TS, do u know what a 51% attack is? Your assertion seems to be anyone can buy a 51% attack, thus anyone with said money can kill bitcoin, just curious if u understand what it actually is

Ftr I think the best bear thesis on bitcoin/crypto is govt intervention

Does anybody know what the actual funds flow to bitcoin has been since it's creation?

How much cash has bitcoin pulled from stocks, bonds, gold, pizzas, etc...
How much skin is actually in the game?

IMO this is the real market cap of bitcoin, It is the only real value and it is well below $100B. I am guessing it is at least an order of magnitude lower. But I have not been able to find this information.

I am not a bitcoin hater or true believer. I have no skin in the game, yet. I am trying to wrap my head around both sides of the argument.

I'd say it's about three fitty.

Agreed, and by a wide margin.

What does this mean though, how does the government intervene? For most bitcoiners the biggest attraction is that the government can't intervene. We are sort of going back and about whether this is possible, and I only really find people sharing your view that are not very knowledgeable about how bitcoin works.

I think you don't want to believe it's possible, but if you thought about it objectively I think you'd realise it is. The Chinese government could just annouce they are going to destroy bitcoin, it's value would dramatically crash, miners would shift their resources to other coins and they'd be able to carry out their threat at relatively minimal cost. They have both the means and the incentive to do this.

The value wouldn't crash, and in effect the chinese took a step towards this. It was all over the media that "china was banning bitcoin". The exchanges liquidated, people relocated, capital fled (much to hong kong), and some of the miners were in a state of limo etc.

The price on the CHINESE exchanges went down, but of course that is only those exchanges. The world wide price stayed robust and after the event continued to rise. Guaranteed the price of a bitcoin on the street in China rose, they are harder to get so people that want have to pay more.

It is always the people that are less technical and less read on the legal and economic considerations of bitcoin that believe that a government can announce bitcoin is no longer valuable. It doesn't work like fiat, it is valued for reasons other than governments consent.

The incentive for the Chinese government to do this is double edged. If Chinese authorities COULD take all their citizens bitcoin's and "got rid of them" then they would be missing out on a great amount of capital wealth that the rest of the world is participating in. This is the opposite direction many countries are taking and so it would be to their own detriment.

I'm looking for an Adam Smith quote that is relevant but can't find it/one. In the meantime here is a relevant example of how the price of bitcoin is higher in countries that are harder to get and have corrupt money/government. In zimbawe the price of bitcoin is near double its international price: https://www.rt.com/business/409933-z...in-price-coup/

Apple will be worth nothing one day. Donald and Kim can play with nukes. And yes, the Chinese can intervene/attack anything, cryptos included. Doesn't take a genius to state the obvious.
You realize that all of these statements are platitudes at best. They mean nothing.

When you speculate or counter it you:

1) Need to estimate the likelihood of event x
2) Need to give a timeframe in which event x is to happen
3) Bet money on it (optional)

With 1+2 to make an intellectual argument where you can actually be proven wrong. We all know those annoying broke people who like to say they "knew it". Like shorting a stock, but going broke bc the stock goes up too much... and 6 months later the company goes bust. Yep, they "knew it", but their insight is also worth nothing.

To all bears, i share most of the concerns and there are many ways this could fail that we can't even think of. But i'd bet that before China even thinks about outright destroying (aka spend big money), the market cap has to go up another 10x. And if another 10x were to happen, most people will reduce whatever % of their net worth they hold in crypto by at least 50%.

And yes, then, the so called "smart people" will possibly be "right" and go on CNBC to show how their prediction came true, while elegantly leaving out the fact they would still be up more than 100%+ if they simply did nothing.

We know this exact pattern if you look at people predicting the stock market crashes for how many years now? Will anybody ever tell them, "hey dummy, your clients lost out on the biggest bull market"?
People who believe poker is dead belong in a similar category btw. They just mistake the bull market for the normal thing and don't adapt when they have to.

So yeah, hostile government actors are likely the biggest bear case for crypto, in any shape they may come (ban, nuking, taxation).

Despite that it's an ez buy at 7k. Those who are outraged, look back, same people who thought 2k was crazy...and yes, 2k is crazy, this whole thing is insane.

A Chinese 51% attack has a non zero probability of occurring. You all are arguing over the exact odds. Clearly the bears think it's a higher % chance than the bulls. Personally I think the chance of it both happening and being successful are minuscule to the point where I am not worried about it at all.

There are two things that help bitcoin's cause and those are price and time. As bitcoin price and market cap increase the costs of an attack increase and the odds of a successful attack decrease. At current prices, it's basically only large governments that could even think about it. Over time the mining diversity by Country will hopefully increase, but time will tell. While mining is centralized to China, it's not centralized WITHIN China.

Regarding an actual attack - it would have to be executed over a long period of time - people would notice and I think the developers would just hard fork away after a sufficient number of double spends occurred.

Good posts all round guys, makes me realise I need to read more about things I thought I understood.

This new survey of 564 USA bitcoin owners provides some insight to to why bitcoin's price will be stable and not crash. Over 85% intend to hold bitcoin for at least one year. The lowest average price that they would sell their bitcoin is $196,000 per btc! If most of the worlds bitcoin investors are like these respondents, the bitcoin price has a strong base of holders, and it is highly unlikely to crash.

https://lendedu.com/blog/investing-in-bitcoin

What were Pets.com stock holders saying in 1999 interviews?

No government can ever completely shut bitcoin down, correct. That's not what anyone is arguing. A few big countries can say "no banks can transmit money to bitcoin exchanges", and it would decimate the crypto economy. Remember when poker sites had like 100k daily USA users, then black friday hit, and it went down to like 2-5k daily users? It's like that. I don't know the exact numbers, but that's the gist of how to cripple an industry. The average user, like me, is not going to want to trade cash with people in parking lots to cash out my bitcoin.

My experience has shown the exact *opposite*. There are myriad "average, normal" folks who are willing to meet in a parking lot to exchange bitcoin for cash or vice versa.

Have you even been on a website called localbitcoins.com? If I were you, I'd check it out.

This is not for the avg. joe.
Sure, people do this, but lets call this a niche.

Re selling btc at 196k/btc.

What people say and what people do are often two things. However, intention does count although the main reason for price stability is the influx of so many new people.
Takes out volatility.

I'd like to know if people are more likely to panic sell or cash-in winnings. Have no data, is there some widely accepted opinion from psycho economists?
If investors operate like "i put this money in, if i lose it so be it, but if i double i cash out 50%"... that would give us some interesting ways to predict a floor.

So markets with few participants can be volatile because they have few data points to average. But they also have shallower feedback loops.

Markets with many participants have more data points but deeper feedback loops. Which can accelerate volatility.

Look at the '87 or '07 US equity markets. Many participants much volatility.

Good point, i stand corrected that less people per se mean less volatility.

So market cap would generally be an indicator for less volatility (everything else being equal), perhaps that is the main reason BTC volatility goes down.

What do you guys think about Bitcoin futures settling in cash?

It's fine as long as the settlement price is from an exchange where significant quantities of bitcoin can be bought or sold as well as where cash and bitcoins are both easily transferred in and out.

What is a "significant quantity"? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my impression that relatively small amounts of Bitcoin are actually traded.

Lots of off chain trading happening on exchanges. "Significant quantity" would be enough so that people who want to arbitrage the futures against the spot market can do so. Maybe this is self-regulating, as no one will want to trade on the wrong side when the futures price goes to high or low compared to spot, so the volume in the futures will come down to what the spot market can handle.

I think cash settled is asinine. What is a "significant quantity?" It should really be relative to the amount that is traded in the futures.

Say 500 million traded in a day on an exchange seems like a lot, but what if 2 billion trade in the futures? The whole idea of cash settled **** is everything bitcoin is against. It may work for some time, it may not. In the end, PHYSICAL bitcoin will always reign. You'll see.

I can't wait to hear the crybabies buying paper bull**** whining about how they haven't gotten the returns BTC has had.

Why should it be any different. Most futures expire and settle every month or three. You just hold to settlement and the clearing firm takes the losers' money and gives it to the winners at the settlement price.