Comment by youngButEager | Hacker News Reader

Comment by youngButEager | Hacker News Reader

Many of us find it obscene and a bit ridiculous that this easily-manipulated sham for the foolish-minded is even mentioned on HN. Having worked as a software engineer since 1991 -- with a CS degree from UC Berkeley no less -- I cannot think of a single serious-minded peer who takes BTC seriously, all computer people too.

I find it questionable that, just because the U.S. Government has been duped to allow this ETF -- while simultaneously doing everything in their power to undermine BTC -- we somehow must suffer to find BTC held up as a legitimate medium of exchange.

It's really not. It wasn't several years ago when everyone was told "soon it will be accepted everywhere cash and credit cards are" -- and it's not now a legitimate medium of exchange.

Some one(s) will eventually recognize BTC for what it is: a purely speculative gamble, and not a legitimate or safe means of exchange.

THIS IS THE U.S. GOVT. -- 3 years ago: https://gigaom.com/2013/05/14/homeland-security-seizes-funds...

THIS IS THE U.S. GOVT. -- 9 months ago: "U.S. government is calling bitcoin anything but a currency" http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/08/25/the-fede...

Many of us who read HN fully believe that touting or merely holding up speculative gambling indulgences is just not appropriate.

If you like, have a look here for just a small history of victims of BTC, and keep well in mind BTC is not accepted in lieu of cash, credit cards, etc., so the argument 'regular money gets stolen too' doesn't wash, because BTC has no practical utility as a medium of exchange, making it illogical for anyone but a gambler to 'invest' in it:

THIS LIST IS 2 YEARS OLD https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=576337

An appeal to the masses and an appeal to authority in just the first two sentences - I've never seen that done here before now.

"I cannot think of a single serious-minded peer who takes BTC seriously"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Give me a single, just one single, way that a BTC ETF different than owning shares in a gold mining company, using the language of economics.

If you want a simpler problem, how is it different from an ETF that tracks the price of gold?

The odds of gold being completely worthless 5 years from now are rather lower than the odds of BTC being completely worthless 5 years from now.

That's why the market cap of bitcoin is 1/1000 the market cap of gold - to compensate for that risk.

Why? Gold has the same basic economic proposition: * Mined at a steady and predictable rate * Ecologically destructive * Valued because it is hoarded * Hoarded because it is valued

Can you plate Bitcoins on to metals to produce a layer that doesn't corrode or oxidize? Because gold is pretty good at that.

Space mining could have some interesting effects on the gold market, assuming it can be done profitably. The asteroid 433 Eros alone likely contains more gold than was ever mined on Earth. But that indeed won't happen within 5 years.

If I bought a brand new $500 desktop computer (yes they're that cheap these days) -- and then bought a brand new 500 gigabyte hard drive that cost $100, and put it in the new computer........

then I gathered 200 people who each had between $500,000 and $1million to invest, and told them "this hard drive is worth at least $500,000. I'll start the bidding there, at $500,000."

How many would bid?

You fail to understand that you just made up the price of 500,000. No one will invest. BTC, however, has reached the current USD value by natural market forces. You don't get to just make up prices, and neither does BTC.

You missed the point entirely. I'm not saying everyone who read this missed the point entirely. But you clearly did.

The $100 hard drive is being used as cold storage for $500k btc.

I won't apologize for having to spell everything out for you here, because you didn't think things through given the context of the post.

The post's message was "bitcoin is not a medium of exchange" and "bitcoin is a highly speculative gambling vehicle."

The point was, and again I'm not going to apologize for having to spell things out in this level of detail since you did not 'connect the dots' -- the point was, if you gather 20 people who have $500k to $1M dollars to invest, no one will bid on the $500,000 hard drive.

The vast majority of people with $500k to $1M dollars to invest will seek a reliable asset like gold or other legitimate asset that is backed by something.

Would a gambler bid $500k for the hard drive? Maybe. But then again, if you go to Vegas or Reno, you will find lots of gamblers who will never gamble on card games in the casino due to cheaters (cards being the easiest game to cheat at as everyone knows). So even gamblers are selective and may not put money on btc.

The point made was -- the vast majority of the population are NOT GAMBLERS. They want to see lots of evidence that the value of their $500k+ will be recoverable in a traditional manner that is widely accepted.

- such as precious metals, which cannot be wiped clean by exposure to a magnetic field (unlike cold storage for btc)

- such as real estate

- such as an ETF of higly-liquid stocks

On the "safest to mostly gambling" continuum of placements of your money in search of a good return, precious metals are at one end of the spectrum.

Poker chips, the craps table, and btc are at the far other end.

My entire point was, the profile of a btc 'investor' is that they're a gambler. And with the U.S. government seeking to curtail efforts to use btc as 'money', only gamblers willing to lose everything overnight use btc.

You either fail to understand how BTC actually works, or you are purposely disingenuous for the sake of argument.

No, neither. My point was that BTC users are gambling. And most of them don't even realize it.

There is no "there" there. Nothing stands behind BTC to back it.

The best thing that can happen is for a widespread public awareness of where BTC falls on the continuum from "highly risky and speculative" to "safe" investments.

I've got an MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas school. My peers know where BTC is on that continuum of "absurdly speculative and risky" to "safe and secure."

My post was to say that it's not appropriate content for HN to hold up such a risky gambling vehicle that BTC is as somehow viable as an investment. An article, which I have flagged, about an ETF based on this dangerously speculative, easily-manipulated modern-day Dutch Tulips, is just not appropriate for HN without massive disclaimers citing

1) its failure to attain acceptance as a medium of exchange 2) the government's effort to shut it down 3) the massive number of scams that have duped people like you who aren't aware of the extremely speculative and risky nature of BTC.

"A fool and his money are soon parted."

You have a degree relevant to every conversation, apparently. You are in love with the 'appeal to authority' fallacy. So, whatever. Arguing about what BTC is or isn't seems like a tremendous waste of time, does it not? No matter what you or I think, the market will decide, will it not? It's been kind to me, so take it as you will. Historically, the market has strongly disagreed with your subjective assessment. Your dumb argument amounts to assessing the value of gold by the value of the container in which it is stored. You clearly have an agenda, I can't be bothered.

No agenda. As I stated originally, it's not appropriate to hold up BTC as anything other than an extremely speculative gamble. I simply disagreed with the top post which offered up an "appeal to authority" -- an SEC-sanctioned ETF based on BTC -- that shrouded BTC in an air of 'investability' that is 100% not true. BTC is a horrifically dangerous placement of money. And the problem is, BTC fans -- most of them -- act like they don't know just how risky and speculative BTC is, and its near-zero utility as a medium of exchange.

I'm telling you, get hyper-objective about the danger of converting highly-accepted stores of value into BTC.

For example, most gamblers say to themselves:

"I know I can/will lose money gambling. But my purpose for gambling is not to invest and get a good risk-adjusted return. My objective for gambling is to enjoy the thrill of the process -- and the thrill of gambling is worth more to me than money I can lose."

And many gamblers would add to that by saying "I'm only taking $5000 to Vegas this weekend -- when that's gone, I'm done."

Gamblers view a super-high-risk of loss as paying for a day at DisneyWorld. They lose their money on the day. But the thrill of the rides makes up for it.

My only 'agenda' is BTC users need to understand the risks they're taking. And far too many do not know.

Don't lose money on BTC unless you know you're in it for entertainment -- like going to Vegas or Disneyland -- and that you're fully expecting to lose a lot or all your money.

Just ask this guy -- Kolin Burges, who traveled from England to Japan to confront Mark Karpeles about his missing 200,000 pounds (about $300,000 roughly):

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/02/26/article-2568258-1B...

All speculation is risk. BTC is in no special category in that regard. But keep saving us from ourselves if you wish.

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