Bitcoin Surges Because Nobody Learned Their Lesson After the Last Crash (2019) | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin Surges Because Nobody Learned Their Lesson After the Last Crash (2019)

gizmodo.com

> To be clear, Bitcoin is absolutely worthless by any real measure. It’s fake money that’s about as practical to use in the real world as Monopoly bills.

The whole ‘intrinsic value’ argument doesn’t sway me anymore. USD has no intrinsic value, neither does holding any shares of the GLD ETF for all intents and purposes. Let’s just call bitcoin what it is - a fiat currency that cannot be printed by governments. It has no intrinsic value, but that makes it a unique financial instrument in my opinion. What is 1 BTC actually worth? There is no cap at the top or bottom. It is definitely unique, I don’t understand the seething hate some people have for it.

The intrinsic value of Bitcoin is that it works really well as a means of exchange. It’s not easy to find a good medium - gold is heavy/physical, dollars can be minted, etc.. If there is something that works well as money then that’s in it or itself reason for it to be valuable.

Lmaoo

Isn't the argument USD is backed by the country's GDP?

You could make a number of abstract arguments that the USD is backed by any number of things - its reserve status, the US military, the GDP, whatever you want really. But I could also say that Bitcoin is backed by the fact that people simply want it and that is a unique financial instrument. What does 'backed by' really mean?

I thought the lesson after the last crash was that bitcoin was valued at 10x what it was worth at the beginning of the rally. It lost 50% from the peak.

And the price at the beginning of the rally was already insane: I mean, $1k for a random key? Etc.

> To be clear, Bitcoin is absolutely worthless by any real measure. It’s fake money that’s about as practical to use in the real world as Monopoly bills.

BTC/USD 2021-01-03: > $32,000

I don't think the author referred to it as worthless from a monetary measure. He just means that it cannot replace real currency considering the volatility.

The author should probably look at decentralized stable coins

Gold bars are not very practical as a currency either. Nor is fine art. But being one easy step away from fiat makes them extremely valuable.

I thought the lesson was HODL.

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