[lmm]

> I think that misses the parent's point. Corporations own physical assets (like buildings) and things with accepted intrinsic value (fiat currency). but they also indirectly own rights to other things that are indirectly backed by physical stuff in a similar manner (like shares of other corporations, etc.).

Not necessarily. Sometimes a corporation's value is based on something purely speculative, like a drug patent that may or may not work out, or even something that's widely thought to be worthless, like hot tips on the search for Bigfoot. That's completely normal.

[dataflow]

Do you have any examples of this? A corporation that owns literally nothing, whose entire value is based on something speculative (like a drug patent), and who has a traded security?

[lmm]

Getting to exactly $0.00 in the company bank account probably requires an improbable level of fine-tuning (if only because you need enough to file your annual registration statement or whatever), but ISTR Retrophin was down to something like $3.15 + some valuable drug patents at one point in its penny-stock days.

[dataflow]

Again, the bank account balance is not the point of what I'm saying. See the sibling comment I replied to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35270550

[lmm]

Where do you think invested cash goes if not the company bank account? When you invest in a company, they get some cash and you get a claim on the company. If they then spend all that cash on buying drug patents, marketing, filing registration statements etc., then your shares are no longer backed by cash. The cash has been spent!

[dataflow]

Er, I've been saying it does go into the company bank account (which you own a share of), unlike with Bitcoin. Please re-read my comments. You're turning what I said 180 degrees on its head.

[lmm]

> Er, I've been saying it does go into the company bank account (which you own a share of), unlike with Bitcoin.

Sure. But it can then be spent by the company, and that doesn't (necessarily) destroy the company's value. Valuation isn't about physical assets.

> Please re-read my comments.

I did, they said exactly what I thought they did. Maybe you should re-read mine, or write yours more clearly, or think through what you're saying a bit more.

[Aloha]

IP is a tangible asset, one that can even be given a value before proven.

[dataflow]

That has nothing to do with what I'm saying. If you invest in a company that "only" has IP, your invested cash itself is still part of the company's assets, so it's not like you're buying shares of vacuum. If the company liquidates itself - you get back your proportion of the company's assets. The situation is not the same with Bitcoin.

[Aloha]

That was my point more or less, is that Bitcoin is a publicly traded fiat currency.

[dataflow]

Yeah, it certainly has similarities to an unbacked currency. I wouldn't personally call it "fiat" currency (unless you think El Salvador making it legal tender makes the difference here), just some sort of unbacked digital currency. The IRS's characterization of it as a virtual currency seems like an accurate description to me (as I'm guessing it is to you) - and the SEC refusing to consider it a security also makes sense to me (for all the above reasons I've been trying to explain to the others here).

[Aloha]

"By arbitrary decree" was the meaning I meant. Someone declared it to be a currency, it need not be a government doing the declaring. But yeah, we're basically in agreement, that's the underlying problem with crypto, it's a fiat currency (no intrinsic value) traded like it's a security (which usually has some even if very abstract, intrinsic value).

[peyton]

SPACs are just pieces of paper sitting in Delaware somewhere.

[dataflow]

Don't they raise money? Meaning that money is part of (or all of) their assets?

[codehalo]

You are really struggling with this eh?