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Comment by andrewfromx | Hacker News Reader

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> Do you want to be one of the 21 million humans out of 8 billion that own a full BTC

That, it a nutshell, is the epitome of every scamming huckster hawking anything from all time. Don't recommend it for it's underlying utility or value, just try to build FOMO because it's rare (and artificially so, at that!)

Your pitch is exactly the same as the Beanie Baby and NFT salesmen.

So gold is ok because it's natural and BTC is not because its rareness is artificial? But in the year 2085 if BTC is still rare what does the natural vs artificial matter?

Bitcoin isn't rare of expensive. It's nearly infinitely divisible. The fact that there are 21 million of them is arbitrary. There could be 21,000, 21, or 21 trillion, or and it would be the same. What you mean is that it's unevenly distributed. The first miners get the lion's share of the bitcoin. I guess you're counting on being early to the party?

I was early too. I am one of the 21 million to have a bitcoin -- in fact I had more than ten. They have never been useful to me apart from helping me break laws. I'm glad to have gotten rid of them.

Gold sucks as a backing for an economy (for similar reasons!), which is why everyone moved off it.

but surely Vanguard has funds with gold?

Not really. Jack Bogle (Vanguard's founder) saw little value in speculating on commodities.

Vanguard used to a have a "Precious Metals and Mining Fund" but they renamed it to "Vanguard Global Capital Cycles Fund" and broadened its mandate/portfolio.

Gold is better because it can be used(industrial applications, bling, etc). Value investors like Buffet still hate gold for the same reasons listed by vanguard.

Shill.

At the end of the day, it’s some bytes with no inherit value other than the memetic fomo of artificial scarcity. It’s only interesting or exciting (to me) because there are people who will buy it, so you can get rich “speculating” that if you hold, the price will go up so you can unload to a bigger fool. At least with Etherium there’s some intrinsic value in terms of distributed computation.

There are only 77200sqm of land in Nebraska, do you want to be one out of the 77200 people to own a full square mile?

> Do you want to be one of the 21 million humans out of 8 billion that own a full BTC?

No?

To be in the top 21 million richest people world wide, you would likely need a net worth of approximately 4 to 5 million USD.

It seems like a no brainer to pick up 1 BTC for 100k and hold it.

> It seems like a no brainer to pick up 1 BTC for 100k and hold it.

Based on what evidence will BTC be going up to 4-5 million?

And how many of us can drop 100K on some speculative multi year (decade) bet?

I have some toenail clippings for sale. Since I’ll likely die sometime within the next 40 years, production is quite limited! Just imagine what a pinky toe clipping will be worth in 40 years! I think $50,000 each would be a bargain. How many can I sign you up for?

Why would the people holding all the 21mln bitcoins be the richest people in the world?

They are not. My logic goes currently how many billionaires are there world wide: about 2,640.

Then work backwards, how much networth do you need to be in the top 21 million people world wide: 4-5 million.

Why did you pick up 21 mln people? Just to make a contrived connection to the number of bitcoins?

No thanks

Unless it’s just nonsense and worth nothing. Then you’ve just set fire to 100k.

lol no

I am selling digital rocks that scare away digital tigers. There are only going to be 21 of them. They should therefore by your logic be a million times more valuable than a BTC. Don’t you want to be one of only 21 humans out of 8 billion to own one?

> Do you want to be one of the 21 million humans out of 8 billion that own a full BTC?

This reeks of culty in-group speak.

> And yet no one has broken bitcoin encryption and there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins. Do you want to be one of the 21 million humans out of 8 billion that own a full BTC?

This in no way rebuts the argument that Vanguard makes.

I have 12 unique rocks at my house. No other one in the world is exactly like it. Want to be left out and not have on!? I’ll sell you one for $100,000!

Lord Percy, are they nuggets of pure green?

Sure, if you're offering.

Otherwise they're a speculative investment that carries a ton of risk, so I won't be investing my own money.

I've had this stance since the very beginning and obviously have been wrong the whole time, so take that as you will.

And what will I do with this full BTC?

Certainly not spend it. Which brings the whole issue clear. What will you do with "currency" you won't spend.

> And yet no one has broken bitcoin encryption and there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins

What if the chain by consensus agrees there can be 210 million bitcoins?

about as likely as someone breaking the secp256k1 elliptic curve algo.

Bitcoin will need to add tail emission due to the security budget issues as block rewards go down and there isn’t enough transaction fees to support miners

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