Exactly. It’s just any easy way for the rich to move money about. What benefit does an average joe have of owning £200 worth of Bitcoin at a cost of £100,000?
They aren’t not going to flee the country with £200 of Bitcoin.
Yes. Well, what do you think, really, of “rock stars”? And their audiences in front of the stages (oops, spelled it “sages” first). And especially old, or even very old, “rock stars” & those equally gray & wrinkly audiences?
Safe Haven: Investing for Financial Storms - Mark Spitznagel:
… “It means that we need certain things to go right for gold to even be *effective* in mitigating systematic risk (of a crash) much less *cost effective*. And this is an internal contradiction, & a problem for gold as a strategic safe haven.
Does gold even have a unique place as this monetary-like insurance against crashes? Some would say that cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, are taking gold’s place in that function. But are these modern inventions really safe havens?
Cryptocurrencies’ safe haven payoff profiles are currently too sparse & too noisy to even evaluate intelligently (though the early indication is that they look more like unsafe havens). By that alone, they are hopeful havens at best….
But cryptocurrency enthusiasts have their heads in the right place. Cryptocurrencies are thought of as insurance policies against the failure of central bankers. This, by extension, has also given them the presumed role of being an insurance policy against economic crises - since, at this point, that would entail the failure of current monetary policy.
Cryptocurrencies are a most significant technology platform (the blockchain). They are like secure, virtual safety deposit boxes that only you can access. The box is the thing that is so cool & impressive, & worthy of our respect. It will change the world. But the stuff inside those boxes, just by virtue of the secure, convenient, cool boxes, is now presumed to have value - by decree, or dare I say, by *fiat*. (The economist Robert Murphy has even argued, that in Mises’s framework, we have no choice but to call crypto *fiat currencies*.)
Moreover, bitcoin isn’t even ultimately anonymous; the technical term is that it’s *pseudonymous*, meaning that the owner of each bitcoin is public knowledge at any moment, although it’s not obvious which *human* is tied to each address. But it’s quite traceable, nonetheless. Worst of all, as a highly speculative vehicle, it is a symptom of (&, I would argue, even inseparable from), the liquidity-fueled environment that created it. All that glitters isn’t gold.”
***
Two bits about “the box.”
One is the packaging argument, as I used to call it. Appearance-depth, superficiality, “cool box” mirror, mirror on the wall - vanity be thy name.
Ikea junk might look cool in the biggest of bigbox showrooms, but how drunk do you have to be & how close to closing time does it have to be, for you to take any of those babes home?
Two is the babe-box of Pandora. The one that when opened let loose the fiat cryptocurrency “hope” into the world. Wuhan & all the other bioweapons labs combined haven’t & won’t do as much damage.
No way Ali should have carried the day. “Rope” hangs the hanged … it was hope-a-dope that put Foreman away.
Well, ok, here’s a rounding 3rd, for the cool kids, of whatever ages, & that cool box:
Hi Dominic I’ve been looking at cold wallets just wondered if you have an opinion
Exactly. It’s just any easy way for the rich to move money about. What benefit does an average joe have of owning £200 worth of Bitcoin at a cost of £100,000?
They aren’t not going to flee the country with £200 of Bitcoin.
Yes. Well, what do you think, really, of “rock stars”? And their audiences in front of the stages (oops, spelled it “sages” first). And especially old, or even very old, “rock stars” & those equally gray & wrinkly audiences?
Safe Haven: Investing for Financial Storms - Mark Spitznagel:
… “It means that we need certain things to go right for gold to even be *effective* in mitigating systematic risk (of a crash) much less *cost effective*. And this is an internal contradiction, & a problem for gold as a strategic safe haven.
Does gold even have a unique place as this monetary-like insurance against crashes? Some would say that cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, are taking gold’s place in that function. But are these modern inventions really safe havens?
Cryptocurrencies’ safe haven payoff profiles are currently too sparse & too noisy to even evaluate intelligently (though the early indication is that they look more like unsafe havens). By that alone, they are hopeful havens at best….
But cryptocurrency enthusiasts have their heads in the right place. Cryptocurrencies are thought of as insurance policies against the failure of central bankers. This, by extension, has also given them the presumed role of being an insurance policy against economic crises - since, at this point, that would entail the failure of current monetary policy.
Cryptocurrencies are a most significant technology platform (the blockchain). They are like secure, virtual safety deposit boxes that only you can access. The box is the thing that is so cool & impressive, & worthy of our respect. It will change the world. But the stuff inside those boxes, just by virtue of the secure, convenient, cool boxes, is now presumed to have value - by decree, or dare I say, by *fiat*. (The economist Robert Murphy has even argued, that in Mises’s framework, we have no choice but to call crypto *fiat currencies*.)
Moreover, bitcoin isn’t even ultimately anonymous; the technical term is that it’s *pseudonymous*, meaning that the owner of each bitcoin is public knowledge at any moment, although it’s not obvious which *human* is tied to each address. But it’s quite traceable, nonetheless. Worst of all, as a highly speculative vehicle, it is a symptom of (&, I would argue, even inseparable from), the liquidity-fueled environment that created it. All that glitters isn’t gold.”
***
Two bits about “the box.”
One is the packaging argument, as I used to call it. Appearance-depth, superficiality, “cool box” mirror, mirror on the wall - vanity be thy name.
Ikea junk might look cool in the biggest of bigbox showrooms, but how drunk do you have to be & how close to closing time does it have to be, for you to take any of those babes home?
Two is the babe-box of Pandora. The one that when opened let loose the fiat cryptocurrency “hope” into the world. Wuhan & all the other bioweapons labs combined haven’t & won’t do as much damage.
No way Ali should have carried the day. “Rope” hangs the hanged … it was hope-a-dope that put Foreman away.
Well, ok, here’s a rounding 3rd, for the cool kids, of whatever ages, & that cool box:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqhyIIZt87A
Cool Hand Luke was a “natural-born world-shaker,” too.