Investing General Discussion

Sanrith Descartes said:

Im old enough to remember when I was told BTC and crypto were decentralized and totally detached from fiat currency and stock markets.

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USD price for BTC is obviously connected to USD. That doesn't fundamentally effect how Bitcoin works though, just exchange rate

Sanrith Descartes said:

Im old enough to remember when I was told BTC and crypto were decentralized and totally detached from fiat currency and stock markets.

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Ive never seen anyone outside Twitter crypto bot accounts say anything that stupid.

Sanrith Descartes said:

Saylor announced another MSTR $15b in stock dilution to buy more BTC. The math just doesn't work on this model unless BTC price never goes down. Investors lose value on every dilution. It's basically the best investment ever as long as BTC only goes up. If it goes sideways (or God forbid down) investors take it in the ass. I keep thinking about writing some puts but then I keep looking at his investment "model" and think... no fucking way.

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I have absolutely bought and sold PUTs against MSTR many times. I didn't do it during this recently downward trend and I really should have considering hindsight You are correct that he seems to be biting off a bit more than he can chew with all of these preferred shares, dilutions, etc. There is a bit of resistance around this level but then a massive gap to the 140$ range from almost 2 years ago if it keeps falling through. I was waiting for a buy signal but I have obviously but missing the bigger fall here so reconsidering a PUT play.

Sanrith Descartes said:

Well, then I guess you ain't old enough.

Grok, was some of the big pros of BTC was the it was decentralized and detached from fiat currency and the stock market?

"Yes — that was exactly one of the core selling points of Bitcoin during its early mainstream momentum (roughly 2013–2021), and it was widely and loudly proclaimed by advocates, including:

• Satoshi Nakamoto (in the whitepaper and forum posts)
• Early cypherpunks (Hal Finney, Nick Szabo)
• Libertarian and Austrian economics influencers
• Michael Saylor (pre-2020, before he went all-in with MSTR)
• Maximalists on forums like BitcoinTalk, Reddit, and early Twitter"

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Think youre missing the point.

It *is* decentralized.

As far as being detached from fiat currency and the stockmarket, the selling point for BTC is that it seeks to be so. I don't think Satoshi ever suggested it had achieved that goal.

Like I said, im sure you could come up with some random crack pots that argued something like that, but no one serious.

Redo your search and ask if Satoshi or Saylor has ever claimed that it actually had detached from the broader market, or if that was just something it had the potential to do.


Edit- Here's a better search using your precise terminology:

Arden said:

Think youre missing the point.

It *is* decentralized.

As far as being detached from fiat currency and the stockmarket, the selling point for BTC is that it seeks to be so. I don't think Satoshi ever suggested it had achieved that goal.

Like I said, im sure you could come up with some random crack pots that argued something like that, but no one serious.

Redo your search and ask if Satoshi or Saylor has ever claimed that it actually had detached from the broader market, or if that was just something it had the potential to do.


Edit- Here's a better search using your precise terminology:

View attachment 608088

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I feel like this has come up so many times over the last decade.

If it's not detached from the US economy, what's the point? I still contend that the only people still touting Bitcoin are doing it because they see it as an investment, and convincing more people about how amazing it is means their investment goes up. There's a built in hypocrisy, because if it's a stable currency and not an investment, they're just holding it as a store of value, but I doubt many of them would see that as a good outcome.

Gravel said:

I feel like this has come up so many times over the last decade.

If it's not detached from the US economy, what's the point? I still contend that the only people still touting Bitcoin are doing it because they see it as an investment, and convincing more people about how amazing it is means their investment goes up. There's a built in hypocrisy, because if it's a stable currency and not an investment, they're just holding it as a store of value, but I doubt many of them would see that as a good outcome.

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This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what "stable" is. If you're dividing the value of something by United States Dollars then its obviously going to be affected by that denominator. We live in a world where everything is priced in USD, coincidentally is going up in value against that denominator. If you measure the world with Bitcoin as the denominator it is getting cheaper.

You CAN'T separate the value of something from the dollar if you measuring it by its value in dollars. That should be obvious.

Bitcoin is detached from the dollar and traditional market in the sense that it will continue to function with or without them and individuals, in a vacuum, who traded goods and services for only BTC could continue to do so. Now obviously thats not real life and the economy at large WILL affect everything around Bitcoin, but the actual fundamental functioning of Bitcoin is not affected.

If all you can think of is USD price you're never going to understand this. No shame in that, you're just trying to measure the system from inside the system. That won't work. Bitcoin is so far outside of the overton window for most people its just not going to stick for most.

People will adopt it the same way they do any other new technology, once it goes from "I don't understand this, so I won't use it" to "Well, I don't understand it but xyz (person, company, w/e) understands it and says its valuable, so I'll trust them". For better or worse they're going to digitize the entire economy including the money, whether you understand it or not.

TLDR - its not Bitcoin thats unstable, its the Dollar. Don't believe me? Look at the valuations of literally everything

Big Phoenix said:

How do you make something as useful as gold without any of the usefulness of gold?

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Gold isn't valuable because it can be used for things. The monetary use of Gold is collateral.

Because bitcoin is decentralized, it is largely beyond the reach of government manipulation.

Because there is a hard-coded finite supply of bitcoin, it can't be inflated.

Because bitcoin exists in the electronic medium, it is much easier to move and store than gold.

Because of all those things, bitcoin is a superior store of value.

THAT (scarcity, portability, censorship resistance) is the point of bitcoin.

That's the theory anyway, and I personally have come to believe it to be true.

Cad said:

Gold can be seized. I guess you have to store your private keys somewhere but I feel like it's probably a lot easier to hide/keep your private keys than physical gold. Trying to regulate Bitcoin would be silly and not productive because of how it works.

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‘the point of can’t be printed/inflated is not to be underestimated as it gains traction. Not just the US but not a single economy couldnt ‘inflate’ their way out of shit policy if BTC were truly adopted as reserve(hint that’s why it will never be) you’d also HAVE to balance budgets Which means no more free shit. So basically, yea, not gonna happen. But it probably will grow to some type of gold reserve thing. Where you don’t directly spend it, no currency is actually backed by it, but it’s the generally accepted store of value.

the topic of seizing always seemed interesting to me and I’m not sure I get it still. Nothing beats paper for true freedom, right? While sure you can “flag” bills with certain serial numbers, until the average store/person starts checking all incoming bills against some “stolen money” DB cash is the last anonymous bastion. While no one could “seize” your wallet, they can blacklist it with absolute simplicity. ‘any business accepting BTC from wallets on this list are subject to fines/etc” and boom, your BTC is worthless. And *unlike* dollars which you could launder, you can’t launder BTC. Because the moment it moves off blacklisted wallet A, entire blockchain knows it’s on wallet B and now that’s blacklisted. So to me it’s always been less about the seizing part and more about the tracking part, which while is a BTC strength it’s also a weakness, in the freedom/anonymity sense

The market giveth and the market taketh away.

Big Phoenix said:

Im pretty sure the people who run coinbase an 80 billion dollar company can be arrested or their servers can be seized etc.

Im 50/50 on bitcoins success thus far due to the fossils running our country not comprehending what it/blockchain is or it really being some 3 letter agency project.

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The Bitcoin blockchain is maintained by tens of thousands of nodes in more than 100 countries. It doesn’t depend on Coinbase (or any single company) to function.

Not saying a government couldn't disrupt btc price action or prevent certain people from accessing their btc, but the likelihood of them being able to take any action beyond something temporary and localized is pretty low.

Sure, the blockchain technically keeps running, but that doesn't matter if people can't actually use it. Value isn't about the abstract idea of decentralization, it's about real-world liquidity. If governments choke off access points, throttle traffic, or just make the on/off-ramps legally or logistically painful, the practical ability to transact collapses. At that point, the "network is still alive!" argument becomes a comfort phrase, not an economic reality.

And it doesn't need to be permanent. A few weeks of severe disruption is enough to nuke confidence and price. Most individuals cannot sit around indefinitely holding an asset they suddenly can't use, while governments can outwait pretty much everyone. So yes, the network would still "exist", but its value would evaporate. The market cares about access, not ideology.