I just finished Michael Lewis’s book “Going Infinite.”
Anybody here read it yet? … whaddya think?
I haven’t read the book, but I don’t think the ink is dry on crypto yet. Some type of crypto could emerge as a store of value, which could go infinite = 1/0 as national, governmental currencies tend toward zero (the denominator).
I bought Bitcoin at $10,000, rode it all the way to the peak (whatever that was), and sold at $22,000. Interesting ride. I donated half of the Bitcoin to my Fidelity Charitable account at a price near the peak, so I paid no taxes on those coins, and I get to fund charities of my choice for many years to come.
But now? I did a test transaction to buy $10 of Bitcoin on Fidelity Crypto, it’s up to $15 now, I’m not buying more. I may never buy more. I just have to watch for a better price… like $10,000 again. I’m a buyer at $10,000.
But Bitcoin and other crypto are total 110% speculation. There is no other way to describe them. It’s not investing, really. Let’s be honest.
I agree, it’s more of a game. At age thirty to forty, given I had the money, I’da jumped on it. I lived in Texas at that time of my life and I messed around with wildcat gas drilling. It turned out to be a little better than a wash.
Lewis’s book is more about people than it is about crypto currency, and in that regard it’s a fascinating read.
I had a good friend who is Mensa smart and he was talking to me about this concept back in 2012 and trying to get me to read the whitepaper. He was mining his own Bitcoin and I thought he was completely nuts. He had around 100 BTC when I last talked to him in 2018 so I have no idea whatever happened to it.
I view crypto as just a proof of concept for digital assets on the block chain networks. There is no intrinsic value behind these assets, but there is a lot of value in the networks and the concept of distributed ledgers and transaction validation. I suspect we will see a CBDC from the Fed sometime over the next 3-5 years.
Do the blockchains reside in a finite location? How can you define it’s existence and what happens if the Internet ceases to exist?
WOW !!! That is amazing.
Here’s how to think about Bitcoin… it’s very simple.
It’s not a noun… it’s a verb !
If the Internet ceases to exists… good question. If the servers start back up, maybe everything is ok. I don’t know.
… If the purpose of the blockchain is to modify a specific Bitcoin and the bitcoin is a verb, then the blockchain must be an adverb.
I wouldn’t want an adverb defining the worth of my investment, I prefer numerals… 
If the internet ceases to exist then there are a lot bigger impacts than to just the Blockchain network.
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Well, I have to admit I doubted he would ever be sentenced, as he donated so much to one political party. Good to see justice being done.
Well, he hasn’t been sentenced yet, but he has been found guilty. I am appalled by the arrogant attitude he consistently displayed towards assets owned by others. I’m also fairly angry about his parents who seemed complicit in his hiding out in a mansion paid for with customer funds that he looted. They need to be charged, too.
You might want to read up on the guy, he is a self-proclaimed “effective altruist,” and was raised by objectivist parents. Libertarian principles and objectivism have a lot of common roots. Michael Lewis, in writing his book, Going Infinite," got to know SBF pretty well, maybe too well. Some book critics believe he might have let that familiarity color his writing of the story.
Bitcoin is up 125% since the ftx ponzi scheme went down.
Hold your own btc/private keys or you’ll be sorry!
Ethereum and all of the alts are not based on work/watts/mining/energy. Want proof? Read Softwar by Jason Lowery.
“Number Go Up” is a better book. You might want to check it out. I’ve listened to several interviews with the author. He had great access,
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There are some real similarities to the show a magician performs and the phenomena of crypto currency.
A magician relies on the skillful use of sleight-of-hand… the purveyors of crypto currency use sleight-of-computer-code. So far, many are skillful enough at it to avoid detection of their fraudulent and deceptive ways.
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This is from another website: Bitcoin was designed as a deflationary currency. Like gold, the premise is that over time, the issuance of bitcoins will decrease and thus become scarcer over time. As bitcoins become scarcer and if demand for them increases over time, Bitcoin can be used as a hedge against inflation as the price, guided by price equilibrium is bound to increase. On the flip side, fiat currencies (like the US dollar), inflate over time as its monetary supply increases, leading to a decrease in purchasing power. This is known as monetary debasement by inflation. A simple example would be to compare housing prices decades ago to now and you’ll notice that they’ve increased over time!
My comments are that Bitcoin is not a hedge against inflation, it is the permanent solution to inflation. Certainly someone could come along and change Bitcoin to allow more than 21 million to ever exist, but the huge majority of Bitcoin developers themselves very much do not want to do this. The ones that do want to do this, left Bitcoin and created bsv and bch.
Regarding the FUD about crypto: the crypto fad is inflationary fiat currency and securities (in the case of ethereum, it is not a commodity, whereas Bitcoin is legally considered a commodity) recreated digitally.
Ref:
https://twitter.com/TimmerFidelity/status/1775959691681468807?t=eirAQ1BM9QNzIdSnMlvvpQ&s=19
I don’t agree, here’s why:
Gold has a provable infinite source of supply that cannot be tampered with. The only way that new supplies of gold can be brought to bear weight on it’s value is by human endeavour.
You provided the reason that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not long-term, (read useful & effective,) as a hedge against inflation, ie:
As the value of Bitcoin increases, so does the incentive for humans to tamper with the temporary mandates limiting the supply of it.
So who do you want controlling supplies of something with an ever-increasing value based on the supply of it? Man or Mother Nature?
My bet is on Mother Nature, she’s been pretty insistent on applying her rules for a very long time.
Just watched “Mr. Bates vs The Post Office” on PBS. An excellent true life story about computer fraud and deception. I’m sure crypto is different - or is it?
I think you meant FINITE- as gold is inert and cannot be fabricated by any chemical reaction I know of.