Posted on 05/24/2021 7:50:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’ becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine,”
- Paul Krugman, slamming the internet in 1998"Bitcoin Is Evil"
- Paul Krugman, NYT Op-Ed Dec 2013
“Bitcoin isn’t a new innovation; it’s been around since 2009, and in all that time nobody seems to have found any good legal use for it. It’s not a convenient medium of exchange; it’s not a stable store of value; it’s definitely not a unit of account”
- Paul Krugman tweeting to his 4.6 million internet followers (via Twitter), with bitcoin up 6,000% since 2013
“Technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels needs to be replaced without delay. There is reason to hope that humanity at the dawn of the 21st century will be remembered for having generously shouldered its grave responsibilities,” tweeted Pope Francis, condemning Bitcoin and its heretical offspring, sparking another burst of panic selling.
Technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels needs to be replaced without delay. There is reason to hope that humanity at the dawn of the 21st century will be remembered for having generously shouldered its grave responsibilities. #LaudatoSiWeek — Pope Francis (@Pontifex) May 19, 2021
Now, the Church has not exactly draped itself in glory when it comes to embracing the world’s most important scientific advances. Just ask Galileo who died in jail, then waited 300yrs for an apology from the Vatican.
But it wasn’t just the Pope. You see, Elon’s tweet that criticized bitcoin mining’s use of fossil fuel spurred every ageing Luddite who has been consistently wrong about bitcoin’s ascent to pen yet another scathing op-ed.
That’s natural, of course. Critics are always loudest in the hole. But this time they were crowded together with Fed officials, the IRS, US Treasury and the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing seemed to announce a new law to outlaw bitcoin mining every time the price staged an intra-day bounce.
In human history, no single asset has come under such coordinated assault by the very global institutions that perpetually inflate asset prices in the name of securing prosperity. And yet, through it all, digital asset trading carried on, obliterating the leveraged longs, wiping out the weak.
For the first time in decades, we saw the ferocious beauty of truly free markets operating at scale. Efficiently. Ruthlessly. These assets inhabit a world without a buyer of last resort to bail out its bankers. It was a remarkable display of antifragility.
To appreciate it fully, simply imagine how today’s equity, bond and credit markets would withstand a withdrawal of government support, let alone a full-frontal assault.
It is this independence and resiliency that underpins the longer-term attractiveness of digital assets. But like all powerful new technologies, their promise is poorly understood by most pundits.
And amongst the many benefits that such technologies will produce, one of the more ironic is that despite today’s outcry, they have already begun to spur and finance an accelerating global transition to renewable energy.
So as long as buyers and sellers don’t make it go up and in value its very stable. ROFLOL!
BTC doesn’t “need” to displace conventional wire transfers at all; rather, it stands as an alternative method of exchange. BTC has a very bright future.
“E-tulips”
LOL!
i’ll have to remember that one!
“globally there are:
- 0.385toz silver per person with low production
- 0.0027 BTC per person with near zero production, and production cap of 21,000,000 total coins.
- 2628 USD per person, but who really knows with that one and quite a bit of production recently
- $6000 USD per person in total fiats conservatively, with corona printing I am unable to locate any real source as to much how much there really is. extrapolation for USA, CAD, and EU would be closer to $8000usd equivalent.”
Very good points. I will add that there are only 0.0007 original run Beanie Babies per person on the planet. Good to hear my aunt’s retirement is set.
Dont forget things like ACH transfers, PayPal, Zelle, etc.
“Bitcoin *is* a convenient medium of exchange—blockchain transactions are quick and lack transaction costs.”
ABSOLUTELY! ... i use it for all of my daily transactions, from buying bottled water in a vending machine, washing my car at the local carwash, paying for hardware at Ace, filling up with gasoline at Shell, and paying for groceries at Safeway, Costco, Sam’s Warehouse and King Soopers as well as dozens of other locations ... it really couldn’t be more convenient than that!
“How dare they come up with a way to transfer it away from our greedy hands!”
Except you didn’t.
“We only accept it because everybody else does”
the very definition of ANY currency ...
“Currency itself is a fiction. “
Fiat currencies that are, and remain valuable are accepted and backed by large governments, whole societies with large military forces.
Crypto is backed by jack sh!t.
Dollar denominated assets are the most valuable.
Apparently you don’t bother reading the entire thread before posting. Multiple posters, including myself, have pointed out that Bitcoin is *not* intended, nor suited for, high-volume retail transactions.
hard to imagine crypto currencies survive future econcomic downturns, IMHO.
A great analogy of the value of bitcoin is like the value of owning a race-horse.
The value of the horse depends entirely on wealthy people deciding that faster horse winning races are more valuable than slower and older ones, with reproductive derivitives included in the value.
As a horse, the mighty animal is a poor worker, is extremely expensive to transport and keep in top physical condition, health, and training. Any moment may bring a break or illness ending its life and value. But besides occational betting gains it has no real value. The man on the street could care less. In times of hardship, people would rather eat it than bet on it or even pay to watch it run.
Crypto is a game played by the wealthy who are bored with creating businesses, jobs, exponential value by hard work, innovation, and solid , core principals where the value is obvious.
Anyone still kicking in 20 years or so, lets review if anything is left of those toy investments. (Oh, they favor the massively wealthy, who can buy up all of the GPU cards leaving real innovators, creators struggling to lead the economy)
Agreed. Rarity does not exactly equate to value, but is one of the fundamentals of a good currency. A larger consensus of “value” is required. However in monetary schemes, increasing the supply of anything has never also increased value per unit.
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