re: Is it time to short Bitcoin ?

quote:

---

Gold will always have intrinsic value based on jewelry and industrial use. Society couldn't really exist without it.

---

I don't think gold is essential to society in a strict sense as there are substitutes, but your main point here is that there is value to gold outside of its role in the economy as a financial asset. This is true. But that's a far cry from gold deriving it's value from its industrial/jewelry uses.

quote:

---

Bitcoin the world would be better off without it. Since it uses a massive amount of electricity amounting to a cell on a spreadsheet

---

Your opinion is not shared by everybody. And a question: which consumes more energy today - mining a BTC or discovering, mining, recovering and refining an ounce of gold? And I suppose if you want to be precise about it, you'd take into consideration the price of the two assets.

I don't know the answer to this but would your sensibilities be similarly affronted if gold consumed more energy than BTC?

quote:

---

Not really, gold could possibly be replaced by something else in electronics manufacturing but it would be very difficult to replace

---

Well, you agree with me then. There are substitutes for gold - they may not be as effective/robust, but we'd survive just fine without gold.

quote:

---

No because I don't need Bitcoin for anything. Just because it's maybe less bad than something else, doesn't make it good. That's why the comparison to gold is funny.

Yeah Bitcoin sucks and uses a ton of electricity, but it's not as bad as change the argument.

Bitcoin has no utility so here we are. Every argument over 16 years was Bitcoin would find the killer use case. However we know now its old technology and was never a great peer to peer currency anyways.

---

It really isn't hard to understand and the argument isn't the retarded one you posted - "Yeah Bitcoin sucks and uses a ton of electricity, but it's not as bad as change the argument" - nobody makes that argument.

If gold had zero demand as a financial asset, is it fair to say that less of it would be mined every year? I think that's fair, and that's even after considering increased industrial use because the metal would be cheaper. But then again, that would be counterbalanced by the fact that less economic gold mineralization could be found with a substantially lower price.

Anyway, there is incremental consumption of energy to satisfy the financial demand for gold. That's no different from the consumption of energy to mine BTC.

quote:

---

Stuck on the comparison to gold i see because it's your only argument.

---

I don't see the problem with this. Why is BTC being a financial asset like gold a bad thing?

quote:

---

If a better alternative came out to replace gold in electronics manufacturing then it wouldn't have much to stand on.

---

"Better alternative" is a function of price. If gold was $10/oz, a shite ton more gold would be used industrially. If gold was $100K/oz (and its substitutes stay constant), the industrial use of gold would drop precipitously.

quote:

---

It would be where Bitcoin is today. Waste

---

You're back to the value of gold is derived from its industrial use argument again. You know that's a silly argument, right?

quote:

---

Once again we reach the same conclusions. Guess we just have to disagree

---

Well, some of this isn't opinion. "Gold's value is derived from its industrial use" isn't an opinion. It's factually wrong.

And it would be good to be clear about where our opinions differ. Do you have a problem with gold being used as a financial asset? If not, why do you have a problem with BTC. Or asked another way, how is financial asset gold different from financial asset BTC, other than gold has been used this way for nearly forever.

quote:

---

I noticed you avoided my question on what is now "mass adoption"?

---

Simply because I wasn't interested but I'll answer for you -

I'm relatively new to BTC. Started paying attention about five years ago, first bought some in 2020 and got my arms around it enough to seriously invest about a year ago. From the beginning (for me), the weaknesses (or risks) in the BTC thesis was regulatory and the lack of adoption by old line financial industry. I'm not sure we aren't close to regulatory risk being largely mitigated and the financial industry seems to be getting enthusiastic about the money it can make offering BTC to its customers.

How about you? What would you consider mass adoption?

quote:

---

Based on the original use case, widely accepted and used as currency all over the world.. Obviously never going to happen.

---

So BTC can have a market cap of $50T, be owned by a billion people worldwide (directly and through financial instruments), be held on the balance sheet of major companies and first world governments - and in your view, BTC will not have reached mass adoption unless I can buy a Big Mac in Harare with BTC?

Depends on the market cap of tether.

If we are taking about extreme hypotheticals

BTC market cap is irrelevant to me since it's mostly driven by entities like tether. Pretty easy to manipulate.

Sure if every Western nation in the world is fighting over the 21m Bitcoin we can call it adoption.

So far I guess you got zero, unless you count confiscated Bitcoin.

quote:

---

I remember when I steadfastly held the belief that the idea of an online bookstore was f'n retarded

---

So BTC is being compare to Amazon now, which pivoted their business

Just talking in circles on the same points, good luck to you.

Hope you sell in the profits

quote:

---

So BTC is being compare to Amazon now, which pivoted their business

---

No. You're reading with your fingertips.

I'm comparing your ignorant thinking re: BTC to my ignorant thinking about Amazon 20+ years ago.

quote:

---

Just talking in circles on the same points, good luck to you.

---

That's pretty much what happens on an internet message board. It's a little entertaining as background, right?

quote:

---

Since it is no longer used for anything besides number go up.

---

You can still buy drugs with it if you want. I'm just saying.