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Presumably Draper won all those BTC from the auction because he outbid everyone else, so part of the dumbness that he seemed was that he largely stayed in the red in regards to his BTC purchase for about 2.5 years - then all of a sudden in late 2016 and into 2017, he started to look like a genius.
Totally agree on your points.
I am just noticing he paid more that market price at the time, because he gave value to the fact he bought from the government. So those coins could neve be deemed “illegal” or from a “fraudulent source”.
Fungibility is a privacy-related issue Bitcoin protocol is trying to improve on.
If I recall that around the time of that 2014 auction, the then dominant theory was that any coins being auctioned off by government were going to be acquired at bargain prices and then subsequently dumped on the market - therefore still being profitable bitcoins because such dumpening would cause BTC's price to go down so much - whether or not the dumper decided to subsequently buy back at lower prices.
Draper's then action of buying all the coins at higher than the market price was not exactly disclosed at the time, even though hints of such higher purchase price was made. Furthermore, even though Draper represented himself as a bitcoin bull who would hang onto the coins that he bought, whenever the price would dump (or fail to go up) there were frequent proclamations that Draper was dumping behind the scenes, and that was causing the BTC price to either go down or fail to go up. These days, we hear those kinds of similar nonsense speculations in regards to Saylor, too. Saylor is going to dump, Saylor is able to dump, Saylor knows bitcoin is liquid, blah blah blah.. even though we get similar vibes from Saylor as we had gotten from Draper, and in essence Saylor is someone quite likely to HODL through decently long periods in order to allow market forces to play out (which are more likely bullish rather than bearish or even neutral).
One more thing, regarding Saylor is that he has fairly clearly stated that he already has intentions to continue to buy BTC with incoming cashflow into the future - so I am NOT really sure how those ongoing buys would take place or how much of new incoming cashflow would be used, yet the point is that those kinds of statements in regards to ongoing buying intentions are more bullish than the largely radio silence that we got from Draper.... Draper did not say anything so clearly about engaging in ongoing buying of bitcoin, even though it is possible that between late 2014 and late 2016, he may have been doing so in small quantities on the sly. Perhaps?
I'll just refer to Tim Draper, whom I remember from
2014 when he told that in three years BTC would reach a price of at least $10 000, and was then the subject of ridicule in most of the business world - especially if we take into account the statements
Buffett made about Bitcoin at the same time.
But he is one of the few who has spoken out in public, and a man who in
2018 gave his prediction that BTC will reach a price of $250 000 by 2022/23.
I think Saylor realized his mistake from the past and decided to correct it in the best possible way, so although some say he may have been a little late, I think he also realized that we are still at an early stage.
Oh yes. Thanks for those reminders of past assertions, Lucius.. and also the video link. I believe that the linked Draper video interview that you provided would have been from late 2014, even though the upload date was May 15, 2015 - since the then current BTC price referenced in the interview was $413
(various dates in September, October or November of 2014 would have been possible for that $413 referenced-price). By the way, BTC prices on May 15, 2015 were around $235, and BTC prices floated in the mid $200s for an overwhelming majority of 2015.
I did forget to mention, that Draper seems to project BTC prices that are several years out, and even though I doubt that anyone is any kind of soothsayer of specific prices, directionally, Draper has been getting bitcoin correct.. and even getting the specific number correct, too... at least, so far... and surely $10k in 3 years, did seem kind of ridiculously pie in the sky optimistic in mid-2015... just like his ongoing assertions of $250k for 2022/2023 has been seeming a wee bit pie in the sky optimistic, too.
