There is tons of evidence, however, there is no evidence that you will accept, nor that will overcome confirmation bias.
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There is tons of evidence, however, there is no evidence that you will accept, nor that will overcome confirmation bias.
Lol @ mainstream economist polls. Were these the same mental midgets who failed to predict the GFC in 2k8?
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
Yes, now that bitcoin has hit the news, I also see a lot of financial "experts" on the main stream media commenting on it. Some of them sound a common sense word of warning to would be speculators who think the bitcoin may be a guaranteed pathway to instant riches.
However, most of them are as full of hot air as you are. They have never heard of bitcoin before. They don't understand how it works. In bitcoin's 9+ years of history, they have never examined so much as a price chart. They have never examined the peaks and troughs in bitcoin's price history nor the global events surrounding these peaks and troughs. They are just talking off the cuff. To them, bitcoin is some "new fangled thingy" and they instinctively try to dismiss it as some flash in the pan.
As Tippit pointed out, their economic forecasts are less reliable than those of a carnival gypsy staring into a crystal ball. Even my magic 8 ball has a better track record. And these are the people you want to refer to in your argument from authority?
As for the mooted government crackdown, puh-lease! China has one of the biggest involvements in bitcoin. If a crack down by the Chinese government has failed to put a dent in bitcoin prices then what hope do you think the western governments will have when their central banks are compromised because they have put their sticky fingers into bitcoin?
Very good! So what makes you think it will be different this time? Your cherry picked "experts"?
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Let us have this evidence, which will prove you right and me wrong, if your evidence is valid. Otherwise you'll seem like a CT "nut" which you say you're not.
So there was a bubble event that time? The prediction was right? What makes the bubble different this time is the difference between that peak of $31 and the recent price of $19,000. This looks like more extreme speculation.
My quotes weren't cherry picked appeals to authority, but the first quotes that Google threw up, and proof that I was not appealing to my own authority but to that of financial analysts in the serious press, and to bankers and other professionals.
This has every sign of a classic speculative bubble, and its bursting, while unpredictable in timing, is overwhelmingly probable as a future event. Bitcoin has no value to hold, as it creates no income (unlike share dividends or interest on bank deposits) except potential capital gain when sold, and it seems to have no intrinsic value.
Shares in the South Sea Company or the railways or dot com projects might at least give their owners expectations of future dividend income if held over time. And tulip bulbs can be eaten in an emergency, if the unlucky speculator is reduced to hungry destitution. But Bitcoin has no physical manifestation at all. The only thing it has is a price.
ETA This morning's bowl of cherries contains these tasty items. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/vide...is-cycle-s-defining-bubble-says-schomer-video
Here's the Independent, with an "appeal to authority".
Meanwhile the concerns mount, the ranks of the clever and powerful people urging caution swell. The latest is UBS chairman Axel Webber, who fears that its rise is unsustainable. He’d like regulators to wade in, fearing that small investors could get wiped out by wild swings in the price.
He’s surely right about that. Bitcoin gives every impression of being a bubble. It’s doubly scary because, well, where’s the floor?
He’s surely right about that. Bitcoin gives every impression of being a bubble. It’s doubly scary because, well, where’s the floor?
Where indeed?
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I didn't say that. I don't know if the next peak will be the final pop. What I have said is that it is extremely probable that there will be a final pop, and that many holders of Bitcoin will suffer significant and irretrievable loss when it happens, assuming this follows the well established bubble pattern. It is displaying all the symptoms present in previous episodes of that type.
I'm arguing with you because we don't seem to agree. In your #1000 you stated that bubble commodities
I completely disagree. Evanescence is not a necessary, or even a typical, feature of objects of bubble speculation. I have pointed out that we still have railways, joint stock companies, the internet, and tulips, and that the South Sea Company wasn't wound up until 1853.
So we have plenty to argue about.
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psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
So when push comes to shove all you are saying is that one day, bitcoin will suffer a price drop from which it never recovers but you don't know when and you don't know how.
Like all open ended predictions, that is unfalsifiable and hardly worth all the pages of arguing and irrelevant comparisons and useless quotes that you you have come up with.
I think we'll recognise it when it happens. In previous cases there has been a clear end to the boom. You on the other hand seem to think the price is underpinned by some intrinsic merit that will cause it to go up forever, temporary adjustments aside. I don't agree. But indeed I can't predict the timing and cause of an eventual collapse. Nobody ever can; even Newton was caught out in 1720, great genius that he was. This is from Galbraith's indispensable "The Great Crash 1929"
it is in the nature of a speculative boom that almost anything can collapse it. Any serious shock to confidence can cause sales by those speculators who have always hoped to get out before the final collapse but after all possible gains from rising prices have been reaped. Their pessimism will infect those simpler souls who had thought the market might go up forever but who now will change their minds and sell. Soon there will be margin calls, and still others will be forced to sell. So the bubble breaks ... On September 22, the financial pages of the New York papers carried an advertisement ... as follows: “Most investors make money in a bull market, only to lose all profits made — and sometimes more — in the readjustment that inevitably follows.” ... it could have been such thoughts ... which finally brought an end to the boom. What first stirred these doubts we do not know, but neither is it very important that we know.
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psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
Wrong.
The only other possibility is that it will reach a high but perhaps slightly fluctuating "plateau" and remain there. I think that won't happen because the motive of speculative purchasers is to wait for increases in price and then sell out. Long term holding of Bitcoin makes little sense, as it produces no regular income, unlike share dividends or bank account interest, or government bonds.
Why hold it, if you don't think the price will rise significantly higher? Sell out and take your winnings.
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
Your strawman techniques are appalling.
The difference is that you say that bitcoin will have a final bubble (some day) and I say that bitcoin may have a final bubble.
Yep, bitcoin is a vehicle for speculation and it does not have any intrinsic value, we also well know how bubbles work, so the collapse is only a question of time. Of course Keynes (I think) famously said that "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent", so the boom can still continue for a good while - my own prediction would be June/July 2018 but we'll see...
Btw, a good summary by Kevin Drum:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/12/bitcoin-is-a-lousy-form-of-money/
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
What makes you say that a final collapse is inevitable? Historically speaking, unsound investments invariably collapse but sound investments may well stand the test of time.
We don't know which category bitcoin falls into. Some say that bitcoin is unsound because it has no substance or utility. However, that depends on the definition of "substance" and "utility". What we know is that bitcoin is unforgeable and bitcoin transactions are unfalsifiable. That makes it a much more secure medium than many currencies.
Bitcoin is in a class all of its own.
Bitcoin hasn't gone from $2 to $20,000 because of its attractiveness as a currency medium. It has done so because of extreme speculation.
That's what creates speculative bubbles. "This time's not like the other times. This time it's different." That's a feature of all bubbles, and sometimes it's true, like railways. When it's true, the object of speculation survives, like railways. But the bubble speculators still tend to lose out. Unless they bought in very early.
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
Are you saying that ALL investments eventually crash?
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No of course not. Are you saying that all investments are speculative bubbles? Investments that don't crash are those bought and held for the dependable income they yield in the form of dividends, interest, rent or other emoluments. But you don't make millions out of them either.
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
Then my comment stands. Bitcoin is in a class of its own. There has never been anything like it so nobody knows its ultimate future.
Like many bubble things in the past. I have said Bitcoin may survive. I don't know its ultimate future, to be sure. But it has become the excuse for a bubble, and I know the bubble's ultimate future. Pop.
Let's test that. Can we agree that unless some real value has entered the Bitcoin trading system, the price rise is a bubble? The only possible source of new value input would be a realisation among the investing public that Bitcoin provides a useful medium of exchange or saving, as a currency or similar device. Good and well, perhaps the increase in price reflects that? Well let's see. The bottom of the last crash in 2011 was $2. It's now at $18,000. Is there any service that you valued in 2011 at $2, for which you are now ready to pay $18,000?
I would say there isn't, so the vast majority of the price inflation is speculative. If it is, it will go pop once all the money available to be diverted into these transactions has been absorbed. When will that happen. I don't know.
Joe Kennedy is supposed to have sold his stocks before the crash in 1929 when his shoeshine boy started giving him advice on what to buy and sell. He thought, if the boom has now sucked in everything down to the shoeshine boy's nickels and dimes, it's time to get the hell out. And he duly and profitably did. So watch for clues. You still won't know, because it's inherently unpredictable even in principle; but looking for clues is good fun.
PartSkeptic
Illuminator
Explain how the bitcoins could be stolen.
And a website indicates that there are less than 500,000 actual bitcoins. This is correct because the reward is at 12.5 bitcoins per block. Psion10 - How does one explain 850,000?
And a website indicates that there are less than 500,000 actual bitcoins. This is correct because the reward is at 12.5 bitcoins per block. Psion10 - How does one explain 850,000?
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