[swyx]

look i'm as skeptical as the next HN'er but the evidence of past history is against you and "ever" is a very long time...

BTC doesn't have to win mass adoption for it to set new highs, it just has to be the "store of value" (i know, i know) for enough people and for the next QE cycle to start in 3 years to get going again

[shadowgovt]

BTC hasn't been around long enough for it to have a past history to be evidence against the belief it will downtrend. Not relative to other currencies or commodities.

That's like putting a match to gunpowder and claiming based on the trend of the first few microseconds, the flame will engulf the world.

[scotty79]

Bitcoin doesn't raise exponentially. It slows down over time. Each swing cycle is shallower than previous one.

It's more like putting a match to a gunpowder and theorizing that at some point some equilibrium will be reached at greater volume than currently observed.

[eli]

Instead of price history look at utility history: It’s never been anything other than a speculative asset or a temporary medium of exchange for criminals. There’s no future here.

Future returns on BTC cannot be compared to the S&P!

[wmf]

Gold is also speculative and it's much larger than BTC. I hate crypto but $100K BTC is completely possible.

[eli]

Anything’s possible but gold is useful and has intrinsic value. Bitcoin isn’t very similar. I don’t think one implies anything about the other.

[mancerayder]

Gold used for jewelry or industrials is a fraction of the overall yearly production of gold though. So it's mostly used as speculative instrument to store value (assuming this sentence is allowed with those two clauses together).

[andirk]

Gold is by far mostly used as a store of value. Bitcoin is by far mostly used as a store of value. Next.

[broast]

Is there currently new and previously not knowable information regarding its utility compared to when the price was going up?

[eli]

No, it’s never been particularly useful.

Do you believe a popular pyramid scheme has demonstrated utility? If a pyramid scheme made people a lot of money in the past does that suggest it has long term value?

[andirk]

Replace "pyramid scheme" with "stock" and the argument still stands and is actually relevant to bitcoin. Can you please explain how bitcoin is a pyramid scheme? You can say Ponzi scheme or scam or just hate it because you haven't gained anything from it personally and wish you did when you first heard about it at $5, but pyramid scheme it is not. Thanks.

[broast]

People similarly argue that stocks are a pyramid scheme but that doesn't stop them from existing.

[andirk]

You got a nice lil dvote from our HN friends because you spoke negatively about stonks (they like stonks a lot!) and neutral about bitcoin (they HATE bitcoin! Mostly out of jealousy). I don't think either is a pyramid scheme but both often trade at inflated valuations.

[scotty79]

So you don't believe that scarcity can capture and hold any value? Only utility can do that?

[this_user]

This because something is scarce, doesn't make it valuable. Claims to the contrary are just another example of crypto bros not understanding economics or human behaviour. Otherwise, a whole bunch of people with boxes of Beaning Babies would be rich by now.

[andirk]

Please do mansplain to everyone about "understanding economics or human behavior", two topics that are barely understood and have wildly unpredictable outcomes on any given day. Back to grown up talk: scarcity doesn't create value by itself, no. A giant multi-billion $ bulletproof-ish network of millions of active users trading a scarce commodity does create value.

[scotty79]

Were beanie babies truely scarce? The way Rambrant paintings are?

[lanstin]

Isn’t scarcity relative to demand? I mean each cubic meter of soil is globally unique, but no one cares. And, in the long term, demand plausibly has a relation to utility?

I do speculate that part of the appeal of a non-loan/investment based store of value to very rich people is that hey wish they could keep all their wealth in a vehicle that didn’t involve investing in the overall good of society, but that is a childish wish - wealth is inextricably linked with the prosperity of the society in which it is enmeshed. A billionaire in a society ravaged by disease, hunger, and conflict, shorn of the comforts of science and technology, will be poorer by far, in terms of objective measures, than a billionaire in a society where the people are educated and science and medicine are widely available, especially over he generations.

[scotty79]

It's related to the demand. That's why unique things might not be scarce especially when there's a lot similar things.

That's why NFTs are not scarce even though they are unique.

Personally I would also wish that billionaires kept their wealth in things unrelated to the real world. Because when they put it in the real world they hike up the price for everybody by creating illusion of demand that really isn't there because they won't use what they bought.

[anonymouskimmer]

There are a limited number of pure collectors, or even FOMO collectors. And much of this collection value comes about through increasing limitation of an item(1), along with a population increase (making more collectors)(2), and increasing wealth of current collectors used to bid up the price on collectibles (wealth increase through means other than their collection, obviously).(3)

(1) - If you buy bitcoin now you might be part of increasing the price of a bitcoin by increasing its rarity through the means of losing your private keys. But this doesn't benefit you.

(2) - We're reaching the point where our carrying capacity is starting to hit limits. Maybe in a few hundred years we'll have space colonies to keep increasing the population, but: 1) This won't benefit you, as you probably won't be around then; 2) There will be other collectibles that the then population may be more interested in. It is the case that certain collectibles are incredibly rare (single digit numbers), but also cost less then $10k, simply because there are not that many interested collectors.

(3) - If you sink most of your investments into crypto this limits the ability of your wealth to grow outside of your collection.

[ma3gl1n]

There is a finite amount of BTC, but infinite amount of cryptocoins

[scotty79]

True, however none of them became actual competition for bitcoin. Not even ETH which is strong number 2.

[the_gastropod]

I've got some fresh toenail clippings you may be interested in! I only clip my toenails about twice a month, and probably will cease production entirely within 45 years.

[mancerayder]

Are they exchangeable for tether? Then it might balance out.

[marvin]

Your tulip futures from 1637 would still be out of the money, even though global tulip consumption is much, much higher and the Netherlands is the world's leading supplier.

[andirk]

Finally! It took this many comments for someone to show, via the age-old tulip example, they know nothing about crypto except that there is hype around it. And thank you for adding the date to show you read the top of a Wikipedia article.

[marvin]

I think you misread me. I think crypto will be very, very big in terms of utilization and value, much bigger than it is today. But I also believe this does not imply that there will be much expected gain from purely speculating in the price of current cryptocurrencies.

That's where the tulip analogy comes in. Not an implication that crypto is useless, just like tulips, but that a speculative mania can leave a novel and in-demand product (asset class, in this instance) with prices that are much higher than they will be at the steady-state in the future where both adoption and production is much higher.

I will probably buy Coinbase stock if Tether finally blows up, but before that the speculation is too much for me to commit to anything.

[NicoJuicy]

Evidence of history?

It took COVID to get Bitcoin back up. That's it

Not history, just a rare event.

No one cares about Bitcoin anymore.

[BlueTemplar]

You seem to have forgotten the other... IIRC 3 (?) times it has gotten back up ?

(But feel free to short bitcoin of course - not the kind of risk I would take.)

[NicoJuicy]

Other 3 times?

Error. 1 long streak before COVID and a large decline then too.

And 2 times jumping around during COVID-19 = over a very short period.

[BlueTemplar]

The previous times the bubble popped : around $30, $300, and $3000 per BTC.

The ~$300 one immortalized in this parody music video :

"Blame it on MT.GOX" :

https://youtu.be/K2ku1A5Ox8U

(Note that this one was NOT about MT.GOX going bankrupt...)

[NicoJuicy]

And one of the biggest jumps in Crypto ( the one outside of Covid) was when banks jumped on it ( end of 2017 i think).

Now you are seeing the opposite: Eg. https://www.barrons.com/articles/banks-fleeing-crypto-bitcoi...

I'm not replying here again fyi. I don't care about crypto anymore ( went out at 2018 before the crash), I do care about others losing money :).

If you think it will rise again, fine. Go for it.

[mancerayder]

Almost every speculative asset was up then, capital was desperate to go anywhere as borrowing was cheap and savings rates were high.

[NicoJuicy]

Explain why Bitcoin went down before COVID then.

As you say, borrowing was cheap. There was no reason for it to decline after 2018 till 2020...

Reminder: other speculative assets didn't decline then :)

As I said before, Covid, with boredom and free money. No one used Bitcoin as investment and not many would borrow money for buying crypto.

Still: no one cares about Bitcoin anymore except some select people that live in the past.