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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (169920)	3/27/2021 2:00:49 AM
From: sense	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217644

When all the other great bubbles in history burst, they stayed burst. Bitcoin’s bubble has burst four times, but never gone to zero, and then staged a comeback. How? I think the premise is not quite right... which doesn't invalidate the perspective, or the question. Start with the idea that people are not entirely rational when it comes to judging value or opportunity. We still look for easy answers and a quick buck even when we should know "no free lunch" lessons a hundred times over. It is not that hard to find a human weakness to exploit in a scam... but the best ones tend to prey on obvious elements in greed, justification, and a bit of bait and switch... a lure to distract...paired with a sleight of hand in replacing the offer with... etc All best done while staying "just" on this side of the line that would violate suspension of disbelief. So, as long as scammers don't get too greedy... ? Charles Ponzi and Madoff both figured out and exploited an proven weakness... and it was so widely shared that it has taken massive effort to prevent the exploit, because people would just fall for it again and again... actually, they do... Not that they don't learn at all... but, "one born every minute" is literally a massive understatement. Lessons learned by experience... aren't yet learned by those without it... and we keep making more of them. The classic Ponzi has a "two fer" in its lures for the unwary... two different weaknesses exploited at the same time... acting synergistically. Simplify it to the core and, there's two things most people desperately want... "a good deal" and "what they can't have"... which also fully explains the numbers of $5 Rolexes sold on street corners in Hong Kong. Crypto... focuses you on "scarcity"... since we know scarcity means "valuable"... and we're none too concerned with the order of carts and horses when there is value to be had... If other people want it... and the demand is there in numbers sufficient... that is "value"... until the fad dies, and the word "intrinsic" is rediscovered. "Pet rocks" a fad... which also highlights the inverse marketing of the same appeal in the opposite... with gold's detractors calling gold "pet rocks" ? Keeping demand growing faster than supply is allowed to grow... keeps it going. The illusion of scarcity is amplified by the (entirely pointless) greater work required over time to produce "more"... demand grows... supply grows... but, perception of value grows... because difficulty grows... and the chart of future prices shows how they are linearly connected ? But, cleverer still... crypto projects the LURE of scarcity into the future... even as more is being made. And, even as not just "more bitcoin"... but "more crypto" all doing the same thing... as Ponzi... None of that is much different than the routine in marketing... as in "high end luxury goods" the key component of which is... someone else's name on a product that costs more than those without it. And, the justification... "it's growing in value"... presented with a chart projecting value growth into the future. If you did that with a stock on its IPO they'd put you in jail... but, bitcoin did it and got away with it... so they all mimic that part... have it scripted into the ploy as any good marketer would do... selling the primary flaw the product has (a desperate illiquidity countered by a price fixing artifice) as its feature... For bitcoin, it also comes with a series of end dates. When that point is reached that no more is being made... one or more of the supporting legs are removed as "mining" ends and takes a part of the story with it. When the supply is fixed... if prices fail to continue going up... the primary attraction in "investors" interest evaporates since the "rate at which it holds its value" isn't as interesting as "the rate at which it doubles in value" ? But, others not yet known, too... as "will it be allowed, or not"... and as I've noted... if it is not what it is advertised as being... people will figure that out and revalue it accordingly. But, I noted... the premise is not quite right... crypto is not the first to sustain multiple cycles in booms and busts ? And, of course, those others are in the same business bitcoin is in... and they are the reason that bitcoin is in the same business ? Fiat currency has been doing this, over and over, for... how many years ? And, if it is bitcoin's task to bring that to an end... at least for one generation... ? First, raise the subject... get the discussion of money, value, and stuff... going... then, make a showing people can't ignore... and, then, only a win or a win is possible: If bitcoin replaces fiat with a fixed reference standard... the fiat Ponzi is held to account by that... And, if bitcoin generates a massive cloud of dust and rubble when it fails... because it is a Ponzi... how can the fiat escape the obvious in comparison ? Bitcoin may be the best advertisement for a problem ever devised ? And, that's built on another known human problem in computing relative value under change... the equation for it in our perception of value is written as 2 -1 = -1 If bitcoin pops the "money is a Ponzi" bubble... the result is not that it leaves the other brand of Ponzi money without competition ?