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Comment by 1helloworld1 | Hacker News Reader

I am afraid that we might be on the verge of another dot com level bubble. It's interesting to see how one inflated asset is propping up another. Tesla - which rose by 1000% in 2020, bought bitcoin. Ark Invest Etfs - some of the biggest actively managed etfs, hold significant amount of Tesla, and with the profit generated from Tesla's phenomenal rise, they are investing more on bitcoin. I believe in the future of cryptocurrencies, but the current state of bitcoin is abysmal. It's slow, expensive and the hacky patches on top (lightning network) either haven't been widely adopted or are still buggy. This all seems so much like the pets.com of the dot com bubble era. Great idea but terrible implementation. https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/07/09/bitco...

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Is this like the dot com bubble? My understanding is that the mindset of the time was a true mania - people were convinced it was the new normal and that businesses got insane valuations preproduct even. It seems like with a lot of these bubbles everyone is like “get in this stupidly inflated asset with money you can lose to try and make a quick buck” with retail investing at all time highs rather than some dramatic distortion in people’s perspectives. Even while assets are so inflated the investor sentiment still seems sober.

> people were convinced it was the new normal and that businesses got insane valuations preproduct even

How is that any different from today?

Everyone is constantly saying it is a bubble and will pop soon. So sentiment is exactly the opposite.

Everybody is selling EVs now. I wonder what happens to TSLA in Q4 2022 when car manufacturers publish their numbers. Enjoy it while it lasts indeed but I'm worried if that will have a cascading effect into other stocks or even also crypto.

the nice thing with that bubble is that because it is manufactured by the Fed, you have an easy signal for when it has reached its top, just look at the weekly fed balance sheet:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...

And right now they are still printing more and more.

Fed contributes, but it's hardly a singular explainer for the current market mania.

The chart you shared hasn't even changed significantly since July.

The Fed didn't print enough money to buoy Tesla 1000% or send Bitcoin up 100% in a month. There's no mechanism directing money straight from the Fed into the riskiest assets. Market mania has taken hold.

For bitcoin at least, Tether printed enough.

If you assume tether is largely legitimate, the observable behaviors would look indistinguishable from the claims of fraud.

Tether “being printed” is per design. Just like wire transfers and account signups to Coinbase, they align with spikes in price.

That’s not to say they are legitimate either, but the constant conjecture about it is mostly people confused about causation.

Tether FUD Era of this bullrun ended 15 Jan. See you in a few years.

It definitely plays a role in driving overall sentiment though. And indirectly plays a role in people taking more risks. There's a view that the economy won't collapse because central banks will just keep printing money... and it's probably correct because there's no real alternative right now unless you want civil unrest because that's what you'll get once you shut down the economy and then turn off the money taps simultaneously.

But at some point, in order for fiat currency to retain any sort of reliable buying power, there does need to be a rug pull of some sort. Doing it while so many are out of work and so many industries are effectively shut down by government regulation would be extremely dangerous (for the government of the day).

I started paying attention to ARK funds lately because of seeing it here and there online. Then I subscribed to their YouTube channel last month and listened to this month's update from their fund principal manager (Cathie Wood). I have to say I learned some new stuff about Macro econ from listening to her video, BUT her talk about AI innovation [https://youtu.be/uwajUw4RFVk?t=1207], just convinced me that she is overestimating the potential of the AI's impact at least in the near term.

Could credit cards not be considered a "hacky patch" or really a layer 2 solution to the slowness of adoption and traditional banking policies?

And they eat up 2%+ fee even for people that wish to pay in cash?

No.

I think Flooz coins had Super Bowl ads at the time.

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