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Comment by apta_ | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. Bitcoin has been heavily criticized on HN by some, but we're seeing its value proposition come to fruition: an asset that is resistant to artificial government fueled inflation. Perhaps also easier to get into than stocks (no need for a brokerage account, and you can buy in almost arbitrary amounts), and definitely easier than getting into property.

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It is definitely not easier than stocks. Brokerages made it really easy to enroll and start buying it

Yeah... I bought about $250 worth of bitcoins two years ago on an exchange. The exchange went bankrupt and the bitcoins are gone. At least with a stock broker your account is insured by the government up to a certain amount.

Yes, I know, run your own wallet, don't leave your bitcoins on the exchange... Except again, with stocks, you don't have to worry about that. I was personally hoping that a bitcoin exchange would have better security and backups than my home PC. As far as I'm concerned, storing bitcoins on your machine, with no insurance, is not much safer than storing gold bullion in your closet.

I'm just happy what I was wise enough not to put more money in bitcoin than I could afford to lose.

It would be wonderful to have a BTC bank account with an insurance policy denominated in BTC, but that doesn't exist yet (AFAIK). Until then... Not your keys not your coins.

Also, you don't need to store them on your PC. There are also paper wallets, hardware wallets, or you could put your wallet files on a flash drive.

> I'm just happy what I was wise enough not to put more money in bitcoin than I could afford to lose.

That should be the default for ~any investment.

Not your keys, not your coins.

People are learning, glad you did too.

I wish I could withdraw my stocks easily, and it takes a very long time to transfer stocks between accounts or even exchanges. Thats a bug, to me.

So has Coinbase and Gemini. It certainly sounds like you're not even familiar with the process.

No I definitely am. But there are (or used to be, last I bought) funky limits and so on, and huge amount of fees coinbase is taking on top.

There are many better options than Coinbase. Some user friendly options include Swan, River, Casa, and Cash App.

https://twitter.com/blockbain/status/1333864682122137601

It is so much easier than stocks. In the US it is relatively easy but in most countries you can't just download an app and start trading. Anyone can buy a bitcoin with a credit card.

I can and did download an app and started trading.

I think these days robinhood is similar.

I can buy bitcoin with cash. Where can I exchange cash for stocks?

At literally every broker in the world?

please tell me how many times you did exactly that and what amounts.

Where can you buy bitcoin with cash in 2021?

Asking for a friend.

Couldn't someone achieve the same goals with fractional share investing which also comes with many more legal protections than crypto?

1 Bitcoin is worth 1 Bitcoin so a government printing more money can't hurt your Bitcoin, only make it more pricy.

This assumes that you can pay for something in Bitcoin directly (which was a common thing a few years back)

If I'm understanding correctly, what you are saying is that Bitcoin is fundamentally different than say a share of Amazon because inflationary activity could actually damage Amazon as a company and therefore lower the price of Amazon shares long term whereas Bitcoin cannot be damaged in such a way because it's value is not based on any real economic activity?

> whereas Bitcoin cannot be damaged in such a way because it is not based on any real economic activity

No, Bitcoin has economic activity from transactions on the Blockchain (peer-peer) and mining activity (system-miner). This activity cannot often by disrupted by another currency minting a lot of other currency.

Got it, thanks.

Which assets exactly are seeing artificial government fueled inflation?

Bitcoin.

Heh

The dollar printer went crazy in 2020: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2. This definitely had an effect on stock and property prices, and seemingly some cryptocurrencies as well.

Is your argument in favor of bitcoin as an asset class is that its value doesn't skyrocket when stock and property values skyrocket?

(My assumption when you said "inflation" was a drop in purchasing power of a given asset, not a rise.)

> (My assumption when you said "inflation" was a drop in purchasing power of a given asset, not a rise.)

I was referring to the inflation of the US dollar. That's why property, stock, bitcoin, etc. went up.

That would be a nice theory, but inflation in terms of producer and consumer goods is lower than in previous years (PPI inflation of 0.8% for the 12 months ending on 31 November, CPI inflation of 1.2% for the same period, compared to an average of more like 2% over the previous few years).

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