But I mean, normal people also don't really understand or believe in Bitcoin? When I think of Yuppies I think of Clark Griswald's neighbours and they would probably have bitcoin, it's clark that would ignore it.
> But I mean, normal people also don't really understand or believe in Bitcoin?
I don't think that's really the case anymore. I've heard a lot of positive sentiment from "normal" people about BTC lately, probably because its been all over the mainstream media due to it seeing such strong gains.
People may not understand Bitcoin, but most everyone understands "asset that is seeing massive gains, making people rich, being adopted by companies around the world, and seems like it may continue to grow".
While I'm inclined to agree with you and my inner-engineer wants to mock MBAs, they _are_ people who have spent their lives studying business. Their opinion on currency is surely -somewhat- insightful. Certainly not a bellwether, but... insightful at least.
Everyone dismisses bitcoin. Its not that hes wrong, just that these feelings are not limited to some upper class, champagne swirlers.
And the reason normal people dismiss it are the same as the hedge fund guy: its impractical, fad like, no intrinsic value, associated with crime, and cryptos have unlimited supply.
So, central bank fiat currency has intrinsic value, is crime proof, and has limited supply?
Also, Bitcoin by default is terrible for criminal purposes unless you live somewhere where law enforcement can't reach you. It's a public ledger, anyone who knows your address can read your entire transaction history.
I am not really trying to stir the debate. I am just answering the title's question and saying that there is nothing novel about their opinions versus anyone elses.
Its not really 'yuppie elites' versus 'everyone else' but more like 'conventional investors' versus 'crypto enthusiasts'.
> So, central bank fiat currency has intrinsic value, is crime proof, and has limited supply?
Central bank fiat currency is as close to having intrinsic value as anything, because you must use it (to pay taxes, at least).
> Also, Bitcoin by default is terrible for criminal purposes unless you live somewhere where law enforcement can't reach you.
He said it was associated with crime, not that it was good for it. I wouldn't be surprised if The Silk Road was the first use of cryptocurrency that wasn't a gimmick.
> But these stem from a deeper divide: the degree to which a person has trust in the system.
I fundamentally disagree with this premise, and the entire article hinges on its veracity. The idea that "Banks = system" and "Bitcoin = anti-system" is as naive as it is superficial. I wouldn't consider myself part of any elite (being a 1.5 gen US immigrant), but I'm quite bearish on BTC for the same reason I was bearish on bit torrent back in the early 2000s: its primary use-case is to circumvent legality.
Technically it's interesting, and even socially it might be interesting, but the bottom line is that most BTC these days is used either to (a) make money off of speculation (which isn't much different than options trading or gambling), or (b) buy illegal things (be it drugs, weapons, porn, ransoms, etc.).
Ironically, the article doesn't even touch on where BTC could actually make a positive impact (countries with failing currencies, or out-of-control inflation). But really, in these specific scenarios, the US Dollar is just as good as BTC. In fact, I remember in post-Communist Europe, the de facto currency was US Dollars, as local currencies were a mess. Even when I last visited Romania, I remember having to bribe a government official (to prevent stonewalling our EU passport applications) with a bottle of wine and a few hundred bucks.
I dismiss it because of FOMO. This irrational part of me wishes I got in on the action early, like my cousin who bought ETH at $10. So I look for any reason / article to dismiss it.
I assume similar mechanics work for those who have a decent stake in it.
Yuppies? Is this 1982? I wonder what the Reagan Democrats or the Moral Majority think. Or the preps or the goths, why not just go straight to high school cliques. I heard the varsity kids were sticking their nose up at cryptocurrency but the A-kids and the theater kids were totally into it, maybe they're on to something. Don't listen to the conformists, sheeple!
I dismiss bitcoin because its proponents push weird sociological theories (yuppies just can't understand its brilliance because they're too dependent on the fiat system!) or weirder metaphysical arguments (bitcoin is a battery!) to justify its valuation and expectations of future valuation.
Equities are also in a wild speculative bubble, but at least everyone I know who's invested in them know it and are paranoid about when the crash is coming.
Trust in the system aka Benefits from the system. If Bitcoin became entrenched in the legal framework of our societies, they will simply get Bitcoin as it happens. Until then, they make enough money as it is. Also, they look down on the believers as gamblers and criminals undeserving of this new wealth.
This post gets to the core that the relevant axes for belief in Bitcoin and decentralized crypto in general lie in "knowledge" vs "trust in the system."
The main issue I have here is that the knowledge bit glosses over the "high trust in the system/high knowledge" quadrant quite a bit. One perspective from those folks that's missing is that Bitcoin's day of reckoning will inevitably be if and when it becomes a material threat to the system, that the system itself will react to (1) suppress Bitcoin and (2) replace its own currency with one that re-establishes trust.
The history for currencies around the world broadly follow the pattern we're seeing unfold today: a "hard" currency becomes devalued, typically due to some event like war, loses trust, and the system replaces it with a new currency that can re-establish trust. Some examples are the greenback-dollar relationship, the mark-rentenmark-reichmark, and the 1994 Brazilian real.
The other shoe here is that, as part of the playbook for establishing new currencies during a crisis, the governments always suppress alternative currencies, whether those were bank-issued notes in the 19th century US, FDR's massive gold confiscation, or re-valuing debts in terms of the newly established currency - all options are in play, and there is basically nothing that the government will stop at to run it's playbook to stabilize the currency in crisis.
In that context, maybe the smart/high trust people think "Crypto is a cool technology, but it can be used to create the next central bank currency so why do I care about this one when anyone can create a new coin" and also consciously or unconsciously know that the government is going to take massive action to suppress a $1MM bitcoin.
Some good references for how currencies (and contract denominated in the currency, like debt & assets) evolve in various crises throughout history: "Principals for Navigating Big Debt Crises" by Ray Dalio, "Debt: The First 5000 Years" by David Graeber, Perry Mehrling's course "Economics of Money and Banking."
Bitcoin is a proof of concept that got too big. For what it demonstrated it's an innovative work-around for sybil attacks. For how it exists now, it's a nightmare technology. It can't store value longer than a few days (unless you convince yourself BTC IS the stablecoin), the transaction rate is pathetic and requires really stupid technologies layered on top to make it "go," and lastly (and most importantly) the energy waste is immense just to keep track of a fucking ledger. It can't even be used as a distributed computing platform. Yawn.
If you're going to go long on something, at least go long on sybil-prevention that doesn't wreak havoc on the environment and can be used for general computation.
Bitcoin is not only a work around for Sybil attacks. That'd be hashcash by Adam Back. Please do your homework.
Bitcoin is able to settle transactions in an anonymous and open network of participants without byzantine-faults. A naive implementation of a ledger cannot do that. Neither can data bases. That's why some find Bitcoin useful.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 52.5 ms ] threadI don't think that's really the case anymore. I've heard a lot of positive sentiment from "normal" people about BTC lately, probably because its been all over the mainstream media due to it seeing such strong gains.
People may not understand Bitcoin, but most everyone understands "asset that is seeing massive gains, making people rich, being adopted by companies around the world, and seems like it may continue to grow".
And the reason normal people dismiss it are the same as the hedge fund guy: its impractical, fad like, no intrinsic value, associated with crime, and cryptos have unlimited supply.
Also, Bitcoin by default is terrible for criminal purposes unless you live somewhere where law enforcement can't reach you. It's a public ledger, anyone who knows your address can read your entire transaction history.
Its not really 'yuppie elites' versus 'everyone else' but more like 'conventional investors' versus 'crypto enthusiasts'.
Central bank fiat currency is as close to having intrinsic value as anything, because you must use it (to pay taxes, at least).
> Also, Bitcoin by default is terrible for criminal purposes unless you live somewhere where law enforcement can't reach you.
He said it was associated with crime, not that it was good for it. I wouldn't be surprised if The Silk Road was the first use of cryptocurrency that wasn't a gimmick.
I fundamentally disagree with this premise, and the entire article hinges on its veracity. The idea that "Banks = system" and "Bitcoin = anti-system" is as naive as it is superficial. I wouldn't consider myself part of any elite (being a 1.5 gen US immigrant), but I'm quite bearish on BTC for the same reason I was bearish on bit torrent back in the early 2000s: its primary use-case is to circumvent legality.
Technically it's interesting, and even socially it might be interesting, but the bottom line is that most BTC these days is used either to (a) make money off of speculation (which isn't much different than options trading or gambling), or (b) buy illegal things (be it drugs, weapons, porn, ransoms, etc.).
Ironically, the article doesn't even touch on where BTC could actually make a positive impact (countries with failing currencies, or out-of-control inflation). But really, in these specific scenarios, the US Dollar is just as good as BTC. In fact, I remember in post-Communist Europe, the de facto currency was US Dollars, as local currencies were a mess. Even when I last visited Romania, I remember having to bribe a government official (to prevent stonewalling our EU passport applications) with a bottle of wine and a few hundred bucks.
I assume similar mechanics work for those who have a decent stake in it.
- Yuppies?
- Fantasy data and graphs are being evaulated
- MBA and elite uni status is taken as a proxy for how smart someone is
- IQ is taken as a measurement for smartness
- Being a Bitcoin maximalism is framed as its a distinguished taste someone has to work towards to arrive at.
I have the impression the author is a chauvinist.
Equities are also in a wild speculative bubble, but at least everyone I know who's invested in them know it and are paranoid about when the crash is coming.
The main issue I have here is that the knowledge bit glosses over the "high trust in the system/high knowledge" quadrant quite a bit. One perspective from those folks that's missing is that Bitcoin's day of reckoning will inevitably be if and when it becomes a material threat to the system, that the system itself will react to (1) suppress Bitcoin and (2) replace its own currency with one that re-establishes trust.
The history for currencies around the world broadly follow the pattern we're seeing unfold today: a "hard" currency becomes devalued, typically due to some event like war, loses trust, and the system replaces it with a new currency that can re-establish trust. Some examples are the greenback-dollar relationship, the mark-rentenmark-reichmark, and the 1994 Brazilian real.
The other shoe here is that, as part of the playbook for establishing new currencies during a crisis, the governments always suppress alternative currencies, whether those were bank-issued notes in the 19th century US, FDR's massive gold confiscation, or re-valuing debts in terms of the newly established currency - all options are in play, and there is basically nothing that the government will stop at to run it's playbook to stabilize the currency in crisis.
In that context, maybe the smart/high trust people think "Crypto is a cool technology, but it can be used to create the next central bank currency so why do I care about this one when anyone can create a new coin" and also consciously or unconsciously know that the government is going to take massive action to suppress a $1MM bitcoin.
Some good references for how currencies (and contract denominated in the currency, like debt & assets) evolve in various crises throughout history: "Principals for Navigating Big Debt Crises" by Ray Dalio, "Debt: The First 5000 Years" by David Graeber, Perry Mehrling's course "Economics of Money and Banking."
If you're going to go long on something, at least go long on sybil-prevention that doesn't wreak havoc on the environment and can be used for general computation.
Bitcoin is able to settle transactions in an anonymous and open network of participants without byzantine-faults. A naive implementation of a ledger cannot do that. Neither can data bases. That's why some find Bitcoin useful.