SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: TobagoJack who wrote (168793)2/20/2021 8:29:34 PM
From: sense  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 218927
 
Whether or not the trend is your friend... depends on which side of the trade you're on... or if you're in the trade at all, or have risk exposure to it without knowing...

Bitcoin is driving interesting ponderings... but it isn't close to posing systemic risks... yet. The timeline on which that might occur, were the current bubble sustained indefinitely... is mostly about math... which I've not bothered with poking at yet.

Bitcoin is "presumed" by many in the market to have a "good as" quasi-monetary authority about about it... which I note while musing... The hurdles from "quasi" to "real" are significant... and distant enough to be ignored.

Otherwise, at current excess valuation... btc is a significant presence in the market... but not a dominant presence... Were it to evaporate tomorrow it would hurt some people... some more than others... but it wouldn't be an outlier in the history of failures. Assuming that the only possible outcomes are success... bitcoin takes over the world and all other currencies disappear... or failure... bitcoin fails of itself, or is regulated out of existence... seems to miss the point of innovation's role in the economy... typically not being all or none in result... but often "sideways"... as bitcoin has done before, as between this and prior bubbles.

How much of what we see now... is tied more to the bubble nature of the economy... than to the bubble nature of bitcoin in particular ? Poked at that yesterday... noting a blindness seems to exist... in which bitcoin participants think they are opting out of the "fiat" economy and its attendant risks by participating...

How might that happen ? I give you... demonstrable proofs of modern histor-illiteracy... and its counter-point.

This first link contains some things that are worth talking about... but even in those things the author tends to be wrong about them... His bit on free markets is a gem... in which he blames free markets for our problems, while at the same time pointing out that's not possible... because the concept isn't even taught in business schools... so those who are running our systems cannot be slaves to ideas they've not been taught, to which they are not adherents... and goes on to denigrate "so called" free trade... while failing to notice that "so called" free trade is not free trade... while blaming free trade for what goes wrong under its name... that isn't its fault... Priceless.

But, my point isn't just the obvious in economic ignorance it exposes... but the impact of that scale of economic ignorance as it is seen considering itself in historical context:

The 4 (or 5) Worst Market Failures in Human History

The author assumes both that all of human history has occurred in America.... and "since NAFTA". I went looking for links to help me put bitcoin in historical context, here... and found it in an unexpected way. How many die-hard participants in bitcoin today... would find the authors arguments compelling ? One might consider it a a reason for pause.

A better result... on the expected path... found here:

Famous bubbles

It relies on a single reference, likely not a surprise to anyone here... but gives a nice summary.


Pay particular attention to the Mississippi Bubble... in which a Scottish gambler, who apparently knew a thing or two about IOU's... "invented fiat" for the French... and then tied the French treasury into a stock market promotion scheme to obviate the weight of the French debt.

Note, America's only role in any of this... was that about a century later America would purchase the swampland that was used to back the market manipulation scheme from the French. That deal got done, in part, perhaps, because the scandal tied to the events of 1720 remained inconvenient long after the fact... and as people wouldn't let them forget... the only way to shed the shame was to get rid of the position.

Might be fun to study what Jefferson said about it in his personal writings... and compare that to the remnant that might exist in French archives.

The point, though... not only was fiat "invented" in this way... so was "the failure of fiat"... relevant today to the dollar and all the other fiat currencies along with it... but also:

Bitcoin, as a new innovation or a reinvention of currency... also operates outside the constraints developed to limit fiat related risks... constraints that were developed in the wake of the Mississippi Bubble... that don't require a degree in economics to understand.

Terra incognito... on the maps of the era... those lands where the only westerners to be found were explorers or pirates... those same virtual lands that are today explored and occupied only by more modern entrepreneurs... the risks shared by the investors backing them... and enlarged by the pirates using those places far outside of regulatory oversight... from which to stage raids preying on the traffic in regular commerce...

Trade accordingly...



To: TobagoJack who wrote (168793)2/22/2021 2:40:06 AM
From: Maurice Winn  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 218927
 
Now that you mention it, when I look at who the USA electorate allowed to be installed as president, soon to be president, congress, and Senate, we can be assured that we can depend on Capitol Hill crowd exactly as you wrote: Let the individuals on Capitol Hill stand up and be counted, to do precisely the wrong thing.

People were glad to be rid of 2020 as though they've seen the worst. 2021 could make 2020 look like the good old days. Sure, covid is fading out. It was helpful to the LLL to get rid of Trump. But it was nothing in the grand scheme of things. It barely reduced CO2 output even as airlines are on hold. The death rate barely changed.

1... The correct thing for USD to do is rediscover VVV, raise interest rates fractionally, but insistently, relentlessly, inevitably, mercilessly. The screeching, threats of death, actual murders, bankruptcies, redistribution, riots and carnage will frighten The Swamp. Armed guards will be necessary as now arrayed around Capitol.

2... The incorrect thing to do is attack bitcoin with laws, spies, confiscation, threats, attacks, NSA, CIA, FBI, ABC, QWE, RTY.

They will choose 2.

USD holders will panic. All fiats will flail. Bitcoin will go to da moon. As will any other escape hatch.

Hey, wait!! I am actually holding USD right now. OMG. What a dummy. I'm the one who has predicted said carnage for decades.

Maybe they'll choose 1.

Mqurice