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Comment by Shacklz | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin can't die soon enough.

The initial idea and the ideology behind it is really admirable, but it was done as a proof of concept and failed terribly. But instead of "alright, PoC done, does not scale, let's move on to something better", too many people can't or don't want to move on because there's too much money on the line.

I find it personally exhausting - I had a coworker until recently (he left) who was a super nice guy but completely into the bitcoin-bullshit (with zero understanding of how it works, naturally). The fact that he made significant profits with it gave him the idea that he somehow is right about it.

The bitcoin bubble and all that goes with it can't burst soon enough.

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I do wonder about this.

It's a lazer-eyed religion now, and I can't help but thinking the value of it's strongest adherents holdings is already zero - they'll never sell, under any circumstances, so any perceived value can never be realised.

(If it goes up, why would they sell? If it crashes, "it'll recover").

Under that logic, at no point is any amount of value stored in the scheme available to you in the future.

The market cap of all of these tokens is also incredibly misleading. Having no underlying value also means the market cap you're looking at is only a projection of the current point in time if there were indeterminate demand at the current trading price - meaning that in real terms the supposed money tied up in Bitcoin does not exist.

If stocks crash, you still have entitlement to profits from the company. If bonds crash, you still have entitlement to payments from the issuer. If a token crashes, you have a long alphanumeric number.

That's why if there's even a small amount of consolidation the market crashes by half or more.

Lots of people say "PoC done, does not scale, let's move on to something better," it's just that core Bitcoin devs and r/bitcoin mods kicked all those people out, so they've moved to other blockchains.

It's funny to me that you think its failed terribly, but it consistently grows year after year in adoption and value. The irony of this crowd especially having hindsight with the development of computers and the internet; being able to see what 90s internet looked like compared to today.

The Bitcoin network does exactly what it functionality sought out to do. The human speculative layer on top of it is what's confusing you, because the nature of monetary goods is confusing. Your dismissal of it shows your unfamiliarity with what money is, and your unwillingness to learn.

1 trillion dollar failure.

If only everything would fail this badly everyone on this board would be a billionaire…

Also anyone who questions the panacea of BTC is labeled as a peddler of 'FUD.' Very much a cult like mentality.

Once "Have fun being poor" started becoming a battle cry, I realized how completely perverted the original concept had become.

You're right. It was originally supposed to be a useful tool. Now it's just a speculative pump and dump scheme.

So much this. I thought it was a joke the first time I read about it and I still can't believe people(plenty of which work in the tech field too) are buying into it. One notable example is a guy who has been retiring "next year" since 2014 with cryptocurrencies.

> with zero understanding of how it works, naturally

Perhaps you don't understand it either, if you think it has failed.

"Few understand" is a meme and said tongue in cheek, but there's truth to it. To actually understand Bitcoin and crypto, you have to spend 100+ hours on it. Of course few put that kind of time in. Most default to either a blind acolyte or naysayer, depending on whether they got in early or not, or depending on what position is popular with their political tribe.

It would be interesting to know the spread of who's left holding the bag, whether it'll be more heavily institutions or the latest adopters; if there will be a way to really find this out?

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