The Bitcoin Standard

[philostam]

It's starting. It's probably the right move at this point (unless we want the most vulnerable of our society to starve).

But no one can tell me that handing out money at the record debt levels + record inflation will not lead to currency collapse.

That's why Bitcoin is not dead.

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

So again, the question is: does Bitcoin have utility?

Some really good arguments here If you haven't seen this.

Not only is it a storage of value, it's a way to redistribute localized cheap electrical energy into the global market without the need for logistics.

 

[philostam]

Some really good arguments here If you haven't seen this.

Not only is it a storage of value, it's a way to redistribute localized cheap electrical energy into the global market without the need for logistics.

Of course, I watched this within 1 hour it was published lol. Peterson and Saifedean are one of my favorite writers/thinker alive.

Saifadean was even better on Lex Friedman recently. It's 4 hours long but it really gave him space to lay it all out.

 

[philostam]

Hadn’t Bitcoin gone tits up?
Oh yeah, I was another INFJ talking rubbish lol

Just one more thing: Even if Bitcoin does go tits up, I will give you no credit. You obviously didn't do research on basics concepts of economics such as supply-demand, scarcity, value theory...let alone Bitcoin. So your prediction is as good as toss of a coin.

I studied economics at university level and researched about it ever since. I am not saying I am correct, but my views are at least backed by some research and time grappling with these concepts.

You, it seems like, decided in advance in what camp you stand and don't even want to hear the other side. I went into this with no bias; in fact, my original bias was anti-Bitcoin and it remained so until few years back when I changed my mind. I was your typical inflationista, reading NYT left/woke propaganda and treating Keynes as gospel.

 

[David Nelson]

Of course, I watched this within 1 hour it was published lol. Peterson and Saifedean are one of my favorite writers/thinker alive.

Saifadean was even better on Lex Friedman recently. It's 4 hours long but it really gave him space to lay it all out.

You like Peterson?! Haha he’s nearly as right wing as Atilla the Hun. This shows the weakness of Ti in an INTP. He knows his psychology but politically he’s a fool. He talks utter tosh a lot of the time because he’s not knowledgable or probably clever enough to be a complete life guru. He’s the intellectual the people deserve.

Also, your criticising me about being skeptics of crypto shows you don’t understand Ti child with Ni. You can understand the overview of something without knowing all the details.

 

[philostam]

Lol complete bullshit. When people say this they are just too lazy to educate themselves. Or too intellectually dishonest.

You cannot grasp any important and complex topic with your Ni and 10 mins of research.

@Sidis Coruscatis has Ni as well and it looks like he came around on the topic of Bitcoin. And I'm willing to bet he had to research more than 10 mins to understand it.

 

[David Nelson]

Lol complete bullshit. When people say this they are just too lazy to educate themselves. Or too intellectually dishonest.

You cannot grasp any important and complex topic with your Ni and 10 mins of research.

INTP misunderstanding INFJ mindset. INTP good at technical details, INFJ good at overall picture.

 

[philostam]

INTP misunderstanding INFJ mindset. INTP good at technical details, INFJ good at overall picture.

No. You overestimate Ni and taken to the extreme, you seem to think Ni users don't need any schooling and rigorous intellectual practice. They can just go trough life with their intuition and will judge all things correctly.

Maybe in a primitive society, but not in ours.

 

[David Nelson]

I’m not talking about how it works technically. I don’t give a crap about that. I don’t believe in gambling, so I don’t study how to gamble. It’s a similar thing. I also don’t believe any currency dealing is 100% safe. It might be the safest at present I don’t know.

 

[David Nelson]

No. You overestimate Ni and taken to the extreme, you seem to think Ni users don't need any schooling and rigorous intellectual practice. They can just go trough life with their intuition and will judge all things correctly.

Maybe in a primitive society, but not in ours.

That’s not what I am saying at all. I read books and online info. But only topics I need to or am interested in. But info and understanding is not just linear.

 

[philostam]

I'm not talking about technical details too, but about your initial presuppositions. You seem like you didn't question those in quite a long time.

Anyway...

 

[philostam]

That’s not what I am saying at all. I read books and online info. But only topics I need to or am interested in. But info and understanding is not just linear.

OK. Not having an interest in Bitcoin is fine, but then you have to accept that your predictions have no predictive power. You're literally guessing.

You probably fitted in Bitcoin under your pre-existing framework into "rightist ideology" box so you don't think it's gonna work. Well, maybe it's your framework that's the problem, and Bitcoin will work.

 

[David Nelson]

I hadn’t ever put Bitcoin as right wing. It was just a punt based of Hayek quote in the link you posted. But currency trading does general fit in with right wing ideology.

 

[philostam]

Look...Right and left are all just labels and the goalposts are constantly shifting anyway. What was considered reasonable 30 years ago is now probably extremely radical.

I try to evaluate everyone based on their ideas, not where the fit in the right-left spectrum. I have my biases of course and my axiomatic beliefs, in this case that money printing is bad.

Just like communists can say that "real communism" hasn't been tried, I can say that we are not living in "real capitalism" ever since the establishment of central banks and money printers back in cca 1914. Who is right? The communists want something radical, and the classical liberals want to go back to try and tested ways of hard money...I tend to err more to the side of classical liberals, just based on the things I observed and read about. I happen to believe that private property, small state, free speech, hard money and free markets are the best solution to organize a society.

Not statism, central planning, soft money, high taxes, government regulation and interventions on every step, police terror, Covid passports etc.

Bitcoin is just an extension of classical liberal tradition.

 

[philostam]

When the tide goes out, we finally see who was swimming naked.

Bitcoin is being dragged down by worthless copypasta crypto ponzi businesses. Those are now getting insolvent and are triggering contagion, force-selling their pristine assets (Bitcoin). The sooner Bitcoin decouples from the rest of "crypto", the better. I am willing to stomach low prices of Bitcoin so that we can flush out all the garbage.

Looks like we are going to at least 300W MA, so cca 16k. Maybe lower, who knows. On the other hand, Bitcoin is really cheap now so we see a lot of buy volume coming in.

I've learned a lot in the past 6 months. Not about Bitcoin (which is the same as always), but about financial markets in general. Some things surprised me, but next time they won't.

 

[HeavyNeuralPayload]

Just chiming in here late. Wanted to get into crypto since the mid-2010's but was saddled with debt at the time. I distinctly remember an old coworker telling me about it probably circa 2011-12 in the early days and feeling curiosity about whether it would catch on or not. I wish I'd thrown a few dollars at it back then even despite the financial hardship at the time, but hindsight is 20/20. Even if I had, there's a strong likelihood I would have sold most or all of my position before it really took off.

One thing that's troubled me about it is that there seem to be a lot of really toxic people in the space, and so many scams. That said, I still feel like there's a signal within all the noise, and I hold a small position and a moderate amount of hope. The whitepaper is elegant, a very small number of alts are interesting or have interesting use-cases - though I feel the strongest fundamentals will be overlooked in favor of the greatest returns - so it's probably still very much a gamble at this stage. If the four year cycle holds true, the next year and a half or so ought to be an interesting time, especially what with the upcoming election. It will be fascinating to see in what way things unfold.

One thing I keep reminding myself is that I remember when the Internet was brand new, and Prodigy, CompuServe, and then later AOL were huge - and I often wonder if this runs in some way parallel and is just enjoying it's day in the sun for right now.

The idealist part of me nods along every time I hear Michael Saylor talk.
The cynic notes that everything's eventual.
But I think it was George Carlin who pointed out that a cynic is just an idealist who has been disappointed.

So I guess we'll see.

 

[philostam]

The idealist part of me nods along every time I hear Michael Saylor talk.
The cynic notes that everything's eventual.
But I think it was George Carlin who pointed out that a cynic is just an idealist who has been disappointed.

So I guess we'll see.

So what concerns you? That what Saylor is saying is too good to be true? This is kinda the argument of Ray Dalio. "Bitcoin is so good that government will ban it". But this looks less and less likely.

I somewhat understand. Hodling Bitcoin is simple, but definitely not easy. It's a long term game and mainstream media is throwing a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt our way. It's also hard to hold it during the weeks and months of NO volatility, when it just go sideways in a tight range. I read a crazy stat that like 95% of price appreciations happens in 2% of the trading days. So 97% of the time goes sideways to slightly down, but then in 3% of the trading days it can make insane gains (maybe the percentages are a bit off, but you get the point).

The less you look at the price, the better. Look at it every 4 years.

 

[HeavyNeuralPayload]

So what concerns you? That what Saylor is saying is too good to be true? This is kinda the argument of Ray Dalio. "Bitcoin is so good that government will ban it". But this looks less and less likely.

My mom always said that anything that seems too good to be true so often is - and I've observed that play out numerous times throughout my life so when I began it was just a bit and I was prepared for it to go to zero (the size of that wedge of pie has since increased in dramatic fashion). I'm generally optimistic about it over a longer time horizon, but it's the kind of thing I wonder if like my grandkids will be paying their mortgages in satoshis - or if mortages in their current form will even need to be a thing. In any case, I feel like it's not going to be the smooth and seamless transition I would like it to be in the same way that the Internet rose into popularity in the 90's. It's hard to forecast what the costs may be of getting from where we are now to that point; but my time horizon extends beyond my own life span.

Not sure if you've followed Jeff Booth, read The Price of Tomorrow, or seen him on any podcasts, but he makes a lot of great points as well about how everything becomes deflationary as we become more technologically advanced. He was on Natalie Brunell's channel about a month ago and it was a good dialogue.

I read a crazy stat that like 95% of price appreciations happens in 2% of the trading days. So 97% of the time goes sideways to slightly down, but then in 3% of the trading days it can make insane gains (maybe the percentages are a bit off, but you get the point).

This is accurate. While I am no expert, I've been down a lot of rabbit holes over the past five years or so with the aim of getting myself out of debt and preserving whatever purchasing power I could amidst rising inflation. This mirrors the point often stated, "Time in the market is more important than timing the market." The four year journey is the right way of viewing it, I think. I try not to look at that bit of my portfolio too often these days and I'm not easily rattled. I think it will probably be somewhat telling when that bit of investment eclipses my 401k - which I am probably way farther behind than I ought to be at my age. It still feels very early, in some ways.

I am curious to your thoughts on the ETF approvals earlier this year. It has undoubtedly been a boon for the price of the asset in fiat terms, but at the same time seems to go against the intended ethos underscoring the reasons why it was created - people handing over control of their private keys to a third party custodian seems to me a bit like a recipe for disaster.

 

[philostam]

Yes, I am familiar with Jeff Booth and his thesis. I think it's really hard to argue with it. In general bitcoin and bitcoiners have truth on their side. It's becomes obvious once you deprogram yourself from marxist and mainstream keynesian economics.

But is truth enough? Or do enough people see it? That's a different question.

My bitcoin journey is now almost 4 years old. It was intellectually stimulating and financially rewarding, even though I was down for the large part of 2022 and 2023. I am somewhat exhausted and ready to move on to the next stage where I think about it less and less. I will even consider selling some if I see a better opportunity to start a business or something like that. I am underweight stocks and overweight bitcoin. I pretty much hold only bitcoin and my primary residence. Money is not a sin, but love of money is a sin if you hoard it too much and not use it to develop yourself.

I personally don't invest in bitcoin ETFs but I also don't think they are a scam. Wall Street is great at offering an ETF wrapper and if that makes boomers more comfortable, so be it. I think Wall Street now understand bitcoin. They understand the digital gold narrative and like that is somewhat uncorrelated with their other assets. A small 2-5% allocation makes sense for them. They also proved in recent volatility that they are comfortable holding trough a drawdown which is great for long term stability. I prefer that than high leverage degens that sell and unwind at the slightest sight of trouble.

Most of the bitcoin will naturally flow into the US given it is by far the biggest capital market in the world. It's just natural. I don't think that ETFs are a bad vehicle and that the US government will somehow seize that honeypot and rug pull their population. I mean they can do that with everything including stocks, seizing your property...That is some crazy Mad Max scenario that I don't see.

But yeah, why risk that when you don't need to. It is always better to take self custody in my opinion.

Thanks for the questions and I am glad you're somehwat optimistic and allocated!

 

[HeavyNeuralPayload]

Here's to the Class of 2021.
Many lessons learned.

Money is not a sin, but love of money is a sin if you hoard it too much and not use it to develop yourself.

Couldn't have said this better myself. Spent most of 2010-2020 "kept down" for lack of better phrasing, while working hard and not really being able to enjoy the fruits of that labor. It's easy [and not wrong] to scorn the kind of system that would do that. It's not as easy to look for a way to better oneself in the midst or aftermath of it.

What's odd is that I don't normally talk about this with anyone. As stated earlier, the number of scams and rugpulls has left a kind of negative stigma on the space and "crypto bros" are awful. I generally just make my buys quietly and keep up with the news. It seems to me that if you're reasonably intelligent, patient, not too greedy, can stomach the volatility, and tune out all of the noise - it can be wildly lucrative.