Gyroscopic Investing

I know virtually nothing about bitcoin, so take some of these with a grain of salt. My feelings:

--Gold is in my safe. Sure it can be stolen, but someone has to come to me to steal it, not possible with a computer halfway across the globe
--Gold is physical and real. Bitcoin is 1's and 0's Didn't one of the first places (Mt. Gok or something) go bankrupt or disappear? What happens if there is a meltdown or crash of certain/enough servers that hold your data? I am talking out of my ass here not knowing.
--Bitcoin by design seems to waste electricity, not a good direction. All environmentalists should be against it.
--Gold may be volatile, but Bitcoin is insane. But sure, I would have loved to get in early.
--Bitcoin won't survive an apocalypse or power grid failure. Good luck using it for paying for things if electricity is gone for a few weeks/months/years

Cortopassi wrote:meltdown

Yeah, in broad strokes, Bitcoin should not be anyone's insurance or calamity investment.
I also feel strange about the enormous amounts of electricity being used on this. What if someone's plan all along was to get these silly earthlings to expedite its math homework.
I do like that bitcoin has wildly different properties from gold, and yet I don't feel comfortable putting money into it, even in the name of diversification. Buying NVDA is the closest I've come.

eufo wrote:Very interesting, Kriegsspiel!

I knew it consumed a decent amount of electricity, but had no idea it was that much. I still don't understand how it's worth anything to anyone.

Maybe this will help:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... tment.html

Something I was mulling over. Say you're a internet business who accepts btc. A while ago, something that cost a btc would also cost like, $10. Now...

On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz paid a fellow early adopter 10,000 bitcoin to order him two Papa John's pizzas. In those days that was more or less a fair-value exchange. Today 10,000 bitcoin is worth $12.8 million or so, and one bitcoin will buy a few more than two pizzas.

How do businesses respond to massive appreciation in a currency? Did all the businesses reduce their prices, in btc, to match what the prices were in dollars (0.00137 btc/$10 as of now)? What if the btc/$ rate drops, and they're left holding btc? All their expenses are in dollars. The only real advantage is that the business could avoid the transaction fee credit companies impose, and the possibility to evade taxes. Accepting btc seems incredibly risky for businesses, unless I'm missing something.

Kriegsspiel wrote:Something I was mulling over. Say you're a internet business who accepts btc. A while ago, something that cost a btc would also cost like, $10. Now...

On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz paid a fellow early adopter 10,000 bitcoin to order him two Papa John's pizzas. In those days that was more or less a fair-value exchange. Today 10,000 bitcoin is worth $12.8 million or so, and one bitcoin will buy a few more than two pizzas.

How do businesses respond to massive appreciation in a currency? Did all the businesses reduce their prices, in btc, to match what the prices were in dollars (0.00137 btc/$10 as of now)? What if the btc/$ rate drops, and they're left holding btc? All their expenses are in dollars. The only real advantage is that the business could avoid the transaction fee credit companies impose, and the possibility to evade taxes. Accepting btc seems incredibly risky for businesses, unless I'm missing something.

I assume that they immediately convert received bitcoins to dollars. As you say, their expenses are in dollars. Unless they are choosing to speculate in bitcoins by holding them, in which case that's really a separate "business" from the real one.

Xan wrote:

Kriegsspiel wrote:Something I was mulling over. Say you're a internet business who accepts btc. A while ago, something that cost a btc would also cost like, $10. Now...

On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz paid a fellow early adopter 10,000 bitcoin to order him two Papa John's pizzas. In those days that was more or less a fair-value exchange. Today 10,000 bitcoin is worth $12.8 million or so, and one bitcoin will buy a few more than two pizzas.

How do businesses respond to massive appreciation in a currency? Did all the businesses reduce their prices, in btc, to match what the prices were in dollars (0.00137 btc/$10 as of now)? What if the btc/$ rate drops, and they're left holding btc? All their expenses are in dollars. The only real advantage is that the business could avoid the transaction fee credit companies impose, and the possibility to evade taxes. Accepting btc seems incredibly risky for businesses, unless I'm missing something.

I assume that they immediately convert received bitcoins to dollars. As you say, their expenses are in dollars. Unless they are choosing to speculate in bitcoins by holding them, in which case that's really a separate "business" from the real one.

That's what I just arrived at too. So the advantage to the business, in accepting btc, is that the purchase wouldn't have been made if they had to use dollars, or that the customer doesn't HAVE dollars, but DOES HAVE btc?

Kriegsspiel wrote:That's what I just arrived at too. So the advantage to the business, in accepting btc, is that the purchase wouldn't have been made if they had to use dollars, or that the customer doesn't HAVE dollars, but DOES HAVE btc?

I can think of two reasons. Whether they're sufficient depending on the business, I suppose.

1) The easier you make it for people to buy your product, the more of them will. Accepting the most different currencies you can is a way to lower the friction for prospective buyers and turn them into real buyers.

2) Marketing - people who do have bitcoin will think it's pretty cool to be able to use it to buy something.

Libertarian666 wrote:

eufo wrote:Very interesting, Kriegsspiel!

I knew it consumed a decent amount of electricity, but had no idea it was that much. I still don't understand how it's worth anything to anyone.

Maybe this will help:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... tment.html

Ah, that's a fun read! Thanks!

My mother was caught up in the Beanie Baby frenzy. She had tons of them. Humans are very interesting creatures.

Gold mining's also bad for the environment

Do we need more gold? Or could the world economy function with the current amount? (if we went back to a gold standard of some sort)

boglerdude wrote:Gold mining's also bad for the environment

Do we need more gold? Or could the world economy function with the current amount? (if we went back to a gold standard of some sort)

No, we don't need more gold for use as money. The amount currently available could provide all the monetary services that any amount could provide.

However, if we went back on the gold standard, its purchasing power would probably be 10x or more what it is today.

So that would cause trouble for industries that use a lot of gold, notably electronics.

Thus, there would probably have to be some provision for those industries to obtain enough gold to function. Maybe they would need to own proprietary mines?

1. Short of some kind of an existential threat, I cannot imagine how central bankers would ever agreeing to a return to the gold standard. It would be like the Pentagon voluntarily abandoning nuclear weapons. Not going to happen.

2. I love the Beany Baby analogy for bitcoin. So far, the rise of bitcoin tracks Everett Rogers' theory of the diffusion of technology-- or at least the first parts of the curve. Perhaps the panic and disgust phases will be all the more exaggerated when people discover that bitcoin has less intrinsic value than, say, Thomas Edison's light bulb. Fortunately, the market cap of bitcoin is relatively small ($100 billion) at present compared to the size of the global gold market (about $50 trillion).

jhogue wrote:1. Short of some kind of an existential threat, I cannot imagine how central bankers would ever agreeing to a return to the gold standard. It would be like the Pentagon voluntarily abandoning nuclear weapons. Not going to happen.

Who said anything about their agreeing? It won't be up to them.

jhogue wrote: 2. I love the Beany Baby analogy for bitcoin. So far, the rise of bitcoin tracks Everett Rogers' theory of the diffusion of technology-- or at least the first parts of the curve. Perhaps the panic and disgust phases will be all the more exaggerated when people discover that bitcoin has less intrinsic value than, say, Thomas Edison's light bulb. Fortunately, the market cap of bitcoin is relatively small ($100 billion) at present compared to the size of the global gold market (about $50 trillion).

Yes, that is a good thing, although I wonder how you came up with your estimate of the global gold market. $50 trillion is about 10x what I would have guessed.

1. I expect the central bankers to disagree with any return to the gold standard-- and to fight back with all the resources they can muster.

2. My source for the size of the global gold market was:

[URL removed]

(If I am mistaken, please correct me)

Weird, my iPad won’t open your link, jhogue.

dualstow wrote:Weird, my iPad won’t open your link, jhogue.

Requires Flash.. *boo* I didn't even bother to open it because I refuse to install that crappy piece of software.

jhogue wrote:1. I expect the central bankers to disagree with any return to the gold standard-- and to fight back with all the resources they can muster.

Absolutely. But their problem will be when no one wants their "money". Then what resources will they have?

jhogue wrote: 2. My source for the size of the global gold market was:

[URL removed]

(If I am mistaken, please correct me)

That link launched something about alibaba shopping.

Actually, I think that site might be hacked and is forwarding somewhere else... kitsoftvvare.com. I don't think anyone should go there... and the link should probably be removed.

Sorry, folks.

I removed the URL from my message. Not sure how to remove it from the others.

I read an article about a couple guys in Siberia who have two bitcoin computers in a little house fueling a radiant heating system in the winter; the computers reduce their heat bill, and they've been selling about $430 of btc a month. A quick search shows bitcoin computer are pretty cheap, so if the heating components are cheap (do you even need them?) and electricity is cheap, that seems like a nifty idea.

yeah, there's a company that provides heat for your house if you host their servers... which provide the heat. i forget which country.

dualstow wrote:yeah, there's a company that provides heat for your house if you host their servers... which provide the heat. i forget which country.

The Netherlands... it's a really cool idea.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/2/15728 ... -nerdalize

I believe Bitcoin is taking more buyers from the stock market and is increasing because of prosperity instead of being a safe haven.

I have seen reports on the internet of people taking out mortgages or selling their houses to buy more Bitcoin.

and it is back above $7000 again now. I think I saw it down in the $5000 range over the weekend.

That would have been a nice profit but I still just can't do it. I want all of the dollar gains but none of the underlying Bitcoin.

whatchamacallit wrote:I have seen reports on the internet of people taking out mortgages or selling their houses to buy more Bitcoin.

Crazy, isn't it? Taking out a mortgage to bet on anything.

Bay-id, as Mr Mackey on South Park would say. Very bay-id, m'kay.

It's wrong to bet your house on a crypto-currency, m'kay? That's bad.