I just don't understand how you can say I'm an idiot while at the same time completely not seeing your own inconsistencies in your reply. You say we can't go a week without getting scammed, and start with stating that cold storage has no utility. How about the utility of not getting scammed? I would love to see an SEC regulated brokerage. Let's see them hold bitcoin for actual clients and have insurance. Then if they are ever hacked, they can use that insurance to buy more bitcoin to replace it all and hence drive up the price. I saw a post that FTX had 80k bitcoins on their books that were bought by customers but had zero actual bitcoin. This means 80k worth of bitcoin purchases didn't make it to the market. Its no different than when 125% of GME float was shorted. Or the fact that the paper gold market is over 10x the amount of actual gold out there. People are tired of all this artificial stuff that leads to manipulation and benefits only the elite. With bitcoin in cold storage, you know you own it and nobody can take it away from you. This is huge utility. And the fact that you can prove it is just as important. There are even reports now coming out that exchanges are shuffling around coins in order to show proof or reserves, and then transfer it all to the next exchange to take a snapshot. This is the sort of shit that is possible, to expose the bullshit. Maybe you benefit from all this bullshit, but the vast majority of us are paying dearly for it. There would be no liquidity crisis if there was no bitcoin loaning or rehypothecation. Its the first time that something like this is possible and I am excited and hopeful that it leads to a better tomorrow.
Have you seen how much money is in these funds? Its minuscule compared to how much they are actually protecting. But listen, we don't need to argue about this. Its super easy to make everyone whole when the government has a printing press. But of course the problem is that everyone else has to pay for when one person or firm fucks up. You can argue all you want against crypto, but we wouldn't be in this mess or even need crypto if the monetary system was as corrupt as it is. Now there is no way to fix this debt bubble and asset bubble so we just have to sit back and watch it blow up. Of course printing more money will be done to plug the holes, but will it really work at this point?
The main thing I always get in mind is, that there are always loopholes in software and hardware too. There is no perfect computer system. The next zero day exploit is always there and that means that the new discover black hat will take advantage of it. As it is actually built around cryptos with the technical infrastructure and its relyings, it only looks like that everything can be stolen anytime, it is just a matter of time that some black hats will take advantage of latest loopholes and zero day exploits. (Even Intel hardware had problems on their chips some years ago and that is by far not the end of story here.)
As opposed to ZERO for these crypto firms? Really? Fun questions: What do you feel is an appropriate ratio of liabilities to capital? Do ANY of the insurance companies you deal with in your life meet that standard? How does the loss ratio of the organizations I listed (SIPC, NCUA, etc) compare with the regular insurance companies in your life? Serious people understand that all those organizations I listed are legally separate from the federal reserve and as such can not simply "print money". You're just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks at this point huh? Crypto is supposed to magically fix: Corrupt monetary system Debt bubble Asset bubble Inflation The idea that "crypto" is going to fix anything you listed above is more akin to wishful thinking than reality. Even if everyone switched to Bitcoin tomorrow, do you think that's going to magically convince the governments of the world to live within their means? Is it going to end money lending? Stop wild speculation in the markets? Crypto evangelists have an absolute garbage track record predicting the movements of crypto itself, let alone its effect on the world economic system. They can't even police corruption in their own backyard, let alone take on corrupt practices in global finance. Furthermore, if these people really cared about stabilizing anything, rather than just getting rich quick, the products in the crypto space would look TOTALLY different. Instead of a giant pile of FOMO, backed by nothing unicorn coins, you'd see lots of things like: A coin from a regulated US mutual fund that would be convertible to SP500 stock shares on demand. You don't see this because there is no potential for it to go 10X in one year. The price of a coin like that would actually be relatively stable. Since "crypto" is full of get rich quick dreamers who only play lip service to fixing real problems, there is no interest in products like that.
This is a mess that started very long ago, and many people say in 1971 when the power to print was essentially given the green light. Debt bubble, asset bubble, inflation, they all have the same root causes, which is corrupt money system. The Fed is at the centre of all of this is well. So it does seem to me that it can all be fixed with a simple tweak. You separate money creation from the government and then you let natural forces of business take over.
Isn't the natural force of business, rich get richer and poor get poorer, what you are railing against? A fixed money supply is not solving that problem. With a fixed supply I believe you create a problem. To simplify this lets say that there is a fixed supply of $1000. If you lend that amount out at 5% at the end of the year you are owed $1050. But there is only $1000 in circulation because you fixed the supply. How do you reconsile that?
Bitcoin is not fixed supply, it is inflating, but its inflating at a predictable amount that will lessen over time. Yes, our economy is based on debt. And for debt to work, you always need to increase the money supply because as you say, there needs to be more money to pay back old debt. But this means that debt makes the world go round, and more debt means more profits for some, while leaving others debt slaves. And once the debt gets to big, the whole system crashes under its own weight. Maybe the solution was simply to have controls on the amount of debt, or the amount of currency that can be issued, which worked great under the gold standard. But we all know what happened to that. Or maybe the solution is a system based now on debt, but on savings. There are interesting theories that right now, people should be working less. Technology has made life my easier, and globally, we should have shorter work weeks and more abundance for all. But instead, we let this wealth go to the top 0.001% instead of sharing it for all. Perhaps a system based not on debt but on savings would have helped. I leave with this quote which I love. Yes, its for bitcoin maximalists. "Abundance in money creates scarcity everywhere else. Scarcity in money creates abundance everywhere else."
I was under the impression that the amount of bitcoin would be fixed. Well, just give all your money away and enjoy the abundance.