Long-Term Bulls

[evoorhees]

There are two kinds of long-term bears, those that think that bitcoin is not a real currency and will therefore fail, and those that think that bitcoin rests on solid foundations but that the circumstances for its potential rise in value will be hampered/suppressed for various reasons (political, etc). I only care to open-mindedly listen to the latter, because the former know nothing about economics. Most of the former aren't even austrian-minded libertarians, which is a prerequisite for any kind of logical discussion on this forum.

That's really elitist and snobby of you... but it's so true. 

[1714951758]

1714951758

[grod]

There are two kinds of long-term bears, those that think that bitcoin is not a real currency and will therefore fail, and those that think that bitcoin rests on solid foundations but that the circumstances for its potential rise in value will be hampered/suppressed for various reasons (political, etc). I only care to open-mindedly listen to the latter, because the former know nothing about economics. Most of the former aren't even austrian-minded libertarians, which is a prerequisite for any kind of logical discussion on this forum.

That's really elitist and snobby of you... but it's so true. 

What does the eventual ascendancy of bitcoin or other decentralized cryptocurrency have to do with the current block chain and its exchange rate to the dollar?

[Cluster2k]

When I think of bitcoin I think of the Squeeze Theorem. The fundamentals of bitcoins as digital currency make it indisputable that they will replace paper currency --- backed or unbacked --- in the near future. Now, until then, it can take as wild a course as you can imagine to get there, but ultimately, we know where it is going to go. We are at this point in the present, and we know there is a point in the future where it will be adopted en masse. And so regardless of whatever kind of path you think bitcoin will take, this path will ultimately be squeezed to conform to its necessarily upward destination.

"The fundamentals of bitcoins as digital currency make it indisputable that they will replace paper currency --- backed or unbacked --- in the near future"

I'll eat my PC when the USA gives up the US dollar, or the Japanese abandon the Yen, or the Chinese decide the Yuan is no good and decide to use bitcoins.

[alexanderanon]

What, do you have your money invested in US treasuries, then? The Euro? Or even better, Greek bonds? Good luck with that...

[Cluster2k]

What, do you have your money invested in US treasuries, then? The Euro? Or even better, Greek bonds? Good luck with that...

None of the above.  Gold, silver, Australian dollars, and paying off mortgage debt.

[alexanderanon]

Ahh, so all of your investments aren't really investments, but rather hedges against currency inflation. Gold and silver have gone up a lot in the past 10 years because the currencies they are denominated in have fallen, and as further fears surface as to the immense overestimation of the West's credit-worthiness. But so has Apple stock. 43-fold. This is an investment, because actual innovation is occurring. That's what bitcoin is, an innovation upon an existing idea. And bitcoin is unlike an investment into a product, or a commodity, or some other valuable, because bitcoin is the unit of value itself. Invest in a revolutionary car, make a small fortune; invest in a revolutionary industry that fuels cars, make a large fortune; invest in a revolutionary unit of value that serves as an intermediary for cars, energy, and anything else, make a Bitcoin fortune. Ford, Rockefeller, Satoshi. This is why I'm a bull.

[Cluster2k]

Ahh, so all of your investments aren't really investments, but rather hedges against currency inflation.

I have investments in various companies too, in resources and service sectors.  I don't have anything invested in Australian dollars directly, but all the companies are Australian and that has a direct effect on the currency's value through exports, etc.

Gold and silver have gone up a lot in the past 10 years because the currencies they are denominated in have fallen, and as further fears surface as to the immense overestimation of the West's credit-worthiness. But so has Apple stock. 43-fold. This is an investment, because actual innovation is occurring. That's what bitcoin is, an innovation upon an existing idea.

There is an interesting debate on various investment forums at the moment, that the value of gold, silver, and other commodities that are traditional hedges against inflation will get crushed in the coming years due to credit deflation.  The idea is that no matter how low interest rates go, and how much central banks intervene, if people aren't willing to borrow there is less credit therefore less money in the economy.  A prime example is Japan: effectively 0% interest rates for a decade yet precious little growth.

Ford, Rockefeller, Satoshi. This is why I'm a bull.

One of these is not like the other ones, one of these is just not the same.  Maybe we can email Satoshi and arrange an interview for his opinions.  Anyone know where we can contact him?

[log0s]

I think Bitcoin was originally misunderstood (and remains so) by many, including it's own creator, Satoshi, to be a currency despite the market not treating it as a currency.  It is actually just a ledger with arbitrary numbers declared by Satoshi to be currency, and then given a name that reinforces that metaphor.  How could it be a currency before anyone used it at all (let alone not having widespread use throughout the market) as a currency?  I wonder how things would have played out had a less metaphorical name been given to it, such as "BitLedger"...

At best, Bitcoins are a metaphorical commodity (not even a metaphorical currency/money).  It would be very interesting if the market does adopts a metaphorical commodity to be it's currency.  However, I don't think a metaphorical commodity has any chance at all in the market (I see no reason for the market to give up real, tangible commodities for a metaphorical one to use as it's money), but we'll see.  Even a quick google search for metaphorical money seems to provide no results whatsoever, hinting at near zero demand for such a thing.  Perhaps it's just because no one thought of the idea of a "metaphorical money" or "metaphorical commodity" before?  What I do know is that I certainly prefer a real money or commodity to a metaphorical one.

I think Bitcoin as a whole is just a bubble/mania based on a misunderstanding of the technology it is based on and will eventually only be in demand by a very small number of people (much smaller than currently interested in Bitcoin) who may never accept the facts of what Bitcoin really is and is not and will instead cling to treating it's commodity (or less accurately, money) metaphor as reality.  It will take time for the Bitcoin community and potential Bitcoin adopters to understand and/or accept what Bitcoin really is vs. the money metaphor most believe it is.

As more come to accept that the past adoption that we have seen is the result of Satoshi declaring the numbers in the ledger to be money and many others believing his mistake as reality, rather than the understanding that it's merely a ledger with arbitrary numbers that people can manipulate, Bitcoin prices will overall start to tend towards a market price based on reality rather than false beliefs in a commodity or money metaphor.  Maybe a widespread increase in accurate understanding of what Bitcoin is will give Bitcoin an edge over real money or commodities in the market, and adoption will increase...maybe.  However, I have yet to find any reason to expect this to happen.  I'm very interested to see how things play out from here.

[wareen]

How could it be a currency before anyone used it at all (let alone not having widespread use throughout the market) as a currency? 

By this definition no currency could ever be created.

Even a quick google search for metaphorical money seems to provide no results whatsoever, hinting at near zero demand for such a thing.

By that logic, there seems to be near zero demand for "non-metaphorical money" either - what does that tell us?

It will take time for the Bitcoin community and potential Bitcoin adopters to understand and/or accept what Bitcoin really is vs. the money metaphor most believe it is.

Yeah, it will also take some time until people finally understand and/or accept that this whole Internet thing is just a series of tubes as well, vs. this global communication network metaphor most believe it is.

Please don't take it personally but that's one of the funniest posts I've read in a while

[netrin]

How could it be a currency before anyone used it at all (let alone not having widespread use throughout the market) as a currency?

By this definition no currency could ever be created.

All currency was something or was redemable for something. That something may have been later taken away, but log0s statement stands. A currency is a generally accepted medium of exchange. Implied is that a currency was first exchanged, rather than a currency first, then exchanged.

Clearly commodities were traded before some were generally accepted as currency. I am not aware of any fiat currency established without first backing it by something else. Even the euro was backed by sovereign currency pegs that were backed by the dollar that was at one point backed by gold and silver. That bitcoins are backed by processing power or cryptography is an entirely new 'something' that might be difficult for many to 'generally accept'.

[dancupid]

Well, from what I've read long-term bears compare bitcoins to dutch tulips.
NFI how they arrive at this conclusion as tulips were never intended as a currency and bitcoin is.. I think most of it actually is about their wishful thinking that we get such a situation so they can buy it all up.

Alas they are really hidden long-term bulls.

The Tulip industry is still a billion dollar industry today - people still buy tulips.
Even Tulips didn't fail.

[Cluster2k]

Well, from what I've read long-term bears compare bitcoins to dutch tulips.
NFI how they arrive at this conclusion as tulips were never intended as a currency and bitcoin is.. I think most of it actually is about their wishful thinking that we get such a situation so they can buy it all up.

Alas they are really hidden long-term bulls.

The Tulip industry is still a billion dollar industry today - people still buy tulips.
Even Tulips didn't fail.

Perhaps we could update the tulip bubble meme to... garlic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/30/garlic-chinese-commodity-bubble

"One broker, Li Chunting, told the Global Times newspaper: "Garlic beats any other kind of investment, including stocks and real estate. I just need to wait for several months to enjoy the price difference.""

About a year later...

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-06/19/content_12730878.htm

"Garlic prices have tumbled more than 35 percent over the past three months"

Tulips, dotcoms, garlic, bitcoins.  The market sometimes turns manic and investors pile in for the simple reason that others are piling in.  Soon enough, there's a feedback loop and the price rise becomes exponential.  Inevitably (and it always does) the bubble bursts and prices revert to their long term trend.

There are the usual 'but this time it's different' and 'the market is supported by fundamental X and won't fall because of Y' arguments.

Humanity has been documenting economic bubbles for almost 400 years yet it seems we haven't learned the lesson yet.  We probably never will.

Garlic hasn't failed as such.  It's still tasty in many dishes and there will always be demand.  But that doesn't mean the bubble hasn't failed thousands of speculators who joined the garlic gold rush and invested their savings in it (or worse, borrowed money to invest). 

In some ways the garlic bubble mimicked what we saw with bitcoins.  Early 2011 the price starts to rise.  Speculators eye the gains and invest either directly in buying bitcoins or in hardware to create them.  Supply inevitably massively exceeds demand, people who got in early start to cash out, and the price collapses.  Ipso facto, a classic economic bubble.

[log0s]

How could it be a currency before anyone used it at all (let alone not having widespread use throughout the market) as a currency? 

By this definition no currency could ever be created.

netrin already gave a good reply to that immediately after your post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47360.msg565572#msg565572

Even a quick google search for metaphorical money seems to provide no results whatsoever, hinting at near zero demand for such a thing.

By that logic, there seems to be near zero demand for "non-metaphorical money" either - what does that tell us?

Feel free to replace "metaphorical" with "fake" or similar and "non-metaphorical" with "real"...I somehow don't expect there to be many people preferring fake or pretend money over real money.

It will take time for the Bitcoin community and potential Bitcoin adopters to understand and/or accept what Bitcoin really is vs. the money metaphor most believe it is.

Yeah, it will also take some time until people finally understand and/or accept that this whole Internet thing is just a series of tubes as well, vs. this global communication network metaphor most believe it is.

Bitcoin is a decentralized ledger with a set of rules for storing and modifying arbitrary numbers associated with cryptographic keys, is it not?  When you look at the raw block and wallet data, do you see bitcoins anywhere?  (I'm guessing you've never looked.)  No.  There are pieces of data that say which number is associated with which public key (or it's hash), and the rules allow only the corresponding private key to decrease the number associated with that key pair and increase a number associated with a different public key (or it's hash).  That is the Bitcoin system.  Thinking anything more of it than that (concepts like actual "bitcoins", spending bitcoins, receiving bitcoins, losing bitcoins, destroying bitcoins, etc.) are metaphors intended to support the (false) idea of it being a currency.

[Crypt_Current]

Feel free to replace "metaphorical" with "fake" or similar and "non-metaphorical" with "real"...I somehow don't expect there to be many people preferring fake or pretend money over real money.

In a world where real money fuels real wars, yes I'd prefer fake money please.

[Nesetalis]

I'm def a long term bull. Or perhaps one of those little bulls, about a foot tall and stampeding in all my cuteness....
In other words, I own very little share in bitcoin but regularly accumulating more!
The ups and downs don't bother me much, nor do the short term prices of electricity to bitcoin. If In the end I lose out, thats okay, I didn't have much to begin with and I have already found decent use for this lovely coin. However, without a deep flaw in the bitcoin concept and code I don't expect it to fail. Perhaps get down below a dollar again for a few months before the demand catches up with the supply or the supply drops when the rate halves.

If it goes even lower, that just means more opportunity for me to buy in deeper.

[imsaguy]

How could it be a currency before anyone used it at all (let alone not having widespread use throughout the market) as a currency? 

By this definition no currency could ever be created.

netrin already gave a good reply to that immediately after your post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47360.msg565572#msg565572

Even a quick google search for metaphorical money seems to provide no results whatsoever, hinting at near zero demand for such a thing.

By that logic, there seems to be near zero demand for "non-metaphorical money" either - what does that tell us?

Feel free to replace "metaphorical" with "fake" or similar and "non-metaphorical" with "real"...I somehow don't expect there to be many people preferring fake or pretend money over real money.

It will take time for the Bitcoin community and potential Bitcoin adopters to understand and/or accept what Bitcoin really is vs. the money metaphor most believe it is.

Yeah, it will also take some time until people finally understand and/or accept that this whole Internet thing is just a series of tubes as well, vs. this global communication network metaphor most believe it is.

Bitcoin is a decentralized ledger with a set of rules for storing and modifying arbitrary numbers associated with cryptographic keys, is it not?  When you look at the raw block and wallet data, do you see bitcoins anywhere?  (I'm guessing you've never looked.)  No.  There are pieces of data that say which number is associated with which public key (or it's hash), and the rules allow only the corresponding private key to decrease the number associated with that key pair and increase a number associated with a different public key (or it's hash).  That is the Bitcoin system.  Thinking anything more of it than that (concepts like actual "bitcoins", spending bitcoins, receiving bitcoins, losing bitcoins, destroying bitcoins, etc.) are metaphors intended to support the (false) idea of it being a currency.

What is electronic banking?  A bunch of decentralized ledgers with a set of rules for storing and modifying arbitrary numbers associated with routing numbers and account numbers.  When you look at the raw ledgers of the banks, you don't see dollars, you see pieces of data that say which number is associated with what account number and increase that number based upon transactions in or out.

[S3052]

For long term bulls, here an update: http://www.bitcoinbullbear.com/index.html

[Bigpiggy01]

Bitcoin is pretty close to "god's gift" (and no I'm not religious) to the small-medium sized business operating internationally. It's ability to quickly process payment enables this type of businesses to get things done quickly which is essential when A things go wrong or B your looking for a "cash" discount when trading internationally for smallish sums.

What bitcoin has done for me personally in terms of extra business etc. I've outlined in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=46254.msg561339#msg561339

Given the above I don't really see bitcoin going to new lows or even staying at current levels for much longer. And the second we get into the "tomes of law" somewhere as a whatever then the sky's the limit. Especially given that that would enable businesses to put bitcoin expenses directly on their books (I see this as the main hurdle to cross atm, but then again I'm not an accountant).

[322i0n]

"Real money"? those pieces of paper printed with pyramids and dead presidents.

[wareen]

How could it be a currency before anyone used it at all (let alone not having widespread use throughout the market) as a currency?

By this definition no currency could ever be created.

All currency was something or was redemable for something. That something may have been later taken away, but log0s statement stands. A currency is a generally accepted medium of exchange. Implied is that a currency was first exchanged, rather than a currency first, then exchanged.

I agree, but the definition is a bit problematic for practical purposes, because when is something _generally_ accepted on the Internet? Would you say Paypal is generally accepted? Credit cards? (yes they are payment systems, but what about WoW gold, Facebook credits etc...) By that definition there will probably never be such a thing as an Internet currency - yet by common terms we have several. My point is that the definition of "generally accepted" is so vague and difficult to apply to the Internet that it doesn't really help as an argument and for most practical purposes, currencies are "created" (ie, nobody disagreed when you called the Euro a currency even before it existed in physical form). But anyway - Satoshi did not introduce an electronic currency but an "electronic cash system" so the argument does not even apply.

I say: Bitcoin is a currency, because it is generally accepted as a medium of exchange within the Bitcoin community. It was from the beginning, albeit the Bitcoin community was smaller then.

Feel free to replace "metaphorical" with "fake" or similar and "non-metaphorical" with "real"...I somehow don't expect there to be many people preferring fake or pretend money over real money.

What is fake and what is real? Are the bits and bytes on the storage system of your bank which happen to correlate with your bank account's balance "real money"? People provide goods and services in exchange for that bits and bytes and that's the only thing that matters. Again, the distinction between "real" or "metaphorical" money becomes somewhat moot - some people provide goods and services for certain bits and bytes in the blockchain, so where's the problem?

Bitcoin is a decentralized ledger with a set of rules for storing and modifying arbitrary numbers associated with cryptographic keys, is it not?  When you look at the raw block and wallet data, do you see bitcoins anywhere?  (I'm guessing you've never looked.)  No.

Don't worry, I have been working with the Bitcoin code and raw transaction data for quite some time now and you are right, Bitcoin is just a kind of abstract concept - a name we give the balance of the ledger of some cryptographic keys. But you know what - people deal with such abstract concepts all the time.

Your arguments are highly theoretical and have about the same merit as someone arguing that forests cannot exist because all there really ever is, is a collection of trees and it will take some time until people finally realize they have been wrong all the time when they thought of going for a walk in a forest.

Again, nothing personal - have fun