I have no dog in this fight but didn't they say the same about tulip bulbs? And with tulip bulbs and Renoir, at least their owner can enjoy their beauty?
You need to study why Tulip bulbs were different. First of all, they had one rally and then were done. Bitcoin keeps making higher highers. If you also want to consider that tulip bulbs ever had a change at being a store of value, you have to tackle the idea that anyone could grow more bulbs. That's just a start.
I'm not sure if you can really give this guarantee. I know that in these shocks, there is a liquidity squeeze, and the first thing sold is most liquid, which is usually bitcoin. But tell me this, if banks start limiting withdrawls, or the Fed says the fund to backstop bank accounts is empty (I know they can always print more), don't you think this will be a huge signal that everyone needs to get into bitcoin? You need to feel the power of buying bitcoin, withdrawing from the exchange, holding onto it, then firing up your own bitcoin node, and submitting a transaction to the network, and doing it all without anyone's permission. Its actually revolutionary. Maybe you need a experience the bank telling you they are closing your account to first understand why this is so powerful. Or maybe you need to flee a country and leave everything behind. I'm not sure what it will take, but bitcoin is important from so many different angles to so many different people in many different situations. You have the exact same thoughts that everyone does when they first get into bitcoin. They dislike it because they think they got in too late, and they assume something better will come along and jump on that. But look at how huge bitcoin is now, and people still hate it. So you're telling me that someone will invent a new bitcoin and somehow get it to this level organically? When you understand how bitcoin had no seed round, no investors, etc, you see how its what they say immuculate concepcion. Any other new entrant will have to have all the properties of bitcoin. It will have to start from the ground up with no pre-mining. It will have to be completely permissionless, no government control, etc. I just don't see how that will be possible to re-create. You're welcome to think this. But what happens when another country adopts bitcoin. Anyone is willing to accept bitcoin these days, its just a matter of major players getting on board. In a world where trust is lacking, don't you want to transact in the one thing that you don't need to trust? When the transaction has been approved on the blockchain and confirmed several times, its a done deal, can't be reversed. This powerful feature will appeal to many parties. I can't remember which thread it was where I broke down @poopy 's bitcoin holdings. He took pride in the fact that he sold it and traded with that money and made about $15MM or whatever it was. But just holding bitcoin would have netted him half that, for no work, no skill, no sleepless nights, etc. You're telling me the rest of the world can't benefit from a "set it and forget it" trade? For some people it is about making money, but for me, the way I see it, its the future of the global monetary system. All the stupid government campaigns right now, all the fighting and the war, its all because of a failing system. When the money fails, as it has been for a few decades now, you see shit pop up, like asset bubbles, and nobody can explain it. The evidence is everywhere that the system is failing. We have to distract people with gender bullshit, and get them to fight eachother constantly, simply to mask the reason reason for their rotten lives. The government stole all the money, and much of it through inflation. We are at a tipping point, and it all comes back to a broken monetary system. Its pretty simple. Do you prefer to use a system that the government can control and corrupt, that they can use against who they don't like and unfairly reward people it does like? Or do you prefer a system that is universal, that nobody can control, that is build on rules everyone understands.
Anyone can also create a painting, but it takes many people to give it value. If you find millions of people wanting to buy a new coin, and millions of computers processing the transactions, then I will admit there might be something better than bitcoin, but until that happens, its bitcoin. Are you worried that your Android or Apple phone might be garbage soon because someone will create a new operating system? Are you holding off on buying a new phone because these two operating systems are about to be replaced? Its not easy to do once the market saturation gets to a certain level.
fair point. I am not betting on my iphone to appreciate in value as a tool of speculation. it's a device that will depreciate. But it was a consideration i had when i invested in the minidisc format (being 17, i was dumb and still did it).
Here is what I always thought about the network. Its not like it will die overnight. If there was going to be a catastrophic failure, it would have happened already. But one important metric you can follow is hashrate. It keeps rising. Very smart people keep throwing money at more chips to do the calculations and finding more energy. How is it that the miners keep pumping money into this? When all the miners had to leave China in 2021, we saw the hashrate drop by 50%, but it quickly recovered. So to this is a key metric if you want to keep an eye on where bitcoin could be headed in my opinion. Now what would it take for a network to all of a sudden spring up? That was my point with Android and iOS. Microsoft spent billions and couldn't break into the smartphone market. A new coin isn't what I would worry about.
growing hashrate means there's more activity, which is definitely bullish, until it's not growing anymore Etherium is a new coin that has more practical appliations than bitcoin. Apple ipods were better than sony's walkmans (and the multi-billion dollar music CD industry)
Its at the point where it doesn't matter if it goes up or down 10 to 20%. The only important thing is that its decentralized. You couldn't even source enough hardware these days to try and make a dent into the hashpower, never mind taking it over. I will give you just one reason why it will never compete. ETH isn't permissionless. Addresses and transactions can be blocked. So its game over. Imagine walking into a bank and them telling you that your dollar bill is no good because of the serial number. Or imagine the gold dealer saying your perfectly good bar of gold can't be accepted. With bitcoin, there is no way to censor you. If you can spin up a node, which is easy to do, you can submit a transaction to the network and any miner will pick it up if you pay the going fee. Also, nobody can freeze any bitcoins at any address. The only way to move bitcoins is to have the private key which you prove by signing the transaction.