Bitcoin becoming the new gold as Indians pour billions into crypto | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin becoming the new gold as Indians pour billions into crypto

m.economictimes.com

18 pointsvishnugupta11 comments

These threads always get the same comments about ponzi schemes, tulip mania, energy usage, etc.

Something can be overvalued without being a ponzi scheme or a scam. Bitcoin is definitely overvalued relative to its usefulness at the moment.

The main value though, which seems to be consistently missed on HN, is Bitcoin cannot be devalued through poor monetary policy decisions from a central bank like the Federal Reserve. That is value. You may personally not care about that but a lot of people do. If you were a country, would you like it when your foreign reserves get devalued by some foreign bank's decisions to help its own citizens?

This will end well.

I wonder what forms of social unrest will erupt globally when it all unwinds. For reference: "The Albanian Civil War was precipitated by multiple Ponzi schemes" And this speculative bubble seems to have the potential to be worse, or at least more widespread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_schemes_in_Albania

Bitcoin is the scarcest asset in the world, protected by the most powerful supercomputers ever built.

Compared to fiat as in USD or INR that have lost nearly all their purchasing power Bitcoin is the greatest store of value ever conceived.

In 1932 $20USD bought 1 oz of Gold. Today it takes $2000USD to buy that same oz of Gold. The strongest fiat currency of the century lost 100x its value in less than 100 years. Total failure to retain purchasing power.

Indians understand that fiat is a failure, Gold was better, and now Bitcoin will make both obsolete as a store of value.

You sir are correct! If they adopt Bitcoin en masse it WILl end well for the Indian people.

> Bitcoin is the greatest store of value ever conceived > Indians understand that fiat is a failure, Gold was better, and now Bitcoin will make both obsolete as a store of value.

This is propagandistic, hyped up drivel.

Utterances like this are a big part of why Cryptocurrency is hard to take seriously.

People will believe it because they've seen it go up thousands of percent in a decade, shaking off massive downturns to go even higher. That alone makes it look bullet proof even though its not. Whats going to burst the bubble? Government action to ban or curtail it use. At that point it illiquid nature and lack of intrinsic worth will become apparent.

> they've seen it go up thousands of percent in a decade

True, and the relevant aphorism are:

"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop" and "the markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent".

A problem seems to be the lack of legitimate investments with decent rates of return at present. So people turn to more speculative assets.

If cryptocurrencies have a staying power, there is probably a market opportunity in providing a societal hedge against the ensuing meltdown.

India, with its hundreds of millions of poor citizens, is not new to financial manias. What is new with Bitcoin is how widespread it is and how breathlessly it is being advertised. There are literally prime time advertisements[1] running on TV which are drumming up FOMO.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpabOu5rRuA

We're seeing the same thing (to a lesser extent) in the UK and (I expect) most other places. It cannot end well - Mass marketing is the one of the final levels of the pyramid before it runs out of marks.

Can someone who understands that post a transcript? Super curious - looks hilarious.

Its more like the new Dutch Tulip bulbs i'd say but with even less intrinsic value.

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