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681 points Anon84 | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.454s | source
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spicyusername ◴[] No.46181533[source]
I've never understood the initial arguments about Bitcoin, no matter how many times they've been explained to me.

The block chain is, and always was, an extremely inconvenient database. How anyone, especially many intelligent people, thought it was realistic to graft a currency on top of such a unwieldy piece of technology is beyond me. Maybe it goes to show how few people understand economics and anthropology and how dunning-krueger can happen to anyone.

Now the uninformed gambling on futuristic sounding hokum? THAT is easy to understand.

That being said, I'm sorry the author had to go through this experience, the road of life is often filled with unexpected twists and turns.

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phplovesong ◴[] No.46190551[source]
Simply put:

Bitcoin was to be an alternative to FIAT, but it ended up being nothing more then a meme-stock that consumes more energy than Poland or Argentina.

Its sad really. But the greed in people turned it into shit.

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mirekrusin ◴[] No.46190632[source]
I never understood why bitcoin is winning popularity/pricing over ie. ethereum - which doesn't burn energy anymore and you can actually do programming on it, not just moving money from a to b.
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munksbeer ◴[] No.46190838[source]
Because it's based on narratives. Bitcoin has the strong narrative and the "network effect". Because bitoin keeps surviving, the narrative reinforces itself. At this point surely most people know, even if they're unwilling to admit or fooling themselves, the utility value is basically dead.

The utility value is now a pure gamble that a person tomorrow will pay me more than I paid for it today, thinking that a person in the future will pay them more than they paid. And that can be a powerful enough narrative to keep it going.

But if bitcoin disappeared today, 99.99999% of the world wouldn't even notice, that is how little of a problem it solves.

Anyway, the point is, imagine the scenario if ethereum overtook bitcoin in value. What will this actually do to the ecosystem? In my view, it would be catastrophic to the value of all coins, because it suddenly destroys the narrative of a "store of value" (the last lingering narrative). Any other coin could just overtake ethereum, and out of all the thousands of coins, which one? At that point, I think the whole thing comes down.

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1. l___l ◴[] No.46191108[source]
One interpretation of this comment, if viewed from an adversarial angle, is that comments like this, although perhaps not this comment specifically, are designed to dissuade people from buying crypto days before a bull-run starts.

Accurate data illuminate a lot of things.

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2. munksbeer ◴[] No.46191132[source]
I would benefit enormously from people buying crypto to keep the price going up. I've owned bitcoin for 9 years. I bought it when I realised that the narrative was strong enough to overcome any technical arguments and I wanted to profit from that. One day I'm assuming it help me retire.

(I just wish I'd bought more)