Topic: :-) (Read 1200 times)

To my understanding, Bitcoin has a limited issuance that makes it inherently deflationary.  Read that last sentence back three times now please and see if the pivotal phrase "inherently deflationary" rolls off of your tongue more easily the 3rd time.  To my economic understanding this is equivalent to the (possibly sensational sounding to some, but obvious to others) statement: Bitcoin is NOT subject to the "time value of money".  Please reread that back three times too, and see if/how that rolls off the tongue.

You'd be correct to infer from the preceding that repetition is a personal tool I use, so I am going to say these two things again, please stick with me here:

• Bitcoin has a limited issuance that makes it inherently deflationary.
• Bitcoin is not subject to the time value of money.

To my understanding, these are the very definition of store-of-value, and a fundamental characteristic of the Bitcoin asset.  

Btw, IF I were an aspiring crypto asset specialist who was doing some old fashioned fundamental analysis of the assets in this space, issuance (limited -vs- unlimited), is the very first characteristic I would look at to characterize any particular crypto asset in question.

If the subjects of this thread are listening, I would like to respectfully add that that old Wall St. refrain "WE know what's best for YOU" may be elitist and insulting to some, and is no longer timely, if it ever was.  For the topic of crypto, something like, "How can we help integrate your inevitable crypto holdings into your investment portfolio & banking?" might be more timely.

In closing for now, this thread was solely created in hopes that some modern(?) Adam Smith might be a good vehicle to:

• Shed a withering light on some of the negative economic innuendo regarding cryptocurrencies.
• Put to bed questions that cryptocurrencies in general, and Bitcoin in particular, are economically fraudulent in any way.
  

Bright passionate people around the globe are making crypto their life's work; these people and their customers believe crypto will play a very big part in the inevitable future of investing.  

Respectfully, I see two options for subjects in particular and Wall St. in general at this juncture:

• Work towards postponing the inevitable by using every resource available and damn the consequences.
• Come down on the right side of human history.

What is it that Bertrand Russel said about ascribing to unchanging philosophical doctrine?

Anyway, I think I've come full circle here and just brought home what I was trying to illustrate by a stark juxtaposition of reading choices. I offered two books, and personally hope that the subjects of this rebuttal reach for the right hand book.  Do the right thing now, reach for the correct book please.

I believe 3) must be the primordial step and the rest will follow. Gold was first a store of value and then they made it a currency. We need to get the store of value part first with Bitcoin, then the currency part (with lightning network). Lightning network is like the idea they had with fiat, but done right, without a way to create money out of thin air and other scammy practices. Without lightning network we can never materialize that vision of a global, fast, cheap currency.

Once LN is out there and every exchange and vendor is using it, with easy to use interfaces where even your grandpa can use it, we will see a lot more usage. Just like we saw with email etc.

Ultimately a good of store of value means that a lot of people hold the thing, so we need more hodlers. From the technical perspective, bitcoin is already ready to be a store of value, we just meed more hodlers so we have more volume so when Jamie Dimon and all these idiots go on live TV saying BTC is a fraud, the price will not move, or at least that much.

I agree mostly with @jimhash. But Bitcoin has a problem when being compared to other forms of money: It fails as an "unit of account", and this does also affect its function as "store of value". Let's see:

Money has three fundamental functions:
1) medium of exchange: Here is where Bitcoin excels, because it is fungible, fast (centralized platforms like credit cards are only fast in a very superficial way) and does not need centralized intermediaries.
2) unit of account: money should be "a common measure of the value of goods and services being exchanged". I think no one questions that Bitcoin has still serious flaws here. There are almost no things priced in Bitcoin for more than a short period of time.
3) store of value: I question the assumption that Bitcoin is a good "store of value". In bull markets, it does seem so, because the "value of exchange" increases, but that is true for every asset that has price fluctuations. Someone who bought a Bitcoin at $4970 would question now, in this very moment, that Bitcoin is a good store of value, while someone who bought at $600 last year would agree. Long term charts are still very bullish, but that can change because Bitcoin is not unique and it could be "surpassed" and even marginalized by a competitor.

In my opinion, point 1) is somewhat inter-related with point 2 (more exchange -> more liquidity -> more stability), but Bitcoin, to achieve the status of an unit of account would need to be used much more for the exchange of goods and services than it is used now. That would also strengthen point 3): the more Bitcoin is used and the more stability it provides, the less would be the danger to lose "value".

Only when we achieve this point, then Bitcoin can go for the status as a "better form of money" and transform into a new item in Adam Smith's "money timeline". Then Jamie Dimon's prediction could be refuted definitively. But we have still some work before us.

JP Morgan tried to apply for 175 patents involving the blockchain (all refused by the patent office).

They've also got tried to launch their own coin, based on a fork of Ethereum:

https://www.jpmorgan.com/global/Quorum

But naturally no-one is going to buy it while Bitcoin is around  

This is just a person talking without pausing to think about what he has to say. Its like he blurted out the first thing that came out of his mind.

First of all BTC is not comparable to Tulip bulbs. BTC is trying to be the future of finance or at least be a huge part of it. The Tulip Mania was a pump and dump.

Second, BTC is a very good medium for payments. Tulip bulbs are not.

Im sure there many other arguments out there on why Mr. JP Morgan boy is wrong.

Jamie Dimon is a salesman, investor, and CEO. All three roles are reasons why he'd be against Bitcoin.

Let me explain...

• CEO - he runs one of the most successful and largest investment banks in the world, he needs to maintain a certain professional point of view, and foremost of that is not endorsing investments that are too speculative
• Investor - he needs to support the investments that have the most reliable track record for return, while Bitcoin has big returns it's not yet reliable
• Salesman - since he runs an investment firm he needs to make public comments that support the investments his firm can sell, of which Bitcoin is not one

Oh, and based on his comments he seems to genuinely not understand what Bitocin is, the value it offers as a currency that doesn't lose spending power due to manipulation, and as an asset class for investment. To say "it's a fraud" is just foolish talk. There's no fact behind it.

What's more of a fraud: a peer-to-peer digital currency system or a banking system that a creates money out of thin air due to fractional lending?

i see that they are having trouble in defining what bitcoin is, they are saying that bitcoin is bad but blockchain is good, I think they would just want people to take out their investments from bitcoin and then buy it all by themselves, this is what happen in the case of mark cuban before, he bad mouthed bitcoin, then when the price went down he bought a lot from himself, I agree with the previous replies, that JP morgan is just trying to manipulate people into selling their shares. I think the banks now, is seeing a very dangerous threat to their existence, knowing that bitcoin is decentralized and almost anyone could have it, and what makes it worst for them is that bitcoiners, are becoming their own banks, they can transact anonymous in the web and that is what they fear since bitcoin is already considered a currency. as we all know banks survives if people save in with them or do transactions with them, but if we all stop doing transactions with them and instead use bitcoins, they will go bankrupt and have to shut down, I also think that by mentioning that blockchain itself is good that they might try to create and ICO as well, no doubt it could happen in the future, since the saying goes. if you can't beat them join them, we all know that they are going to have a hard time convincing people not go into cryptocurrency, because there are already personalities who bought bitcoins and ow they have a higher net worth, just from their investment. I think this bankers should reconsider what they are doing and learn from the real bankers themselves, they should first ask themselves, why did the banking family, the Rothschild bought a lot of bitcoin in the first place, what is in it for them, what I think is that they already found out the answer, that's why they made a move like this, too bad for them, only few bitcoiners have weak hands.

JP Morgan & Co. has built a financial empire mastering the art of doing exactly this.  So much so that when they do get caught, they can settle for paying fines that equal an extremely small fraction of their ill gotten gains.

They say what they say to drive the market.

It only prove how bitcoin is taking insecurities out of bankers senses. In every word they're is hatred towards what is affecting the interest of his company that bitcoin came to conquered. I would not even be shocked when it is just one of them, many more will come out soon with the same song singing "bitcoin is a fraud", that is normal for a desperate community wanted an attention.

I think Jim "Demon"s criticism over bitcoin has a very dark purpose. Every negative word that comes out from his mouth large money goes in. As people reacts over his statements he can take advantage of it. That's how these bankers do, they are good manipulators and scattering fake news through paid medias.

Thanks OK for a very educated approach to Dimon's comment. I would say that Dimon is being a contratian here due to the hype from the rising crypto prices, and you might dislike the man but he does have the guts.

I'm certainly a proponent for crypto and to me such open discussions created by Dimon is neccessary to strengthen crypto. It can't be just all hype and celebration, negative and sceptical views must and should be entertained.

To his comment, I'll do see the tulips mania being quite different from crypto, whoch actually has exchange value. But only time will tell whether Dimon os even partially right.

I am very much agree to what you have said iluvepie60 that is a very well said comparison between Bitcoin and tulips way back year 1636 that is an old story but you nailed it though. For me Jaime just said what he wants in able to take a hidden agenda behind it, he knows that he is an influential figure to others and some people in an investment industries believes him. I also think that he already did an investment to bitcoin and wanted to lower the price of it to invest more of his wealth.

People will keep on telling something bad about bitcoin and we can't do anything about their opinion because that is theirs, Jaime just really made himself stupid.

Actually my thoughts on this whole thing is it was a well timed tweet in an already uncertain environment (China) to drop down the price. It is not unthinkable to believe he or his bank is not doing to this try and buy in cheap before a big run-up.

There have been other instances in the past where big names (Mark Cuban) have been against Bitcoin only for it to be revealed later they are now big proponents. No one wants to buy in at such a high price and if you have the means to manipulate or at least influence price, why wouldn't you use it to your advantage.

It was already admitted that his daughter is into Bitcoin, it is not beyond the realm of possibility than if he is simply funneling a bunch of money through her to position himself while at the same time saying Bitcoin is a fraud, blah, blah to drive the price down. You wouldn't be able to accuse him of anything since it is his daughter and not him doing the investing.

Jamie Dimon did go out of his way (albeit in a sort of cavalier way) that there was a difference between Bitcoin the currency and the underlying blockchain technology. More or less to say the "Tulip Mania", speculation aspect of Bitcoin "the currency" was separate from the blockchain.

Except there is one small problem with this, the underlying technology of the blockchain IS what gives Bitcoin its value. The two are inextricably linked. You can't separate out Bitcoin from the Blockchain.

The guy comes off as a very pompous and arrogant individual IMO.

Another guy frustrated not to have had the nose hollow sooner and who regrets not see the bought a few years ago ... He takes advantage of his notoriety to make dive the price and buy at low price ... Classic manipulation with regard to many tombsters to see the course of the current btc...

Jamie Dimon just makes himself look stupid...

He compared Bitcoin to TulipMania.

Only a few problems with that....

TulipMania last over a period of only 6 months, bitcoin is apporaching what, 9 or 10 years now? Mania of almost a decade of delusions? I don't think so.

Next issue, Tulips can be grown by anyone and were grown by a bunch of people. It was easy to get into the game and make tulips. You cannot just get into bitcoin mining and make new bitcoins beyond what the difficulty adjustment lets happen. In all reality, we know on average how many BTC will be made per day, per mont, per year, and so on. It is public, planting Tulpis and doing all that isn't publically accesible knowldge.

Then, the obvious part, Tulips are flowers that don't really have any value beyond someone saying they do. They don't do anything. Bitcoin is a distributed network that is secure and public for all to see, specifically made for use as a currency Peer to Peer. Tulips aren't. Tomorrow some idiots could make a new currency where they plant some other flower and call it a currency and speculate onit. Doesn't mean it is worth anything unless people say it is.

Bitcoin has intrinsic value, of being anonymous(if you take care to be), being public, being secure(SHA256), and having a huge mining operation continually maintaining updates and security.

Tulips have none of these qualities.

Jamie Dimon is a complete idiot when speaking about Bitcoin.