[Retric]

Dividends come in multiple forms, buybacks for example return money to investors. Companies aloso get sold returning money to investors. However, if a company never returns money and eventually folds then on net it was a bad investment even if some people made money they made money from other people not the company.

That’s the Bitcoin model. If you want to use Bitcoins as your money then it’s even more obvious. If I sell 10 bitcoins to somone they get 9.99999 of them and miners get that .00001 or whatever bitcoin. Wait 1000 years an they are still our that .00001 or whatever coin.

Miners also got coins from the original 2.1 Million but rather than pay people they payed overhead spending electricity and depreciation on hardware. That money is simply gone never to be recovered. Sure, they can sell coins to other people, but that money is new investments.

PS: Bitcoin as a useful service is fine, people lose money to Visa every day but trade that money for other forms of utility.

[hndamien]

I think you are confusing equities with mediums of exchange. The mechanism of value creation is different. One facilitates trade and solves the coincidence of wants. The other generates a yield.

[Retric]

Bitcoin has also clearly failed as a medium of exchange, but I rarely see people try and defend that.

It’s talk of Bitcoin as an investment that is more troubling. You can make money buying gold or whatever at the right time, but it’s a hedge not an investment. Holding gold has real costs and their is no dividend just the next buyer.

[hndamien]

I’d agree with that. It’s an investment in the sense of currency speculation (which is a bit of a big bet now at this size it’s a fairly legitimate currency). It is really just a hedge and a cash position, and maybe part protest, not so much an investment. Store of value.... maybe.

I don’t think it has failed as a medium of exchange though. I used it yesterday as one. That said, it hasn’t filled as niches there, specifically the major ones.