Wouldn't losses for most other asset classes be piling up as well? Direct exposure to assets or securities is inherently risky. I bought some shares of SHOP at ~$1,200 several months ago and now it's ~$320. a 73% loss is much worse than Block's loss of 22%.
I'm not sure how many companies add individual securities to their balance sheets, but the point is that people like to vilify this particular asset as if it is much riskier than traditional alternatives.
Given HN's demographic there's a ton of people that had the opportunity to get into bitcoin in its early stages and make some unthinkable amount of money, private island amount of money, myself included.
Some people cannot come into terms with that and let cognitive dissonance do its work.
If I'd bought Bitcoin at $1 and it went to $5, I would have sold. If I'd bought at $10 and it went to $20, I would have sold. If I'd bought at $100 and it went to $150, I would have sold. The amount of discipline it would have taken to hold through all the rises and make an obscene amount of money is well beyond my risk profile.
This is why I'm not convinced "crypto whales" exist. If they really hold that much with no strings, why haven't they sold and retired to live a life of luxury by now? Do they plan to hold out to the grave? What good will that do them?
I can believe some people might have substantial holdings but I bet they also have substantial liabilities such that their net holdings disqualify them as "whales".
A ton of people here also could have piled onto Apple and Microsoft back in the 90s, and have unfathomable wealth today, but they do not vilify those stocks, nor the people who said to invest in them.
This thread convinced me to look this up and apparently this site called "Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index" [0] that's continually tracking mining per IP address [1] to figure out where mining is happening.
Not sure how accurate it is, but apparently Texas is 11.22% of America's 37.84% hash rate share, so that works out to about 4% total.
[1]: From the site: "We have partnered with several Bitcoin mining pools to collect geolocational mining facility data in a non-obtrusive and privacy-preserving manner. This geolocational data is based on IP addresses of mining facility operators (‘hashers’) that connect to the servers of mining pools."
Are we done wasting resources on free speech? How about freedom in general?
Humanity will break free of tyranny. Bitcoin and the honest cryptos are a part of that. Sorry if you cannot see the value in financial instruments that cannot be controlled by corrupt intermediaries. In spite of the dollar pegged to these instruments, we need to exchange absent intermediaries more than ever.
Are we done wasting resources on parasitic intermediaries?
What makes you so sure that "Bitcoin and the honest cryptos" aren't just a way some folks are exploiting to be the new wealthy tyranny by playing a game they can win faster by duping others?
These types of games have been played for ages, the behavior is similar, and the end result seems to be the same: major gains for a few bunch, and losses for the late comers.
We've seen it all: ICOs, DAOs, NFTs, what other scheme will resurface next until there are actual regulations in place to prohibit false advertising and bogus claims.
Of course I'm throwing the baby with the bath water when I say this, but reality is that the barrier of entry for scams and schemes is so low that something must be done.
That isn’t what Bitcoin is about. People can still manipulate the social mechanics involved.
They just can’t manipulate the fundamental rules. That’s it. Anyone can send any transaction anywhere. The monetary supply is fixed, no one gets to decide arbitrarily when money is created. And to make new money, there are specific conditions which simultaneously contributes value to the network.
It doesn’t fix inequality, it just fixes the rules and makes it so we can at least trust the fidelity of the system.
People take for granted the honesty of the existing systems. But when we bailout big failed banks and big business by printing more money and let the common person crash and burn, it is clearer how dishonest it is. Most people do not have a friend that can get the government to bail them out — but some people do.
That is just scratching the surface on the problem with intermediaries infecting a monetary supply. At least with bitcoin, we all play by the same rules. There is value in that kind of honesty.
Indeed, the concept is very attractive, in theory. I wish it were true.
However, the execution is, um, leaving a lot to be desired.
A key big promise of cryptocurrency is as a hedge against inflation. Yet, as anyone can see since April or so, this promise is not merely false, but cryptocurrencies fall far faster than inflation and actually loses value far faster than any fiat currency.
Another big promise was egalitarianism - making financial freedom and banking services available to all. Yet the distribution and control is highly unequal, and getting access requires technology, learning arcane user interfaces, and the security situation is worse than hiding cash in your mattress.
Bitcion will help us "break free of tyranny" - is that a joke? The core is an immutable ledger that can be used to track anyone's transactions back in all time down to the last Satoshi (currently at $0.000208, just over 200 to the US penny). Cash is way more anonymous. The control of all of these is in the hands of a bunch of quasi-associated anons and miners 'voting. Sure, it's more anarchic and we can't point fingers at specific people for specific actions, but that doesn't mean that it grants more freedom to anyone, and arguably less.
Sadly, after a decade and a half of development, the promise remains just that, a promise.
Maybe there is some bunch of honest coders who could make this work as promised.
But, when every effort is made to prove Premise-A, and they all fail, then at some point one must conclude that what has been proved is Premise-NOT-A. We may be at that point.
> financial instruments that cannot be controlled by corrupt intermediaries
Are we talking about the same system where there's a rug pull every other week? The same one where two major exchanges decided to block withdrawals as rates plummeted? That one? What are those if not corrupt intermediaries?
> Humanity will break free of tyranny
I hope so too. But markets are just another form of tyranny that we have to break free from. Crypto entrenches them more instead of freeing us.
> financial instruments that cannot be controlled by corrupt intermediaries
Yeah, because there are no corrupt middlemen and grifters in the crypto industry, are there? It's all honest and upstanding citizens doing their best to make freedom a reality for us all. If they happen to "lose" a few billion in the process, you have to ask: shouldn't we be willing to take a few risks for freedom? It's really quite selfish of all these freedom-haters to complain when their money vanishes (after the freedom-fighting whales have cashed out, of course).
There are no corrupt forces capable of stopping you from sending money to whoever you want within the confines of the bitcoin network, no. And that can be proven.
There are also no forces that can arbitrarily create new money in the Bitcoin network, they can only create money according to specific rules agreed upon by all using the network. That can also be proven.
Can you prove these two things with any other monetary system on the planet outside of crypto?
I think the phrase “corrupt intermediaries” is being misunderstood by people given they are addressing higher abstractions.
They don’t seem to get that legacy monetary supply and markets have been compromised at a fundamental level.
Any system that cannot be reasonably audited with limited resources has near certainly been compromised at this point.
And none of these systems take even remotely 50% to corrupt. They take like < 5%. And corrupting them is HIGHLY profitable, which means there is massive incentive to do so. Which means it is certainly the case.
Bitcoin disincentivizes corruption. A 51% attack is not profitable. It is also highly detectable and risk is very limited. It is the only known way to corrupt the fundamental mechanics of bitcoin, and frankly, if humanity allows a single or collaborative entity to acquire 51% of the compute resources, we have bigger problems. And that’s the point. It brings things hidden away into the light.
The promise of crypto is not financial equity, it is financial honesty. It makes the rules of the game equal.
Come on dude, dont pull humanity into your gambling addiction. It's very bitcoin-megalomania to talk of "freeing the world" from urban first world fiber connections, but truly, it's not doing anything for most people on Earth.
Tyranny has many shapes and like communism promised to free us from exploitation by exploiting us, bitcoin promised to free us from intermediaries by intermediating instead.
Bitcoin removes some intermediaries and opens up the opportunity for other intermediaries. I think you might as well wish for the end of capitalism and get rid of capitalists as parasitic intermediaries, but that's just me.
This is interesting, if bitcoin collapses there will be that much “extra” electrical power available in a world where Russia is conquering neighbors and distorting prices.
That is the Texas model... let miners drive up the average price for consumers across Texas, with the idea they will voluntarily stop mining and free up capacity when there is a power surge event. The Governor is so into free market ideology that instead of pricing capacity into the system, we are relying on private groups of miners to 'do the right thing' when needed. Meanwhile, the energy companies are seeking my permission to auto-adjust my smart thermostat to keep the miners running.
> The Governor is so into free market ideology that instead of pricing capacity into the system, we are relying on private groups of miners to 'do the right thing' when needed
"Doing the right thing" in response to a societal need is very much _not_ free market ideology. That's not actually his rationale, is it?! Pure magical thinking.
OK, so if this is not the Gov.'s thinking, what is it? Is the Gov planning some measure to ensure that the miners will actually shut down in a crisis to free up capacity? Is there some incentive for doing so, and/or penalty for not doing so?
If you have no answer, then GP is right, and the magical thinking is in your post.
If the event is only in TX then won't their pricing on electricity jump faster than the increased benefit of mining when most of TX mining shuts down? I mean there are real countries with stable electricity that won't sky rocket so the drop in hash rate can't cancel a price gouging only in Texas.
I'm not sure how many companies add individual securities to their balance sheets, but the point is that people like to vilify this particular asset as if it is much riskier than traditional alternatives.