fool theory if that is the main market drive  ;  you buy stuff because you want to store value in it ---> solid asset if that is the main market drive.

No more and no less ; independent of how much analysis goes into it.

yes.. partly true, especially if you calculate that folks are going to consider a range of probabilities and apportion accordingly, and maybe even engage in only a superficial analysis, including considering whether they are already set up to buy bitcoins and how much work it may take to get set up to hold some bitcoins.

Superficial analysis and making errors is not the same as "subjective value".  If I buy something because (erroneously) I *think* it will be worth 10 times more next week, then that doesn't mean that that asset is 10 times more to me, subjectively.  I'm just making a foolish mistake.  If I prefer an apple 10 times more than an orange, then that *is* subjective value.  It comes from my desires which are subjective.

What the fuck are you talking about?  We already discussed this several times.  Banks and visas and a lot of these forms of modern credit work fine and dandy when you have it and you have access to it, but surely not everyone has access to such modern banking.

Then you cannot use crypto either.  This is why "bitcoin for the poor" is a ridiculous concept.  In order to be able to have bitcoins, you already need to mine them, which is now a matter of rich business people in China for most part, or you have to buy them on exchanges, where you need already all the banking machinery at your disposal, plus more.  You need to have more banking and networking to be able to use bitcoin, than to use a credit card.  If you can't have a bank account and/or a credit card, you mostly can't have bitcoin either.  Yes, you could use localbitcoins with shady people trying to screw poor folks.  No, I think that a relatively poor person has easier access to some banking than to bitcoin.  Bitcoin is not going to revolutionize the economic relationships in poor countries before banking will.

   In fact there are a whole hell of a lot of folks who do not and who also feel that they get screwed on a regular basis by such modern financial institutions

And the fun thing is that crypto is even wilder and scammier as of today....  crypto is doing all the worst things of the financial world, much worse.
That's exactly what I'm complaining about: the bubbles, the speculation, the scamming in crypto is far worse than in the regular financial world.   That wouldn't be the case if it were mainly used as a currency, but it isn't.  It is blown up by whales, it is dumped, it is *essentially driven by hot air speculation* and almost not by the potential virtues you mention.  That's my bloody whole point !

[RealBitcoin]

   In fact there are a whole hell of a lot of folks who do not and who also feel that they get screwed on a regular basis by such modern financial institutions

And the fun thing is that crypto is even wilder and scammier as of today....  crypto is doing all the worst things of the financial world, much worse.
That's exactly what I'm complaining about: the bubbles, the speculation, the scamming in crypto is far worse than in the regular financial world.   That wouldn't be the case if it were mainly used as a currency, but it isn't.  It is blown up by whales, it is dumped, it is *essentially driven by hot air speculation* and almost not by the potential virtues you mention.  That's my bloody whole point !

You and the other guy JayJuanGee are good trolls.

WTF are you guys even talking about, for one it's way offtopic, but on the otherhand is complete nonsense.


You say that BTC has no value at all, but you are praising fiat money, well then keep your money in fiat and dont cry to me that you will lose 50% in 20 years because of the inflation.

And then you say that crypto is worse than the financial markets.

How on earth is worse when in bitcoin the most people steal is 1 million (and even that is rare), while the financial system steals quadrillions?

The legacy financial system is literally 2500000000x worse when bitcoin (at 2.5quadrillion derivatives).

So stop trolling my thread.

[RealBitcoin]

Yes, that could be the key to your own myopic focus on this bullshit "freedom" crap of a lot of nut job libertarians who like to knock down a variety of existing systems and to suggest that they have not opted for them or consented to such, and therefore, they want to criticize without really providing any kind of realistic solutions. 

Hahaha these "bullshit libertarians" will be laughting at you when your bank account will get a 80% bail-in. Make sure you post a picture here crying after your bank account is emptied so that we "nutjobs" can laugh.

See there is the reason for bitcoin's existence, it's not libertarian nonsense, it's common sense. Bank accounts can get seized any minute, while bitcoin cant.

Yet you and your troll buddy keep trashing bitcoin here, but you will be glad that you own some bitcoin when the big financial collapse comes, because pretty much anything else could be wiped out.

[dinofelis]

You say that BTC has no value at all, but you are praising fiat money, well then keep your money in fiat and dont cry to me that you will lose 50% in 20 years because of the inflation.

I'm not saying that BTC has no value at all.  I would say, read what I've written, but it is probably TL;DR.

In short: bitcoin has of course a big value proposition: it is a currency/store of value.
My "complaint" is that in the current situation, the actual "market cap" of bitcoin USED as a currency/store of value is probably only 5% of the current market cap, and that that is the ONLY real value of bitcoin (as of today).

I'm complaining about the fact that 95% of the current bitcoin market cap is made up, essentially, by greater-fool-theory, that is, people that are in bitcoin ONLY because they expect its price to rise significantly.

My argument is that that is bad, and is potentially even killing the genuine adoption of bitcoin where it DOES have value, namely as a currency/store of value, because it brings deadly volatility, too much cost in mining, too much attention by regulators and institutional "investors"... it doesn't bring anything that helps bitcoin be where it has value, namely as a (free - like in freedom) store of value/currency.  On the contrary, it HARMS bitcoin.

And then you say that crypto is worse than the financial markets.

How on earth is worse when in bitcoin the most people steal is 1 million (and even that is rare), while the financial system steals quadrillions?

That's just a matter of scale.  What matters is how much an individual user of the system is scammed.  When bitcoin went up to $1200 and then came down to $200, bitcoin essentially lost a factor of 6 in value of its potential users.  At this moment, bitcoin is a worse currency/store of value than most big fiat currencies.  This volatility was entirely due to speculation, not to variability in "genuine usage".

[RealBitcoin]

I'm not saying that BTC has no value at all.  I would say, read what I've written, but it is probably TL;DR.

In short: bitcoin has of course a big value proposition: it is a currency/store of value.
My "complaint" is that in the current situation, the actual "market cap" of bitcoin USED as a currency/store of value is probably only 5% of the current market cap, and that that is the ONLY real value of bitcoin (as of today).

I'm complaining about the fact that 95% of the current bitcoin market cap is made up, essentially, by greater-fool-theory, that is, people that are in bitcoin ONLY because they expect its price to rise significantly.

My argument is that that is bad, and is potentially even killing the genuine adoption of bitcoin where it DOES have value, namely as a currency/store of value, because it brings deadly volatility, too much cost in mining, too much attention by regulators and institutional "investors"... it doesn't bring anything that helps bitcoin be where it has value, namely as a (free - like in freedom) store of value/currency.  On the contrary, it HARMS bitcoin.

You are not saying bitcoin hasnt got any value but it has only 5% of the value , well that is almost nothing according to you.

But what about the other 95%, it's being used by gambling, investment, trading and other stuff.

Yes I wish bitcoin were more widely used in other areas, but we just need to wait with that, Rome wasnt built in 1 day, and no corporation is helping us to go mainstram, only our small entrepreneurs are doing things here and the rest of the people just complain constantly.

because it brings deadly volatility

No, the volatility is acceptable, at least it goes up, those that short bitcoin will suffer the consequences. I would call the venezuelan bolivar a deadly volatility lol.

too much cost in mining

So what, at least it's a competitive market with cutting edge mining equipments constantly. You have solar panels to generate electricity, what more can you ask for?

too much attention by regulators

haha those pesky bureocrats have noses like sharks, they would regulate regardless of what happens here, there is little to do if you have a hammer and everything you see around you is a nail.

You need a fucking 50,000$ license to open a lemonade stand (harmless), so yeah every shit is regulated because they are powerhungry control freaks, so bitcoin will get regulated either way, so that is a weak argument made by you.

institutional "investors"

Better allies than foes, i personally like the fact that banks adopt blockchain technology, it shows that bitcoin wont be targeted for shutdown,but may actually end up a preferable asset that banks might buy into later. I am not a big fan of big banks, but you have to admit that its better to have them allies than foes, so this is a good thing in my opinion.


So no, bitcoin is not harmed, and it has already exceeded a lot of expectations, and doing better than exected. The only harm is caused by the bullshit media and their sensationalist crap, and the sheep consumers who are scared to use bitcoin because they read negative things about it in the newspaper.

I might argue that we dont even need weak minded people like that, it would drag us down, there are plenty of enemies here already we dont need more.

That's just a matter of scale.  What matters is how much an individual user of the system is scammed.  When bitcoin went up to $1200 and then came down to $200, bitcoin essentially lost a factor of 6 in value of its potential users.  At this moment, bitcoin is a worse currency/store of value than most big fiat currencies.  This volatility was entirely due to speculation, not to variability in "genuine usage".

Doesnt matter ,that was in 2013, bitcoin since then has undergone in massive changes, both in infrastructure as in market, with many many merchants and a better stability.

I hardly doubt such thing will happen again,and people who buy into bubbles get burned either way, so I dont care about 2013.

[JayJuanGee]

Whenever you are mentioning the greater fool theory, you are coming off as nonsensical and non factual, especially when you are attempting to apply such to bitcoin.. seeming to start with the conclusion that you want to reach first... and then reasoning backwards.. hahahhahahaha           

If someone says that "greater fool theory can apply to a lot of stuff, but NOT to < fill in name of asset class > " then that means that most probably that asset class already has reached that stage. 

You are a goofball.

You should realize that there is a difference in my making the assertion that "greater fool theory" does not apply to bitcoin, and my asserting that greater fool theory never could be applied to bitcoin.  I said the former, not the later.

You attempt to make your "greater fool theory" apply to bitcoin because you are engaging in selective wishful thinking, and failing/refusing to account for certain facts and certain reasonable logical conclusions based on some of those facts.

So, yeah, of course you can apply your "greater fool theory" if you selectively choose to ignore some of the facts and logic.

I still remember the talk about the "new economy" stuff back in the 90-ies and early 2000 when every suggestion that maybe the dot-com stuff was a big bubble was taken as coming from someone oldfashioned who couldn't come to grips with the fantastic new economic paradigm.  Same with the South Sea bubble centuries before.

Snap out of it.  You are overly generalizing in a kind of I told you so monday morning quarterbacking.

So fucking what?  A lot of folks may have gotten caught up in .com hype and overly invested, and even if there was an overall and possibly unfair general market correction, there were also a variety of scenarios that played out, even in that general up/down trend that historically took place.

I'm not saying that bitcoin is in a speculative bubble per se,

Yeah.. you are all over the place.. maybe it is maybe it isn't .. it is, it could be... blah blah blah.

but let us say that many things indicate that it could very well be, especially if most people demanding it, do so because they expect a strong rise in price and not because they want to use it.   

Yes, it could be.. who gives a shit?  I don't claim to know anything about where bitcoin is exactly, except to say to you that I am investing into it because I think that it's chances of going up are greater than it's chances than going down...

So who gives a shit about where it really is?  Where bitcoin really is will play out over time, and I will adjust my strategy will adjust over time.  I make my decisions day by day and I have a plan that can be adjusted if needed and if information changes.  Other people make similar kinds of decisions, and we will see how these matters play out.

your going on and on and on about how speculative bitcoin is seems like a whole bunch of nonsense hype, and now, it seems that you are backing off of your earlier position to say "what if" rather than "it is" in a speculative bubble.   I recognize that you are also throwing in a few "it ought to be"s as well when you are describing the "is" status, but that is another set of delusional facts and logic that you are spewing out from time to time in your all over the place analysis.

That doesn't exclude, as I said before, that most of these people are visionaries, and that the true usage price of bitcoin will still be orders of magnitude higher than today, but there's not much that points in that direction right now (that's why they have to be visionaries, of course ). 

you seem to be placing way too much value judgment in your labelling of some folks as "visionaries."  Sure folks have differing levels of insight and maybe even some folks exercise better judgement than others, but "visionaries," come on?  You are failing and refusing to acknowledge that people view the world in probabilities, and yeah sure there a lot of folks that attempt to predict absolutes, but really when push comes to shove, they don't really believe the future is an absolute in the same way that the past is an absolute (because it already has taken place).

 It also doesn't mean that even if bitcoin is in a speculative bubble phase, that the bubble cannot still inflate a factor of 10 or 100 or so before it bursts.  So I'm not saying that bitcoin doesn't have the potential to still rise a lot (before stabilising, or before crashing).

Nobody said that you were saying such.

But the way its demand seems to be organized, and the main reasons people seem to have behind its demand, are definitely indicating a great risk that "greater fool theory" is at work.

To the extent that I kind of understand what you are saying, you seem to be over generalizing what is the constitution of bitcoin's demand... probably because you want to select and describe facts to support your stupid ass "greater fools" theory.

So one shouldn't "care less of why people buy bitcoin".  It is essential.

People are only going to do as much analysis as they think is necessary for them to come to their own conclusions.  Very few people analyze in detail, they just get gut reactions and act accordingly, and maybe as time passes they may chose to perform a bit more tailored analysis.

That doesn't matter.  The main motivation will be "it's going to rise" (whether that analysis is profound of superficial doesn't matter) --> greater fool theory.  If the main motivation is "I want to put this amount of value aside for later, and bitcoin is a great store of value to get out what I put in"  --> sustainable price.

Yes.  We are talking passed each other.

It is essentially that simple.  You buy the stuff because you expect it to rise --> danger for greater fool theory if that is the main market drive  ;  you buy stuff because you want to store value in it ---> solid asset if that is the main market drive.

No more and no less ; independent of how much analysis goes into it.

Yep.  You go on an on about how simple it is, and you seem to be missing actuality by your "boiling it down to its essence."

hahahahaha   

yes.. partly true, especially if you calculate that folks are going to consider a range of probabilities and apportion accordingly, and maybe even engage in only a superficial analysis, including considering whether they are already set up to buy bitcoins and how much work it may take to get set up to hold some bitcoins.

Superficial analysis and making errors is not the same as "subjective value".  If I buy something because (erroneously) I *think* it will be worth 10 times more next week, then that doesn't mean that that asset is 10 times more to me, subjectively.  I'm just making a foolish mistake.  If I prefer an apple 10 times more than an orange, then that *is* subjective value.  It comes from my desires which are subjective.

It doesn't really matter to parse down this part of the analysis.  Whatever the fucking source, folks are going to have one subjective value at time one and possibly another subjective value at time two, and maybe they will get increased utility from the change or maybe they will get decreased utility. It doesn't matter a whole lot because these things are changing and people adjust their own choices based on such calculations on an ongoing basis, and we both know it even though we may be expressing the matter in differing ways and giving different levels of weight to such changing matters or even the overall consensus that may be present regarding such value attribution matters.

What the fuck are you talking about?  We already discussed this several times.  Banks and visas and a lot of these forms of modern credit work fine and dandy when you have it and you have access to it, but surely not everyone has access to such modern banking.

Then you cannot use crypto either.  This is why "bitcoin for the poor" is a ridiculous concept. 

You are a ridiculous concept in your attempt to exclusively categories these various financial channels and the extent to which they can be used in ad hoc and partial ways rather than expecting that folks have to go balls to the walls with one or another system.  There can be a lot of variation, and even sometimes, folks may be using systems that they have no idea about because it is behind the scenes and they are weighing one thing versus another and how do I send value to you to pay for x and how much is it going to cost me, and should I store some of that. blah blah blah..

In order to be able to have bitcoins, you already need to mine them, which is now a matter of rich business people in China for most part, or you have to buy them on exchanges, where you need already all the banking machinery at your disposal, plus more. 

more of your Over simplifications.  You can also receive them directly too without a bank.. or someone else could hold them for you.

 You need to have more banking and networking to be able to use bitcoin, than to use a credit card.  If you can't have a bank account and/or a credit card, you mostly can't have bitcoin either. 

That full out baloney nonsense.  I wonder why I am wasting my time engaging with you when you come up with such nonsense.

Yes, you could use localbitcoins with shady people trying to screw poor folks.  No, I think that a relatively poor person has easier access to some banking than to bitcoin.  Bitcoin is not going to revolutionize the economic relationships in poor countries before banking will.

probably, you need to step out into the real world a bit to see that there are various levels of complexity that you are not seeming to recognize?

Yes, there are going to be some variance in whether systems are used by the poor or the rich and whether access is available, and by what means access will become available...and adoption may take place in some areas before it takes place in other areas, but these access issues evolve, and if you are suggesting that banks / credit cards are just as available as bitcoin to poor people, then you are really in a fantasy world.

   In fact there are a whole hell of a lot of folks who do not and who also feel that they get screwed on a regular basis by such modern financial institutions

And the fun thing is that crypto is even wilder and scammier as of today....  crypto is doing all the worst things of the financial world, much worse.

Where's your data?  You are making a pretty broad claim, here.. And, you are also talking bullshit because systemically, people are screwed in a whole lot of ways, but some of that screwing is not considered to be scams. 

That's exactly what I'm complaining about: the bubbles, the speculation, the scamming in crypto is far worse than in the regular financial world.   That wouldn't be the case if it were mainly used as a currency, but it isn't.  It is blown up by whales, it is dumped, it is *essentially driven by hot air speculation* and almost not by the potential virtues you mention.  That's my bloody whole point !

Yeah.. your bloody whole point denigrated into a bunch of nonsense in your whimsical attempts to suggest that bitcoin is more scammy than other financial institutions and therefore it's value is overhyped.. ..

We don't need to continue this conversation because we are really seeming to talk passed one another... and a lot of this discussion doesn't even matter in terms of attempting to provide further evidence or logic to support either direction. In other words, I think that we have well sufficiently exhausted our discussion of our positions.

[JayJuanGee]

   In fact there are a whole hell of a lot of folks who do not and who also feel that they get screwed on a regular basis by such modern financial institutions

And the fun thing is that crypto is even wilder and scammier as of today....  crypto is doing all the worst things of the financial world, much worse.
That's exactly what I'm complaining about: the bubbles, the speculation, the scamming in crypto is far worse than in the regular financial world.   That wouldn't be the case if it were mainly used as a currency, but it isn't.  It is blown up by whales, it is dumped, it is *essentially driven by hot air speculation* and almost not by the potential virtues you mention.  That's my bloody whole point !

You and the other guy JayJuanGee are good trolls.

WTF are you guys even talking about, for one it's way offtopic, but on the otherhand is complete nonsense.

The diversion aspect began more or less when dinofelis, began arguing that ETH was a scam based on its being a speculative bubble, and he argued that BTC was pretty much the same as ETH... and we went from there.  He may have backed off a little bit from his original claim, but not much.

I personally don't think that both of us are trolls, but I will concede that we had diverted considerably from the topic of this thread.

You say that BTC has no value at all, but you are praising fiat money, well then keep your money in fiat and dont cry to me that you will lose 50% in 20 years because of the inflation.

Yes.. that is what dinofelis is saying, more or less.  Certainly I am not saying that.

And then you say that crypto is worse than the financial markets.

How on earth is worse when in bitcoin the most people steal is 1 million (and even that is rare), while the financial system steals quadrillions?

The legacy financial system is literally 2500000000x worse when bitcoin (at 2.5quadrillion derivatives).

So stop trolling my thread.

sure, there is nothing wrong with bringing matters back on topic.