
$10k bet that bitcoin will outperform gold/silver/stock by 100x over two years - eof
http://longbets.org/611/
======
mynameishere
Just buy a hundred dollars worth of bitcoins, and short ten thousand dollars
worth of gold, and there you have your bet, at whatever multiple you like. No
need for someone to take you up on a "wager" as the market allows it already.
And good luck with that.

~~~
mhartl
You're right, of course, but you presuppose that the purpose of the "bet" is
financial. It's actually a donation to the Long Now Foundation. Plus, it gets
your name on their website, which is kind of cool.

~~~
dfc
I was really surprised by "it gets your name on their website." Why is that
cool? I think longnow is a neat organization so its not that I have something
against my name on their website.

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3pt14159
"With bitcoins, a person in California can send $20,000 USD worth of value to
a person in Russia in a matter of seconds, for FREE."

No. It would take about 15 minutes for the block chain to verify and even that
would be with a commission. Maybe 4 days delay if you didn't do a commission.

~~~
nhaehnle
Moreover, unless Bitcoin becomes so pervasive that it becomes the dominant
currency, you still have to convert USD to BTC and BTC to whatever. This
involves transactions that have some fees to exchanges associated, either
explicitly or implicitly via spreads.

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tonfa
So you should just invest $1k in BTC. If it outperforms by 100x, you lose 10k
but very likely gain much more, otherwise you get $9k.

~~~
jhuckestein
That would be awesome! Sadly Long Bets makes you donate the winnings to
charity to avoid prosecution as an illegal gambling site. Now if you happened
to own a charity...

~~~
Permit
Haha, I wonder if they could use Bitcoin as their prevailing currency and
avoid that problem altogether.

------
pat2man
All these arguments are because Bitcoin is the only cryptographic currency
thats widely used. What happens when another cryptographic currency replaces
it?

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Reebz
This bet is a self serving purpose - it brings attention to Bitcoins with
outlandish claims which will get media coverage. This brings more people to
the table to drive the value up as they purchase BTC on speculation only.

------
vibrunazo
Is that website reliable as an intermediate? Do they intermediate at all? I
tried to find out how to bet, and it required me to sign up. And signing up
requires entering a credit card? O.o

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tomku
Is it really a bet if there's no clearly-defined winning or losing conditions?
What dates would you use to calculate the prices of the things mentioned? What
"stock market", DJI? NASDAQ? FTSE? Something more exotic? Do bitcoins have to
outperform "the stock market" and those commodities individually, or some kind
of average?

Seems like more of a publicity stunt by someone who knows that nobody with
$10k to throw around is foolish enough to agree to such ill-defined terms.

~~~
taligent
Exactly Bitcoin is the equivalent of a pyramid scheme. It rewards the early
adopters and needs new users for the whole scheme to succeed.

This 'bet' is nothing more than a publicity stunt to convince people that
Bitcoin is a no-brainer investment.

~~~
earnon
It's not a pyramid scheme. Although it does reward early adopters for taking a
risk, eventually price should stabilize at a real world value (as opposed to a
dollar value. As long as we keep printing dollars, the real world value of a
dollar will decrease. The value of a bitcoin should always increase relative
to the dollar).

~~~
CamperBob2
_As long as we keep printing dollars, the real world value of a dollar will
decrease._

Assuming no corresponding productivity gains occur.

------
csense
From the article:

> Once Bitcoin use is wide spread, the people in favor of the wars will no
> longer be able to force the people against the wars to pay for them.

Yes they can. First of all, nobody keeps all of their assets in fiat currency.
Most people have houses, cars, and other valuable property that could be
physically seized to pay taxes due.

Second, the government can use "rubber-hose cryptanalysis" [1] -- if you
refuse to pay, threaten to prosecute and jail you (or for more oppressive
governments, torture and kill you). Nonpayment of taxes is certainly something
that can send people to jail in the US. (In practice, if you're delinquent,
AFAIK usually they just let you get away with paying back taxes, interest and
penalties, and have a procedure where you can set up a payment plan if you
can't afford to pay when they're due; prosecution is reserved for more
outrageous cases like deliberate fraud.)

Third, even if you have no non-Bitcoin assets and you're willing to go to jail
for your anti-tax stance, you still presumably economically interact with
others, who might not be willing to go to those extremes. In the US, for
example, I believe "backup withholding" is a procedure the tax authorities can
use to make an employer send a portion of a tax delinquent's paycheck directly
to the government for unpaid taxes. (By default, in the US most people's
paychecks have regular withholding, which I believe is voluntary, but if you
reduce it or turn it off then you're supposed to make payments manually during
the year. Most people go with the automatic system as the path of least
resistance.)

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis>

~~~
apeace
While the author's stance is idealistic, I don't think this response addresses
the author's basic point.

To address this statement: "First of all, nobody keeps all of their assets in
fiat currency"

1) Bitcoin is not a fiat currency, which is the point.

2) The dollar is a fiat currency, and _plenty_ of people (and countries) keep
all their assets in the form of dollars

Of course property is not fiat currency, but lots of property these days is
not owned but instead is either leased or bought using debt.

The point about torture is well taken, but torture can't be used on you if the
government can't identify who you are.

I don't believe Bitcoin is a "fiat" currency. Gold has value as a currency
because of its properties as a metal. Bitcoin has value because of its
properties as a P2P network: anonymity, guaranteed not to hyperinflate, free
transactions, and the other things the author mentioned.

So, I think as these properties become more and more valueable, so will
Bitcoin.

~~~
taligent
Just note that cash can also be anonymous, guaranteed not to hyper inflate,
free to transact etc.

~~~
blake8086
By what mechanism is it guaranteed not to hyper inflate?

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vhf
Impossible. Bitcoin cannot outperform gold stock by 100x without having a lot
more publicity.

Oh wait-

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Dylan16807
So this is just someone who wants to bet, and nobody has taken it?

~~~
gwern
Or he didn't accept them. Apparently LongBets lets you decline a challenger:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3263807>

------
axyjo
You can't take money out of the website after you win it. You have to donate
it.

