If you look at the history of empires, from the Romans to the Han, it is littered with instances of societal decline as a direct result of inflation and overspending.This unilateral currency debasement is much harder if the collective (and global) definition of money is determined by distributed networks of computers.
Maybe Bitcoin itself isn’t the final form, but the fact that distributed systems and cryptography tech is out there means the cat is out of the bag.
Even if your view on the crypto industry is negative, it’s important to take some time to understand why millions of people around the world are involved in it.It’s not only because of the appeal of ponzi schemes.
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The bitcoiner argument would be that only bitcoin has reached a level of decentralization to survive, and the powers that be stand ready to crush any would-be stronger substitutes before they reach critical mass.
It feels a lot like when AOL first started supporting email in 1993.It’s easy to dismiss AOL and Nasdaq as highly centralized systems that don’t align with the ethos of decentralization.
But the other way to look at it is a previously maximally centralized system is interfacing with a decentralized one in a way that gives the users of the former slightly more freedom and the latter wider user base and legitimacy.
Nothing has stopped the damn thing.It’s always there.
It’s one of those things that just keeps on existing, like gold.
It doesn’t care what you think.It doesn’t care whether you like it or not.It doesn’t care if you understand it.
It’s just always been there.
Might as well make it easier for people and companies to own it and trade Bitcoin, and for governments to tax profits on it.
Like poop
> It doesn’t care what you think.
Neither does a dooky.
> It doesn’t care whether you like it or not.
Poop has lovers and haters it doesn’t care.
> It doesn’t care if you understand it.
Poop is like a riddle wrapped in a stinky enigma.
> It’s just always been there.
Just like poopy.
Bitwise (BITB)
ARK Invest/21Shares (ARKB)
Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF (BTCO)
iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT)
VanEck Bitcoin Trust (HODL)
Franklin Bitcoin ETF (EZBC)
Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust (FBTC)
WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust (BTCW)
Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund (BRRR)
Hashdex Bitcoin Futures ETF (DEFI)
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC)
This should also solve the scalability issues quite a bit by reducing the need to record as many transactions in the first place once the exchanges hold most of the coins.
Finally this should reduce the long-term potential in mining as the block reward keeps reducing exponentially with lower expectations of transaction fees.
Sometimes regulatory solutions do fix hard technical problems.
There’s a two way arb in ETFs which keeps the price tracking accurate:
– if the ETF trades higher than bitcoin on crypto exchanges: the market makers can simply buy bitcoin on exchange, sell the ETF on traditional exchanges: do this enough and the price difference narrows.
– if the ETF trades lower than bitcoin on crypto exchanges: I can just buy the ETF, ask to redeem to bitcoin and pocket the difference.Sooner or later this price discrepancy goes away.
Can only redeem to cash.
https://www.etfcentral.com/news/two-important-things-need-kn…
The custody provider (e.g.Coinbase is the custody provider for most of these ETFs) should be able to simply show wallet addresses for all the Bitcoin they hold.
> simply show wallet addresses for all the Bitcoin they hold
DTC’s database is not where the Bitcoin is.It’s still on Bitcoin’s decentralized blockchain, just like always.That’s the ultimate authority no matter how many centralized forms you stack on top of it.
At least with this structure, there are separate, distinct entities for custody, market making, transfer agent, etc.to reduce the incentives to self-deal and print fake paper securities and commodities.
So a huge improvement on the current state of affairs, where FTX or Binance handles all of these functions, with no segregation.
AFAYK.
if the law was iffy for freaking banks then, imagine how it is for btc
Pays out in what though?
But I have a feeling like it will take an incident like the one you describe to happen first before that becomes mandatory.
Ther Trust itself would be a target of cyber crime and could try to pursue the thieves through Computer Abuce Act(s) around the world.
These two happen independently of each other.
They just sold the coins on the inferior chain and gave a one time dividend.
This seems unlikely.
Many TradFi custodians ignore/do not support (publicly) forks of client assets held, sometimes just until they reach some arbitrary level of social traction.
Now, that is a very interesting question.
If said ETF did their homework properly, their handling of a fork should be described in detail in their prospectus.
Not that I would ever buy a BTC ETF since it precisely negates what I believe Bitcoin to be useful for, but if I had to, I’d pick the one that would convert the forked coins back to BTC immediately after the fork.
If enough ETFs actually promise to apply this policy in their statutes, that would make it quite a hump to get over for a would-be forker, knowing the immediate price hit the forked coin would take because of the ETF immediately dumping it.
Yeah I know what you mean, although one competitive advantage of the fund is it can be invested in a tax-free savings accounts not subject to capital gains tax (I haven’t seen a practical way to do the same with the raw commodity).
But is there actually a difference for pure buy-and-hold investors in most jurisdictions?
I know of at least one jurisdiction where an ETF is actually disadvantaged against physically holding cryptocurrency.
Would it actually be clear which fork is the winning one?
My understanding taken from:
1.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/bitcoin-etf-hurdles%3A-cash-…”In the event of a fork diverting from the main chain, trusts associated with the ETFs are expected to relinquish any entitlements.”
2.
Grayscale prospectus, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1588489/000119312524…:
> Shareholders will not receive the benefits of any forks or airdrops.
> The Bitcoin Network operates using open-source protocols, meaning that any user can download the software, modify it and then propose that the users and miners of Bitcoin adopt the modification.When a modification is introduced and a substantial majority of users and miners’ consent to the modification, the change is implemented and the network remains uninterrupted.However, if less than a substantial majority of users and miners’ consent to the proposed modification, and the modification is not compatible with the software prior to its modification, the consequence would be what is known as a “hard fork” of the Bitcoin Network, with one group running the pre-modified software and the other running the modified software.The effect of such a fork would be the existence of two versions of Bitcoin running in parallel, yet lacking interchangeability.In addition to forks, a digital asset may become subject to a similar occurrence known as an “airdrop.” In an airdrop, the promotors of a new digital asset announce to holders of another digital asset that such holders will be entitled to claim a certain amount of the new digital asset for free, based on the fact that they hold such other digital asset.We refer to the right to receive any benefits arising from a fork, airdrop of similar event as an “Incidental Right” and any such virtual currency acquired through an Incidental Right as “IR Virtual Currency.”
> With respect to any fork, airdrop or similar event, the Sponsor will cause the Trust to irrevocably abandon the Incidental Rights and any IR Virtual Currency associated with such event.As such, shareholders will not receive the benefits of any forks, and the Trust is not able to participate in any airdrop.
> In the event the Sponsor seeks to change the Trust’s policy with respect to Incidental Rights or IR Virtual Currency, an application would need to be filed with the SEC by NYSE Arca seeking approval to amend its listing rules to permit the Trust to distribute the Incidental Rights or IR Virtual Currency in-kind to an agent of the shareholders for resale by such agent.However, there can be no assurance as to whether or when the Sponsor would make such a decision, or when NYSE Arca will seek or obtain this approval, if at all.
> Even if such regulatory approval is sought and obtained, shareholders may not receive the benefits of any forks, the Trust may not choose, or be able, to participate in an airdrop, and the timing of receiving any benefits from a fork, airdrop or similar event is uncertain.
Any inability to recognize the economic benefit of a hard fork or airdrop could adversely affect the value of the Shares.
Here’s a list of 45(!) Bitcoin forks and 11 airdrops that have happened so far: https://forkdrop.io/how-many-bitcoin-forks-are-there
What happens when the fork snapshotted the chain at some arbitrary point in the past such that it’s not possible to match it up with ownership of the ETF?
There have been ‘forks’ of altcoins made where the ‘official’ software was expressly backdoored.They even lead to some fringe exchanges being robbed.
There was a brief flurry of forks when exchanges felt compelled to list them– they were a way for altcoin creators to avoid the huge listing bribes demanded by exchanges (which also has made it so that only premined altcoins are viable to create anymore)…but after exchanges decided to stop listing them (and esp Archer v Coinbase established that exchanges could just keep the fork coins, if that was their policy) most of the fork creation stopped.
(somewhat to my saddness: diligently dumping fork coins made me a lot of money…)
> Though we’re merit neutral, I’d note that the underlying assets in the metals ETPs have consumer and industrial uses, while in contrast bitcoin is primarily a speculative, volatile asset that’s also used for illicit activity including ransomware,[4] money laundering,[5] sanction evasion,[6] and terrorist financing.[7]
You can find how this was addressed in the approval:
> See, e.g., Kling Letter (stating that the bitcoin futures price is beholden to the spot price, and the spot price has always been, and continues to be, manipulated by bad actors); Better Markets Letter I at 2 and 4-9 and Better Markets Letter II at 4-6 (stating that spot bitcoin ETPs are extremely vulnerable to manipulation by bad actors because spot bitcoin markets (1) have a history of artificially inflated trading volumes due to rampant manipulation and wash trading, (2) are highly concentrated, and (3) rely on a select group of individuals and entities to maintain the bitcoin network); Letter from John Palmer, dated Aug.11, 2023, regarding SR-CboeBZX-2023-028 (stating that 75% of the bitcoin in circulation is controlled by a small minority who use market makers to pump and dump); Daniel Smith Letter (“[t]he history of crypto is a never-ending history of frauds and scams”); Letter from Billy Jensen, dated Sept.5, 2023, regarding SR- CboeBZX-2023-028 (stating that bitcoin is a digital Ponzi, and that approving a spot ETF “will bring greater unsuspecting fools into the pyramid scheme”); Letter from The Registered Principal, dated Aug.9, 2023, regarding SR-CboeBZX-2023-038, SR-CboeBZX-2023-040, SR-CboeBZX-2023-042, SR- CboeBZX-2023-044, SR-NASDAQ-2023-016, SR-NASDAQ-2023-019, and SR-NYSEARCA-2023-44 (“[t]here are no verifiable entities or persons as points of ultimate origin of [b]itcoin which makes it very likely to be a major fraud operation”); Letter from Joseph, dated July 18, 2023, regarding SR-CboeBZX- 2023-044 (“[a] cartel of organized crime and money-launders [sic] actively manipulate the price of [b]itcoin through the use of Tether and other crypto-ponzi schemes”); Letter from Avinash Shenoy, dated Oct.18, 2023, regarding SR-NASDAQ-2023-016 (stating that manipulation in the bitcoin marketplace has not gone away); Letter from Winston Wood, dated Oct.19, 2023, regarding SR-NASDAQ-2023-016 (stating that the bitcoin market is manipulated and has a history rife with scams and criminal activity); Letter from Greg Steven, dated Oct.
19, 2023, regarding SR-NASDAQ-2023-016 (“Steven Letter”) (stating that bitcoin is wash traded on platforms outside of U.S.jurisdiction); Letter from Neil Fulton, dated Oct.20, 2023, regarding SR-NASDAQ-2023-016 (recommending that spot bitcoin ETPs be disapproved until bitcoin wash trading is minimized); Letters from Micah Warren, Associate Professor of Mathematics, University of Oregon, dated Oct.
27, 2023, regarding SR-NASDAQ-2023-016, and dated Dec.
15, 2023, regarding SR-CboeBZX-2023-072 (“Warren Letters”) (explaining how the bitcoin ledger, which is maintained by for-profit mining entities, could become significantly less diverse and less costly to manipulate).Some commenters also assert that the bitcoin asset itself is a manipulation or fraud.One commenter states that “the complete lack of knowledge of who the operators of the bitcoin network are means that it is impossible to implement sufficient control measures to ensure a fair market that is free from manipulation of both token trades, actions of the operators, or even the fundamental properties of the asset itself.” See Letter from Brandon B., dated Oct.25, 2023, regarding SR-NASDAQ-2023-016 (“Brandon Letter”), at 4.
Another commenter asserts that the questions the Commission has been asking about fraud and manipulation are misguided because “they are predicated on the idea that [b]itcoin is something legitimate which could possibly serve the public interest.” This commenter claims that “[b]itcoin is, and has always been, a form of investment fraud” that should be banned, not regulated.See Letter from Sal
> Commission acknowledges these concerns.Pursuant to Section 19(b)(2) of the Exchange Act, however, the Commission must approve a proposed rule change filed by a national securities exchange if it finds that the proposed rule change is consistent with the applicable requirements of the Exchange Act.61 For the reasons described above, the Commission finds that the Proposals satisfy the requirements of the Exchange Act, including the requirement in Section 6(b)(5)62 that the Exchanges’ rules be designed to “prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices.”
1.fees are absolutely insane
2.it doesn’t actually track Bitcoin price
A proper ETF which aims to be competitive might be much closer to actual BTC ownership
Government bonds.
There were ETFs holding Greek gov bonds for example.Greek cheated to enter the EU (by fudging its numbers, with the help of big accounting firms and banks).And government bonds are known to be risky, seen that throughout times many government have simply grown their public debt and then defaulted.
Fun fact: US public debt grew from $33 trillion (with a ‘t’) to $34 trillion in …drumroll …
100 days.
Woot!
P.S: I’m not sure your question is correctly phrased…3% to 5% of the world’s entire GDP is linked to crime.By now it’s not even clear if 3% to 5% of all the Bitcoin transactions are linked to crime.
https://www.justetf.com/en/etf-profile.html?isin=IE00B4X9L53…
Now a lot of people here will be investing in Bitcoin without even knowing it, as their passive fund investments begin accumulating.The sweet victory against the no coiners.
If you try to help them understand, you’re generally attacked as if you are shill, and then they continue along in their ignorant bubble.It’s a shame, but their attitude isn’t conducive to me losing any sleep.
You buy bitcoin at the price you deserve.
I think Bitcoin is one of the many way that the economy is rigged against economically insecure retail investors.The more money that gets funneled from the middle class into Michael Saylor and crew’s pocket the closer it brings us to civil war.
Checkout
End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration by Peter Turchin
https://www.amazon.com/End-Times-Counter-Elites-Political-Di…
I highly recommend reading “The Creature from Jekyll Island” which explains everything that’s wrong with central banking/fiat currencies and will help you understand the devastating effect it is having on the world.
Sure, there is a transfer of wealth while bitcoin is monetizing.But you buy bitcoin at the price you deserve.
Michael Saylor deserves everything he’s going to get.He’s a visionary with balls of steel – he’s laid it all on the line.If you try to avoid making bitcoin whales richer by not buying bitcoin, you’ll simply be cutting off your nose to spite your face.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reflexive-negativity-jess-mac…
That’s a shame 🙁 computer graphics is a very interesting topic and I always love to read things about it
So, as is the case with any meaningful investment, you have to ask “cui bono?” with cryptocurrency.Very plainly, you’re risking normal money on a venture that doesn’t promote anything other than greed and black market transactions.
The hackers on this site will oppose it in favor of information freedom and a less money-influenced internet, and the greedy bastards will oppose it because they’d prefer one party owns everything from the start.It’s a nuanced situation with lots of different people, good-faith or not, who will oppose or support cryptocurrency for the wrong or right reasons.It’s straightforward and non-predatory to say that most people are better off keeping their pay-stub out of the alternative currency market.
Those on HN who believed that such a complete ban on crypto was feasible were always delusional.
The cat is out of the bag for both AI and crypto, but in the end, the legal system always gets them to pay up and the regulators for both AI or crypto will get them as well.
No escaping that.
Authorizing Bitcoin ETFs does absolutely nothing to revolutionize payments or finance, and is the only positive crypto story I have seen in many months.
OP’s point wasn’t about preventing decentralized benefits, I believe they were saying the ETFs don’t help them in any way.
Also, no one is going to end up accidentally investing in crypto, these ETFs are going to be super niche products.
For those young enough (or foolish enough) to operate a high-risk/high-growth retirement portfolio, holding crypto can be a large boon.Just the past 365 days of BTC has 162% increase in value.
Most of funds by AUM are now passive index funds.
and the SEC thinking about appealing but realizing this absolutely based SCOTUS would delete the SEC like Thanos if they ever get taken beyond circuit appeals court by the private sector
markets win
regarding whether Congress even delegated that discretion to the SEC whether the 7th amendment circumvention stands or not
and regarding whether their in-house, on-staff, judges can be exempt from removal
there are plenty more deeper questions to bring before the supreme court, about this specific agency.
this SCOTUS has expressed interest in taking out the remaining vestiges of the New Deal, which were mostly found unconstitutional in the late 1930s, with the remaining things simply being difficult to find standing for – hard to take to court.The SEC’s main behaviors being one of those things.this SCOTUS has expressed interest in how the interstate commerce clause is interpreted at all, which is also a core tenant of the New Deal.Could possibly reshape our entire relationship with the Federal Government.The SEC would take the biggest L while the capital markets would be fine.
[EDIT]: looks like no, saying “a based judge” actually has meaning in English.
(used to express approval or respect, especially in response to a social media post): Based.
At least somebody shows some spine on this forum.
Having read many of these negative comments, I think part of this sentiment boils down to the commenter seeing no point to Bitcoin.Just this thread has examples.
It must be more than a little annoying to feel very strongly that Bitcoin is pointless, but to also notice that it’s still here.Year after year.
If that shoe were on my foot, in addition to being annoyed I’d be curious about what I was missing.
Bitcoin doesn’t have to do something useful for everyone to survive.It doesn’t have to “replace fiat.” It doesn’t have to be a payment system.
It doesn’t have to “go to the moon.” It doesn’t even need an ETF.Bitcoin just needs to fill needs (or wants) not met by anything else.They don’t even have to be your needs or wants.
Unlike every other attempt at electronic cash that came before it, Bitcoin also doesn’t need the approval of any person, police force, legislative body, military, or government.
I’d challenge people who hold negative views on Bitcoin to name some other systems for which this holds true.
I think that’s the point that a lot of hostile commenters might be missing.
The question I have is why do commenters feel the need to respond to any comment about Bitcoin that is not a (sometimes subtle) promotion or defense of it.
A reasonable person might think it’s because Bitcoin is only valuable if increasingly more and more people buy it.If it’s not increasingly popular or if, God forbid, everyone holding Bitcoin were to try to sell, all at once, it’s Game Over.
(Some folks will lose money and all Hell will break loose.)
If the first statement is false, and Bitcoin is valuable if it’s unpopular, then there should be no logical reason why anyone would try to “defend” Bitcoin on HN.Why would anyone care.It’s valuable even if no one is buying, right.If it lacks popularity, then this is of no consequence.
Ignore it.
Alas, there is no way to test if second statement is true, i.e., it is Game Over if everyone cashes out their Bitcoin, other than this actually happening.Even still, there is no logical reason anyone would need to “defend” Bitcoin on HN if someone else believes this to be true.Why would it matter if other people hold or sell their Bitcoin.
And yet, there are consistently HN voters and commenters who seek to “defend” Bitcoin from anyone who has doubts or asks questions.That, in and of itself, may raise suspicions even more.
“Bitcoin doesn’t have to do something useful for everyone to survive.It doesn;t have to “replace fiat”.It doesn’t have to be a payment system.It doesn’t have to “go to the moon”.
It doesn’t even need an ETF.”
But somehow it needs to be constantly defended in every electronic discussion.
It needs constant promotion.It needs hype.
No one can simply state “I am not interested in Bitcoin” in a discussion without triggering some “response”.Regardless of the merits of Bitcoin, or absence of them, that is fscked up.Red flag.
I thought cryptocurrency was an interesting and promising idea.
But I got away from it around the time it became clear the entire space was overrun by wall-to-wall scamming.
And it’s safe to disregard anyone who doesn’t acknowledge that.
If someone says “Yeah, it’s wall-to-wall scamming, and other than that, the main use of it is for organized crime transactions, but there’s this silver lining of X”, then I might listen to X briefly, even though it seems irrelevant at this point.
If someone doesn’t phrase their advocacy with acknowledging the massive BS, then I assume the person is just another scammer (and they might be even if they acknowledge it).
But I wouldn’t characterize all, or even most of crypto as scams.Gambling, maybe.
Are memecoins a scam? I would say they’re more like a massively multiplayer form of gambling.Which you might argue is a bad thing, and certainly is dubious from a social standpoint.But if the code is openly public and autonomous, and there’s no outright deceit, I don’t think gambling is really gambling.
Even beyond that, there’s a lot happening in crypto that most certainly isn’t scams.You have stablecoins and payment rails like USDC, stores of value like Bitcoin, smart contract chains like Ethereum, decentralized finance applications like permissionless exchanges and lending markets, social applications like farcaster, decentralized AI, and gaming.
Now you might argue that all of these things are stupid and pointless and wastes of money, but that’s a separate debate.
Of the large projects in these categories almost none are outright scams.They’re teams experimenting with new ways to run financial markets or move payments or train models or hedge inflation.Like most technological experiments most will fail.
But if that was the criteria for “scam” then the entire startup sector is also wall-to-wall scams.
I really didn’t mind bitcoin before the price exploded, it was a curiosity and interesting experiment.
Since then, it has been used to transfer a lot of wealth using outright fraud, cons, and other criminal means.
I get paid a lot of money (fiat) to program digital payment systems, and have spent time understanding the underlying technology, as well as a holding a degree in economics.I get what crypto is and how it works, and I won’t go near it.
Bitcoin isn’t inherently dangerous, but the way that the crypto ecosystem convinces people to gamble on a zero sum game they don’t understand is absolutely dangerous.For every bitcoin millionaire, there’s someone that pumped real dollars into the system.
Very real harms have, and continue, to be caused by bitcoin and crypto.
Bitcoin, is piece of open source software that was released on the internet 13 years ago running all over the world.With no central governing entity, all driven by software consensus mechanisms.
Would you consider that you just don’t like some of the organizations that have built themselves around this network making misleading claims? Rather than the technology itself?
I work in architecture and year after year the industry is pushing to squeeze every last bit of energy efficiency out of everything.Meanwhile bitcoin is like “BURN SOME COAL TO ACCOMPLISH LITERALLY NOTHING USEFUL! AND KEEP DOING IT FOREVER!”
And the crypto people will always bring up “Mining gold just to make gold bars is a waste of energy too” but guess what I don’t buy gold bars either.
So is the entire bitcoin mining industry, it is built into their ROI.Have you not noticed the J/Ghash ratio over the years?
Is Taylor Swift useful? Sex and the City? Options trading for Tesla stock?
You could eliminate 80% of the US service sector for not being useful.
“Somebody wants to pay for it” is the best criterion and bitcoin fits.
There should have been taproot and schnorr discussions on the frontpage for years
What people are building as betas, there should be ordinals and inscription discussions about their technical implementation
But instead we get these surface level discussions about bitcoin or crypto for over a decade now.People completely missing that there are others who had the exact same information and said “okay this is how I can improve it to more closely fulfill that vision” instead of “harumph! that will never work and I dont like it so there’s that!
I think there’s still an easy 10X to match Gold and 100X is possible if it becomes the world’s preferred reserve asset
Bitcoin may go to a billion and it won’t change the fundamental premise:
You can have ALL the Bitcoin in the world, all of it, and if there’s no buyer outside, nobody willing to trade anything for it you have nothing.
Now use the same argument with all the land in US, all the crop in India, all the fish in the Pacific, all the gold in Russia, all the wine in France, all the bakeries in Palermo, all the cars in Sydney.
You farm, you eat, you can make jewellery and tech, you drive.
And yes, it applies to US dollars too (albeit to a minor extent).If nobody wants it you can just stare at dead national heroes on paper, or burn it idk.
Wealth does not come from money, and of all the money, you choose to speculate on the exchange price of a virtual one.
The premise will never change and crypto cultists keep fooling themselves and finding many weak and illiterate to join their ranks.
But any price movement will not change the fundamental issue.
Pointless challenge, those aren’t good qualities.
Also money is worthless, unless you like looking at pieces of paper depicting death national heroes, it’s worthless, don’t understand why are bitcoiners fixated giving money value.
It’s just meant to be traded not hoarded.It had a value when it was pegged to gold.Rich people have companies, real estate, airplanes, art, jewellery, bonds, but relatively little money.
Anyway, literally any other cryptocurrency share these properties.Some even technologically better, yet completely ignored.
That want being, in this case, the need to evade financial regulators and easily move large amounts of money untraceable.
There is basically no other thing Bitcoin does better than traditional electronic cash, especially with the transaction fees reaching current values.
Is it a legitimate want? It’s a complex question involving personal and political values, but let’s just say not everyone who objects about crypto does so because they don’t understand its real uses.
paradoxically, bitcoin is the worse at this, since addresses are completely public.
Unless you, like satoshi, keep the coin in the address and never spend it, any conversion to value that you can spend, such as cash, is going to be tracible.
> Is it a legitimate want?
yes.Unless you can prove criminality, there’s the assumption of innocence.
Addresses in Bitcoin are pseudoanonymous.Many criminals have evaded prosecution for years (for example, the MtGox thieves) despite moving billions in the clear on the blockchain.You are feigning ignorance about the true nature of Bitcoin which is quite obviously designed to enable very strong privacy, as noted by even by its inventor in the original paper; let’s not even discuss things like Monero and ZCash.
Also, unlike Bitcoin, Signal ads strong privacy on top of a very functional base product.
Drugs, gambling, crimes all satisfy some people’s needs
I call bs on the “drug” scapegoat.People are salty they work in tech and don’t understand bitcoin.
Don’t like Bitcoin’s Proof of work properties, check out Ethereum.Don’t think that everything needs to be on one central ledger? Check out Polkadot.
It feels like so many commenters here put their heads in the sand about an entire class of technology because they’re caught up in their opinion as fact.
i smell sour grapes from those people.They saw bitcoin very early on, and gave it the dismissal way back in 2008/9.
That missed “opportunity” continues to bias them into thinking that their initial assessment must still be correct (for dismissing it early), otherwise they’d have to admit their dismissal as being hugely mistaken.
Second, the “you just don’t understand it” argument is as old as Bitcoin itself.It’s tiring.It’s not new, it’s not crazy complex…it’s understood.It’s just useless and ripe with scams.
Please spend like 30 seconds of analytical thinking trying to poke holes in this.
It’s remarkably easy to disprove.The challenge is what if anything we choose to do about the harms that they can cause.
However, said individual could harm others in the persuit of drugs and gambling when their own income or savings are unable to satisfy their own cravings.But how is that any different from any other forms of harm from crime conducted for other reasons?
They ruin families, neighborhoods, cities.
I do contend that “ruining families” is not a thing we should base policy on because it implies both a crazy amount of government intrusion into individual lives and because it imposes rules on everyone to make the nuclear family work.
The bad things people do to other people to get money for drugs and gambling are included in the blanket statement “drugs and gambling”.
In gambling, the longer you continue, the more certain it is that you will lose.Bitcoin is a uniquely ironic form of gambling if it’s gambling at all.
The more remarkable a short history the more likely it is not sustainable: Beanie babies, tulips, etc.
In a zero sum investment for every win there is a loss.
Bitcoin however is highly negative sum.For every win there are far more losses.Who do you suppose pays hourly train loads of coal turned into CO2? How many years now?
Even if you were slow and naïve and only jumped at the 2021 all-time high, and kept buying during the next 12 months (as one should when an asset you like goes down), you’d have made your money back and then some.
Of course, this is highly dependent on the “coin”
But then can’t you see the irony of writing that sentence when the article title is literally “Spot Bitcoin ETF receives official approval from the SEC”.
That’s the thing that’s so baffling to me – if you’re saying BTC is so great that it doesn’t need the support of government and social institutions, why the push so hard to get an ETF (multiple in fact!) when the rallying cry for crypto has always been “distributed, trustless currency”.
That’s the big news.
There are MLM’s that have been around for over 100 years.I feel strongly that they’re all complete scams, yet they live on.
Maybe I’m closed minded for not joining Amway.But I think I’m just being sensible, tbh.
Once you realize that banks are very fragile and abusive, just having this alternative is important.
Banks can deny you access to your money on a whim.Compliance, glitch, failure, whatever.You can’t use your money.
You can’t buy food.You can’t pay rent.You can’t buy tickets.You can’t hire a lawyer.
It’s nice to have something which is based on completely different principles.
If people no longer “need” to convert BTC to fiat, this would no longer be a point of a control, but until then, governments can already and will continue to grow how much they can control BTC flow.
Some of it is currently very ham-fisted, but there’s a clear intent to devalue off-exchange wallets: https://www.coincenter.org/new-crypto-tax-reporting-obligati…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26238410
Going on GitHub and downloading core code and deploying a new coin based on Bitcoin or some other crypto.
I’ll call it HackerNewsCoin.
Didn’t know it was that simple to create “wealth”.
What a foolishness to think that something that has no intrinsic value can constitute wealth.Don’t confuse price with value.
It really is true crypto combines all that people don’t understand about economy with all that people don’t understand about technology.
Not sure if you see that it’s your understanding of the world that’s off here.
Currencies are not wealth, none of them, cryptocurrencies even less.
Money is worthless, rich people don’t have money.They have art, companies, land, bonds, cars, boats, airplanes, but very little money.
The financial illiteracy of crypto cultists really has no end.
Honestly, I am also amazed that humans make something like that happen.But we do.Otherwise gold wouldn’t have so much value.
Also, can’t be forked, cloned or replaced by some gold 2.0 with smart contracts or bigger block size.
Seriously, imagine comparing a currency, let alone a cryptocurrency to gold.
Foolishness never ends.
I agree 100% with this but it is describing you.
Fortunately for most bitcoiners who got in early, it’s been variable in a positive direction…
But not for everyone.
I swear I saw some super highly upvoted comments that read as normal + level-headed in r/CryptoCurrnecy that was like “if it goes from $45k -> $100k this year it isn’t even that much”
Do you ever hear Warren Buffet saying “122% yearly returns are meh”?
The whole Bitcoin ‘manifesto’ and sticking it to the man is just a ruse.
Fine, you don’t like crypto.Say something new or insightful or skip the comment section.
The idea that Bitcoin can continue to operate with the disapproval of a functioning government is naive.
For it to be useful it does.How else does one convert from fiat to btc and back again?
Most of us don’t see it as a replacement of cash.
This ETF doesn’t mean it’s a replacement of cash either.
Just so many people are holding it and there’s a lot of money in it, but still less than it’s peak.It will probably just go down again without news, as it did before.
It’s not that the BTC futures ( since 2018) changed much, I expect a similar end result of this.
Note : I went out in 2017 as I didn’t saw it’s original purpose being fulfilled and it still isn’t after 14 years.
Nobody is talking about paying things with crypto anymore, as far as I know.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_in_El_Salvador
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/why-bitcoin-failed-in-ca…
It should still be popular for criminal purpose though.
But that’s Monero and some other privacy coins.
You know, if all the BTC haters actually knew what they were talking about we could have intelligent discussions on HN.
Most people who are observant are well aware that there’s deep and enduring demand for ways to gamble and speculate.
It’s really easy to recognize Bitcoin filling that role like the neighborhood numbers game, pachinko, online poker, and tulip investing all have at various times in history.
We just don’t like it.
It lasted only a few months, there was no long term investing on tulips.
This isn’t actually true, BTC requires a certain amount of subsidy every ten minutes from the global economy.If that subsidy is not forthcoming it ceases to function.That subsidy is constantly increasing in terms of purchasing power.
Further, the regulatory authorities of the world have complete power over the transactions that take place on the ledger, and pretty much full visibility into and out of the ledger when it comes to their controlled fiat currencies.
Neither of the above hold true for many other cryptocurrencies, but I’m not interested in shilling for them, because the entire cryptosphere as a whole is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, largely because of attempts to force the above status quo from BTC onto the remainder, which given the multitude thereof, and the ability for them to endlessly replicate and spawn, is basically doomed to failure.
Note: I am well aware that the popular opinion of BTC is not aware of much of the above, but I didn’t say “people believe x” I just said “x”.
No one really trusts bitcoin.And that’s on of the big bitcoin problems.
Also, it doesn’t live up to any of it’s hype.
But others have enumerated all of those faults.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
Incidentally: When you look at currencies (and governments) on long enough time scales, you’ll see that they’re pretty ephemeral — e.g.very few currencies or governments around today were around in (roughly) the same form 200 years ago.
I consider it a benefit that we might have a way of persisting wealth that doesn’t involve rent extraction or digging shiny metal out of the ground — though I admit to not being a fan of the “wastefulness” of PoW in the midst of energy decarbonization.
If you want a fun watch: The History of Paper Money on Youtube is a fascinating look at how currencies, banks, central banks, and fiat money all came into existence.TLDR: Our “modern” approach to money was a giant “too big to fail” ponzi scheme largely perpetrated (multiple times) by John Law.Wild.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nZkP2b-4vo
For those parties, bitcoin’s general properties are not very relevant and a centeralized list maintained by DTCC may well better serve their particular needs.To the extent that it does: more power to them!
as far as having an actual historic or present day use case, blockchain snake oil is still in search of a problem only it can solve to this day
https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees…
Also, bank transfers aren’t cheap.For example, in Costa Rica, to transfer any amount from an account in bank A to another account in bank B, you pay a fee in the range of 1$-3$, irrespective of the transferred amount.If you consider transfer across countries, then you enter into 50+$ transfer fees.
High BTC fees impede the Lightning Network from being a true scaling solution, an obvious fact that has been dismissed for many years by adherents of absurdly small block sizes.
There is no technical reason to do this, it was purely a political propaganda based move.
Before you respond with “but disk” or “but network” or “but cpu” look at the actual bitcoin throughput (about 700KB every 10 minutes) and look at how much hard drive space you can buy for the cost of one transaction.
Then realize that individuals don’t even need to sync with the chain to use cryptocurrencies.This is a well worn road.
Time to full send my retirement accounts into these ETFs so I can retire early./s
Actually though I might consider allocating a tiny percentage (1-3%) to these.Seems like fairly low risk with enough upside, but who knows.
Edit: after further research it appears that the cash create mechanism doesn’t cause a tax event for shareholders as it does with mutual funds.See https://www.grayscale.com/blog/legal-topics/addressing-poten…
We will have to see how every Bitcoin ETF is structured.YMMV depending on this structure and how you get taxed.
There is shamir secret splitting, multisig, MPC, secure enclaves with biometerics, etc…
There will be apps like Fuse wallet:
There will be phones like Saga:
https://solanamobile.com/hardware
I think how one handles their wallets will be much like how people make their espressos.Some will just stick k-cup in a machine and hit a button, others will become full-blown coffee enthusiasts that carefully measure their beans, de-static their grinds, and extract for the exact right amount of time.
That’s absolutely out of the question for almost any human being, especially given the timeframes involved.
> There will be phones like Saga […] There will be apps like Fuse wallet: […]
Again, we’re talking about a timeframe of decades.How many of these will even still boot up after that amount of time? None of these seem safe to just throw in a bank safe deposit box.
> make their espressos.
Some will just stick k-cup in a machine and hit a button
I’m really not a coffee connoisseur by any meaning of the word, but even I know that what comes out of a k-cup machine is brewed coffee, not espresso.
The ETF is probably the equivalent of this “espresso style” k-cup
https://www.keurig.com/Beverages/Dark-Roast/Espresso-Style-C…
No, that’s his passphrase
You die, your heir or executor takes the appropriate paperwork to the bank, and then they get the contents of the box.
Many banks don’t offer them anymore, and in some countries they have a disturbing tendency of getting robbed, with absolutely no recourse for the depositors (since contents are usually unverified and uninsured).
If your threat model includes someone inside your home with power tools and you can’t trust a bank… you might want to consider moving.
Many people don’t own a home.Not all of those that do want to expose themselves to the liability of storing valuables there.The safety situation between homes even within the US varies greatly, and even more so internationally.Banks with safety deposit boxes aren’t ubiquitous.
If it works for you, great! I’m just saying that you might be in the minority here.
“Why is Bitcoin a great asset?”
“Because its the future of currency! Its great and everyone will use it!”
“Then why don’t you just get it directly?”
“Uh, its too much of a hassle.
For me.A professional finance worker.”
Of course the ability to hit “buy now” in the same marketplace you manage all your other investments is pretty low friction and I’m sure this decision will bring fresh investment out of the woodwork.
Frankly we could probably get our rock ETF’s approved more quickly.Regardless of how you feel about Bitcoin, it’s not (or shouldn’t be) the SEC’s place to play nanny and dictate the particular assets/commodities/etc.in which you’re allowed to invest your money.
Incidentally even one of SEC commissioners agrees https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-spot-bit…
But I agree with the fact it’s not the SEC’s role to tell us the merit of btc.
I do have some worries on the Tether scam still going on for example though, which has been manipulating BTC for years.
Now Tether owns tons of money, and can buy treasuries that bring few % of interests, and these interests are not paid back to USDT holders.
As a result, overtime, they’ll be able to fill-in any potential gaps or money accidentally lost.
Edit: spelling
Also, limited in number and scarcity only partly define value.In addition to these properties, other people must agree with you.
If your flat rocks are scarce and people want to invest in them, by all means…
The EU (higher population than the US) has had Bitcoin ETFs for a while now.
This is actually a great comment that I think applies well to the crypto world as a whole, even if that wasn’t your original intent.
Anyway, digital gold is still better than nothing.It’s still an innovation as a store of value, even if the payments idea is basically history (some Bitcoin maxis just don’t understand that yet).Also Bitcoin has inspired a whole ecosystem of other blockchains.If you want the original concept of a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, Monero is probably one of the best to check out currently.
Governments are btw currently going after Monero, because unlike the common myth about Bitcoin, it actually enables anonymous payments – just like cash.And so of course we can’t have that.Multiple exchanges already announced they were forced to delist XMR.
You ask the question and then proceed to answer it.
> Satoshi […] gave a gift to the world, but it sadly got co-opted […] In hindsight it was probably bound to happen, because money buys influence
Because anything of value and fungible will invite exploitation by monied interests.
> and taken over first by small-time grifters and now by the big boys at Wall Street.
There is ample evidence to indicate that the predominant grifters are not small-time operators.
Eh, I think you actually might! Hell, you said it yourself – the mob always wins in the end.
It doesn’t matter what Satoshi made, the mob took it and made it into something else.It’s what Bitcoin turned into that HN is collectively cynical about.
Ignoring that this idea was mocked by many from the start for reasons we can only speculate about, it seems there’s a lot of confusion about what Bitcoin currently is as well.Mocking the idea that poor people in Congo will be saved by Bitcoin – sure.Making fun of laser-eyed Bitcoin maxis telling you we’ll all totally use Bitcoin for payments (have you heard of the Lightening Network bruh?) – of course, I joke about them too.
But what you have is the first time in the history of the planet that there is a public ledger that can be used by anyone, transparently and permissionlessly, to store and transfer value.It’s not in the hand of any bank or government.Nobody can freeze your account because you’re fully in control.
You can run your own node to push transactions if you wish to.It can absolutely not be falsified, unlike cash or book money.
This is still extremely valuable.Especially when you add programmability, which Bitcoin only has in a rudimentary form, but other “smart contract” platforms already do much better.Because now you can automate transactions and those transactions don’t necessarily have to be about money.
It might be funded by intel agencies for all we know.
The aesthetic and industrial applications of gold are what makes it intrinsically valuable – that being the key distinction, and distinct from Bitcoin.If you ignore the useful aspects, of course it’s no different from any useless thing.
The likes of Blackrock could use BTC as a hedge if the Feds keep on printing USD under political pressure.
> if the Feds keep on printing USD under political pressure
Have you looked at the economy in the last two years? The Fed has been burning USD at an unprecedented rate!
Try moving $10M of gold from one end of the world to another for under $100
Note that the transfer of monetary value/energy is final settlement (i.e.it’s not just an IOU that will be settled at later date, like most bank payments).
Ultimately the base layer network will be used for settlement between banks, national reserve asset/currency etc.
and faster, cheaper payment rails will be built on top of it (e.g.the Lightning Network)
The fact is that Bitcoin is very likely to absorb a vast percentage of the worlds value simply as it is.Once this has happened its value will stabilise and it will become useful as a unit of account/day-to-day currency.
By this point, there will be far more motivation to focus on developing solutions (such as Lightning) to allow smaller and faster transactions.
You present this as a fact, but the actual valuation of Bitcoin doesn’t seem to support this claim.John McAfee bet (and proverbially lost) his testicles on broad estimations of Bitcoin’s continued growth.
Without extraordinary evidence, you can’t make claims of extraordinary provenience.
> there will be far more motivation to focus on developing solutions (such as Lightning) to allow smaller and faster transactions.
If you need an L2 transaction layer to solve an issue inherent to an L1 chain, you’re kinda just admitting that the base layer is flawed.Why use Bitcoin at all if we need mediators to settle regular transactions?
The “we’ll fix it later” mentality works for shitty altcoins that have nothing to lose by reinventing themselves, but I’m not convinced Bitcoin can change.I was mining Bitcoin about a decade ago now, hearing people say “Lightning will work soon” or “a good interchain bridge will exist eventually” in 2024 leaves me convinced nothing has changed.It’s a race between the economics and the technology to see which becomes outdated first.
Think about it, running an exchange has costs.I really don’t understand how people can be so easily tricked by “free” offers that are actually more expensive when you do the math.PFOF (i.e.
legal theft), unfavorable spread, etc…They get their money one way or another.It can technically make sense when you’re trading something like $50 worth of a stock, because of course that would not be reasonable with a brokerage using a traditional fee structure.But frankly trading such low figures is silly.
You have to invest a lot of time (=money) in research when stock picking, else you’re guaranteed to lose sooner or later.But the reward simply isn’t there.
Even if you make 100% profit you now have $100.Better put that money into an index fund savings plan and forget about active trading.
You’re guaranteed to receive a better reward on your investment just getting a part time job selling fast food or something like that.
I was reading a book about that recently, it boils down to: “You’re not [just] the customer, you’re [also] the product.”
Key term: Payment For Order Flow (PFOF) [0], with the book-paragraphs I was thinking of down below:
_______.
