Reeee: Does Bitcoin exist?

[NotATether]

From https://zenul-abidin.medium.com/does-bitcoin-exist-85ac295fe083:

~long wall of text snipped...

Appendix: Tesla, Tesla, Tesla

You gotta love it when people correlate crypto with Tesla and its billionaire founder Elon, don’t you?

~gif

(Actually, it makes me cringe. I hate it, and this is almost like watching Steve Ballmer do the “Developers” dance on repeat.)

Here’s the problem with Elon and Tesla’s association with bitcoin. He is now widely considered an authority on the subject, and people just take his financial advice without running a compiler’s semantical code check on them first. The result is, you see a wide range of silly trading errors comparable to those pages of syntax error before ‘;' token or Undefined symbol FOOBAR\nfirst referenced in file process.c errors you see in your Makefile output. Fellow developers, does that ring a bell?

You shouldn’t be blindly accepting opinions about crypto from random people on the internet (including myself and this article), not even a billionaire’s opinion. Unfortunately, for the majority of casual Twitter and news surfers, this is not the case.

Ignore the raging about alleged pump & dump effects for a moment, and focus on the following: The end result is that critics now start giving off the wrong impression about Bitcoin, based on people like Elon’s view on the coin, which is read by hundreds of people. When you consider that there are dozens of articles like those published in a month (a guesstimate), the number of misinformed people rises to the tens of thousands mark.

Therefore, you should be careful of what information you believe when reading the news — always use your brain — and then register only the information that makes sense and sounds reasonable to you. And definitely don’t believe random information on the internet just because someone said so, without verifying it.

This article has been prompted by a torrent of misinformation swarming Medium right now about cryptocurrencies.

TL;DR I know clickbait titles with "Bitcoin price will dump to zero" but are about some totally different aspect of bitcoin are catchy and generate a lot of views, but this is the prima foca element that's messing with crypto prices and the reason why we have to endure these long and largely unnecessary crypto winters.

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[bitmover]

TL;DR I know clickbait titles with "Bitcoin price will dump to zero" but are about some totally different aspect of bitcoin are catchy and generate a lot of views, but this is the prima foca element that's messing with crypto prices and the reason why we have to endure these long and largely unnecessary crypto winters.

Hey, i think we are in a crypto summer since last halving
45k? Wow!

Back to topic:

Therefore, you should be careful of what information you believe when reading the news — always use your brain — and then register only the information that makes sense and sounds reasonable to you. And definitely don’t believe random information on the internet just because someone said so, without verifying it.

The problem with Elon Musk is that he is a very interesting person. I know he is hated in cryptocurrency, because he said a lot of bullshit on his twitter, but this guys is an inventor. A lot of people respect him. He created several interesting companies (tesla, spacex, paypal, starlink,..).

He has some authority ,not because he is rich, but because he is a genius. Sadly, he is now spreading misinformation about bitcoin...

[Charles-Tim]

Nice article on medium. If someone still exist misinforming people that Bitcoin is not existing, the person would be of old age category. Some people can think because it is digital, it is not real, what makes want is physical real, there are even some physical substances but of no value, but yet there are the ones that are valuable, their demand and supply makes them valuable. We are now in the digital era, Bitcoin makes digital money possible. Anything that has supply which people are demanding for has value, Bitcoin is just like that, it has a limited supply of 21 million and people keeps demanding for it, used as currency and yet remain being an asset. If people in the world are demanding for Bitcoin, that is in fact enough to know Bitcoin is existing with promising future.

About Fiat, Fiat is very important, if there is not inferior, there will be no superior, I am not implying Fiat is inferior, but you should understand why I mean. Fiat is inflationary, subjected to governmental control, this makes Fiat to be a depreciating asset as the government are manipulating it. But, Bitcoin is deflationary, it is an appreciative asset, this is what people should know. If they like to follow the people that misled them ones, they can continue as the price of bitcoin will grow more and more.

About people like Elon Musk, never mind me, I do not like posting about him after his inappropriate tweet about Bitcoin, so I will not go further on this. And people will always be people, majority like what is not authentic.

[Zedpastin]

The problem with Elon Musk is that he is a very interesting person. I know he is hated in cryptocurrency, because he said a lot of bullshit on his twitter, but this guys is an inventor. A lot of people respect him. He created several interesting companies (tesla, spacex, paypal, starlink,..).

He has some authority ,not because he is rich, but because he is a genius. Sadly, he is now spreading misinformation about bitcoin...

Elon Musk a genius? I think he is a businessman who knew how to get brighter minds than him to do his work he has proven how he is a idiot with the misinformation he is spreading about Bitcoin.

[KingsDen]

I read through the article, though there are salient information in it, but obviously there isn't a debate. The writer was just raising some issues based on speculations and maybe addressing them. I almost slept while reading the article. The topic of whether Bitcoin exists or not to me is invalidated. For thinking about Bitcoin alone is a pure evidence it exists. Virtually there is nothing that does not exist. It is either it's existing tangibly or existing in ideation. The worries should be the dependability, longevity, valuation of bitcoin and not it's existence.

As for Elon Musk, I believe he is one of the designs incorporated in Bitcoin "Speculation". Without people like him, Bitcoin might meet a sudden end.

[aoluain]

From https://zenul-abidin.medium.com/does-bitcoin-exist-85ac295fe083:

~long wall of text snipped...


This article has been prompted by a torrent of misinformation swarming Medium right now about cryptocurrencies.

TL;DR I know clickbait titles with "Bitcoin price will dump to zero" but are about some totally different aspect of bitcoin are catchy and generate a lot of views, but this is the prima foca element that's messing with crypto prices and the reason why we have to endure these long and largely unnecessary crypto winters.

Unfortunately we have to endure the seemingly constant misinformation about
Bitcoin, maybe there will be a time when journalists and economic commentators
run out of negative ideas or simply realise the futility of their actions because
Bitcoin always recovers. Maybe in the future the majority of people will be more
informed about Bitcoin.

The article itself TBH I found hard to read and understand in places

Conclusion

From a financial point of view, bitcoin exists because it has a liabilities system similar to other currencies.
Any asset whose quantity is created can be valuable if it has a known supply and enough demand.
Purchasing value alone does not give an item trading value; there must also be demand to use it as a trading value.

[rhomelmabini]

He has some authority ,not because he is rich, but because he is a genius. Sadly, he is now spreading misinformation about bitcoin...

He's self-entitled now because of what he achieves but that shouldn't get him to spread misinformation throughout the public. If he's that genius then why not dig deeper instead of getting just into the shallow and narrow understanding of how things work in crypto? Who knows his agenda but hoping this wouldn't escalate more into a huge manipulation.

[bitmover]

If he's that genius then why not dig deeper instead of getting just into the shallow and narrow understanding of how things work in crypto? Who knows his agenda but hoping this wouldn't escalate more into a huge manipulation.

He has a deep understand on how bitcoin works. This guy in involved with cryptocurrency long time ago... He is paypal founder, he is in this business for a long time.

He has his agenda and self interests. He doesn't care about bitcoin.

 he is spreading misinformation not because he lacks knowledge, but because he wants to spread misinformation. Maybe to get carbon funds from biden administration?

[NotATether]

The writer was just raising some issues based on speculations and maybe addressing them. I almost slept while reading the article.

I wrote the article, by the way.  

The article itself TBH I found hard to read and understand in places

I know a large section of it sounds boring and possibly too technical but it was originally supposed to be an opinion piece for Bitcoin Magazine (which has a more knowledgable reader base), which itself was put together from talking points I made in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5342137.0, when I emailed them and didn't get a response after two weeks (they have a strict "unique, not published anywhere else policy"), I sent the draft to Coinfomania, hoping they'd publish it, but the same fate happened there too.

So I ended up sitting on the article for almost a month until while I was doing my daily read through Medium I found a huge swathe of "bitcoin is a Ponzi" posts. That's when I hit the nuclear button and published the draft on my own blog.

Speaking of that, here's yet another such post I encountered:

https://medium.com/personal-finance/bitcoin-is-a-giant-ponzi-scheme-ae4263008220

Right now, Bitcoin is a textbook Ponzi scheme:

It has no intrinsic value. You can’t eat it, wear it, or heat your house with it. Unlike gold — which at least feels nice and looks shiny on your spouse’s ring finger — you can’t even see Bitcoin.

By this logic, bank credit that people borrow doesn't have intrinsic value either.

It is not a productive asset. It’s not a factory that produces an item. It’s not a field that produces cucumbers. It’s not a firm that offers a service. It contributes nothing to society.

Neither is the money printer that prints limitless amounts of cash. In reality, no currency is going to be a "productive asset" (and gold, silver et al are not used as currency).

It has zero underlying value. None. It’s not backed by land or commodities or — as with national currencies like USD or GBP — the threat of violence (in the form of wage garnishment, asset seizure, and imprisonment.)

It has minimal utility. Because the price fluctuates so wildly (what healthy currency doubles in a month?), it’s virtually ineffective as a safe representation of value or means of trade.

Its value is solely derived from the trust that the price will continue to rise indefinitely. That there will always be new investors to buy out the old ones.

All answered in my counter-post. In the case of the last argument, just replace "subjects" (i.e. lenders) in the article with "investors". The "users", "claimants", "people receiving money", and such are the full node programs, as I explained in the article.

It is surprisingly difficult to explain in simple terms why bitcoin has value, utility, does not depend on new users, etc. without bringing up convoluted examples such as skin economies in gaming  

[famososMuertos]

It is a literal matrix in mathematical terms that has as results 1 or -1. It that result has validity in its comprensión depending on who reads it.

So with the Internet information that misrepresents or misinforms, there is only the focus of opposing or simply contributing with the content that adds to the true information.

As for Elon Musk, he is El-On or El-off depending on how you look at him. Sometimes it is good "wave" sometimes only "particle".

[dansus021]

Right now, Bitcoin is a textbook Ponzi scheme:
It has no intrinsic value. You can’t eat it, wear it, or heat your house with it. Unlike gold — which at least feels nice and looks shiny on your spouse’s ring finger — you can’t even see Bitcoin.

By this logic, bank credit that people borrow doesn't have intrinsic value either.

Indeed, 10000% true
bitcoin is money that u cant touch but have value so "things" that people intend to believe and has value is "exist"

digital wallet is one example money that u cant  touch but have value, money itself is only regular paper that have value

[amishmanish]

People who write such silly articles on Bitcoin are basically nocoiners or Paid troll armies from some Alt-coins who want to keep their hopes alive of not being relegated to irrelevance. As far as the crypto winter is concerned, I don't think such articles make much of a difference. People who GET bitcoin are not going to be persuaded by such information. What matters is that those of us who do, continue to educate.

If he's that genius then why not dig deeper instead of getting just into the shallow and narrow understanding of how things work in crypto? Who knows his agenda but hoping this wouldn't escalate more into a huge manipulation.

He has a deep understand on how bitcoin works. This guy in involved with cryptocurrency long time ago... He is paypal founder, he is in this business for a long time.

He has his agenda and self interests. He doesn't care about bitcoin.

 he is spreading misinformation not because he lacks knowledge, but because he wants to spread misinformation. Maybe to get carbon funds from biden administration?

Elon Musk has been contradicting himself intentionally, begging to be corrected. While his bitcoin ethos seem to be somehow in place, the only remaining point of contention after that "B Word" talk is his advocacy of PoS etc. as an alternate. His antics with DOGE seems to have subsided but he has awoken a monster of Tiktokers and idiots all over the world, hoping to catch the "next bitcoin".

Jack and Cathie didn't try to challenge him on the B word which almost feels like they had an agreement about where they stand. So Elon wore a Bitcoin T-shirt and also talked about Ethereum. In my personal opinion, it wouldn't be all bad if Ethereum would have stayed on PoW. With this shift to PoS, it is just another for-profit corporation.

[DapanasFruit]

The problem with Elon Musk is that he is a very interesting person. I know he is hated in cryptocurrency, because he said a lot of bullshit on his twitter, but this guys is an inventor. A lot of people respect him. He created several interesting companies (tesla, spacex, paypal, starlink,..).

He has some authority ,not because he is rich, but because he is a genius. Sadly, he is now spreading misinformation about bitcoin...

Personally, I am a big fan of Elon Musk because he is a serial successful entrepreneur and I am sure I am not alone in admiring his story and the many companies he built successfully. And if there is one epitome of real success based on hardwork and some genius it must this man. However, his foray into cryptocurrency and his seemingly adopting Dogecoin as the "godfather" and on-and-off criticism of Bitcoin made me realize that he does not what he is talking about on this industry. Rather than be an observant guy on an industry that is new to him, he never hold back and spewed many unnerving opinions and sometimes dishing out plain manipulative tweets. Oh well, but since I still believe in democracy, I am just leaving him with his right to say whatever he wants to say.

[davis196]

I remember that there is a Medium partner program,where article writers can apply and make money from their articles.The problem is that their income depends on the amount of user engagement-views,likes,etc. which forces article writers on Medium to write lots of clickbait articles,which don't necessarily have good info,just a lot of clickbait conspiracy theories.
Bitcoin doesn't exist because you can't touch it?Why don't you buy a hardware wallet?You can touch the wallet. You could also print paper BTC.They can be touched as well.

[leea-1334]

The problem with Elon Musk is that he is a very interesting person. I know he is hated in cryptocurrency, because he said a lot of bullshit on his twitter, but this guys is an inventor. A lot of people respect him. He created several interesting companies (tesla, spacex, paypal, starlink,..).

He has some authority ,not because he is rich, but because he is a genius. Sadly, he is now spreading misinformation about bitcoin...

I do not know about interesting. I did read about him first not because of crypto but because of all his quotes and his wealth ad Tesla etc but the more I read his quotes and watched his videos the more I thought he was not interesting at all, just wealthy and egomaniac,,, not even about him not being nice but just being empty.

His misinformation, his wrong words and thoughts, this shows he is not really a genius, just a guy who knows more about stuff and has money to make it work, and the guts to force people to do things for him.

[Wexnident]

Unfortunately, even with them saying or clarifying stuff like this, it'd be quite useless in most cases since people don't really even bother trying to understand stuff. The internet is free, and it's exactly because it's free that they don't even bother trying to put in the effort to explore it to understand whatever they see. I'm not shitting on the man himself, he's achieved a lot imo but the way he just shills on the crypto scene is what I'd probably judge him for. It's really pretty bad, and most who have lasted long enough in the scene could easily see that.

[Kong Hey Pakboy]

I think bitcoin exists, it's like the websites that we make, they are made and coded by someone so that means that they exist even though electronically. For me, spreading misinformation is the effect of being misinformed and being ignorant, the only way to cure it is if we were to inform them and if they continue to ignore, then just ignore them too.

[junmisakiro]

Bitcoin does not have a physical like paper currency in general, but bitcoin is not just imagination, bitcoin circulates in blockchain technology that uses the internet network, but with bitcoin of course we can buy all kinds of goods that have physical and can exchange them for fiat currency. I don't care about investor bullshit, because bitcoin has benefited me since investing in bitcoin.

[so98nn]

Ignore the raging about alleged pump & dump effects for a moment, and focus on the following: The end result is that critics now start giving off the wrong impression about Bitcoin, based on people like Elon’s view on the coin, which is read by hundreds of people. When you consider that there are dozens of articles like those published in a month (a guesstimate), the number of misinformed people rises to the tens of thousands mark.

Give me a break! Number of misinformed peeps rising to tens of thousand, what are they sheep? Following their investments blindly?
Never man, the world is changing rapidly and number of peeps who are thinking to invest money into crypto are not dumb at all. They might find it challenging at first, may do wrong investments initially for example failed projects, bad trades etc. but eventually everyone goes bright about it over the time.

Even with the case of Elon Musk, right after peeps thought that it's just effort to move the market for selfish reason everyone either switched to another investment coin or they took the exit strategy at right point. Some belief always be there and it changes as per the time.

[leea-1334]

Ignore the raging about alleged pump & dump effects for a moment, and focus on the following: The end result is that critics now start giving off the wrong impression about Bitcoin, based on people like Elon’s view on the coin, which is read by hundreds of people. When you consider that there are dozens of articles like those published in a month (a guesstimate), the number of misinformed people rises to the tens of thousands mark.

Give me a break! Number of misinformed peeps rising to tens of thousand, what are they sheep? Following their investments blindly?
Never man, the world is changing rapidly and number of peeps who are thinking to invest money into crypto are not dumb at all. They might find it challenging at first, may do wrong investments initially for example failed projects, bad trades etc. but eventually everyone goes bright about it over the time.

Even with the case of Elon Musk, right after peeps thought that it's just effort to move the market for selfish reason everyone either switched to another investment coin or they took the exit strategy at right point. Some belief always be there and it changes as per the time.

People want to be misinformed. Just go online and see the crazy stuff they're saying about flat earth,,, about 5g vaccines and cancer,,, and Bitcoin burning up the earth with climate change.

And not one of them stops to think how the existing finance system they are using does 10 times worse.

People are sheep but yes, some are waking up. The elite are trying so hard to slow this waking.