[mjburgess]

Yes, it's a big bubble that's going to implode quite hard.

There's an implicit phase change in this system: solid to gas. It'll sublime like dry ice in a moment, when bitcoin block is priced at its transaction processing fees.

When this all disappears, nothing of value will remain.

> By 1635, a sale of 40 bulbs for 100,000 florins (also known as Dutch guilders) was recorded. By way of comparison... , a skilled laborer might earn 150–350 florins a year.

What do 40 bitcoins go for now? About 1 mil USD. What's that compared to an average salary? Only 20x. Much less than the 300x of some tulips

[toolz]

The existence of past bubbles is in no way an indicator that something rising quickly with a lot of volatility is a bubble. We're talking about an asset that has national buy-in. When's the last time a national currency went to zero? When's the last time the european bank utilized a financial tool that went to zero?

[mjburgess]

I guess it depends whether you think people actually starting to use this stuff, as intended, will be a good thing.

I think the more people actually "take the bullshit seriously", it'll be like trying to take the emperor's new clothes and sell them at your local discount store.

Ie., there is no actual use case for any of this. Its only useful insofar as it exists as a ponzi asset (ie., it only has value because other people want it because other people want it... because other people want it...).

It doesnt actually solve any problems.. so the more a recession deflates bubbles, the more that businesses/projects/etc. will need to show actual economic value to survive.

Bitcoin has a "marginal productive value" in something, i'd say, c. 100 USD region. As in, the slow, largely useless, bitcoin transaction network provides the service of "publically, reliably, slowly" processing a block of transactions between parties.

How much value does that have? AS A SERVICE, really... almost none.

You could create a better competitor service tomorrow, and charge much less to use it (hence: all the other coins).

Crypto isnt like gold: there isnt a limited supply. You can just create more coins: doge, eth, etc. THere's an infinite supply of self-liming coin systems. It's trivial to create a competitor service.

So think about bitcoin as an actual product: trivial to out-compete, provides basically no useful service, horrifically slow. As a business model, its DOA.

[toolz]

> Crypto isnt like gold: there isnt a limited supply.

There is a much stronger guarantee that there is limited bitcoin when compared to gold. We have no idea what tech advancements will allow mining gold from comets or neighboring planets. A bit more far fetched, but maybe not impossible in the future would be changing other elements into gold.

Bitcoin has a codified contract that is being upheld socially with vast amounts of resources proving that society agrees on the limited supply. Sure, you can fork the codebase and create another chain. That has happened many times, which just proves a new chain does not do anything to the agreed upon, codified, limited supply of bitcoin.

As for your other points, they're presented constantly as serious arguments and debated ad-nauseam. Either you've just not witnessed it, or you're just trying to present things as uncontested facts which appears disingenuous and does not strike me as an honest argument.

[mjburgess]

I sincerely have had no reply to any of these points.

Either bitcoin is a deflationary currency, in which case it repeats the servre financial crises of the 19th C. and early 20th C. in which an economy is imprisoned into a rate of inflation set by blind non-economic forces. In which, as an economy, is horrifying: consumer protection is impossible by design, the owners are the controllers (feudalism), it's entirely public (so you're entire economic life is available to be profiled by used by others), etc.

Or its an asset. If it's an asset its a ponzi scheme.

It's clearly mostly being held as an asset, and traded as an asset by criminals and dictators because it has some ponzi-value. This ponzi-value will disappear as soon as anyone actually tries to use this as a serious currency, as with someone planting a tulip bulb for the flowers... no one wants tulip flowers (lol).

No one wants an incredibly deflationary economic system, controlled by the holders of coins, forked on behalf of the landed gentry, with one's private economic history plastered across the whole internet, with incredibly slow transactions, with immutable histories, and so on.

As soon as anyone actually "plants the tulip bulb" crypto is, quite seriously, f*ked. No one wants tulips. If I were holding crypto the last thing I'd do is actually try to get any one to take is seriously as a currency.

The number of delusional far-right libertarians who dream of being feudal lords is the c.5% of young angry men it's always been. And likewise, if they ever achieved anything, the state would put a stop to that immediately. No one wants your tulips. But i'd just love to see you plant them!

Go, run something on bitcoin, you'd wipe crypto off the map over night.

[shkkmo]

> When's the last time a national currency went to zero?

That's an odd argument for a crypto-bro. A bunch of national currencies have failed due to poor financial policies.

[toolz]

> crypto-bro

let's all do our best not to turn hacker news into yet another platform for ad-hominem flamewars

[shkkmo]

I wasn't aware that "crypto-bro" was considered an attack of any sort. If you took it as insulting I'll avoid its use in the future (Edit: and I apologize for the inadvertent insult).

Edit: I though "crypto-bro" is just a short hand for "ardent cryptocurrency supporter". Does it have some other negative meaning/connotation that I am not aware of?

[toolz]

no worries, but yeah it's widely considered an insult the top ranked definition on urban dictionary

> A nerd with too much spare time and video cards. Thinks he is smarter than you because he buys and resells burnt forests. Will ignore any meaningful arguments against what he does by repeating something about "serious business" 1000 times.

for that matter, the '-bro' suffix is almost exclusively used as an insult

[koonsolo]

I've been hearing this for years. Hasn't happened.

Are you willing to say by which date it will happen?

[mjburgess]

I'd give it more than the tulip mania (c. 3yr), and less than the bernie madeoff ponzi scheme (c. 17yr).

[koonsolo]

It was started in 2009, so 2026. Basically now or right after the next top. Let's see.