Worth Exactly Zero: Crypto And Bitcoin, A Pure Techno Babble
Jan. 05, 2021 6:23 PM ETGBTCBTC-USD496 Comments134 Likes
Anton Wahlman profile picture.
Anton Wahlman
6.72K Followers
Summary
I give an example of a crypto-Bitcoin expert/promoter who tries to explain why one should own cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin.
Listen to the “arguments” - as they are revealing and cringe worthy. I don’t remember that the dot-com arguments in January 2000 were even half this silly.
I give examples of how, in real daily life, normal people use payments and I show that there is no demand for crypto to improve on existing payments.
I don’t know when crypto/Bitcoin will fall to their intrinsic value of $0, but I do predict that they will - someday, when the crowd suddenly sees that The Emperor has no clothes.
In terms of an inflation hedge, I suggest that real assets are a sustainable way to play this role. Good examples include gold and silver.
Even the weirdest ideas sometimes start with a kernel of truth. The Bitcoin/crypto (GBTC) group has as one of its starting points the sound realization that government fiat money has no foundation and will eventually reach its intrinsic value of exactly zero.
So far so good. Crypto advocates made it through the first page of something written by Ludwig von Mises or Murray Rothbard 50 or 100 years ago.
But then the Bitcoin/crypto argument goes off the rails. It claims that you can replace one currency that has zero foundation - with another "currency" that also has zero foundation. Cryptocurrency does not exist in the real world. It's fresh air in a bottle - minus the fresh air. And minus the bottle. It literally is nothing.
Crypto's sole strength is that it - allegedly - is limited in quantity. However, that totally misses the point about what makes something valuable. There are all sorts of things that are limited in quantity that aren't worth anything.
For something to be worth something - it actually has to be worth something. At a minimum, that means it has to actually exist. As such, essentially everything under the sun has the potential to be worth more than cryptocurrency. As little as a pet rock is worth - fractionally more than zero, perhaps - it's more than something that really doesn't exist in the real world, such as a fantasy, a dream, or a unit of cryptocurrency.
For a regular person, there's also another issue with cryptocurrency: What real-world problem is cryptocurrency trying to solve, exactly? Is the regular person running around saying "Wow, I really wish I was using cryptocurrency today"?
I would say, not a chance.
When I go to the coffee shop, I hand over a $5 bill and get a buck or two back. When I go to the grocery store, I hand over a $50 bill and get $10 or $20 back. When I buy an airline ticket or some other mail order item, I pay with a credit card. If I buy a car, I write a check for $20,000. Our current payment systems work swimmingly well.
Nobody has been able to explain how cryptocurrency somehow would improve upon this regular consumer situation. No normal person is "missing" cryptocurrency in their lives. It's pure techno babble.
YouTube is full of cryptocurrency channels and advocates. In search for someone who could try to make the argument as to why it's valuable, I stumbled upon this - supposedly credible - cryptocurrency advocate, with a seven-minute video published on Jan. 3, 2021: here.
It's "Colin talks crypto" - supposedly one of the crypto/Bitcoin experts. He must know what he is talking about, right? I don't know the man - obviously - but his YouTube channel has 23,000 subscribers and from his YouTube video archive he seems like one of the most active Bitcoin/crypto experts.
Watching the video, the buzzwords hit every square on the bingo card:
Bitcoin is "truly revolutionary."
Bitcoin is "truly disruptive."
Bitcoin is "innovative" that has "never before been seen on this planet."
Bitcoin is "unlike any other economic technology that mankind has ever seen."
Bitcoin is like the invention of the wheel, fire, electricity and the car.
I really feel this on a true technological and fundamental level.
It is math, it is not belief.
The greed of man secures the blockchain (!).
It's expected to engulf the monetary systems of The Earth.
It's expected to grow at an ever-expanding geometric proportions (!).
It's going to happen, by definition.
Dizzy yet? I was hiding under the table, because it was so cringe worthy.
At no point does the video explain a single benefit of cryptocurrency or Bitcoin. It's all ultra-abstract buzzwords. When I walk into the coffee shop tomorrow morning, I'm still handing over the same $5 bill and I'm getting a buck or two back - and I'm not missing the presence of any cryptocurrency one bit.
Neither is anyone else.
When I look at cryptocurrency, I feel like the little boy, pointing out that The Emperor has no clothes. Otherwise seemingly upstanding citizens, normally functioning and all, are lost in trance trading an instrument that amounts to paying $30,000 apiece for a non-existent fart in a virtual bottle. As if 2020 had not been crazy already, it would appear that when it comes to crypto and Bitcoin, people have totally lost their minds:
Me: "Hey man, here's an invisible painting. It exists in theory, and it's beautiful. Just imagine!"
Crypto-bull: "Wow, that's revolutionary. Here is $30,000."
That's today's cryptocurrency market in a nutshell.
When will the music stop?
Crypto and Bitcoin have no intrinsic value, and if they trade at $1 that's already infinitely too much. As a result, since people have already bid up this kind of instrument to the $30,000 level, I couldn't tell you that it couldn't go to $30 million before the music stops. It could happen quickly, or take a long time.
But in the end, I think the result will be the same: All cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin and otherwise - will return to their intrinsic value of exactly zero. They are literally nothing, and they don't even perform any useful function for any person in their lives. Crypto makes the 1637 Tulip Mania look almost rational in comparison.
Back to the inflation hedge
I started this article with the one thing that crypto advocates get right: Government paper money is on a path to zero, and you need an inflation hedge.
So what should people seeking an inflation hedge do instead? Let's say that you think that the stock market and real estate may be in for a cyclical speed bump, so you don't want to own those.
The answer goes back to what has worked for thousands of years already: Precious metals. Whether silver (NYSEARCA:SLV) or gold (NYSEARCA:PHYS), or the miners that mine them, they have served this function throughout time - and for good reasons. They exist, and they can be used for all sorts of things.
Jan. 05, 2021 6:23 PM ETGBTCBTC-USD496 Comments134 Likes
Anton Wahlman profile picture.
Anton Wahlman
6.72K Followers
Summary
I give an example of a crypto-Bitcoin expert/promoter who tries to explain why one should own cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin.
Listen to the “arguments” - as they are revealing and cringe worthy. I don’t remember that the dot-com arguments in January 2000 were even half this silly.
I give examples of how, in real daily life, normal people use payments and I show that there is no demand for crypto to improve on existing payments.
I don’t know when crypto/Bitcoin will fall to their intrinsic value of $0, but I do predict that they will - someday, when the crowd suddenly sees that The Emperor has no clothes.
In terms of an inflation hedge, I suggest that real assets are a sustainable way to play this role. Good examples include gold and silver.
Even the weirdest ideas sometimes start with a kernel of truth. The Bitcoin/crypto (GBTC) group has as one of its starting points the sound realization that government fiat money has no foundation and will eventually reach its intrinsic value of exactly zero.
So far so good. Crypto advocates made it through the first page of something written by Ludwig von Mises or Murray Rothbard 50 or 100 years ago.
But then the Bitcoin/crypto argument goes off the rails. It claims that you can replace one currency that has zero foundation - with another "currency" that also has zero foundation. Cryptocurrency does not exist in the real world. It's fresh air in a bottle - minus the fresh air. And minus the bottle. It literally is nothing.
Crypto's sole strength is that it - allegedly - is limited in quantity. However, that totally misses the point about what makes something valuable. There are all sorts of things that are limited in quantity that aren't worth anything.
For something to be worth something - it actually has to be worth something. At a minimum, that means it has to actually exist. As such, essentially everything under the sun has the potential to be worth more than cryptocurrency. As little as a pet rock is worth - fractionally more than zero, perhaps - it's more than something that really doesn't exist in the real world, such as a fantasy, a dream, or a unit of cryptocurrency.
For a regular person, there's also another issue with cryptocurrency: What real-world problem is cryptocurrency trying to solve, exactly? Is the regular person running around saying "Wow, I really wish I was using cryptocurrency today"?
I would say, not a chance.
When I go to the coffee shop, I hand over a $5 bill and get a buck or two back. When I go to the grocery store, I hand over a $50 bill and get $10 or $20 back. When I buy an airline ticket or some other mail order item, I pay with a credit card. If I buy a car, I write a check for $20,000. Our current payment systems work swimmingly well.
Nobody has been able to explain how cryptocurrency somehow would improve upon this regular consumer situation. No normal person is "missing" cryptocurrency in their lives. It's pure techno babble.
YouTube is full of cryptocurrency channels and advocates. In search for someone who could try to make the argument as to why it's valuable, I stumbled upon this - supposedly credible - cryptocurrency advocate, with a seven-minute video published on Jan. 3, 2021: here.
It's "Colin talks crypto" - supposedly one of the crypto/Bitcoin experts. He must know what he is talking about, right? I don't know the man - obviously - but his YouTube channel has 23,000 subscribers and from his YouTube video archive he seems like one of the most active Bitcoin/crypto experts.
Watching the video, the buzzwords hit every square on the bingo card:
Bitcoin is "truly revolutionary."
Bitcoin is "truly disruptive."
Bitcoin is "innovative" that has "never before been seen on this planet."
Bitcoin is "unlike any other economic technology that mankind has ever seen."
Bitcoin is like the invention of the wheel, fire, electricity and the car.
I really feel this on a true technological and fundamental level.
It is math, it is not belief.
The greed of man secures the blockchain (!).
It's expected to engulf the monetary systems of The Earth.
It's expected to grow at an ever-expanding geometric proportions (!).
It's going to happen, by definition.
Dizzy yet? I was hiding under the table, because it was so cringe worthy.
At no point does the video explain a single benefit of cryptocurrency or Bitcoin. It's all ultra-abstract buzzwords. When I walk into the coffee shop tomorrow morning, I'm still handing over the same $5 bill and I'm getting a buck or two back - and I'm not missing the presence of any cryptocurrency one bit.
Neither is anyone else.
When I look at cryptocurrency, I feel like the little boy, pointing out that The Emperor has no clothes. Otherwise seemingly upstanding citizens, normally functioning and all, are lost in trance trading an instrument that amounts to paying $30,000 apiece for a non-existent fart in a virtual bottle. As if 2020 had not been crazy already, it would appear that when it comes to crypto and Bitcoin, people have totally lost their minds:
Me: "Hey man, here's an invisible painting. It exists in theory, and it's beautiful. Just imagine!"
Crypto-bull: "Wow, that's revolutionary. Here is $30,000."
That's today's cryptocurrency market in a nutshell.
When will the music stop?
Crypto and Bitcoin have no intrinsic value, and if they trade at $1 that's already infinitely too much. As a result, since people have already bid up this kind of instrument to the $30,000 level, I couldn't tell you that it couldn't go to $30 million before the music stops. It could happen quickly, or take a long time.
But in the end, I think the result will be the same: All cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin and otherwise - will return to their intrinsic value of exactly zero. They are literally nothing, and they don't even perform any useful function for any person in their lives. Crypto makes the 1637 Tulip Mania look almost rational in comparison.
Back to the inflation hedge
I started this article with the one thing that crypto advocates get right: Government paper money is on a path to zero, and you need an inflation hedge.
So what should people seeking an inflation hedge do instead? Let's say that you think that the stock market and real estate may be in for a cyclical speed bump, so you don't want to own those.
The answer goes back to what has worked for thousands of years already: Precious metals. Whether silver (NYSEARCA:SLV) or gold (NYSEARCA:PHYS), or the miners that mine them, they have served this function throughout time - and for good reasons. They exist, and they can be used for all sorts of things.