Merged Bitcoin - Part 3
- Thread starter Dr.Sid
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dirtywick
Penultimate Amazing
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Strategy and bitcoin-buying firms face wider exclusion from stock indexes
Michael Saylor's Strategy could soon be dropped from MSCI and potentially other major stock indexes, which analysts say could cost the bitcoin-hoarding giant up to $9 billion in demand for its shares and hurt the wider appeal of the sector.
www.reuters.com
speaking of bad stuff, msci seems poised to drop mstr from its index as its stock price continues to drop and questions about how bitcoin treasuries can be a sustainable business
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
Typical. You can't cope with the fact that a crypto is just a digital asset so you have to create a strawman argument.
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
Now you are just straight out lying.
jeremyp
Philosopher
What is the straw man he created AFAICT he just said that cryptyocurrenicnes are doing great things and you will be telling us what those things are some time soon. I'll grant that the statement was dripping in sarcasm, but what's the straw man?
Andy_Ross
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About Crypto doing good things?
jeremyp
Philosopher
If we look at the fundamentals, what is Bitcon? It's just a ledger of transactions in which a number associated with a wallet (itself just a number) has been increased, whilst another number associated with a different wallet has been decreased by the same amount. The mechanism by which it occurs is very complex and ensures (hopefully) that the amount of increase in one wallet is the same as the amount of decrease in another wallet.
What does it mean to say BTC has value It just means that I can go to a crypto exchange and pay somebody about $88,000 (as of the date of posting) and for that, they will increase the number in my wallet by one and decrease the number in their own wallet by one.
Is that really an asset? It's just a record that I - or somebody I got the coin off - gave a man some money to increase a number. There's no obligation to pay me back at all.
Let's compare that with gold. I could go to a gold dealer and they will give me some gold in exchange for money. I'll give them some money, say $88,000 or thereabouts and they'll give me an 20 ounces of gold (at today's price). It's true that they have no obligation to buy it back off me, but, in the one case, I have a number recorded on the Internet (god forbid that should ever go down) and, in the other case, I have a lump of gold. For you to argue that BTC is no different from the commodity gold, you have to make me believe that a number recorded on the Internet is no different from a physical piece of heavy metal. Spoiler alert: that is not going to happen.
What about fiat currencies? Yes, they are numbers, but the important difference is that they carry an obligation. If my brother comes to me with a pizza, and I want it, it's the difference between me giving him a note that says "one pizza" and me giving him a note that says "I owe you one pizza". The former gives me no obligation to reciprocate, but the latter does.
So come on then. Explain to me why I should believe that a number on the Internet is the same as about 20oz gold.
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A couple of years ago I bought some gold (not for $88,000
) and all I got was an email that it was added to my bank storage). I still have it, but when I sell it, I do not have expect to get anything else than another email, and that the money has been put into my account.I really do not see much difference from buying and selling bitcoins. But I believe that gold is less risky, although also less profitable.
jeremyp
Philosopher
The email is a note that says they owe you some gold (and there's a ledger somewhere that says you own the gold - there may even be some actual gold), or the monetary equivalent on the day you choose to sell.A couple of years ago I bought some gold (not for $88,000
I really do not see much difference from buying and selling bitcoins. But I believe that gold is less risky, although also less profitable.
That's the difference. You buy BTC: a number associated with your wallet (also just a number) goes up. You buy gold: you either get a lump of gold or you get a legally enforceable IOU for a lump of gold (unless you've been scammed).
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
"Bitcon" is an emotional made-up word used with the intent of making somebody believe that all cryptos are bad without having to give any justification for that POV.
Bitcoin is a digital asset. The main difference between cryptos and physical assets like gold is that cryptos can only exist in cyber space. (So if you are a prepper, you probably won't be trying to accumulate any in a hurry). Otherwise, in financial terms, they are just as tradeable (able to be exchanged for other assets) as physical assets. Like physical assets, they can be lost or stolen if the holder is careless but the holder can take as many measures as they feel necessary to avoid loss/theft of these assets.
As for that "ledger" you talk about, it is a record of transfers of various amounts of this asset from wallet to wallet. It is not bitcoin itself.
Bitcoin doesn't "do" anything any more than gold does anything. People do things with these products (mostly speculate). Yes, some people run scams with this product and businesses that invest in this product can fail - especially if they promise great returns. But this isn't unique. It applies to every product that might be traded.
There is nothing magical about cryptos. There are no rules that apply uniquely to cryptos when it comes to trading.
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
And speculators don't do that for gold?
Any other ancient arguments you want to regurgitate for the millionth time?
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
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jeremyp
Philosopher
Apologies. It was a typo.
What does that really mean?
That's a complicated way of saying Bitcoin is just a number.
No seriously, it is. If I say my wallet contains 3 BTC, what does it mean? It means the Bitcoin blockchain has a record of "transactions" which, in total show my wallet, over all history has gone from 0 to 3.
BTC is not a product. It's just a number.
Yes there is. Somehow it instills magical thinking in people like you.
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
Don't be such a Luddite. Bitcoin may not exist in the physical world but it is just as real as any physical object. It can't be created or destroyed - only "mined" or transferred. It has nothing to do with imagination. It takes real processing power (energy) to acquire.
The only reason you say it is "just a number" is because you don't understand the technology.
jeremyp
Philosopher
Nobody here is a luddite.
No it isn't. I think you need to look up the definition of "real".
Mining is creating new bitcoins.
Bitcoins can be destroyed in any of several ways depending on what you mean by "destroyed". Put it in a wallet and forget the passkey, that BTC is gone forever. Change the algorithms to allow transactions to not have a destination wallet (possible if more than half the miners agree it) and BTC can be destroyed at will. Write a virus that virulently infects computers and deletes all copies of blocks and eventually all the BTC will be destroyed.
Nobody said it does have anything to do with imagination.
So? How does it follow from that that BTCis anything other than a number.
No, the reason why I say it is just a number is because I do understand the technology.
What do you think a Bitcoin wallet actually is? I'll tell you.
A Bitcoin wallet is a public and private key pair. The public key is used to generate an address for the wallet and to verify signed transactions. The private key is used to sign transactions. That's pretty much it. Everything else is in the block chain transactions.
A BTC transaction consists usually of a list of inputs which are the outputs of older transactions and a list of outputs which is a list of destination addresses and coins to be associated with them. The coins of the inputs have to exceed the coins of the outputs. The difference is the fee.
That's it on the mechanical level. The rest is all about making sure transactions cannot be faked. It's all just numbers in a digital ledger, nothing more than that.