jerrymiller

So much projection. Astonishing.

What's discussing is handwaving real-world problems because they don't fit your agenda.

Satoshi has not envisioned ASICs, no. But it doesn't matter what Satoshi thinks/thought of. Bitcoin is not controlled by anyone; anyone can introduce a better way to mine/use it.

Are you saying this has helped people in Venezuela?

It helped and is helping people escape oppressive regime in Venezuela. Your snarky question comes from the place privilege as you've never experience this kind of oppression.

More info: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-adoption-venezuela-research

And yet people mine it. And it follows the "I can get out before you" game the OP describes.

Here you go: https://www.danheld.com/blog/2019/1/5/pow-is-efficent

How did this help Venezuela keep the value of their currency? Bolivars are also claims on taxes.

To describe Bitcoin as a ponzi, you must apply a very loose definition, which will necessarily be applicable to other assets as well. More on this: https://www.swanbitcoin.com/why-bitcoin-is-not-a-ponzi-schem...

Now, what about gold?

BTC is liquid enough today for companies to move $1B without moving market (see MicroStrategy). Granted, money (USD specifically) is even more liquid, but that's why it's money -- by definition, money is the most liquid good.

BTC's liquidity has been increasing and will continue to increase in the future, so it's just a matter of time.

And you are again conflating SoV with volatility. Todays cash (USD) is not volatile but it's a terrible SoV. That's why no one is storing their wealth in USD and flee to harder assets (stocks, bonds, gold, and BTC).

Highly recommend this video for how investment firms think about BTC and SoV and how you should too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlXqfibqb38

Case in point still. The contradictions you make are astounding. What's more astounding is that you are not even noticing them.

Huge investment firms diversifying into crypto

this is an indictment of the cryptocurrency community's basic financial literacy

I suggest that maybe it's you who lacks basic financial (and econ) literacy, not investment firms or the "cryptocurrency community"

You can't just call a speculative instrument a "store of value" because every who bought into it in the past two months has seen a positive return

No, everyone who bought BTC at _any point in the past_ and didn't sell are seeing positive returns. This is the definition of a good store of value. You are conflating SoV properties with volatility. They are orthogonal. SoV is a long-term play.

I recommend that you listen to this: https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/the-breakdown-with-nlw/bre...

I (and anyone else) can buy food and water with BTC. This statement along completely negates your point. To understand why BTC is valuable and educate yourself on the topic of money, I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BPM3GZQ/

50% chance of Bitcoin crash like in 2018, 50% chance of further price appreciation but I think $100,000 is absurd for a commodity that has close to zero intrinsic value

"$100 is absurd for a commodity that has close to zero intrinsic value"

"$1,000 is absurd..."

"$10,000 is absurd..."

At this point, the burden of proof is on sceptics to show why a commodity with zero "intrinsic" value trends upward despite those sceptics' predictions during the last ~10 years.

Is Bitcoin more inherently valuable than garlic coin? If so, why?

Because of built-in scarcity. No other asset is as provably scarce as btc.

Also how is BTC the most reliable store of value? It’s had multiple crashes and is one of the most volatile instruments.

Two points here:

- BTC is of course not good for short-term speculation, it's a long-term savings vehicle. Short-term volatility doesn't affect the properties of a long-term store of value.

- There was no period in history of btc where you would buy it and lose $ after 5 years of holding. Most likely, never will be due to my answer to #1 - inherent and ever increasing scarcity.

Here's an article that explains the fundamentals of Bitcoin and they tie to its price: https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/modeling-bitcoins-value-w...

Is the purpose just to become more valuable because of its scarcity with no utility?

Being a reliable store of value is great utility. Nothing else can come close to btc at that.

Is it a trend that the quality of comments about BTC on HN has increased drastically? It's about 50/50 of the good/bad ratio now, whereas 1-2 years ago, I'd say it was easily 10/90.

Tell me mister gxon, are you a good representation of the HN crowd, or is it just Bitcoiners have piled on this article for some reason?

That's a bold statement

Is it though? If you bought BTC at any given time during 2009-2015, you are in the green 5 years after. Pretty good evidence of unlikeliness to me.

Also, the parent took 5 year period (and not 3) on purpose -- it's exactly 1 year longer than the halving period.

You are helping the world to transition to a better money, which will have tremendous positive effect on the society: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zYg4E4zbPo

May I ask how you trade options? I've bought a bunch of call options with $25k strike for 12/2021, and I think it will pay out handsomely ($38k is my break-even point, accounting for the opportunity cost of just straight-buying the bare BTC). What's your strategy?

BTW: fan of your work, Greg.

extraordinary claim without much evidence

"Much evidence", smh. How about the work that won the Nobel prize on this exact topic? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_business_cycle_theory

It shows exactly how the boom/bust cycle is caused by the active management of money.

Exactly. How did that work out for Venezuela and their currency?

How did that work for Venezuela and their currency? USD is heading the same way, just slower.

Their issue right now is they're tracking towards 0.44%, not 2% as they intend. This is demonstrably false, the real inflation is much higher than 2%: https://chapwoodindex.com/

Working? The author has finished with it: http://bist.io