Topic: Reality Check on Crypto - page 3. (Read 516 times)

They do not appreciate those qualities right now because they do not see the need, but ask people in countries where inflation is out of control and people are using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to protect themselves and we will see they appreciate the fact that governments do not own those cryptocurrencies and the fact they cannot create them at will, so give it time, the fiat system will fall, this is not a prediction it is inevitable, no one knows when it will happen but it will and when it does I can assure you people will love the decentralized nature of bitcoin.

It doesn't surprise me at all what the inventor of one altcoin thinks about Bitcoin, because he, like all other inventors, intended to do something that would be better than Bitcoin, and so far everyone has been unsuccessful. Therefore, every statement of the VB should be viewed in that context, because everything else has no logic.

Three years ago, there was a story that he would do something like Satoshi and disappear, thus decentralizing his project - but we all know that these are just stories for small children.

So I found the presentation where this slide was taken from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjxkdniYtkc&t=658s. It was at the Ethereum London meetup in October of 2014. Interestingly, he immediately goes on to say that he is holding bitcoin because he thinks there is a very small change of it hitting $17,000, while the current price is $298. The rest of his presentation goes on to (fairly unsurprisingly) make the case for a decentralized base layer which other people can use to build their own projects and services on top of. The whole point of the presentation is get people interested in, and maybe to invest in, Ethereum.

its his prediction that BTC will never be substantially used but being used now, living proof that governments are considering to use it. but vitalik is right on the first one which ideology of decentralization is not what most of the investors come to crypto. what can we say its the profit that people want. you can never live without money in this world.

speculating price is what its for when it comes to currency and BTC or any other cryptocurrency is currency we speculate.

I don't think the OP knows who Vitalik is or what he has contributed to crypto-currency with ethereum and also his partial contributions to Bitcoin, maybe he is looking like a random workshop lecturer.
Although I think that image may not really portray what we think it is, he may be analysing some frequent questions by people, or he is explaining those key points in his own thoughts, regardless I have so much respect for Vitalik and all his contributions.

It depends on what you mean by "doing well":
If you mean I have a bank account with a working debit card that I can use to buy groceries, then yes, I'm doing well.
But if you mean a financial system that protects my money from inflation and doesn't cause a financial crisis because it's based on debt, then no, I'm not doing well at all!

It can't be right: I already have my doubt about "300 million crypto users", considering there are only 38 million funded Bitcoin addresses. One could argue what "ownership" means if they keep it on exchanges (or in shitcoins), so it may be plausible to reach 300 million. But it continues: "36% have an annual income over US$100k", which would mean more than 100 million crypto owners earn over $100k. That seems a bit high considering most of them live in poor countries.

I agree about decentralization (most don't care about it), but I wonder if the next two points really make sense. In the first world, most users are indeed doing well with the current financial system, but are most crypto users in the 1st world? The data varies, but the most comprehensive piece I found is this one, where, by a total number of crypto owners, the top-10 countries are India, the USA, Russia, Nigeria, Vietnam, Ukraine, Kenya, South Africa, Colombia, and Venezuela. Clearly, the majority of countries are far from 1st world, and the majority of users (top-10 accounts for around 85% of crypto owners) as well. As for #3, info like that definitely needs to be supported with sources. I couldn't find data on volatility specifically, but I found a recent poll, and people explained there why they invest in cryptos. Top results are easy trading, excitement, potential short-term growth, which are all associated with volatility IMO.

And yet, long term, bitcoin has only ever gone up while USD has only ever gone down.

Yes, there is a large amount of short term volatility in bitcoin, due to the fact that it is a tiny market with a tiny number of users. A single user with a large enough stack has enough power to move the market enough to trigger a bunch of bots or stop losses or whatever, resulting in significant price shifts. As a market grows, this becomes less possible, and with far greater numbers of buyers and seller clustering up around the current market price, then volatility lessens dramatically.

Using volatility as an argument against why bitcoin cannot scale as a currency is completely missing the point that volatility is inherent to small markets and assets.

You do believe the official reported figures don't you. After all, they have no incentive to lie about that... 

There is one thing that I have strong opinions about.

*The part about disliking the price Volatility*

The sole reason why people flock to bitcoins is because they have the rare opportunity to grow their investments, not just double or triple!! Being the 8th most valuable asset does come with ups and downs ofcourse, just like many other investments, there are whales, who might bring the price down or might be shooting it up in a matter of seconds. People do not hate Volatility, people hate when the price goes down.
Which is something important to consider as well, you have to hold your coins for the long term, plus if you are unsure about it then you just realize that *you do not loose until you do not sell*. Therefore I do believe the investors here are very well aware of the Volatility and this doesn't really freak them out, what causes probelm is panic. Which is entirely different.

Partially.

Sorry, I don't do "influencers". Bitcoin is not about "influential people", Bitcoin keeps going despite many "influential" people declaring it's dead.

I've never liked stable coins: not only do you completely rely on a centralized third party, you're also exposed to the same inflation fiat money gives you. That's not "stable", it should be called "decreasing coins".

---

---

I'm not alone:

I think those points lead to the prediction on that slide, which essentially says that BTC will never be the major currency on the market. There might be a lot of users who use it daily, but it won't replace fiat, which is not necessarily anti-crypto.

Tbh OP doesn't make it clear what he's trying to do here. Sounds like he share the same sentiment, but his last sentence is quite ambiguous.

And so what?No Bitcoin user is obligated to believe in decentralization in order to use Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a currency/financial asset.Bitcoin is NOT a religion or ideology.


Again...so what?If they are well served by the fiat system,then that's good for them.The crypto industry is an alternative to the banking system,but that doesn't mean that all crypto users are going to dump the banks or fiat money in general.
The "crypto vs.fiat" is just a competition,not a bloody battle,in which only one will remain.


I hate price volatility as well,but that doesn't make me wanna dump Bitcoin.

It seems to me that this list of criticisms against crypto is out of context and the guy doing the presentation looks like Vitalik Buterin.

Unfortunately, it's not inflation that investors who are lurking are concern about but its profit because if not all, most of them expect prices to double after a day of buying a cryptocurrency. They are not planning to hold for a long time.

While those investors who have ideology hated binance for asking KYC, they send drivers licenses and passports to get every airdrop that is offered.

@MNbag. This is not very shocking except for the larpers who only hodl and dreaming to be rich. In reality, they do not use bitcoin for everyday payments, however, they will be very aggressive to call you an antagonizer.

The more honest people would not attack constructive criticsms but would ask and explore if bitcoin can really be used for mainstream adoption and everyday payments.



One month since launch, 12% of consumers have used the cryptocurrency, the Salvadoran Foundation for Economic and Social Development reported.

"Since yesterday, Salvadorans are inserting more cash (to buy #bitcoin) than what they are withdrawing from the @chivowallet ATMs," Bukele tweeted on Wednesday. "This is very surprising so early in the game."

But the foundation, which polled 233 companies across different sectors, found that the overall use was still low, with 93% of companies reporting no bitcoin payments.

"We're still not sure what benefits the government expected," said Leonor Selva of the National Association of Private Enterprises, one of several business groups that remains skeptical about the rollout.

Source https://www.reuters.com/technology/one-month-el-salvadors-bitcoin-use-grows-headaches-persist-2021-10-07/

It's historically not 5% per year, not even close.  The inflation rate over the last 11 years averages 2% per year, and that's including the large increase in 2021.  It's been remarkably stable despite the massive quantitative easing.  And even assuming we used your wrong number of 5% per year, that would still be vastly superior as a currency to one that regularly depreciates 10% in a day.  That's an unusable currency that doesn't allow for any type of long term planning because volatility is a terrible quality for a currency to have.  The inability to plan long term is a death knell for any economy.

Year    Annual Inflation Rate
2011       3.0%
2012       1.7%
2013       1.5%
2014       0.8%
2015       0.7%
2016       2.1%
2017       2.1%
2018       1.9%
2019       2.3%
2020       1.4%
2021       5.4%

Source:  https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

Am I the only one here who's going to question the context of Vitalik standing in front of that particular slide?  Personally, I have no idea when or where that presentation was or what he was saying at that moment.  Thus it's very hard for me to draw any conclusions from a single picture like that.

That's not why stablecoins are important at all.  First of all, I doubt you know anybody who gets their paycheck in bitcoin, let alone in something like USDT.  Second, the only purpose that I can see for stablecoins is to protect against volatility on exchanges (not in real life like your example), in between trades when you're waiting for a buying opportunity.  But I'd love to hear your counterargument if you see this.

But let's assume that Vitalik was arguing for all of those points shown on his slide; I agree that the current financial system does indeed serve most people quite well--at least as far as having checking accounts and basic banking functions available to them.  That's why we haven't seen people clamoring to adopt bitcoin, nor a groundswell of outrage that their debit cards don't work or that it's too costly to send money to others through services like PayPal.  If you're being honest with yourself, you'll admit that's true no matter how much you love bitcoin.

Hmm saying the first part is entirely true or entirely false seems wrong since there are investors that are joining in Bitcoin just because it's a highly speculative asset, and not really because it's a decentralized currency imo. I won't say for certain but I'd reckon there'd be a few traders out there with that kind of mindset. And as for volatility, I think it depends on how you view it? I mean your $1 could potentially turn into a $100 or 0 depending on the market, so saying that people hate it is probably because volatility was in against them, while they'd probably like it if volatility was with them.

While I agree that most users are not ideological decentralization advocates and that if they are coming from first world countries they are more or less decently served by the modern financial system, I highly disagree that these same people dislike price volatility. As a matter of fact, it's probably price volatility itself that brought them into the crypto market. Had Bitcoin's price value remained more or less stable, would these people have ever thought of buying Bitcoin? I don't think so. It was the wild swings that attracted many Bitcoin owners. Many of them could not even explain what Bitcoin really is at the time they entered. They're just attracted by the fact that there could be money in Bitcoin. That's prior to them trying to understand the technology more.

As to the prediction, BTC's volatility is enough that it wouldn't become substantially used as a unit-of-account. BTC may become a significant form of payment but the way BTC fluctuates against fiat, it is hard to just stick to the 1BTC is 1BTC mentality.

What he says is partly true. The volatility is not good however this is why stable coins exist. Sure people in El Salvador are happy when BTC had a crazy rally since it became legal tender however they wouldn’t be too happy if it went the other way.

Imagine getting paid to Do a job in BTC. Then 1 month later it loses 20% value, then the month after another 20%. This obviously is way too volatile for most people, especially those that depend on their pay check. Hence why stable coins are important.