´There are actually two bitcoins. There’s the blockchain-technology bitcoin, which I think is fantastic, and the future, and all sorts of businesses are investing tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in Silicon Valley and around the world to build businesses on the back of the blockchain technology because it’s so wonderful and can move assets frictionlessly ... People believe you cannot separate the two. Of course you can.
How do you get a secure decentralized blockchain without giving incentives to the those doing the work?
Are you saying that the companies who invest hundreds of millions also think bitcoin is a scam and will fail. That's not what I hear from them.
I think Andreessen is not terribly interested in the currency
Oh, really, this is what Andreessen has to say about it himself:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-07/andreessen-on-finance-we-can-reinvent-the-entire-thing-.htmlWith bitcoin, there are advantages to decentralizing the financial system in order to do commerce. For instance, you can make payments in all but four countries. So, on day one, you can use it all over the world. Forget about all the different currencies and banking systems; it’s a truly universal way to transfer value."
For example, Jon Matonis of the Bitcoin Foundation has suggested that bitcoin is signaling the start of a post-legal-tender era. Where? In what country? It’s not accepted as legal currency anywhere on the planet. There’s not a legitimate economist of any note on the planet that thinks it’s a real currency. The anarchist, libertarian wing of the bitcoin party tend to believe in Austrian economics, but the three most prominent descendants of [Austrian economists Ludwig von] Mises and [Friedrich] Hayek, say it’s not currency. So while the most enthusiastic supporters of bitcoin say Austrian economics matters, actual Austrian economists say that bitcoin doesn’t matter.
Oh, everywhere? On the internet? It's growing every day. You think a new currency that isn't backed by a government pops up and is legal tender the first day it hits the news.
Aslo, ask the Luding von Mises Insitute what they think. A lot of them think it's real currency. But they are not "actual" economists right? That's laugable.
At the same time, there’s all these people out there who bought into bitcoin as a tinker toy, thinking they might make some money on it. Maybe they bought $100 when it was worth $10 bucks a coin, and now they’re sitting on $4,000. Many of them will treat themselves to a vacation or a new computer with their bitcoins, and they don’t buy back in. There’s no evidence that people who spend down their wallets buy back in. Little by little it will just atrophy, because nobody is really using it. The big kids will get out, and the little guy sitting on one, two, or, sadly, many more bitcoins will lose it all.
Again, laughable. There is NO way he knows this. Has he done research on who holds and who sells. Nobody is using it? That's just false.
It’s essentially a pump and dump scam. And then I see these snake oil salesmen like the Winklevoss twins get on TV and tell people that bitcoin is going to be worth $40,000 per coin. And nobody is challenging them, asking, “What are you smoking?” Bitcoin isn’t an investment, it’s a slot machine. Or, more accurately, a loaded roulette wheel.
Yeah.. nobody is challenging them.. right... yeah..
Perhaps we should go back to Marc Andreeson again.
"Bitcoin is a classic venture capital endeavor: It will either work or it won’t. And if it doesn’t work, we will lose all our money. But if it does work, it will work in a spectacular way. Our investments will pay off 1,000 to 1 or 10,000 to 1 or some other crazy extreme, because these markets are so big"
Another snake oil salesman right?
40.000$ isn't a bad figure to play around with, ofc, he'd understand that if he actually looked into this.
