[loceng]

The only, and it is a major problem with unavoidable pitfalls that shouldn't - can't be in our systems - is that Bitcoin is an MLM scheme and thus it is aligning people through financial gain, creating a religion of "HODLers" who are already a mob of varying levels of self-control and critical thinking. And as Dalio says, those who speak a counter-narrative to Bitcoin are rightfully "a few scared souls cowering in a corner;" so he's in fact acknowledging this mob without actually directly stating it. He's being very careful with his words to avoid being a target.

[learnstats2]

I would agree, and this matches it to gold, also from Ray Dalio's perspective.

Ray Dalio invested heavily into gold, and has since repeatedly press released that he had done so. It's the same characteristics as an MLM scheme.

[loceng]

Apples to oranges comparison: gold actually has a use, and its value is kept in check by that - it's tied to the physical world, to reality, and gold also wasn't/isn't an attempt to replace a transactional layer. I'm sure there are more differences that make it incomparable - certainly that pro-Bitcoiners will simply dismiss the differences saying they're unimportant, irrelevant.

Edit to add: qualitative comments rebutting my argument points would be greatly appreciated.

[gruez]

>Apples to oranges comparison: gold actually has a use, and its value is kept in check by that

Is it? According to one source[1], the overwhelming majority of the gold use is for speculation (investment/central banks) or quasi-speculation (jewelry).

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in...

[loceng]

If gold was dirt and had no fallback value, would it . Interestingly the marketing that gold is so valuable, more so diamonds, to artificially inflate its price mimics Bitcoin well. Bitcoin's also called a Ponzi-like scheme because in the end, if everyone in society adopts Bitcoin, it actually has no additional value to the last one stuck holding the bag - you've just transferred all wealth through a system that unnecessarily, unreasonably, transfers wealth weighted towards earlier adopters from later adopters.

[specialist]

What is money? Commodity, a measure of value, or a record of a debt. Sometimes all three.

In this article, Dalia has the commodity view towards money, gold, and by extension bitcoin. In this paradigm, cryptocurrencies are collectibles.

One great use case is as an escrow.

I'm dubious of the store of value use case. Bitcoin is just a currency. Whereas gold bullion is minted into coins, electricity is minted into bitcoins. The cost of production is only loosely correlated to the market (strike) price.

What gives money its value? A MMT-like theory is that fiat currencies have their well defined value because government accepts them to pay taxes.

I'm a bit more cynical. I think money, fiat currencies like the USA dollar, has it's value established at the point of a gun. That dollar represents the military might of the USA and that government's insistence that you agree.

What backs the value of bitcoin? Anything tangible? Nope. Just everyone's shared belief. Per Random Walk Down Wall Street, it's just castles in the sky. And like all bubbles, that belief system pops in a panic.

For rich people like Dalio, collectibles like gold, art, and real estate are probably a good idea. After the crash, someone somewhere will probably accept those collectibles, those assets, for payment or collateral.

In any scenario where gold or art will be used as collateral, who's gonna accept bitcoin?

[dpoochieni]

Yeah just like owners of real estate are "hodlers" right? Keep pooring it on