* bitcoin is volatile
* bitcoin is deflationary
* bitcoin doesn't have intrinsic value
* blockchains are inefficient compared to centralized ledgers
- that BTC is volatile is, hopefully, non-controversial. Do you want your stock to be volatile? (if you have large BTC assets, it should be...)
- I won't comment on deflationary/inefficient, I feel the article didn't focus too much on that. But it's a questionable store of value because it doesn't have intrinsic value - this, again, should be uncontroversial. The article lists multiple events that might absolutely destroy BTC (the section "BTC is really risky"). It's easy to imagine more (e.g. war or other catastrophic events that would make the BTC network "less interesting" and would make it really easy for a committed player to do a 51% attack, destroying all remaining trust).
It definitely feels like a fancy ponzi scheme - at the very least, BTC ticks a lot of boxes for "how to identify a ponzi scheme" (definitely 1 & 5; arguably most others, except for 2):
1. Abnormally high investment returns. The most obvious sign of any investment skulduggery is the promise of an abnormally high investment return. ...
2. Guaranteed returns. ...
3. Consistently high performance. ...
4. Vague business model. ...
5. The need for more investors. ...
6. Pressure to reinvest. ...
7. The pressure to act now. ...
8. Credibility through association.
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Note that I'm not claiming that BTC was created with the intention of being a Ponzi scheme!!! I'm just saying it appears to have many such characteristics, and one may reasonably assume that a similar eventual outcome is not unlikely.
I never claimed that. The point is that for most hn readers, these arguments would have been brought up already and therefore as a whole the article as a whole isn't really interesting. It's like being in 2020 reading a "mongodb is bad because it's not ACID compliant" article.
Yes? Not every comment has to be pigeon holed into "This article is right" and "This article is wrong".
>It's frontpage position - currently at #3 - seems to be a pretty convincing counter-argument
A long time hn reader such as yourself must know about the phenomena of "upvoted not because of article content, but because of discussion"?
>The article might not be interesting for you personally, but... that's not very relevant)
It's not only that, the article doesn't even bother going into the most basic of rebuttals (as evidenced by the replies here). Overall it's a very shallow article. It might be fine for 2013 but not for 2021.
I'd argue there's no promise of any investment return. Bitcoin just allows the transfer of money nearly instantly.
2. Guaranteed returns. ...
There are no returns since it just a currency to be used.
3. Consistently high performance. ...
Bitcoin isn't a stock, it's a currency. If you're using it to invest, you're gonna have a bad time.
4. Vague business model. ...
Not a business, just a currency.
5. The need for more investors. ...
There is no need for anyone to invest in Bitcoin, there are plenty of hedge funds putting their money into it.
6. Pressure to reinvest. ...
You can go in and out of Bitcoin as you please.
7. The pressure to act now. ...
This is probably FOMO, noone's forcing you to purchase Bitcoin and I would not purchase Bitcoin during a rally unless I was doing a Monday-Friday trading run (buy Monday, sell Friday)
8. Credibility through association.
Noone is associated to Bitcoin, it's an anonymous currency.
It's just another way to spend money.
This is no different than covid deniers being presented with evidence and then completely ignoring it.
They need to provide: - vol metric thresholds - price targets - adoption % - etc...
We've had over 10 years of shifting the goalposts with bitcoin. At this point it's starting to sound like denial. Every meaningful metric has continued to improve in bitcoins favor yet we keep hearing the same critics.