Tulips are still very pretty flowers. [0]
I've followed discussions of anonymous electronic currency since the 90s. Nothing introduced before Bitcoin has survived. The main defect was centralization, which allowed government take-down. If I've missed one, please share.
And about the bubble thing, I don't much care. The Bitcoin price has seen times of huge volatility. The increase during 2017 from ~$1000 to almost $20000 was impressive. As was the collapse during first quarter 2018. But now the price seems relatively stable at $7000-$9000. And payments go through quickly enough.
And about anonymity. Yes, Bitcoin itself is not at all anonymous. Everything's in the public blockchain. But one can use mixing services, through Tor, and get different Bitcoin. Which aren't linked to the starting Bitcoin, or to any identity or IPv4 address that's linked to the user in meatspace. Maybe it's not perfect, but it's good enough for me.
Great. Is this system that provides, so far, minimal to no advantage over other transaction systems worth expending the same electric power that a small developed country (Portugal) uses?
I do agree that a system that used less energy would be better. When it's available, and widely enough accepted, I'll switch.
> And about anonymity. Yes, Bitcoin itself is not at all anonymous. Everything's in the public blockchain. But one can use mixing services, through Tor, and get different Bitcoin. Which aren't linked to the starting Bitcoin, or to any identity or IPv4 address that's linked to the user in meatspace. Maybe it's not perfect, but it's good enough for me.
So yes, usably anonymous.
Wait, you're saying they're criminals? I wonder why the bitcoin guys aren't.
People hurting others (what's criminal to me) will use any system that's secure, hidden, anonymous, etc. Tor is a good example. But in a sense, they serve as canaries for other users.
There are techniques to try to find that out, but they're not infallible.
What's the overall energy expenditure for all fiat production,maintenance, asset storage (gold), mining of assets etc?
There are some interesting developments in the crypto sphere moving away from high energy proof or work to a holding system (Proof of stake).
I like to think of myself as caring about ecosystems. But after decades of work on decentralized electronic payment systems, Bitcoin is what we got.
I'm no expert, but I suspect that the Bitcoin protocol could be tweaked to make humongous mining operations unprofitable. But the chances of that are likely not so great.
I do hope that proof-of-stake systems will develop. Stake still means wealth, but at least it's not wealth that's funding energy-intensive proof-of-work.
The real intricacies of tulip mania don't matter. Who cares if it was not exactly the bubble we thought it was? It was still a bubble, with serious consequences to those exposed to it. Yes, it didn't move at the speed of the markets move now because markets then were much more slower and it only affected a bunch of businessmen.
So what? We use the analogy because we know markets sometimes go crazy around stocks and other assets, with no apparent justification other than thinking the price will continue to grow and usually based on not much more than faith. Tulip mania has become a proxy for that behavior because the absurdity of a flower bulb skyrocketing in price, but if you don't like it, you can certainly point to many bubbles we know existed, had more widespread effects and were equally based on nothing. Some of them are not even a decade old.
If this asset class would be trading at $10tn then the concerns would likely be valid.
Why not put a bit of money into the space and let things develop? If you're right, great, you haven't lost a lot. If you were wrong, you made a healthy return that is likely above any other investments you have access to.
I consider this a high risk binary investment -- either it will work, or it won't. Unless you're investing $100k+ (which for most people wouldn't be a small part of their portfolio) you should easily be able to exit positions. This was clear even during the last correction.
From a risk level, (In my view) I'm looking at an angel investment but with better upside odds. The potential upside is disproportionate to the downside, and I'm happy to take on that risk.
I agree with the poster above, BTC and others may be in a bubble but the bubble is tiny compared to other asset classes and previous bubbles.
Familiar with the FDIC?
Limited to 100k, that is extremely low for a lot of people looking for safe asset havens.