Hacker News Reader

Comment by readhn | Hacker News Reader

RIP bitcoin. Current valuation is $4142.99 higher than it should be.. Im thinking we will get there within a couple of years. $1-2 seems about right per 1 BTC.

View on HN

As someone involved in this stuff since 2011, the constant "death of Bitcoin" predictions are sooooo tedious.

Bitcoin only died 171 times so far: https://99bitcoins.com/obituary-stats/. The first time was in December 2010 when it was priced at $0.23.

In theory, the governments may try to kill it once it reaches too far (to the point of being considered fiat money). However, the said government will also invite lots of backlash from the people and technically, no single government can stop the blockchain network completely.

> no single government can stop the blockchain network completely

Would you like to place a wager on that?

They cannot. Once the transaction becomes part of the blockchain, its replicated to each and every node in the world (we are talking about thousands) that span the length and breadth of the planet. Thus, its practically impossible.

Quick thought experiment: I just did a quick back of the envelope calculation on the brute force approach. 50% of the current hash rate would be 548 million retail - (current rate 8M TH/s, 1850$ retail Antminer S9 rated 13.5 TH/s). That's a quick thought on naive approach - not sure I have that right, so please check my work. I have a few other ideas as well. edit: of course, the existing hash rate would still be there, so you'd have to double it, not buy half. I still think the retail estimate is on the high side (markup, not leveraging economies of scale). My guess is that an organization like DARPA could buy Bitcoin for <250M$.

I think large states definitely have the resources to launch 51% attacks

But large states cannot do it in a legit manner as they have to follow some constitutional rights of their citizens. Most constitutions of these countries have enough freedom rights paved into them to avoid such blatant action by the government. Besides, the backlash in the media would be unbelievable, the party that does this kind of thing may not find many voters in the next election due to the negative press (at least in technologically advanced nations like USA and Sweden where people are generally aware of online rights).

Which US constitution clause would prohibit the US government from launching a 51% attack?

The fourth amendment?

Where you live sounds very nice.

getting the timing right is pretty much next to impossible. this does not change the fact that it will ultimately end that way.

> getting the timing right is pretty much next to impossible. this does not change the fact that it will ultimately end that way

The argument that anything ends at some point is fruitless. Not sure how you are separating BTC out from anything else here

What about the cryptomarket as a whole, 1-2$ total down from 100-200 billion?

Things that enable previously impossible use-cases don't just go away.

Yeah, it's a pity that more technocrats don't actually understand how bitcoin works, why it is innovative, and how supply and demand control prices.

Please, can you guess me the numbers of the EuroMillions lotto?

The $1 valuation strikes me as way more arbitrary than $4k. What features mean that it should be near USD parity? It should either be above or below the USD based on >>insert valuation technique here<<. But why should it land near $1-2? Why shouldn't it be $0.003 or $30.00?

If it should somehow land on parity with fiat currency then maybe it should be a weighted mean of the global currencies but $1-2 seems incredibly arbitrary.

So, the fact that people are over-paying for bitcoin by 2-3x its market price suggests to you that demand will rapidly decrease?

can you please connect that with logic?

Yeah...$20 million market cap seems reasonable... smh...

What is "smh"?

"Shaking my head".

"shake my head"

Thank you.

There is utility in BTC thats why im putting 1-2$ value on it.

4000$ + per one BTC is pure insanity that will soon end badly for most "speculators".

There is nothing new under the sun. Go back to the tulips and many booms and busts after. Its happening with BTC now. And just like all the others it will end the same.

> There is nothing new under the sun. Go back to the tulips and many booms and busts after.

Predicting bubbles is nothing new under the sun. I remember 10 years ago when craft beer was a bubble. I also remember 5 years ago when a buddy of mine in finance told me "tech is a bubble because there are too many languages". Everyone is an expert, and everyone can say "tulip" as if it's meaningful.

Craft beer is tasty, many people love it and regularly buy it to consume it; not to store it in the cellar with the hope that one bottle will cost $50000 in 3 years. That's real business that has real profits.

Regarding tulip mania: The 1841 account is based upon a 1797 account which was sourced from "three anonymous pamphlets published in 1637 with an anti-speculative agenda" contemporary historians describe as "pieces of propaganda and a prodigious amount of plagiarism"

A historically honest account characterizes tulip mania as "no more than a meaningless winter drinking game, played by a plague-ridden population that made use of the vibrant tulip market."

So, assuming you are making a parallel between bitcoin and the fictional "propaganda" narrative of tulip mania: that comparison falls apart quickly, since (1) bulbs have an exponential growth rate. (2) the 3 year crash did not feature boom + bust cycles with steadily increasing bottoms. (3) Bulbs are not permanent or fungible. (4) short selling bulbs was illegal. (5) bitcoin is not subject to a decree by dutch parliament that futures contracts must be options with the buyer allowed to back out for a 3.5% fee.

The way that bitcoin mirrors tulip mania is that it is subject to "propaganda" with an "anti-speculative agenda", and that both took place during a rapid increase in the fiat money supply.

the fact that you tout the "tulip mania" example shows that Bitcoin and markets are not the only things you know little about:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-never-was-real-t...

> BTC is pure insanity that will soon end badly for most "speculators"

> Its happening with BTC now

Join the long line of people that have been saying this for almost 5 years and have been so soooooooooo wrong

Did you read the article you posted? Actual tulip mania, as described in the article, is much more similar to what is happening in bitcoin than the mythologized tulip mania.

Frantic speculation in a narrow space with the market eventually crashing when speculative buyers are no longer willing to bid up?

What was going for tulips is that they had an "expiration date" bitcoin will probably take longer because there's no such thing.

To me bitcoin lost its appeal after transaction fees became high. The value is ok, since you can still use fractions of it, but current transaction fees and time to wait for confirmation makes it unsuitable for daily use. So in my mind bitcoin already failed what it supposed to provide.

> Join the long line of people that have been saying this for almost 5 years and have been so soooooooooo wrong

You're overstating your case. They just haven't been proven right.

In such a young, poorly understood, and speculative, environment it seems reasonable to suspect a bubble. 5 years doesn't prove or disprove anything.

The first time I saw someone refer to Bitcoin as tulips was in 2011 when I started in the space. I'm sure others labeled it as such as soon as it started trading in 2010 at $0.06.

a few people have been called crazy for pointing out bubbles... prematurely. it does not change the fact that its still a bubble. as i said getting the timing right is pretty much impossible. time and market will be the ultimate judge ;)

Do you think that the entire space "is a bubble" as in, "cryptocurrency itself will go away one day." Or did you mean "is in a bubble" as in, "the price will drop significantly someday."

cryptocurrency clearly has utility. it may stay as it is or most likely undergo some changes and stay in a different format. The issue is valuation - yes, it is bubble IMHO thats going to pop. Timing of that "pop" is a million dollar question.

You're in luck! Blocks of 10,000 Satoshis are currently trading at a little over $0.41; they haven't even reached dollar parity yet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com