benkay Don't know how much I care about people who buy and sell individual coins.
MJR_ My philosophy is this : one million people buying one coin = one million coins on the buy side.
mircea_popescu MJR_ one woman's arm = 2lbs of sweet caress. 2mn fireants = 2lbs of pure pain.
MJR_ mircea_popescu: Good point. Not sure how it relates though...
The above was happening ten minutes before midnight. The below was going down a minute after :
assbot [HAVELOCK] [SDICE] 1 @ 0.28800001 BTC [-]
assbot [HAVELOCK] [SDICE] 8 @ 0.288 = 2.304 BTC [-]
assbot [HAVELOCK] [SDICE] 10 @ 0.285 = 2.85 BTC [-]
assbot [HAVELOCK] [SDICE] 1 @ 0.284 BTC [-]
assbot [HAVELOCK] [SDICE] 10 @ 0.28 = 2.8 BTC [-]
assbot [HAVELOCK] [SDICE] 8 @ 0.278 = 2.224 BTC [-]
assbot [HAVELOCK] [SDICE] 2 @ 0.278 = 0.556 BTC [-]
assbot [HAVELOCK] [SDICE] 2 @ 0.276666 = 0.5533 BTC [-]
assbot [HAVELOCK] [SDICE] 34 @ 0.275 = 9.35 BTC [-]
assbot [HAVELOCK] [SDICE] 24 @ 0.275 = 6.6 BTC [-]
MJR_ fuck
assbot [MPEX] [S.MPOE] 7585 @ 0.00070706 = 5.3631 BTC [+]
assbot [MPEX] [S.MPOE] 6215 @ 0.00070719 = 4.3952 BTC [+]
mircea_popescu .275 srsly ?!@MJR_ I know. This is kinda great on one level, hmmm...
MJR_ ;;calc 890/276100
gribble 0.00322346975733
MJR_ ;;calc 0.00322346975733*12
gribble 0.038681637088
MJR_ Almost 4 percent using one of the worst months as the test case.
mircea_popescu And in Bitcoin.MJR_ And in reference to monetarist...exactly.
mircea_popescu People have no clue. They'll learn.MJR_ Yes, but hopefully I can scoop up a big chunk of the float before they do.
mircea_popescu The ability to make bad deals is what teaches people to stick to good ones.MJR_ Good point. I am only annoyed from a "show the best performance" perspective. I am very happy from a "get the best investment" perspective.
mircea_popescu yes well... here's the thing : A lot of newbs playing around introduce distortion in the marketplace. Let's consider the life of Noob. Actually fuck this, I'ma write an article, brb.
As you've perhaps guessed, you're reading the article. So here goes, let's consider the life of Noob.
Noob wakes up one morning, because the alarm is beeping. Does his morning routine, goes to work, does his work routines, comes back, watches TV, goes to sleep.
The next morning Noob's routine is interrupted by catching a glimpse of his eyes in the mirror. This he always hates even if he can't admit to hating it, because it makes him consider himself, and it ain't pretty. Anything is good to escape this tarpit, anything! What ? WHAT!! A, last night, on the telly! There was this meth-powered talking head droning on about some new thing, a cyber something. Maybe he should give that a look. Definitely. He'll give it a look. He's smart. He gives things looks.
Routine continues. At some point at work spends half hour googling blingdoing and borkdongs until finally stumbles on a link to a 2011 video in which Amir Taaki explains maffs and stuff. He now understands it! Look, there's a dedicated reddit! He will therefore be the office expert on Bitcoin now!
He's an evangelist! He's a trendsetter. He's involved, he gets new things, do you realise ? No hands, mom! No hands!
What's the cost of all this ? Hum, a hundred and more per Bitcoin ? Better buy half. Or a quarter. There's this service created just for Noob, something called BitcoinAOL. You can tell it's targetted to him specifically by the "Buy $1 million worth of Bitcoin" buttons they sport. His halfquarter crown is delivered two weeks lateri.
Well, what now ? What can be done with this strange token he's paid half a bartab on ? Perhaps he could invest it. What's this S.DICE thing ? Looks like something. Buy some. At market, because while Noob has absolutely no idea of economy - which he's never even as much as considered - he is one of the human herd of cattle, and as such the efficient market theory comes natural to him. Because that's what the efficient market theory is, the baseline set of beliefs shared by people who have no idea about economics.
Two weeks later... sell some. At market. Everyone's doing it. Buy something else (seems hot). Sell it (why not). Quick, the Bitcoin's going up, buy more. Follow the trend! Be unique just like everyone else! Now quick, sell what you just bought. Even if at a loss. Why ? Don't ask for a reason now, you didn't ask for a reason when you bought now did you!
Noob will reconstruct history retrospectively to make himself look like he profited for as long as he believes Bitcoin is "hot". He will reconstruct history retrospectively the other way if he starts to belive Bitcoin is "a Ponzi". He does not understand these words, as is the case with all the words he uses. They don't need a meaning for him, because when he was in school some idiot who couldn't find a job digging ditches was pretending to be his teacher, and taught him that dictionaries are for azns, and he as a lucky, priviledged, American kid should just try and sorta guess what words may mean based on the context. Which is great, makes him that much more "receptive" (ie, vulnerable) to advertising - a method of crowd control that only works if your brain was kept in a box on a shelf somewhere since about the age of nine.
The market benefits from the intellectual contributions of people active in it. That's what the market basically is, a sort of centrifuge : you pour in milk (ie, people), you run the machine, you collect the cream.
The market is a beautiful thing, it has only one design flaw : you can't get cream churning water. Moreover, even if there's some milk in there, diluting it enough makes churning impossible anyway.
This is the statist paradigm, this is how socialism is supposed to work : if you sufficiently increase the number of the very stupid you can finally pretend like the market "doesn't work", and have your bff get the fat paychecks for all his hard work down at the Central Planning Office.
My idea is that we shouldn't have more people involved in Bitcoin than we can prove have a clue or we can provedly educate. Otherwise the entire process turns too close to putting a seedling through a sandblaster. What can little grains of sand do, right ?
———- Sorta, kinda, but to quote the freakshow,
It's one thing to lose people's bitcoins or randomly delay/cancel transactions (both of which Coinbase has been accused of). People know that bitcoin is still young and the companies supporting it are inexperienced, so they expect that.
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