[solosoyokaze]

This could have an interesting point but it's lost in its anti-Bitcoin rhetoric.

Bitcoin is like the lottery? It's up thousands of percent over the years. Many, many people have made real money and/or are sitting on massive gains. Regardless of if you think Bitcoin has actual utility (I think it does in spades), labeling it a "failure" means your argument is instantly ignored by every person who's up on their investment (aka every person who's held Bitcoin over the past 10 years).

[cataphract]

What the author says is:

> [Bitcoin is] a naked speculative bubble based on a technology that doesn’t scale can’t and [won't] replace any existing financial service

So that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, and provides no financial service of value. I don't think it's fully true, because Bitcoin facilitates underground transactions and is a practical asset in countries with high inflation and currency restrictions, but the fact that "some people made a lot of money" is no counterargument.

[solosoyokaze]

Well one way to look at it is Bitcoin is up against USD because USD is suffering massive inflation. Thus, BTC is doing its job.

[UncleMeat]

That's obviously false, given that the price of steak is not up ten million fold or whatever over the last decade.

[solosoyokaze]

Housing, health care and education are all massively inflated. The price of steak isn't a major expense in comparison.

[chillacy]

Inflation as measured by the fed tracks a basket of stuff more like steak than housing. I’ve seen people instead measure how USD tracks against BTC though, which then does become tautologically correct that USD suffers massive “inflation”

[UncleMeat]

Even if inflation literally only tracked those things, it is still many orders of magnitude off BTC's growth.

[solosoyokaze]

People can follow the trend and see where it's going.

[lmm]

Plenty of people made money on the South Sea company until they didn't.

[solosoyokaze]

This has no relevance. People keep trying to compare Bitcoin to anything they think will help them make their point, but it’s nonsensical.

[lmm]

It's very relevant. To claim Bitcoin is a success because people have made money from it is nonsense.

[solosoyokaze]

No, to compare Bitcoin to something that has absolutely nothing to do with Bitcoin is ridiculous. That’s like me saying Apple is going to go out of business because Sears went out of business. A complete non sequitur.

[lmm]

If I said something like "Apple won't go out of business because it's a big company", comparing to Sears would be completely fair.

[solosoyokaze]

The OP said Bitcoin is like the lottery. It’s on him to explain that. The lottery has not returned value to almost every person who bought a ticket in the past decade, Bitcoin has. It’s a false and inept analogy.