[matt_wulfeck]

> But BTC hasn't really lost any value since the spinoff, still trading at about $2,700. So just before the spinoff, if you had a bitcoin, you had a bitcoin worth about $2,700. Now, you have a BTC worth about $2,700, and also a BCH worth as much as $700. It's weird free money, if you owned bitcoins yesterday.

Doesn't this throw up any red-flags to the btc/crypto apologist? This type of behavior is not how healthy markets work.

[sowbug]

If you're thinking of this event as a split, dividend, or spinoff, then it doesn't make sense. But it's more like a company cloning itself but adopting a different vision/mission, and awarding shares to all existing shareholders.

They could have started fresh like the zillion other cryptocurrencies that have started up since 2009, some of which appear to have real value. You wouldn't look askance at those, at least from a healthy-market perspective. The only difference here is they distributed initial currency fairly perfectly to the best possible audience of Bitcoin fanatics -- without a single spam email!

Cloning a company makes no sense in the physical world. But when it's a purely digital asset, it can be copied very cheaply.

Why isn't this zero-sum? Because it increases the TAM, rather than competing with its doppelganger in a saturated market. Maybe one ends up killing the other, but for now there's room for both.

[ajross]

> it's more like a company cloning itself but adopting a different vision/mission, and awarding shares to all existing shareholders.

And that doesn't sound... insane to you? I mean, skipping the problems with physics where a "split" company would have to clone its employee talent pool as well: such a company would share the same products and the same markets and the same sales channels and have zero share of all of those at the start. And you're saying that a "healthy market" would be expected to bid up shares of that crazy reincarnated zombie company thing to like 20% or whatever of the original value? Based on "different mission"?

This is crazy, and I want no part of it. The coin community is literally inventing phantom cash and pretending like there's no bubble. How often has that been true in history?

[sowbug]

Looks like you vapor-locked on the physical/digital point before you finished reading.

Let's stay with purely digital. There's an app on your phone that you bought for $1, which seemed like a fair deal to you at the time -- you paid $1 for something you thought was worth $1.

The author adds a feature to the app. You like the feature, and now if someone asked you what the app were worth to you, you'd say $2. In effect, a dollar of value just appeared out of thin air. No magic needed so far for this to happen, I hope.

Same situation but you don't care about the feature -- it's something you don't personally use. But now new buyers are more interested in the app, so more people pay $1 for it. Again, some extra wealth got created just by coding up the new feature. Bubble? New paradigm? It's different this time? Nope.

A new feature got added to Bitcoin. The market says it's more valuable now.

[ballenf]

It's no different than all the third world countries inventing phantom cash every time they trot out a new currency because the old one suffered astronomical inflation.

All money is funny money. The US government regularly invents phantom cash out of thin air in order to maintain the desired 3% annual inflation. That's hundreds of billions of dollars every year that just poof into existence.

I'm basically with you though, but just out of having not had any need for it yet.

If a need arises, I'll get some just like I had to get 8 different currencies while traveling Europe before the EU. Those leftover bills feel pretty much like funny money to me. There are lots of people who would trade me US currency for them, but I still subjectively value them as basically worthless because ... well it doesn't really matter why (truth is, I'm too lazy/"busy" to go to the bank).

The value of a currency, any currency, (like any other object) is subjective to the holder.

[urethrafranklin]

Some of us remember way back when the crypto dorks were claiming that bitcoin would be the first unfunny money :)

[aqme28]

Why do you say "zero share" of the same sales channels? It's literally the exact same audience/"customers" as BTC. 100% share.

[filmackay]

A spin-off (or more correctly, demerger) is almost exactly what you describe: a company cloning itself but adopting a different vision/mission, and awarding shares to all existing shareholders.

With companies it is usually done with a particular division, or business area - but in the case of an anti-trust settlement (go and compete with yourself) it would be exactly what you describe and be implemented as a demerger.

[the_mitsuhiko]

Except even people not owning shares in the company can split it.

[lqdc13]

Could be that people are more confident in BTC after they decided to do something about the slow confirmations. As in the value of the original Bitcoin jumped at the time of the split but was offset by the split.

Also possible that the split generated free publicity that made some people invest in it.

[dnr]

Regular stocks almost always go up after a split, due to price anchoring. Doesn't that throw up a red flag about the stock market? That's not how healthy markets work...

Seriously, though, there's all sorts of weird psychological stuff like that going on in all markets. This isn't really any stranger. (Plus, the $700 seems to be illusory. Hardly anyone (or no one) managed to sell them at that price.)

[xorcist]

I don't know if I count as a Bitcoin apologist, but I'm intrigued why you would say so?

If I gave away a tulip bulb so every Alphabet shareholder, would that diminish the value of Google stock? What if I gave away a sports car?

It's weird free money, sure, but that's because someone is willing to speculate against you. The reason it's initially given away instead of sold is marketing. There are new coins being made every week and you have to stand out.

I don't see any more red flags than with every other altcoin out there. If anything the fact that Bitcoin value hasn't changed means the market doesn't value this new coin very much. It's unfortunate that Levine repeats the $700 value because it's not possible to trade in the open market yet.

[rphlx]

There is at least one viable theory that says that by removing the risk of an "even bigger problem" (malicious rollbacks and double spends caused by warring miners battling over a single chain, etc), and by allowing all camps to pursue their vision in relative peace, the BCH fork has legitimately increased the value of the Bitcoin* ecosystem. Perhaps a case of the baby being worth more now that it's been successfully cut in half.

[nullc]

> This type of behavior is not how healthy markets work.

You cannot deposit Bcash in any exchanges. Make sense now?

[spectrum1234]

The market expected BTC to fall by about as much as BCH increased. It did not. The market was wrong by about ~25%. At least in that moment.

[icebraining]

The market expected BTC to fall by about as much as BCH increased.

How can that be measured?

[Fej]

That is a massive jump in a very short period of time.