Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[molecular]

sorry to dig out old posts, I'm catching up here

[1714791368]

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[molecular]

I should note that when I said you wouldn't want much of your wealth in fiat, I was speaking from the point of view of being afraid of being too heavily invested in Bitcoin. Like the situation where you have a $1 million in Bitcoin and only $20,000 in fiat. If Bitcoin somehow fails, you instantly become a meek peon again, financially. So you'd put some decent chunk, like maybe half, into dollars so that in case of Bitcoin failure you still have half a mil in the bank. That's what I guess most smaller investors imagine they will do if they win big in bitcoins.

This is interesting... I have far less money than your example states, but my BTC/fiat ratio is roughly that.

Of course I'm afraid for Bitcoin to fail and to lose almost all of my monetary capital and it's hard to resist the urge and pressure (well, not pressure, but suggestions) by friends & family to convert more funny money to fiat.

Fuck it, if I had thought that way over the course of the last couple of years, I would have only a low fraction of the capital I have now.

My real capital is my skills and friends anyways, so I'll keep on taking the risk and holding on to these precious bitcoins.

As long as cryptocurrency succeeds in any meaningful way, we all live in a better world regardless of personal wealth.

But I'm saying even in that scenario, with those concerns, it's still not very attractive to put half in fiat, or even a third in fiat. Because there are other failures to worry about besides a catastrophe in Bitcoin. There's inflation, wrongful imprisonment (or if you're a bad dude, rightful imprisonment), deportation from your country of residence, other freezing of your assets or haircuts or fraudulent activity on your account or run on your bank, making a mistake in your filings, divorce losing you half your stash, etc. Why do anything so risky as to hold large amounts of fiat??

I conclude: Bitcoin is the safest place to be, especially in uncertain times likes this.

[wachtwoord]

I conclude: Bitcoin is the safest place to be, especially in uncertain times likes this.

If you believe in something and you believe in yourself, is there really any other decision possible?

[rpietila]

Like the situation where you have a $1 million in Bitcoin and only $20,000 in fiat.

This is interesting... I have far less money than your example states, but my BTC/fiat ratio is roughly that.

I have also found that optimally I would have 2-3% of total assets in fiat (no matter what the rest has been throughout the years). Anything over, I feel the urge to invest (I will be buying BTC100 next week), anything less, business is not functioning smoothly.

Sweet spot?

[justusranvier]

My real capital is my skills and friends anyways, so I'll keep on taking the risk and holding on to these precious bitcoins.

This is a great insight.

Most people don't really understand what the world would look like with honest money, and so instead insist on miming the strategies of today's central planners.

[vokain]

I conclude: Bitcoin is the safest place to be, especially in uncertain times likes this.

If you believe in something and you believe in yourself, is there really any other decision possible?

I love this

[miscreanity]

Gold's transition should eventually result in extensive industrial uses, as well as medical. I seriously doubt it will ever be worth nothing.

Wow, that's quite a change in tone.

There is a lot of room between "reserve currency of the world" and "fills a few industrial niches". Gold could be going down for a long time.

I've long held the view that the transition is an accelerating process, particularly as written over a year ago in Off-Planet Economics. There are sure to be significant milemarkers along the way, and they reinforce the transitional nature of what we're observing.

As gold gains industrial, medical, and other uses that were impossible prior to more advanced technologies, Bitcoin will encroach upon its monetary role. Gold's exchange value will continue to have tension and won't collapse, short of a situation like that postulated in the above article. So the monetary aspect isn't going to disappear anytime soon, even if it is eroded by crypto - I find them much more likely to rise together against all other forms of money until crypto eventually wins.

[tvbcof]

Gold's transition should eventually result in extensive industrial uses, as well as medical. I seriously doubt it will ever be worth nothing.

Wow, that's quite a change in tone.

There is a lot of room between "reserve currency of the world" and "fills a few industrial niches". Gold could be going down for a long time.

I've long held the view that the transition is an accelerating process, particularly as written over a year ago in Off-Planet Economics. There are sure to be significant milemarkers along the way, and they reinforce the transitional nature of what we're observing.

As gold gains industrial, medical, and other uses that were impossible prior to more advanced technologies, Bitcoin will encroach upon its monetary role. Gold's exchange value will continue to have tension and won't collapse, short of a situation like that postulated in the above article. So the monetary aspect isn't going to disappear anytime soon, even if it is eroded by crypto - I find them much more likely to rise together against all other forms of money until crypto eventually wins.

I think it at least as likely that people will find crypto-assets and PMs to be complementing forms of wealth storage.  Much as I personally do at this time.

[conspirosphere.tk]

But I'm saying even in that scenario, with those concerns, it's still not very attractive to put half in fiat, or even a third in fiat. Because there are other failures to worry about besides a catastrophe in Bitcoin. There's inflation, wrongful imprisonment (or if you're a bad dude, rightful imprisonment), deportation from your country of residence, other freezing of your assets or haircuts or fraudulent activity on your account or run on your bank, making a mistake in your filings, divorce losing you half your stash, etc. Why do anything so risky as to hold large amounts of fiat??

I conclude: Bitcoin is the safest place to be, especially in uncertain times likes this.

xactly. Even pm in hand cannot compete about expropriation (theoretically).
BTW: anyone knows how they confiscated Dread Pirate Roberts' coins? waterboarding?

[manfred]

BTW: anyone knows how they confiscated Dread Pirate Roberts' coins? waterboarding?

No, candy treatment, tell and you go home "soon" or we loose the key

[marcus_of_augustus]

There are ~ 3 billion females in the world ... if you offered cheap solid gold jewellery weighing 1.5 oz per female the total stock of gold disappears ... add in macho chains, rings, electronics and myriad of other uses

... gold is not going to be going cheap anytime soon and there are many other price points between cost of mining (which it is near now) and 'cheap' that engineering uses for such an exotic metal when substitution demand kicks in.

Bear in mind that in a better freer future with less financial facism or simply some locales, a system of provably gold-backed cryptocurrency, if it was ever allowed to flourish under rule of law, would probably give bitcoin a stiff run for its money, pun intended, dyodd, diversify, imho.

[molecular]

BTW: anyone knows how they confiscated Dread Pirate Roberts' coins? waterboarding?

after reading many opinions and speculations on reddit, I've come to the conlusion that the most likely two scenarios are:

• they offered some deal, he took it
• he was sloppy and used a weak password

[justusranvier]

Bear in mind that in a better freer future with less financial facism or simply some locales, a system of provably gold-backed cryptocurrency, if it was ever allowed to flourish under rule of law, would probably give bitcoin a stiff run for its money, pun intended, dyodd, diversify, imho.

Why?

A gold backed cryptocurrency would need to do everything Bitcoin does in order to be an effective medium of exchange, and it would also have the added expense of gathering, storing, transporting, securing, and auditing blocks of yellow metal.

What benefit does the yellow metal provide that makes it worth all the added expense and effort?

[wachtwoord]

Bear in mind that in a better freer future with less financial facism or simply some locales, a system of provably gold-backed cryptocurrency, if it was ever allowed to flourish under rule of law, would probably give bitcoin a stiff run for its money, pun intended, dyodd, diversify, imho.

Why?

A gold backed cryptocurrency would need to do everything Bitcoin does in order to be an effective medium of exchange, and it would also have the added expense of gathering, storing, transporting, securing, and auditing blocks of yellow metal.

What benefit does the yellow metal provide that makes it worth all the added expense and effort?

Indeed. A gold backed cryptocurrency is a worse money than both gold and a cryptocurrency by themselves. This will be attempted (because people for some reason like backing, not understanding that good money doesn't need backing of any kind) but will fail. Good money beats bad money just as rock crushes scissors.

[SheHadMANHands]

Bear in mind that in a better freer future with less financial facism or simply some locales, a system of provably gold-backed cryptocurrency, if it was ever allowed to flourish under rule of law, would probably give bitcoin a stiff run for its money, pun intended, dyodd, diversify, imho.

Why?

A gold backed cryptocurrency would need to do everything Bitcoin does in order to be an effective medium of exchange, and it would also have the added expense of gathering, storing, transporting, securing, and auditing blocks of yellow metal.

What benefit does the yellow metal provide that makes it worth all the added expense and effort?

Indeed. A gold backed cryptocurrency is a worse money than both gold and a cryptocurrency by themselves. This will be attempted (because people for some reason like backing, not understanding that good money doesn't need backing of any kind) but will fail. Good money beats bad money just as rock crushes scissors.

The idea of "backing" blows people's minds.  People feel compelled to locate a persona behind anything and everything.  It's human nature.  

"But who created the universe"  ->  Must be a "God"
"But who 'backs' Bitcoin" ->  Must be a person, business, physical object (a yellow metal) or gov't entity.

If we had to place a persona behind Bitcoin, we'd probably say that it's "backed" by the people, or the users.  A more interesting question would then be "why is it backed by the users?"  Reason and Logic, which lead these users to believe that Bitcoin has intrinsic value as a technology.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Bear in mind that in a better freer future with less financial facism or simply some locales, a system of provably gold-backed cryptocurrency, if it was ever allowed to flourish under rule of law, would probably give bitcoin a stiff run for its money, pun intended, dyodd, diversify, imho.

Why?

A gold backed cryptocurrency would need to do everything Bitcoin does in order to be an effective medium of exchange, and it would also have the added expense of gathering, storing, transporting, securing, and auditing blocks of yellow metal.

What benefit does the yellow metal provide that makes it worth all the added expense and effort?

The great masses of people do not understand how a pure crypto-currency is valuable, maybe never will. They do understand gold, it is much less of a jump to understand gold-backed numbers on their screens. The added expense is a cost but so is bitcoin mining, cold storage, etc the total cost comparison of either system, when optimised, would be nearly impossible to do without having them compete in a free market together. Trust-based systems can be very efficient, think Hawala

Bitcoin value may mostly be symptom of a particularly oppressive time (like cigarette money), an outbreak of freedom and enlightement in financial dealings is a risk that shouldn't be discounted, however slim it seems right now.

[molecular]

Bear in mind that in a better freer future with less financial facism or simply some locales, a system of provably gold-backed cryptocurrency, if it was ever allowed to flourish under rule of law, would probably give bitcoin a stiff run for its money, pun intended, dyodd, diversify, imho.

How would that even work? How to prove there's gold backing it? I don't see how to do this, at least not without "3rd party risk".

[conspirosphere.tk]

Indeed. A gold backed cryptocurrency is a worse money than both gold and a cryptocurrency by themselves. This will be attempted (because people for some reason like backing, not understanding that good money doesn't need backing of any kind) but will fail. Good money beats bad money just as rock crushes scissors.

indeed. but real Austrians know that value is subjective. Even gold's
my bet is that both crypto and pm keep winning against funny fiat paper.
now i'm quite all-in in btc, and buying gold-that-i-can-hold with spare fiat.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Bear in mind that in a better freer future with less financial facism or simply some locales, a system of provably gold-backed cryptocurrency, if it was ever allowed to flourish under rule of law, would probably give bitcoin a stiff run for its money, pun intended, dyodd, diversify, imho.

How would that even work? How to prove there's gold backing it? I don't see how to do this, at least not without "3rd party risk".

Yes, it would most likely be some kind of legal proof, which is quite adequate for most people, ask DPR.

Unless there was some kind of crypto-secured automation system at a storage facility that could bail in/out PM, audit, etc ... like an unhackable skynet for gold.

[conspirosphere.tk]

Bear in mind that in a better freer future with less financial facism or simply some locales, a system of provably gold-backed cryptocurrency, if it was ever allowed to flourish under rule of law, would probably give bitcoin a stiff run for its money, pun intended, dyodd, diversify, imho.

How would that even work? How to prove there's gold backing it? I don't see how to do this, at least not without "3rd party risk".

it may work being convertible in pm at a fixed rate as fiat money used to be once upon a time.
it just takes an alt.coin easily convertible in pm. Anyone can do it. But yes, it would require trust in a third party for the "backing"/conversion-thing.
and now trust is rightly becoming a rare commodity.