It's too bad you felt you have wasted your time. I have rather enjoyed our back and forth trying to convince you that bitcoin (not crypto) isn't the end all be all. It's not that I don't want to learn it's more that your arguements haven't convinced me. You haven't addressed my concerns that bitcoin (not crypto) is not yet widely accepted as a currency. (Are countries where bitcoin is the offical currency pricing merchandise in bitcoin?) As a store of value bitcoin is too volatile. (If you have 20K and need it to make a payment a couple months from now, where do you keep it? Most would keep it in cash or a savings account) Bitcoin meets the definition of a bubble. (Google it and find which one you like, bitcoin fits) Bitcoin has too much hype. "You'll be sorry if you don't buy now." "How will you feel when it gets to the moon?" These are playing on my emotions and over the years I've found that's not a good reason to invest. FWIW; I agree with you on fiat and inflation. I would truly like to see a global currency that can be easily moved from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. I'm thinking that it will happen one day. At this time I wouldn't bet that it will be bitcoin. Yes, you are right I'm an old fart but with age comes experience. Without experience you tend to make bad decisions; unfortunately the only way to get experience is by making bad decisions. Good luck Noah!!
To me, it's not a currency. And nor is it a store of value, or a hedge against anything. It's a speculative thing. Worth a punt with money you can afford to lose. Stick 1% of your investment portfolio in it, and what's the worse that can happen? It's asymmetric, so the best that can happen is quite good.
False. The best area to be in since March 2020 was energy and in particular Cdn energy. Based on your theme are you personally regretting your lack of participation in Cdn energy mid caps / juniors ?
A number of interesting perspectives... 'Big Short' investor Michael Burry, Paul Krugman, and Mark Cuban have weighed in on the crypto crash. Here's what 7 market watchers say about the sell-off. https://markets.businessinsider.com...rugman-cuban-crypto-price-market-crash-2022-6
It's intellectual currency, thus the current disconnect. It requires an investment of time and education to grok it's value proposition beyond it's current state of being. Do you know what the first State (European) sanctioned currency was in the New World? Look up the history of wampum. You certainly have valid criticisms, whether they weather the test of time is what the current environment of speculation is all about.
There is a base electricity cost to produce BTC as well as maintaining the infrastructure that supports it. In theory and practice, and we have observed this cycle; when it costs more to have machines mining then the BTC they produce, they get turned off and the network hash rate decreases. When it becomes profitable again due to lowered competition, those machines get turned back on and the network hash rate increases. Cash is great. It's more an "and/also" future and not so much "either/or" BTC has had a net positive impact on those whom have taken the time to understand it.
Interesting! As a skeptic I see a few difference and some similarity to bitcoin. Wampum had value because it had other uses. It was ornimental and used as jewelry. Bitcoin has no other uses. Wampum had value because it was hard to manufacure at the time with the tools available to the natives. Much like bitcoin today, but as time and technology move on the tools improved. Today bitcoin is secure but it's a software and who knows what the future will bring. Wampum is also a great analogy in that the Europeans took something of little value (beads and trinkets) and traded them for something of great value. (Furs). Not unlike the trades going on to day where bitcoin (virtual) is being traded for fiat currency. (universally accepted)
I could understand if bitcoin was valued at the cost of production. I know what is involved to aquire an ounce of gold and can value it based on that cost. Now when all the bitcoin has been mined, the system requires that miners still operate in order for transactions to be posted. If the miners can't make ends meet collecting fees, what happens to the system? I doubt that anyone who bought bitcoin in the last year and a half agrees with that statement. I'm a skeptic. I see bitcoin as a pump and dump operation. Someone is marketing this. Bitcoin is in reality a bunch of 1s and 0s on a computer. It's shown as a shiny gold coin with a "B" stamped on it. Why is that? The ads for bitcoin are "Fortune favors the brave" "Don't miss this opportunity of a lifetime" "Don't be a Larry" Playing with your emotions. Why is that? Who is making money during these crypto winters? Someone is selling.
I don't know how long you've been around, but gold bugs have been making identical arguments for literally fifty years - yet the fiat dollar-reserve system just keeps on trucking. I flirted with such arguments myself back in 2008 when it seemed a distinct possibility that the Big One had arrived, and that we were careening either towards a deflationary depression worse than the first time around, or else a global hyperinflationary collapse. Obviously, neither happened. Speaking for myself, this taught me that while the monetary & economic system seems like an existentially magical force of nature operating beyond the power of mere mortals to understand or control, the reality is that concepts like "debt" are just arbitrary legal fictions, and the system as a whole is vastly more robust than doomers claim. E.g. the financial crisis was ended overnight when the SEC stopped forcing banks to mark junk mortgage debt to market; the 2020 pandemic and lockdowns caused a blip of a few weeks rather than a great debt crash and century-long Dark Age; a few months ago Russia was blackballed from the Western financial system, but this caused only a very slight impact in day-to-day life there. While your sentiments about inequality etc. are admirable, and Fed policy certainly does greatly benefit elites, the fact is that a hard-money deflationary system does nothing to address these problems; just the opposite, as the major raison d'etre of the crypto system is goading hordes of mom & pop investors, pension funds and so forth into buying digital scrip so that a few VCs, early-adopting hodlers, and tech-bro corporate bosses can become stupendously rich and powerful within their own walled gardens, ideally immune from any kind of oversight, regulation, or accountability. To the extent inequality is an issue, the actual answer is redistributive taxation.