if Gold can be irrational for 2k years, I don't see why not bitcoin can't, the only think gold has going for "longer history", yet HN folk love to say "past performance are not an...bla bla", yes it also has the 5% - 10% industrial use, but bitcoin has that too by being able to transfer it without third party, so will also not go to zero because will be useful as transfer of value.
If you look longer term the 1999 is just a small blip, so what if bitcoin crashes, bitcoin will replace banks, which are crocked and make money out of nothing.
yes, this is what hold bitcoin back but is getting better, the amazon device can be software signed, also you could encrypt your keys and upload to all cloud hosts.
if you keep a ton of gold in your house, good luck.. keeping it safe, there are safe ways to keep bitcoin, cold storage, etc. is not like is impossible.
Except the industrial value of gold which is around 10% of its use and not the quality/pure one, how is gold better than bitcoin? The favorite argument and the only argument is its history, yet when someone tries to use the same historical argument of bitcoin going up and up for 7 years, the elitist, NY folk will quickly follow with "Past performance is not an indicator of future outcomes".
I think people here are just salty because they think they are smart yet didn't saw the value in the crypto/blockchain, especially that is up their geeky alley.
Gold real life use is a myth, around 10% of the demand, copper is much more valuable from this perspective.
When the US constitution was born, I don't know, democracy? BTC/BTH, ETC/ETH, crypto is even more democratic as the other side can go on their separate ways, as oposite to countries.
Your examples comes down to centralized decision & regulation, isn't money printing also "regulation" that's how they call it, wile bitcoin is the most decentralized currency, no Emperor can replace it, no changes can be done without widespread conses.
The incredible energy for digging out gold just to keep it in locked boxes, same for all precious metals, diamonds.
Stop trying to understand bitcoin, you privileged, elitists hacker news folk won't ever understand it how is to deal with a hostile corrupt government that through banks/inflation just robs you.
really an hour? maybe inside the country, internationally is days and more expensive of course depending of the bank, then you add the bank commission for having an account with them, all the paperwork, and all the time, you don't really own the money, the bank owns the money.
right MySpace, was a technology?, I think they were build on php or so, was a slow site, Google is not a technology either, golang it is, and is somehow revolutionary through simplicity and first-ish.
tulip-mania never happened, is just propaganda of those times, the only thing you can associate with is dotcom, but if you look at the bigger chart the crash is just a small blip.
bitcoin is like a bank account, is mostly a movement against banks and money printing, I personally, had a few months paychecks as savings in an account, after a year, I got less money, the commissions were bigger than the interest, after a few other months when I wanted to close it, I have to pay money out of pocket, for the commissions, everything that f... the banks, is welcome in my book, I'm surprised after them crashing the economy in 2008 and getting away with it, we are still their bitches and we are OK with it, fool me once, fool me twice.
would love to be a bubble, to drop in price so I can get in, but I don't think so, if you compare bitcoin with gold, bitcoin is better, the "gold" brand is stronger still with its history, but not so much among the new generation, unless bitcoin gets to 7 trillions, the gold market cap, I would not wory about being a bubble.
Are prone now to such swings, 40%, I didn't heard of, that , recently, we are talking in 20 years, gold was as volatile when was decoupled from dollar.
Do you know Fed is a private institution, it has as much authority as it has coca cola, atm 10 old white guys are deciding for you, but price will stabilize when there is a balance between in and out and a big enough market.
If Guverments are not ignorant how come 2008 happened, I lost my job then and lots of hardships, people I know lost their houses, etc. The Guverment is not your friend.
It can scale, lighting network + bigger blocks as the internet get better, other layers, servers get cheaper, the change from gold/silver coins to banknotes lasted 400 years you want in 7 years to be perfect.
cash is much better for that, and they catched those slik road guys because they were using bitcoin, if you look at what bitcoin does manly, it cuts off the banks, that's why are so scared, in Bulgaria they stopped all transfer to and from crypto exchanges, so you really think you own your money in bank?
As much as the elitist HR folk like to showcase the shortcomings of bitcoin, fact is that bitcoin is so much better than gold and fiat, which can be mass printed, or have you money blocked in the bank, how it happened in argentina and Greece, Cyprus, where people got a 40% haircut on their deposits over 100k, (check the inflation now in Turkey 13%) the money in the bank, you don't own them, bitcoin is at core a movement against banks, the whole argument against bitcoin is like the people were saying cars are so much worse than horses, because there are no paved roads, you need gas, maintenance, are noisy, can't scale, etc.
all the "safeguards" the financial instruments have, didn't stopped them from crashing the economy in 2008, bitcoin is actually a response to that, I did lost my job then and had quite a hard time, now the same bankers tell me what is fraud and what is not.
In my country banks moved away from their social propose lending, and they just take high commissions for everything (eg. ATM commission for seeing how much I have in my account) and buy state bonds with deposits money, they advertise credits, but they don't actually credit businesses they credit people who don't need a credit and have enough real estate guarantees to pay the loan in full, so they won't lose interest profit.
gold industrial use is like 10%, jewelry as just a fancier way to store gold, so 90% of gold is so valuable because is valuable, and for so many years, meaning something can be valuable without intrinsic value, aka bitcoin.
I had trouble understanding bitcoin myself, and therefore stayed away from it, but what made me understand it, if shinny metals and compressed carbons pieces have huge markets, eg. gold has a cap of 7 trillions and bitcoin is just 150 billions, and just work why bitcoin would not also work, even when you buy gold jewellery or diamonds, in the back of your mind is the resell value, (hedge against inflation), not that they look much better than a fake, or the coated version.
Maybe in US inflation isn't a problem but in my country until a few years 7% inflation was low, although maybe the official inflation is low, but as far as I know asset prices have gone up due to quantitative easing.