Nick Szabo  🔑

I'll grant that for a small group of people, bitcoin fits into their low-risk store-of-value bucket... but for most people it is simply too unpredictable. It's because of that danger that it gets slotted into people's 'play money' bucket along with lottery tickets.

No, it's because of your ignorance that some who would otherwise come to appreciate the value of low time preference activity may remain averse to the concept longer. "Most" people don't trade intra-day, which is the definition of high time preference trading.

People like you who promote high time preference behavior as superior by mocking the inverse, and not for what it actually is (a *preference*) are disappointing, to say the least.https://twitter.com/StopAndDecrypt/status/1165371643641978880 …

Only under a high time preference model can one assert "risk" exists, like you attempt to do, yet I don't know of a single person that understands Bitcoin's value proposition that promotes having such a low time preference. It only seems to be high time preference outsiders.

I find Bitcoin critics fall into a handful of categories: Those who: * world view depends on Bitcoin's failure * leverage the contrarian view for personal gain * mental framework can't account for different lifestyles * (more generally) have something to lose if Bitcoin succeeds

The "discovery" in "price discovery" is such a delightfully problematic term/metaphor, in a way even more so in the case of bitcoin. "price creation" would be an equally apt and problematic term.

I don't understand the point being made about price discovery.

Unlike eg an explorer discovering a country, the price of an asset was not already out there, just waiting to be discovered. Instead, a price emerges.

Is the claim that bitcoin's price is still being discovered, 10-years after its debut, and that's why it is volatile? What about Uber's price? Is it still being discovered a few months after its IPO?

Of course. Historical shifts take decades to unfold, and price discovery happens all along the way.

Yes! Also, I think of a store of value not as an asset that is stable and/or constantly appreciates over time. That’s actuallly an indication that the asset is probably not a SoV. A store of value to me is an asset that protects my wealth when everything else fails.

Good point. But my guess is that the opinions you express via your purchasing decision (and those like you) are far overpowered by the opinions expressed by run-and-gun buyers on Coinbase who are in for the thrills & potentially massive payoffs.

Jp, you have an insanely higher quantity of run-and-gun traders on fiat currencies (Forex markets) than on BTC markets. Moreover, is it fair to compare 10 year old BTC to the world's top fiat currencies? Where would Bitcoin's volatility sit amongst all world's fiat currencies?

Those are derivative markets. No one actually holds $1000 in banknotes because they expect to win big, or $1000 in checking deposits because they're hoping for a Lamborghini. But most people who hold that amount in bitcoins are doing so because they expect a massive payday.

"because they expect a massive payday". Yes, but why do they expect that? just because? or because they think that bitcoin has the qualities to become a better MoE than its incumbments?