[intev]

Since you seem to be arguing in good faith I'll engage; at which point will you accept that the value of BTC is > $0? It's coming up on a decade of showing seemingly limitless upside with the bottom constantly rising. The tulip mania everyone loves to cite lasted about 3 years. This is going on for more than 3x. At what point would you consider you are maybe wrong?

Personally speaking, I was on the other side of this until about 3 years ago. I first learned about crypto in 2011. At one point I realized I was not looking at the facts unfolding right in front of me. I was just telling myself "look everyone are idiots, and everyone is going to crash and burn because of this. This makes no sense." Then I realized smarter and smarter people were getting in and more and more people were getting convinced and either I benefit from this or I become the person on the sidelines left behind.

[skohan]

There are indeed people willing to trade USD for BTC, so there is a market price for BTC. However, there are three major risks in my opinion which I think could make BTC worthless in the next 10 years:

1) There seems to be very credible evidence that Tether and other stablecoins are essentially fraud, and Tether makes up a massive portion of the BTC market cap

2) Ransomware is becoming increasingly prevalent, and has managed to compromise large institutions - it's not difficult to imagine regulatory action banning cryptocurrency as a result of this

3) Similarly, BTC is viewed by many as an unnecessary driver of fossil fuel consumption. Carbon regulation will necessarily get stronger in the next decades, and BTC may face harsh regulatory challenges because of this

[intev]

1) Seems like a random point to me. I agree with some stablecoins there are fishy things going on, and others not so much. But again I'm failing to see the relevance of this point. Also I'd like to point out, the SEC loves to go after crypto. It's quite clear where they stand. Somehow they are ignoring this "very credible evidence". At what point does this becomes a conspiracy theory? Or is the SEC in cahoots with them? Or do they not care? (can't be this because they demonstrated with XRP they really do care).

2) Yea I see this as a risk. Might reduce the value but tbd on how much. On the flip side you have entire countries trying to adopt it as currency.

3) This current change is much needed IMO for btc to evolve and I'm glad its happening sooner rather than later. BTC mining getting kicked out of China is great. If BTC can't survive without fossil fuel consumption it doesn't deserve to exist. This is forced evolution and I'm pretty optimistic about it.

My initial question still stands. At what point will you think you are wrong with regards to the value? Will you constantly move goal posts, as I did for years, or have a line in the sand after which you will adopt it.

[skohan]

1) As far as I know there are legal proceedings ongoing agains Tether - I don't think this is a conspiracy theory.

> My initial question still stands. At what point will you think you are wrong with regards to the value? Will you constantly move goal posts, as I did for years, or have a line in the sand after which you will adopt it.

I know this is a common argumentative tactic to attempt to get people to change their mind. I don't know what would change my mind, but we're certainly not there yet as long as the risks which I cited still exist.

[dkshdkjshdk]

> As far as I know there are legal proceedings ongoing agains Tether - I don't think this is a conspiracy theory.

Even so, how do you go from "there are legal proceedings against Tether" to "there seems to be very credible evidence that Tether and other stablecoins are essentially fraud"?

Being hyperbolic does not help your argument here... it just makes it seem like you don't know what you are talking about (i.e. you don't know the difference between USDT, USDC and DAI, for example).

> I know this is a common argumentative tactic to attempt to get people to change their mind.

You seem to be under the impression that people are trying to change your mind, rather than simply pointing out the flaws, leaps-of-faith and speculation in your argumentation.

Trust me... you also did not convince anyone that the value of BTC is literally zero (except the ones that were already convinced).

[skohan]

I am quite confident my arguments are sound. However you are posting from a brand new account, continuously splitting hairs rather than confronting the argument head-on, and generally engaging in bad-faith argumentation tactics.

This might be effective on other forums, but I'm quite confident the HN audience will not be impressed.

[dkshdkjshdk]

> I am quite confident my arguments are sound.

Ah, yes. Like the argument that "Tether is being investigated for fraud" thus "every stablecoin is essentially fraud". Seems like a water-tight argument you have there.

> However you are posting from a brand new account,

So, instead of addressing my actual arguments, you're concerned about going through my account history? Great. Note that my account is not "brand new", though: I created the account days ago, to participate in discussions that have nothing to do with "blockchain". You can check it out in my history, if you haven't already.

> continuously splitting hairs rather than confronting the argument head-on

Point one one single argument that you have made to me, that I did not respond to head-on. Just one. I'll wait.

In the meantime, while you look for it, and as a proof that you are indeed argumenting in good faith, feel free to respond head-on to the question I already made 5 times: What if I choose to get my returns in some asset that is pegged to USD (e.g. DAI, USDC), am I still speculating on the value of BTC?

Until you do, I'll keep assuming you are discussing in bad faith and refuse to reply to anything else you write.

> and generally engaging in bad-faith argumentation tactics.

There is exactly one such comment from my side (or one that could be seen as bad-faith, if you consider "pedantry" to be a sign of bad-faith), and it was not directed at you, so I'm not seeing where your complaint comes from. I re-iterate: point out a single example of me engaing in bad-faith argumentation with you. A single actual example. And then, maybe, we can continue the conversation. Until then, and as I already said, hope you have a nice day.

[intev]

> I know this is a common argumentative tactic to attempt to get people to change their mind. I don't know what would change my mind, but we're certainly not there yet as long as the risks which I cited still exist.

This is a common tactic to best understand if I am wasting my time. Seems like I am. Hope you have a good rest of the day.

[skohan]

That's a convenient way not to engage with the actual arguments - seems like you have been wasting everyone's time. A good day to you as well!

[intev]

> That's a convenient way not to engage with the actual arguments

What actual "argument" did you put forth? You brought up tether and stablecoins, which is a pretty speculative argument. Nothing concrete is happening. The other two points you mentioned I directly addressed.

> seems like you have been wasting everyone's time. A good day to you as well!

lol. How am I wasting anyone's time? You in a long winded way basically said nothing can convince you. So who's wasting whose time? I literally said BTC doesn't deserve to exist if needs to rely on fossil fuels. That's where my line is. What's yours? Nothing. So yes, I am wasting my time while you are arguing religiously with no way to convince you so you are basically wasting everyone else's time.

Also let's not forget other legendary investors like Stanley Druckenmiller don't think the risks you mentioned are substantial enough to not invest. But I'm sure you understand the risks much better than them.

[dkshdkjshdk]

> in my opinion

> I think could

Who is speculating about the value of things here? Wasn't speculation supposed to be bad?

None of the things you mentioned support the hypothesis that the value of BTC is literally zero (not 0.00000000000001 USD, but literally zero).

> 1) There seems to be very credible evidence that Tether and other stablecoins are essentially fraud, and Tether makes up a massive portion of the BTC market cap

I have a hard time even parsing this ("Tether makes up a massive portion of the BTC market cap"), and it sounds more like an appeal to emotion than an actual argument. Please explain in which ways are DAI and USDC "essentially fraud". Perhaps you should contact US authorities, and complain about the fraudulent Coinbase, if you really believe that to be the case (and if you're not just engaging in unfounded speculation).