2018 Clusterfuck Forecast
James Kunstler's cynical forecast includes BTC "Bitcoin and other cryptos have a superficial appeal as a wealth safe haven supposedly out-of-reach of avaricious governments — if you don’t consider everything else that’s wrong with it. (Yesterday, Dec 31, Australia’s biggest banks froze the accounts of Bitcoin investors.) I think the safe haven idea will prove fallacious. Governments are already finding ways to interfere, using taxation schemes and shutting down exchanges. Bitcoin’s other claims on “moneyness” look bogus as well. It’s too unstable to be a medium of exchange, and too difficult to even access when need to sell, and you certainly can’t price anything in it as it shoots up and crashes every day. Bitcoin went way up because people — or maybe just algorithms — saw it going way up, so they hitched a ride. The rush to the exits will be brutal. Its final resting place will be zero, but perhaps not without a trip or two to nosebleed levels in 2018, especially as other markets wobble in the first half of the year. Bitcoin $50-K wouldn’t surprise me. But I’m not among the buyers. Enjoy the show...: In full http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/forecast-2018-go-wrong/
In the medium-sized to long-term I've written off all crypto that serve no useful function except, perhaps, as "digital gold" for asset safety. Comparing BTC to national monies, how many would use a currency whose fee "friction" made it impractical to use except as a replacement for Wire transfers? On Jan 7, 2018 2:40 PM, "g2s" <g2s@riseup.net> wrote:
James Kunstler's cynical forecast includes BTC
"Bitcoin and other cryptos have a superficial appeal as a wealth safe haven supposedly out-of-reach of avaricious governments — if you don’t consider everything else that’s wrong with it. (Yesterday, Dec 31, Australia’s biggest banks froze the accounts of Bitcoin investors.) I think the safe haven idea will prove fallacious. Governments are already finding ways to interfere, using taxation schemes and shutting down exchanges. Bitcoin’s other claims on “moneyness” look bogus as well. It’s too unstable to be a medium of exchange, and too difficult to even access when need to sell, and you certainly can’t price anything in it as it shoots up and crashes every day. Bitcoin went way up because people — or maybe just algorithms — saw it going way up, so they hitched a ride. The rush to the exits will be brutal. Its final resting place will be zero, but perhaps not without a trip or two to nosebleed levels in 2018, especially as other markets wobble in the first half of the year. Bitcoin $50-K wouldn’t surprise me. But I’m not among the buyers. Enjoy the show...:
In full http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/forecast-2018-go-wrong/
On 1/8/2018 8:48 AM, Steven Schear wrote:
In the medium-sized to long-term I've written off all crypto that serve no useful function except, perhaps, as "digital gold" for asset safety. Comparing BTC to national monies, how many would use a currency whose fee "friction" made it impractical to use except as a replacement for Wire transfers?
The intolerable fees reflect scaling limits. If scaling not fixed, bitcoin will die. If scaling fixed, bitcoin will likely replace national currencies.
Bitcoin Cash's 8 MBPS blocks offers has on-chain chain scaling sufficient to enable substantial growth. 64 MB blocks could handle as many txs/sec as PayPal. Off-chain, once solid tech that isn't a backdoor for CBs and WS (as LN appears to be), should easily compete with VISA. On Jan 7, 2018 4:11 PM, <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:
On 1/8/2018 8:48 AM, Steven Schear wrote:
In the medium-sized to long-term I've written off all crypto that serve no useful function except, perhaps, as "digital gold" for asset safety. Comparing BTC to national monies, how many would use a currency whose fee "friction" made it impractical to use except as a replacement for Wire transfers?
The intolerable fees reflect scaling limits. If scaling not fixed, bitcoin will die. If scaling fixed, bitcoin will likely replace national currencies.
Yes, sorry. I MEANT physical to mean precious metal or other impossible to reproduce material, not mere paper. On 1/8/18, jamesd@echeque.com <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:
On 1/8/2018 11:12 AM, \0xDynamite wrote:
Totally HORRIBLE idea. The idea of using a information code in place of a physical currency is the WORST idea ever.
Surely the greenback was always an information code, and never physical.
On Mon, 8 Jan 2018 01:57:02 +0000 "\\0xDynamite" <dreamingforward@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, sorry. I MEANT physical to mean precious metal or other impossible to reproduce material, not mere paper.
even physical government paper is better than cryptocurrencies in a few ways.
On 1/8/18, jamesd@echeque.com <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:
On 1/8/2018 11:12 AM, \0xDynamite wrote:
Totally HORRIBLE idea. The idea of using a information code in place of a physical currency is the WORST idea ever.
Surely the greenback was always an information code, and never physical.
On 1/8/2018 11:57 AM, \0xDynamite wrote:
Yes, sorry. I MEANT physical to mean precious metal or other impossible to reproduce material, not mere paper.
OK, US dollar is mere information, real only because people believe it is real, and bitcoin is mere information real only because people believe it is real, the fact that one is controlled by our enemies, and the other does not appear to be controlled by our enemies, matters.
Yes, sorry. I MEANT physical to mean precious metal or other impossible to reproduce material, not mere paper.
OK, US dollar is mere information, real only because people believe it is real, and bitcoin is mere information real only because people believe it is real, the fact that one is controlled by our enemies, and the other does not appear to be controlled by our enemies, matters.
Yes, but let us not talk of "enemies", let us say the guilty, for that is a defensible claim. Marxos
participants (5)
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\0xDynamite -
g2s -
jamesd＠echeque.com -
juan -
Steven Schear