
It's Not Just a Bitcoin Bubble – It's Far Worse - joeax
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4130195-just-bitcoin-bubble-far-worse
======
gesman
Seekingalpha needs to seek a better quality content and better quality
writers.

Researching stocks - I finding these "wisdom" advisory gems from seekingalpha:

"While I wish I had held on to [stock that shoot up] until now (instead of
selling post-Q2), I wouldn't be holding past this point."

In other words the writer affirms that he is a bad stock picker and
immediately offers stock picking advise.

Lol

~~~
joeax
I don't think you should take stock picking advice from any writer on SA. A
lot of articles are conjecture and a fun read, nothing more.

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thisisit
> That being said, blockchain technology is not Bitcoin. Blockchain technology
> will likely be revolutionary, while Bitcoin is essentially worthless.

People keep saying this but what exactly is the value proposition of
blockchain again?

~~~
lubujackson
Triple-entry accounting, basically. There was an article on here a few months
ago that went into depth on the issue.

Double-entry accounting made it much harder to cook the books (a record of
where money is coming from and a record of where it is going). Blockchains
store every transaction within the coin itself and are validated by the entire
network as valid transactions.

People promote Bitcoin as anonymous, but it's actually the opposite - every
transaction is traceable and open source, even if the accounts are not tied to
a person directly.

There are uses for this but I think the unintended consequences remain to be
seen. I think of how people were able to be identified by that Netflix ratings
datadump a few years ago, so imagine how easy it would be if Bitcoin became a
common currency? I am not positive this is possible (I think it is?) but
imagine I buy an apple from Whole Foods and pay with Bitcoin. Now I know what
account they use and I can go back through the blockchain to see every other
transaction they've ever made: bam, now I know all financial data about Whole
Foods over Bitcoin including which accounts pay them the most and the
datestamps of those transactions.

~~~
cypherpunks01
Is this the article you're referring to?

[https://hackernoon.com/why-everyone-missed-the-most-
importan...](https://hackernoon.com/why-everyone-missed-the-most-important-
invention-in-the-last-500-years-c90b0151c169)

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everdev
As a developer I've had many people reach out to me on how they can "bring
their business to the blockchain". It's a stretch for most of them but there
seems to be some fever among non-technical CEOs that they need to ride this
wave.

~~~
stevenwoo
When I hear this my eyes roll back so far in my head they come back around.

~~~
notyourwork
Why? Its a new technology, people (who are unable to understand or grasp
technology are curious) want to get involved with it. Mobile phones,
computers, lots of things fell into this category at some point. You should
pardon their ignorance.

~~~
sremani
If you replace "blockchain" with "database" and the application still makes
sense, then you should not do "blockchain", at least for now.

Not all apps benefit by being on blockchain, on the contrary they are
needlessly complicated.

There is a reason Netflix does not use torrents, centralized systems are
efficient. Unless the application demands "trustless", no point touching it.

~~~
notyourwork
You are missing my point entirely.

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pcurve
Each Bitcoin transaction uses 100 - 200kwh. It's absurd if you think about it.
Isn't this going to be what dooms block chain let alone Bitcoin?

~~~
mrb
A bitcoin transaction does NOT use mining energy. Transaction rate and energy
use are independent. The media always gets this wrong. It's like saying each
bit on a CD-ROM "use fuel" when it's shipped on a mail truck.

~~~
rrobukef
But there is a cost for each bit. It's amortized. Because at some point you
need a second cd, which increases fuel a tiny bit, and lowers the amirtized
cost per bit. At some point you need a bigger truck and then a second truck,
suddenly the cost jumps up a whole lot.

Transactions are limited in number. Each transaction costs.

~~~
mrb
No. Transactions are NOT limited by the energy consumption of miners. Miners
hash a fixed size 80-byte block header, regardless of how many transactions
are in the block.

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gt_
For what it’s worth, there are 2 insights here:

1\. _Cryptocurrency_ is a bubble.

2\. Surface-level associations or mere mentions of associations with
cryptocurrency is a bubble.

Both are reliant on the vague “bubble” term, but I think #2 is the
conversation that not enough people are having. Most people I know who discuss
cryptocurrency on a daily basis care next to nothing about what it is for, or
the technology involved. They are entirely captivated by something limited to
_buzz_ , and anything beyond that or in oppositition to it is processed by
them as unsavory.

This observation, at least, decidingly bysteps debate over whether
cryptocurrency has value, and points to the incredible amount of willful
delusion invited by it’s fans. This phenomenon is of course attributed to so
much of how late capitalism persists. But, when it happens on such a bloated
level around something that should by any sober account be a critical ordeal,
there is some significance to that conversation.

The particular observations of mere phonetical and marginal associations with
blockchain leading to overnight exhorbitant values should be understood as a
very seperate discussion from _“Is crypto a bubble?”_.

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throw2016
Have the greedy every changed the world, for the better?

Bitcoin adopters continue to religiously engage the same fraud that was
adopted by initial promoters, peddling fantasies about decentralization,
anonymity, transaction costs and taking on the global banking system. None of
this is real, and on the last the slightest hint of adoption by the
establishment send prices soaring and palpable excitement among supporters.

So if it has no utility, with supporters who lie, then where are the absurd
valuations coming from? Bitcoin exists without relation to economics, demand,
utility or value, and with negative externalities for efficiency and the
environment making rational discussion redundant.

Why bother creating value to generate revenue, when you can print the revenue,
literally. It's like a group of people get together to make IOU tokens and are
convinced the world will one day accept their paper. Well if it has some
utility the world may, but not simply because you want to gain something for
nothing.

~~~
mrb
You don't know what you are talking about.

I use Bitcoin to transact with my brother overseas. It's decentralized. It
works.

Yes there is an absurd bubble going on. But bubbles are expected with
revolutionary technologies (18th century train companies, 19th century car
companies, 1990s dot com bubble...)

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flowctrl
> So, if it can’t be used as a currency to buy anything, and when you “invest”
> in it you’re not having any ownership in a company, what is it truly worth?
> What is a fake coin in your electronic wallet truly worth?

What is SeekingAlpha.com truly worth? What is a fake newspaper on your
electronic screen truly worth? What is the software you used to write the
article worth?

The value of digital assets lies in their usefulness, and how many people use
them. The usefulness of the software "Bitcoin" is that it allows people to
store a record of value -- like the numbers in your bank account -- in a
reliable, secure, trust-worthy, fungible way that is practically immune to
corruption, control, and seizure, and can be transferred to anyone else
anywhere in the world almost instantly, for practically free.

But that's just Bitcoin, the very first of its kind. The thriving technology
ecosystem that Bitcoin birthed is boiling over with potential.

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bastian
Far too simplistic view IMHO.

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bastijn
Outline link for those who run into the signup wall:

[https://outline.com/U9qckd](https://outline.com/U9qckd)

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iamthirsty
This has been said over and over again among enthusiasts — I don't really know
what value this article adds, in all honesty.

~~~
joeax
He is drawing comparisons to the dot-com bubble, specifically adding
"Blockchain" to the company name vs added "e" or "com" in the 90's to
dramatically increase valuations.

I worked during the dot-com bubble when my company added a ".com" to the
company name. I remember being told to drop what I was doing and go through
all our UI and make sure the .com branding was there so marketing can UAT it
by 3pm.

~~~
JauntyHatAngle
I think the point the post you were replying to was making is that comparisons
to the .com bubble have been made for years and years.

~~~
iamthirsty
Exactly.

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ganeshkrishnan
Here come the naysayers.

>What is a fake coin in your electronic wallet truly worth?

How much is the piece of paper in your wallet worth?

Maybe bitcoin will burn and crash or maybe it will be a million dollars a
piece. We don't know. People are buying bitcoin and that is driving the prices
up. South Korea has been the biggest buyer of BTC (perhaps fear of NK?)

Don't confuse the value of a cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) with companies that are
riding it's wave

~~~
colechristensen
The piece of paper in my pocket is backed by the full faith and credit of the
United States, an institution that has kept that faith for 241 years and that
has the faith of the world. The planet is absolutely full of greater fools
that have, do, and will continue to value the dollar.

That "fake coin" in my electronic wallet is backed by algorithms. The greater
fools giving it value are and have been, as far as I can see, excited mostly
by profiting on the speculation of it. Who actually uses bitcoin outside of
trying to profit from the bubble or just for the novelty of using it?

The dollar is backed by the wealth and economy of the nation, the coin
exclusively by greater fools and it's rarity.

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mdekkers
_Register for FREE to finish reading this article_

I don´t think so, clickbait

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grover_hartmann
Bitcoin is not a bubble, it's a pin.

~~~
speedplane
I made the huge mistake of not investing more when I first heard about it back
in 2011... back then, investing a month of rent could have now made me rich
forever.

Bitcoin has some serious problems to overcome as a real consumer currency, but
it seems clear that some crypto-currency will eventually become ubiquitous.

As far as the speculation game, Bitcoin is just barely starting to reach
consumer investors. Whether it's a bubble or not, I'm not sure, but it has a
long way to go.

