The Bitcoin discussion

Hey, do you remember 2014 ?

Permit me to remind you :

herbijudlestoids mircea_popescu iv counted 46 ticks over 2 days, to compare to say the S&P 500 i would expect 46 ticks every 2 minutes?ⁱ lets say the rate of trading goes up to 10 ticks an hour, will you still stream on irc? :D
mircea_popescu herbijudlestoids afaik the limit is 1 per second. (freenode's)ⁱⁱ anyway, my point was more that the trades streamed when it was half a bitcoin worth 50 dollars, and it's still streaming when it's 50 bitcoins worth 50k ; and from there to 50m is about the same distance.

herbijudlestoids not sure if youre talking to me, but do oyu really believe BTCUSD valued at 1mio?
benkayⁱⁱⁱ of course. this is a room of true believers ;)
jurov if btc is to be small part of international trade then it just has to go there

herbijudlestoids well the highest valuation i had heard so far was 798,000
jurov oddly specific number.

herbijudlestoids i take notes of oddly specific numbers
jurov sounds like a winkle.

herbijudlestoids winkle?
nubbins` voss
jurov something a winklevii drops on the floor and nobody wants to touch

mircea_popescu trilema.com/2013/bitcoin-prices-bitcoin-inflexibility/>trilema.com/2013/bitcoin-prices-bitcoin-inflexibility/
ozbot Bitcoin prices, Bitcoin inflexibility pe Trilema - Un blog de Mircea Popescu.

herbijudlestoids hmmm
herbijudlestoids mircea_popescu have you ever heard of the freegold hypothesis?
herbijudlestoids i guess its one option you didnt consider
mircea_popescu so i have

herbijudlestoids i personally put some weight behind it
mircea_popescu i don't see how it limits btc

herbijudlestoids it doesnt necessarily
mircea_popescu for that matter, bitcoin could actually be it.

herbijudlestoids some of the properties you apply to BTC apply equally (or more so) to gold and that is an asset that happens to already be on ECB balance sheet ;)
mircea_popescu they don't apply to gold in any sense. you're basically saying "the stuff i say about cars also applies to other locomobiles, such as steam powered train engines and horsedrawn carriages". sure, except fundamental issues prevent either from competing with the combustion engine. and since there's no room for 2nd place, it will just be this. much like the us has no train infrastructure, and uses trucks for everything. trains would be more effective for trucking, but gasoline engines are more effective overall and so... trains are fucked.

herbijudlestoids "Nevertheless, the pressure is unyielding : people holding Bitcoins have no practical incentive to get rid of them, and people trying to get rid of their increasingly worthless dollars have no recourse." what youre proposing here is essentially BTC takes over the economic role of USD as global reserve asset
mircea_popescu no.

herbijudlestoids no? so why do holders of Bitcoins have any practical incentive to hold them lol
mircea_popescu it takes over the role of everyting. usd, eur, rmb, sdr, gold, stupid facebook tokens, in-game currencies like isk, likes, everything. this is why visa can't compete, not really, even if it doesn't know it yet. they can't flawlessly merge ten billion likes into the value of an oil tanker.

herbijudlestoids i personally feel that BTC makes a good medium of exchange but a poor store of value
mircea_popescu that personal feel flies in the face of reality. my wealth stored in btc has been doing better than anyone's any other wealth.

herbijudlestoids so short term relative performance now equals reality? lulz
mircea_popescu well, reality is that which happens, you know ?

herbijudlestoids so if i do a quick stock scan and find all the global penny stocks that outperformed BTC since inception, wouldnt those actually be the best store of value :/
herbijudlestoids surely you jest
mircea_popescu for curiosity, do this : find penny stocks worth < 1 cent per share in 2010 that are now worth > 1000 dollars per share. we're not talking six month's worth of pump and dump here. we're talking four friggin years.^iv short term, yes. reality ? also yes.
deadweasel lol
jurov ^ with billions total valuation

mircea_popescu i'm kind-of curious if he actually finds one. afaik it doesn't exist. ☟︎
herbijudlestoids your scan parameters are wrong

mircea_popescu how so ? 10k btc pizza actually happened in 2010. (technically 10k btc for a 19 dollar pizza would mean 0.19 cents each, but we'll let that slide)
herbijudlestoids you should be looking for a 4Y ROC 100000%

mircea_popescu mno. <1 cent to 1k usd = 10000000%
herbijudlestoids sorry yea, but the scan "1c to 1k" is wrong

mircea_popescu so scour the entire list of known pinks for anything matching it, i'm not picky. you can go all the way to 1950 for all i care.
jurov pinks?

mircea_popescu they used to be printed on pink paper.
jurov ha

mircea_popescu that juicy moment when person suddenly realises the immensity of this shit.
herbijudlestoids give me a sec. took me a second to make the scan

mircea_popescu i'ma go spank a girl till you find anything ? poor her, that'd suck as a fate huh.
herbijudlestoids scanning now, largest so far is BIOM on LSE 46,959%

mircea_popescu o i remember biom. foot prosthetics or something like that they did
herbijudlestoids ok that was the biggest one

mircea_popescu um. actually it seems it's not what i thought it was... biome plc
herbijudlestoids about ~5 stocks in the 10-50,000 range

mircea_popescu well you see... 50k ain't 10mn. not even close.
herbijudlestoids so maybe my maths is retarded but i calculated (1000-0.01)/0.01=99999%. how did we get 10 million?

mircea_popescu where did you get the % from ?
herbijudlestoids rate of change

mircea_popescu ...
mircea_popescu so on the right you get a % for free ?
mircea_popescu (10-5)/5 = 1% ?
herbijudlestoids o right, yea my maths is retarded gotta * 100

mircea_popescu those last two digits are the best two digits.
herbijudlestoids i guess up to oyu if you wanna use 4Y ROC as proof of its viability as a store of value but i dont feel very convinced

mircea_popescu im not trying to convince you. i merely made the previous points.
herbijudlestoids yep

mircea_popescu fact is so far it did so work. what the future brings... the future knows.
herbijudlestoids well it works inasmuch as you can convince people to join the BTC economy and exchange real good and services, and in cases where you cant it doesnt work

mircea_popescu not at all. this is like the intuition of everyone, but it's perfectly false. bitcoin works fine irrespective of what anyone does.
herbijudlestoids i doubt you actually expect that your net worth denominated in BTC would be equal to a fraction if you tried to convert it all at once to say USD or whatever

mircea_popescu so you doubt.
herbijudlestoids am i wrong? do you expect theres enough liquidity for you to make a transition like that without any loss?

mircea_popescu you familiar with gresham's law ?
herbijudlestoids yes
herbijudlestoids quite :)

mircea_popescu ok so. it doesn';t matter what people do or don't do. merely the preference to save strong currencies and to spend weak ones ensures the price differential. compared to anything else man made, bitcoin is adamantine.
herbijudlestoids i swear i mentioned something about global reserve asset earlier. preference to save is enforced by the marginal global saver

mircea_popescu so i mentioned something in 2011, what of it >D
herbijudlestoids what they save in is the store of value. you cant just call a currency the strong one for no reason. the use of a particular asset as a store of value by the marginal global saver(s) is what gives it that characteristic i.e. what are those entities converting their productive surplus into

mircea_popescu but i have an excellent statistical reason^v : that 10mn earlier^vi. no business in the history of business did anything like this. only currencies can, and only currencies do. basically in the 2010-2014 the entire world had a zimbabwe moment and didn't even know it (much like the actual peasants of zimbabwe, what do they know of finance).
jurov oh, they did notice ever fattening stacks of bills

mircea_popescu i guess. and obama is increasing the minimum wage, and more qe, and more bailouts, and so on and so forth.
herbijudlestoids im not really sure what any of the above has to do with greshams law lol

mircea_popescu it's a better model than the "marginal saver", in that it relies less on statistical artificery.^vii other than the statistical reason (ie, bitcoin is the strong currency because of its history) there are actually legions of other reasons. bitcoin is fungible, unlike any other fiat (in that no court can order the de-fungibilisation of bitcoin). in any dispute of currency the more fungible wins, period.
herbijudlestoids i think youre a pretty smart guy, dont really want to get into a full blown thing so i will just say i disagree that through the lens of greshams law, bitcoin is the "strong currency" which savers have a preference to save in. if youre interested in maybe considering a different view heres FOFOA on the topic (a bit long)

mircea_popescu you gotta appreciate this position is in no way novel to me, you know.
herbijudlestoids mircea_popescu appreciate that

mircea_popescu for that matter, moldbug is still shy on my bet ; and you'll be well advised to take note that for all his childish posturing a) yarvin capitulated and tried to make his own bitcoin b) which attempt bitcoin crushed.
herbijudlestoids hmmm well i would never have argued that the USG will shutdown bitcoin or that bitcoin will be worthless, those seem like two stupid things to bet on. although i would posit that considering the nature of centralisation of the internet currently, it might not be that hard for the USG to do so. also i dont think bitcoin is worthless, i think it has a considerable value as a medium of exchange.
decimation I think Mr. Yarvin was correct in his analysis about the game theory of bitcoin saving. it's Gresham's law, as MP mentioned. he underestimated the avarice of those who would influence USG decisionmaking
CheckDavid how does gresham's apply to bitcoin'
herbijudlestoids can you please explain for us retards, how "bitcoin just is"? considering it requires a globally distributed network of hosts to constantly verify and transact? fractures introduced to the network topology, or similar, seem to argue against the idea that bitcoin is simply a mathematical construct. you need compute power and communication to implement and distribute the construct

mircea_popescu herbijudlestoids ironically, the medium of exchange function is the thing at which bitcoin sucks worst.
decimation It exists just like the democrats and republicans exist. there's no reason why they exist really, everyone could change their minds tomorrow. yet they don't, and won't

mircea_popescu since i'm doing a trilema retrospective apparently, here, see that comment.
herbijudlestoids decimation wut? is that seriously the answer?
decimation why not?
herbijudlestoids mircea_popescu the comment you sent me seems to directly contradict your statement that bitcoin will replace everything

mircea_popescu herbijudlestoids how so ?
Dimsler_ mircea_popescu, what are you estimate daily active users at currently

mircea_popescu active users of what, pot ? i dunno, 50mn.
Dimsler_ btc

mircea_popescu i have no idea. there's like 7k or so full nodes iirc.
herbijudlestoids if it is to replace everything, how can it also "never be a direct means of payment for retail anything"

mircea_popescu where's the contradiction ? has electricity replaced female labour in the house or hasn't it ? sure, it still needs appliances.
herbijudlestoids well, i assume your "everything" includes direct means of payment for retail things, since you included even facebook ecash or whatever in your list of things it is to replace

mircea_popescu you're going to have stuff built on top of btc to handle the subsidiary and marginal task of retail. but btc will dictate how these look and how they work and how they feel and even what retail is. much like... no 1800s woman on her knees polishing the floors is much represented in the modern vacuum cleanner. actually, to clarify, "takes over" != "replaces". at least, not in your reading.
herbijudlestoids ok, well im not really sure how bitcoin not being used for retail makes it a bad MoE^viii, but ok thats your view

mircea_popescu i merely said that out of the various functions, that happens to be the one it does worst. doesn't mean it's bad. just means it's much better at other things.
herbijudlestoids "bitcoin just is, as long as many coordinate in a mysterious way"

mircea_popescu be so kind not to modify my statements by your discussions with third parties eh :D
herbijudlestoids sorry mircea_popescu
decimation bloomberglaw.com/legal-news/new-york-state-regulator-promises-tough-bitcoin-rules/
mircea_popescu lol new york, trying hard to outdo new jersey
mircea_popescu “If the choice for regulators is to permit money laundering on the one hand, or to permit innovation on the other, we are always going to choose squelching the money laundering first,” Lawsky said at the hearing.
mircea_popescu win.^ix it's funny tho, making exactly the wrong moves. you couldn't pay them to be this conveniently stupid. bitcoin was taken to $10 by lulz, to $100 by lulz and drama and to $1000 by lulz, drama and mining. i guess with the extra "watch us fail" boost 10k may even be possible.

Well... 10k is here, to stay.

10k is here to stay, all sort and manner of doubts were meanwhile soundly resolved, and guess what ? My wealth in Bitcoin still did better than anyone else's wealth in anything else.^x

What nao ?

1. He's discussing MPEx -- at the time as now the dominant player in Bitcoin finance ; at the time unlike now streaming trades in the pre-Republican forum. [↩]
2. MP strategically does not answer, but deflects. [↩]
3. Meanwhile, ben_vulpes. [↩]
4. More like five then, and those five by now are... ten. [↩]
5. Since he's wilfully ignoring the actual reasons, why bother engage the point ? You don't explain the technology of refrigeration to moronic African wife with a headful of "spirits" ; and you sure as fuck don't attempt to "compete" with "her notions about spirits".

   Instead, you simply point out to the dead children statistic, and the relation to owning a fridge, and let her ignore the matter for as long as she can summon the mental energy. The African wife does not matter in personal terms, she's not a person, she's an object (as everyone else going about thinking about "spirits"), only interesting statistically, like water molecules or what have you. [↩]

6. Fine, fine, let's engage the point a little. Just the tip, okay ?

   Here's one example. Do you understand what that means ? Do you see how the fact that you can make rounds of any size and call them coins therefore makes for a weaker currency than Bitcoin ?

   Strength in the sense of stronger, fuller specification ; strength in the sense of stronger, fuller bindings on the future -- that's what strength is ; not the piddly nonsense you expect it to be, on the basis of all your experience clawing barefoot through the mood of your sad, limited past history. There can always be more of anything in nature -- but there will never be another number four. That is what real strength is. [↩]

7. The purely constructive notion of a "marginal saver" is as close as you can get to a strawman without outright making one. There's for instance no proof of continuity -- in order for something like this "marginal saver" to even in principle be capable of existence, the saving function must first be proven continuous.

   Consider that somehow, magically, once the matter is put in the proper terms of mathematical analysis, its shocking, ludicrous weakness simply disgusts you ; but somehow if improper pop-terminology and other girly & cutsy stuff is brought to bear, calling tangents / first derivatives "marginal savers" and whatnot other puffery... suddenly it somehow looks to you as if it were acceptable. How the fuck ?!

   Stop doing this dumb shit ; yes I get it, cunts look cute wearing those see-through ankle socks with individual figgies and bunnies, unicorns, or "Daddy's Little Slut" written across in pink glitter. They're simply to die for pouting while kneeling naked and all that. Sure, and good for you. So ? None of it means they get to vote now, or that anyone asked them anything. There's no "female perspective", and it sure as fuck ain't valid -- not on the grounds of you enjoying sticking it in her very very much, nor on any other grounds. There's no fucking "marginal saver", and I don't care how much you like pretending the "girl of your dreams" is "a person just like you" with a brain that works "but it just expresses itself differently" and etcetera, the whole craporchestra.

   Thought has forms, permanently given, definitive and unalterable, to be either followed or not followed. If you want your "significant other" to sit at the adult table, you teach her to wear pants and to talk like a man, you don't go around trying to convince me her brainfarts now magically count because you don't know how to use a whip and have no idea what chains and cuffs are for, holy hell!

   And I don't care if her mommy named her Sheila or Economy, either. It makes no fucking difference what you call things. [↩]

8. Yet the explanation was linked from the comment section of earlier recommended reading. Supporting consumers makes anything bad -- the medium of exchange that supports consumers is therefore a bad medium of exchange, the cognitive bindings on software that support consumers are therefore bad bindings on software and so following.

   It's very simple, really : if the thing "makes the lives of millions easier", that thing is a bad example of the category it's a thing of. [↩]

9. You're probably too young to know about all this, but that Lawsky muppet later became one of the severed heads paraded about on my erect penis. Funny how that "we" worked out, huh. [↩]
10. You'd be lucky to buy for 12`000 dollars what traded for 0.19 cents a decade ago. Name another such 631`578`947 % wonder - that's six hundred and thirty one million five hundred seventy eight thousand nine hundred and forty-seven percent! About 478% annualized, going on for a decade. [↩]