Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Melbustus]

more promising pastures (which also provided counter-party risk protection as a minimum.)

Which ones are those?

I don't know of any.

I don't either.  I've been remiss in studying alts because there are just so fucking many of them.

My strong sense is that NONE of them are really biting off the problems that are important to me. 
...

That's very likely true. The alts that have the most traction are probably Ripple and Ethereum (based on pre-release hype, obv). Ripple weakens decentralization (and is 100% pre-mined), so is really only interesting as a banking fintech tech-startup play (which is where it's getting traction), not a store of value.

Ethereum adds a ton of questionable complexity. Does not seem up your alley.

Smooth might have a thing or two to say about Monero, though, which supports a pure-anon niche that bitcoin never will.

[1713971313]

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[1713971313]

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[dnaleor]

I had a discussion with a well known flemish professor in monetary economics through Twitter after he made fun of Bitcoin:
https://twitter.com/GertPeersman/status/555776517599682560

I replied that the volatility will become lower when adoption grows (S-curve) and that the current low liquidity compared to large currencies creates the volatility.

I really think his arguments are stupid, but I never heard of the "macroeconomic price level indeterminacy" (and I have a master in economics and had a course by this professor)
some of his tweets, translated to english:

"The problem is not the volatility in the exchange rate, but the macroeconomic price level indeterminacy"
"in essence, the macro price level and inflation are not uniquely determined (sunspot equilibria) f.e. in bitcoin"
"ask yourself the question: if wage is 100 BTC and price of a beer is 0,1 BTC is an equilibrium, why isn't 1000 BTC and 1 BTC not an equilibrium?"

I replied that this is also an issue for the EUR. But liquidity is a lot higher in the EUR => lower voilatility

He replied that "the expected monetary and budgetary policy is key in the difference between BTC and EUR"
"liquidity is irrelivant: bitcoin is infinitesimal divisible and velocity of money is between 0 and infinity"

At this point I kinda get what he was aiming at.Tthe EUR is superior (in his opinion) because it has a policy. Thats why I replied:
"BTC is indeed infinitesimal divisible , but has limited supply. EUR is not infinitesimal divisible , but can be printed at will by the ECB"

he answered with

"limited supply is NO guarantee that hyperinflation doesn't occur. This is explained by the literature about price indeterminacy"
(link in dutch if you don't believe me he said that: https://twitter.com/GertPeersman/status/557311020965064704)

I answered that the hoarding of the currency creates the store of value function for the coin and that the infinitesimal divisible nature is needed because BTC has a deflationary monetary "policy".
I also asked him if he meant that in his view, a currency derives his value from friction in payment mechanism in stead of store of value function.
He didn't reply anymore...


***

Conclusion: I think he just denies that fact that a free market can (against his beliefs) allocate value towards a currency that has no "intrinsic value" (and I hate to use that word, because I don't agree with that. Gold has no "intrinsic" vale nor the EUR)
Or am I missing something here?

I just want to understand what he is thinking
(I'm not doubting the vale of BTC)

thoughts?


edit: feel free to respond to him on twitter

[rpietila]

Just throw in some thoughts, I also have major in economics, though never really understood the differential equation part of it (CK proves I know the real world economics rather well and can apply).

I had a discussion with a well known flemish professor in monetary economics through Twitter after he made fun of Bitcoin:
https://twitter.com/GertPeersman/status/555776517599682560

I replied that the volatility will become lower when adoption grows (S-curve) and that the current low liquidity compared to large currencies creates the volatility.

Current volatility is an inevitable byproduct of the market process that determines if Bitcoin will become a widely used currency or not. To function as an acceptable currency and store of value, its market cap needs to be in the order of gold, EUR, or USD, ie. 1000 times higher than the current marketcap, minimum. For it to grow smoothly and quickly to such value, is not possible, because any growth much in excess of the "risk-free interest rate" (I would say anything that grows more than 10% per year) inevitably creates a speculative boom that discounts the future growth to its present value (same process that gives some growing companies a high P/E). This makes the present value (exchange rate) grow much quicker than 10% or even 1000% per year, until a bust results. If the fundamentals are correct, this turbulent growth continues with successive speculative valuation cycles. If not, there is no recovery and the experiment is over.

Making fun of the only known market mechanism for price discovery of currencies is not very smart, although very fitting for a statist professor.

Keyword: turbulent growth.

"The problem is not the volatility in the exchange rate, but the macroeconomic price level indeterminacy"

I don't even know what he means, but gold has nearly fixed quantity, and when gold was money, everything worked better than last century, except from the bankster-gov point of view of course. That's why he propagates difficult-sounding terms, which (even if they have a meaning) represent problems that only exist in statist economics, not in a world rid of it.

"limited supply is NO guarantee that hyperinflation doesn't occur.

His definition for "hyperinflation" is that the currency loses all trust, and becomes worthless. In this sense, crypto can sure experience hyperinflation, many coins, as well as fiats have died as there has not been enough trust in them.

Conclusion: I think he just denies that fact that a free market can (against his beliefs) allocate value towards a currency that has no "intrinsic value" (and I hate to use that word, because I don't agree with that. Gold has no "intrinsic" vale nor the EUR)

There is no such thing as intrinsic value. Value (price) is determined by markets. Gold is valued because of its monetary characteristics (mainly store of value) nowadays. Fiats are valued because it's practical to use them, and also they are created as debt, which sets the whole debt slavery system in motion (someone always needs fiat desperately, to pay his debt + interest, and the interest part is not even created). BTC may be valued according to the same monetary function criteria. Only few items derive the bulk of their value from being money (those being the prime examples). But many items have some monetary component in their value, silver for instance.

[marcus_of_augustus]

he needs to learn about the subjective theory of value if he thinks that the euro derives ultimate value from ECB "policy" is a hard fact, (besides euro volatility is about to be tested in the extreme) ... that's just pure Keynesian hopium talk (i.e BS). Some kind of behavioural economics psycho-babble.

Monetary economics was a stuffy dead old topic studied by a handful of people until bitcoin came along (3 years ago). Now we get the 'experts' spouting made up nonsense to defend their broken paradigm. And I'm pretty sure that statistically bitcoin volatility is still decreasing as the user base grows.

[smooth]

more promising pastures (which also provided counter-party risk protection as a minimum.)

Which ones are those?

I don't know of any.

I don't either.  I've been remiss in studying alts because there are just so fucking many of them.

There are certainly alts, but they are pretty much the same as bitcoin unless you are getting down in the weeds of various implementation details (but given your reply, perhaps I misunderstood what you meant and you are indeed interested in those technical differences).

That's what I meant by not knowing about more "promising pastures" that lack counterparty risk (other than cryptocurrencies).

[smooth]

Smooth might have a thing or two to say about Monero, though, which supports a pure-anon niche that bitcoin never will.

I make a practice of not spamming bitcoin threads. If people want to find out about Monero it is easy enough to find.

[cbeast]

he needs to learn about the subjective theory of value if he thinks that the euro derives ultimate value from ECB "policy" is a hard fact, (besides euro volatility is about to be tested in the extreme) ... that's just pure Keynesian hopium talk (i.e BS). Some kind of behavioural economics psycho-babble.

Monetary economics was a stuffy dead old topic studied by a handful of people until bitcoin came along (3 years ago). Now we get the 'experts' spouting made up nonsense to defend their broken paradigm. And I'm pretty sure that statistically bitcoin volatility is still decreasing as the user base grows.

Very astute observations.

[tvbcof]

more promising pastures (which also provided counter-party risk protection as a minimum.)

Which ones are those?

I don't know of any.

I don't either.  I've been remiss in studying alts because there are just so fucking many of them.

There are certainly alts, but they are pretty much the same as bitcoin unless you are getting down in the weeds of various implementation details (but given your reply, perhaps I misunderstood what you meant and you are indeed interested in those technical differences).

That's what I meant by not knowing about more "promising pastures" that lack counterparty risk (other than cryptocurrencies).

My interest is and always has been in straight-up 'reserve currencies'.  Ultra light-weight and quite high latency (or low block frequency which is more familiar to folks.)  Probably kept lite way by kicking people out who don't maintain a minimum and cleaning up after them (by trashing whatever mess they've left.)  It would very deliberately NOT be for everyone.  Those who cannot stand the heat (which would vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction) are a liability.  The only goal would be to provide backing to more user-friendly solutions (much as sidechains are trying to be.)  The value would be that it would be ultra-difficult to put out of action which is what I see as the most important aspect of a reserve currency.

It would be designed to protect against a dedicated and persistant attack using all means available (now and in the foreseeable future) by internet network providers who I do not and cannot trust.  By being small, this would include operating steganographically at a minimum, but in operation it would foster the growth of functionality not even making use of the global internet at all.  Private links and 'IPoAC'-like data channels would be rewarded so they would maintain a reasonable representation.

I've seen nothing like this and nobody showing any interest which surprises me a little.  Oh well.

I'm ambivalent about anonymity.  It's got advantages and disadvantages for the goals of a solution such as I'm imagining, though probably more of the former.

[Melbustus]

...

My interest is and always has been in straight-up 'reserve currencies'.  Ultra light-weight and quite high latency (or low block frequency which is more familiar to folks.)  Probably kept lite way by kicking people out who don't maintain a minimum and cleaning up after them (by trashing whatever mess they've left.)  It would very deliberately NOT be for everyone.  Those who cannot stand the heat (which would vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction) are a liability.  The only goal would be to provide backing to more user-friendly solutions (much as sidechains are trying to be.)  The value would be that it would be ultra-difficult to put out of action which is what I see as the most important aspect of a reserve currency.

It would be designed to protect against a dedicated and persistant attack using all means available (now and in the foreseeable future) by internet network providers who I do not and cannot trust.  By being small, this would include operating steganographically at a minimum, but in operation it would foster the growth of functionality not even making use of the global internet at all.  Private links and 'IPoAC'-like data channels would be rewarded so they would maintain a reasonable representation.

I've seen nothing like this and nobody showing any interest which surprises me a little.  Oh well.

I'm ambivalent about anonymity.  It's got advantages and disadvantages for the goals of a solution such as I'm imagining, though probably more of the former.

It sounds like you want digital gold. Not the superclass to gold that bitcoin represents, but more of a direct electronic clone.

I kinda don't think that works longrun for the same reasons I don't think gold works longrun anymore: neither would be *actually* useful day-to-day. So you're insuring for the same semi-apocalypse scenario. Which is fine if that's your thing; let's just be clear on how fat a slice of the long-tail you're hedging: thin.

To be clear, I find it unlikely that such a thing, so untied from everyday economic use demand, can last as a desirable value store. Gold developed the way it did *out of* exchange utility. The last link (and government-enforced at that) to that was severed in 1971 and gold is now mainly flying on historical momentum. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's the thesis.

I think a meaningful friction-of-exchange-reducing economic link is likely critical for a non-industrial-use commodity to retain longterm value.

[tabnloz]

Related to the Greed discussion earlier.

Former CEO of Citibank personally invested in Coinbase's latest $75M raise.
http://dcmagnates.com/coinbase-secures-record-75-million-investment-led-by-dfj/

Slowly but surely Bitcoin is creeping into the halls of those in power. Unlike with most new constructs where most of us are blocked by regulation from participating since we are not "accredited investors", with Bitcoin we can invest directly and in many cases front run wall street.

The investment by NTT Docomo (mobile phone operator in Japan) is also an interesting move; they'd be the first market leading telco if they integrated with bitcoin and could expand / diversify into different sectors ala M-Pesa

[molecular]

"limited supply is NO guarantee that hyperinflation doesn't occur. This is explained by the literature about price indeterminacy"
(link in dutch if you don't believe me he said that: https://twitter.com/GertPeersman/status/557311020965064704)

lol. I'd like to know his definitions of 'hyperinflation' and 'limited supply'. One of them must be weird... maybe he's talking about price inflation?

[smooth]

"limited supply is NO guarantee that hyperinflation doesn't occur. This is explained by the literature about price indeterminacy"
(link in dutch if you don't believe me he said that: https://twitter.com/GertPeersman/status/557311020965064704)

lol. I'd like to know his definitions of 'hyperinflation' and 'limited supply'. One of them must be weird... maybe he's talking about price inflation?

Yes he was.

Even so, it is in a sense money supply inflation but only relative to the equilibrium money supply with a lower assumed velocity.

If the velocity increases then all else being equal to maintain constant prices you would need the money supply to decrease.

[dnaleor]

"limited supply is NO guarantee that hyperinflation doesn't occur. This is explained by the literature about price indeterminacy"
(link in dutch if you don't believe me he said that: https://twitter.com/GertPeersman/status/557311020965064704)

lol. I'd like to know his definitions of 'hyperinflation' and 'limited supply'. One of them must be weird... maybe he's talking about price inflation?

he is. But even then...
Hyper(price)inflation can only occur under limited supply when the velocity of money trends towards infinity.
And I can't imagine an infinite velocity of money for BTC. Hoarding prevents that. Hence, store of value function of a currency.

[NewLiberty]

"limited supply is NO guarantee that hyperinflation doesn't occur. This is explained by the literature about price indeterminacy"
(link in dutch if you don't believe me he said that: https://twitter.com/GertPeersman/status/557311020965064704)

lol. I'd like to know his definitions of 'hyperinflation' and 'limited supply'. One of them must be weird... maybe he's talking about price inflation?

I'd concede that limited supply is NO guarantee that hyperinflation doesn't occur... if and only if he would concede that limited supply is simply a better assurance that hyperinflation doesn't occur, than any monetary policy in an inflationary currency which is manipulated by groups that benefit from the inflation (central banks and governments)...has EVER provided in the history of money.

He is being a pedantic ass, but a forgivable one.  It has to be a very difficult job to defend an indefensible position for year after year.

[Adrian-x]

"limited supply is NO guarantee that hyperinflation doesn't occur. This is explained by the literature about price indeterminacy"
(link in dutch if you don't believe me he said that: https://twitter.com/GertPeersman/status/557311020965064704)

lol. I'd like to know his definitions of 'hyperinflation' and 'limited supply'. One of them must be weird... maybe he's talking about price inflation?

The scientific definition is prolonged whale dumping.
Edit - I see the prevailing wisdom is better expressed  I'll add it's less likely as we're all central bankers now, and everyone benefits if we do it well.

[cypherdoc]

"limited supply is NO guarantee that hyperinflation doesn't occur. This is explained by the literature about price indeterminacy"
(link in dutch if you don't believe me he said that: https://twitter.com/GertPeersman/status/557311020965064704)

lol. I'd like to know his definitions of 'hyperinflation' and 'limited supply'. One of them must be weird... maybe he's talking about price inflation?

Yes he was.

Even so, it is in a sense money supply inflation but only relative to the equilibrium money supply with a lower assumed velocity.

If the velocity increases then all else being equal to maintain constant prices you would need the money supply to decrease.

it depends.  if the fundamentals are good and the market psychology is positive, increasing usage aka velocity, may be interpreted as a good thing or as a concept "catching on".  market participants in that scenario would be encouraged to bid up prices to get in on the action.

[cypherdoc]

i think this is the Internet and continues:



http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2015/01/global-middle-class/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[cypherdoc]

another one bites the dust:

http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=26908

[79b79aa8d5047da6d3XX]

I suppose they see no point in sinking more money in half-measures. Especially when a thorough solution is in sight.

[cypherdoc]

I suppose they see no point in sinking more money in half-measures. Especially when a thorough solution is in sight.

next failure coming; ApplePay.