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Comment by gigatexal | Hacker News Reader

Here’s hoping bitcoin goes to zero

Bitcoin didn’t go to zero with people buying it through shady exchanges operated out of tax havens, and you think Bitcoin will go to zero AFTER its available to every investor in the US through every finance app and is being sold by giant hedge funds?

> and you think Bitcoin will go to zero AFTER its available to every investor in the US through every finance app and is being sold by giant hedge funds?

The reasoning is (I'm not saying I believe this will happen just that it is an interesting thought experiment) that if people quit the shady exchanges and start trading Bitcoin ETF in substantial numbers it could begin to starve the crypto network of transaction fees and the exchanges and other crypto companies of customers.

If Bitcoin ETFs become the main way bitcoin is traded then purchasing bitcoin is just for speculation and not an 'investment in crypto and the future of finance', in that case it's much easier for the bubble to burst.

Why would ETFs become a main way? Bitcoin is still a currency, can I trade, holdl or spend my ETFs?

> Why would ETFs become a main way?

About 70% of the S&P 500 stocks are held by mutual funds or ETFs rather than individually held.

If you trade stocks and would like to buy bitcoin (as an investment) are you going to do it with an ETF through your broker where the money is protected fairly well by law and insurance, or manually and make sure you don't loose it, or through an unregulated crypto exchange?

Use of Bitcoin as a currency (for buying things) has dropped from 57% in 2019 to 32% in 2023, the rest is speculation and inter exchange transfers

Protecting whom at what fee and cost privacy? I would still go with the 'unregulated exchanges' I guess.

I get your point but without bitcoin being an actual real thing the whole ETF thing won't last either.

where's the stat about btc being used to buy things from?

By definition you can do all 3. Spend by selling convert to fiat and then buy whatever you want. "Holdl"(sic) just say long despite what sanity or logic says. Trade buy/sell like anything else.

I can sell the art on my wall and spend the earned money. That doesn't make art a currency or spendable. Trading and holding sure sounds possible :)

it sure does. wanna launder money? sell your art -- sounds like it's a currency to me ;-)

>it could begin to starve the crypto network of transaction fees and the exchanges and other crypto companies of customers.

"Nobody Goes There Anymore, It’s Too Crowded"

cryptocurrencies are primarily a tool for grift, crime, other shady purposes. their existence is a net negative hence my hope bitcoin and with it the whole market for currencies to go to zero.

but what about cash you might ask? cash has always been used for everything of course both good and bad but transporting millions of some fiat currency in a briefcase is a lot harder than stealing some wallet with monkey jpegs or tokens worth 45k usd.

This is a very first world, privileged perspective. There are billions of people in the world who don't have access to stable local currencies or payment systems. I've personally hired people in Africa and Phillippines who prefer being paid in stablecoins than their local currencies (not that there is an easy way to pay them in their local currencies).

oh it very much is a priviledged take -- but the solution isn't to replace something when it's broken but fix the existing thing and the thing here would be governments and their policies towards their money and central banks if they have them.

the fiat system of currencies has worked and could work but wholehearted replacement of them is akin to just throwing up one's hands and not vying to fix the underlying problem. doing so would do far more good than just making it easier to pay someone but would mean an overall more stable government for the people long term.

> fix the existing thing and the thing here would be governments and their policies towards their money and central banks if they have them

Yes, this is just so easy to do in war torn dictatorship! Just get your often undemocratically elected government that has never done anything for you to change everything about itself!

Keep hoping, keep coping... one day your wish might come true!

But more likely, people in our generations will still be working until they are 70+, and their 401k will have some allocation to a Bitcoin ETF.

The lower it goes, the more of the hardest money mankind had ever seen I can buy.

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