TESLA & BTC

[Baron]

Bitcoin transaction fees to buy a cup of coffee today: around 6 USD.
Bitcoin transaction fees to buy a cup of coffee on April 24, 2021: around 30 USD.
Source: https://www.bitcoinfees.info/
Is Dogecoin or Bitcoin a hustle?

Bitcoin has shown over time that it's really not a cryptocurrency. That's actually a terrible name. It's a crypto asset. Forget about making payments for coffee and minuscule items like that. Use USD for that. The fact of the matter is that bitcoin is the best savings account you can ever put your money into. We've never seen a financial asset in the history of mankind that has delivered the year-over-year returns like BTC has. Even if you sold it, now what are you going to put your money into? There's no higher performing asset!

 

[Baron]

I don't think many people who are too dirt-poor to have access to even a bank account are in any position to fool around with cryptocurrency.

Actually, there are many good services providing free or very low-cost banking, payments and transfers - e.g. M-Pesa in Africa, Alipay and Wechat in China, Mercado Pago in LatAm. Even in the USA we have Venmo, Paypal, Zelle, and in a couple years we'll finally have the Fedwire successor. As far as payments and transfers go, crypto is an inferior clunky solution to what's very close to being a solved problem.

Ok, well how about this. You take your 100k and stick it into your PayPal or Venmo account and I'll take 100k and put it in my BTC account and we'll see how both accounts stand within a year or two. I can assure you that history will not be on your side.

 

[easymon1]

I don't think many people who are too dirt-poor to have access to even a bank account are in any position to fool around with cryptocurrency.

a way to maintain value

"This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around"
"
People living in Venezuela suffer from extreme inflation and general economic instability. And here’s a censorship-resistant, inflation-proof asset, so it’s very attractive to people who are looking for a way to maintain value."
https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-adoption-venezuela-research

 

[deaddog]

Ok, let's think about this for a second. So we consume as much energy as the country of Netherlands to provide instant transfers and real-time banking to 8 billion people on the planet with a mobile phone in their pocket, many of which have never had a bank account in their lives and are still storing cash under their mattresses. And in many cases, that's cash that is losing value over time. Sound like a damn good trade to me.

How are these people who have cash under their mattress going to access bitcoin accounts? Who sells bitcoin for cash and who would buy bitcoin with the cash under their mattress?
I have cash in the bank and sleep quite well knowing that the same value of cash will be there in the morning as was there the night before.
If you don't trust banks you can see are you going to trust your savings with someone you can't see.

 

[deaddog]

Ok, well how about this. You take your 100k and stick it into your PayPal or Venmo account and I'll take 100k and put it in my BTC account and we'll see how both accounts stand within a year or two. I can assure you that history will not be on your side.

I'll stick it in a bank and have 100K at the end of the year. Guaranteed!! Who knows where bitcoin price will be.

 

[Baron]

How are these people who have cash under their mattress going to access bitcoin accounts? Who sells bitcoin for cash and who would buy bitcoin with the cash under their mattress?

Anyone on the planet who is facing a devalued fiat currency (all current U.S. Citizens for example). See, here's the problem. You put 10k into your bank account and you wake up the next morning and see that there's 10k in your bank account and you're like, "Cool, this is solid." But what you don't realize is that the purchasing power of each dollar you have is decreasing over time because of the increased money supply. It creeps up slowly without you even realizing it until you go to the grocery store to buy a pint of blueberries and the cost is $4.99 for the pint. In other words, it costs you more for a small pint of blueberries than it does for a gallon of gas that will literally transport you between 20 - 50 miles away. And even gas is now inflated. A gallon was a $1.74 per gallon two years ago but now it's double that. So yeah, your 10k is still there but your purchasing power has been cut in half. So what seems like something solid and tangible over time is slowly slipping in it's monetary energy over time. Bitcoin has proven to be the exact opposite, meaning that your account value is going up at a rate that exceeds the current level of inflation.

 

[deaddog]

I understand inflation. Hell my first job paid a buck an hour and I can remember thinking a 5 figure income was cutting a fat hog in the ass. But there are hedges against inflation. Bitcoin to me will eventually end when someone realizes that the Emperor has no clothes. Isn't bitcoin acting like a third world currency right now.

 

[KCalhoun]

I still don't get btc. It seems like monopoly money. What's backing it? It's bogus made up digital coinage, reminds me of play money in GTA5. harumph

I mean seriously a few years ago someone invented it out of thin air and it got attention.

 

[Baron]

I still don't get btc. It seems like monopoly money. What's backing it? It's bogus made up digital coinage, reminds me of play money in GTA5. harumph

The question you need to ask is what's backing the U.S. dollar? Would you rather own an asset with a finite supply or one where the supply is ever increasing? Look, the only reason why gold is considered a safe haven is because it's a rock in the earth that requires ridiculous resources to extract out of the ground. In other words, there's scarcity of that resource which creates value over time. The same applies to cryptos. You can't just snap your fingers and create a bitcoin. There are real companies with real resources that comprise buildings, servers, networking equipment and other specialized pieces of hardware that are required to mine just a single coin. It's not a game like GTA5. It's real people with real resources doing real work.

 

[Overnight]

The question you need to ask is what's backing the U.S. dollar? Would you rather own an asset with a finite supply or one where the supply is ever increasing? Look, the only reason why gold is considered a safe haven is because it's a rock in the earth that requires ridiculous resources to extract out of the ground. In other words, there's scarcity of that resource which creates value over time. The same applies to cryptos. You can't just snap your fingers and create a bitcoin. There are real companies with real resources that comprise buildings, servers, networking equipment and other specialized pieces of hardware that are required to mine just a single coin. It's not a game like GTA5. It's real people with real resources doing real work.

Are you suggesting that some crypto asset, either BTC or some other one like Etherium, will become the world's reserve currency, by which all other currencies are valued against?