SURVEY: Cryptocurrency--would you invest?

[Craig krup]

3 minutes ago, seancbk said:

 

Not all cryptos are currencies.   That is your first misconception.    A lot of people get confused because they've heard the term cryptocurrency.    Some blockchain tokens (Bitcoin being the obvious) are purely currencies, that is what BTC was created to be.   But many tokens are not currencies, hence the name token.   

It doesn't matter if it's Amazon, Google, Visa or any other entity.    Them creating their own blockchain has near zero impact on the other tokens.   The only impact it might have is in a particular industry vertical, if their new project introduces some tangible benefit (more features) that causes people to switch from a competing platform within that vertical.

To take the explanation of verticals further Ripple is currently the leading financial services blockchain platform.  They have a marketcap of US$ 81.6 billion, with US$ 624 million in trading volume over the past 24 hours.   (Suggest you read more here - https://bravenewcoin.com/news/ripple-price-analysis-ripple-continues-to-collect-banking-partnerships/?utm_source=BNC+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b450dffac9-Crypto+Asset+Review%2C+21st+Mar+2018&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_83439a8472-b450dffac9-245199457 )

Anyone within the financial vertical would now be considering whether the effort to build their own platform is worth it, or whether to join Ripple's platform (clue:  Many are joining see the link I posted).

You seem to think that creating a new blockchain platform is easy, when in fact it takes large teams of programmers and crypto(graphic) scientists to achieve something like the Ripple network.  

 

Christ. If people are buying shares in IT companies then they aren't buying b*llocks pseudo currencies. 

 

If there's really an IT business in providing something, fine: list, produce accounts, tell us your business model and see what you can raise. 

 

But this horse jobbies of "coins" and "tokens" makes no sense at all. A company providing technological solutions can't be owned by someone "buying" a coin or token. You need to buy the Ordinary shares, <deleted>. 

[seancbk]

8 minutes ago, Craig krup said:

Christ. If people are buying shares in IT companies then they aren't buying b*llocks pseudo currencies. 

 

If there's really an IT business in providing something, fine: list, produce accounts, tell us your business model and see what you can raise. 

 

But this horse jobbies of "coins" and "tokens" makes no sense at all. A company providing technological solutions can't be owned by someone "buying" a coin or token. You need to buy the Ordinary shares, <deleted>. 

As I've come to realise, you clearly don't understand any of this.   

 

 

[Craig krup]

9 minutes ago, seancbk said:

As I've come to realise, you clearly don't understand any of this.   

 

 

No, you've come to realise that you don't understand it. 

[seancbk]

6 minutes ago, Craig krup said:

16 minutes ago, seancbk said:

As I've come to realise, you clearly don't understand any of this.   

 

No, you've come to realise that you don't understand it. 

 

That is the funniest thing I've read all day.

 

Would you care to explain it to me then?  


You might want to take this online course offered by Princeton University on Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies

https://www.coursera.org/learn/cryptocurrency/lecture/EYEAo/hash-pointers-and-data-structures

[Craig krup]

13 minutes ago, seancbk said:

 

That is the funniest thing I've read all day.

 

Would you care to explain it to me then?  


You might want to take this online course offered by Princeton University on Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies

https://www.coursera.org/learn/cryptocurrency/lecture/EYEAo/hash-pointers-and-data-structures

Okay. 

 

There's been an ongoing problem in IT with altering records. Databases crash if you've got people altering them in different locations, and you haven't set it up right. Santander - European bank - used to employ the IT expert sister of one of my colleagues to try to make this not happen. My colleague has an MSc in IT. Doubtless he'll be one of the people who don't understand what you do. 

 

So let's suppose we have a ledger of ledger. Alter it anywhere it alters it everywhere. That could be interesting. Companies that set this up could be valuable. 

 

Let's suppose we have a ledger of ledgers and a kiddy-on currency spot-welded onto this. So there is, in effect, a ledger entry called "Craig's coin". I can cause that to alter to "Sean's coin", if you send me a bag of hash, or whatever. 

 

As one of my colleagues said two minutes' ago, "These people seem to think that because one of the characteristics of a currency is that people can't counterfeit it then the only characteristic of a currency is that people can't counterfeit it. Because no government demands payment in Bitcoin any supposed value it has is a bubble". 

 

He's on the political left. We don't agree on much. But he's got a decent degree from Aberdeen - not acquired through an online course - and isn't thick, so we found it easy to agree on this. 

 

If blockchain technology has applications then IT companies who can provide it efficiently could be worth money: dollars, pounds, euros, or Swiss francs. If idiots can't distinguish that from buying tokens that indicate ledger entries created and recorded by such technology there's not a lot that I, or anyone else, can do about that. 

[seancbk]

3 minutes ago, Craig krup said:

Okay. 

 

There's been an ongoing problem in IT with altering records. Databases crash if you've got people altering them in different locations, and you haven't set it up right. Santander - European bank - used to employ the IT expert sister of one of my colleagues to try to make this not happen. My colleague has an MSc in IT. Doubtless he'll be one of the people who don't understand what you do. 

 

So let's suppose we have a ledger of ledger. Alter it anywhere it alters it everywhere. That could be interesting. Companies that set this up could be valuable. 

 

Let's suppose we have a ledger of ledgers and a kiddy-on currency spot-welded onto this. So there is, in effect, a ledger entry called "Craig's coin". I can cause that to alter to "Sean's coin", if you send me a bag of hash, or whatever. 

 

As one of my colleagues said two minutes' ago, "These people seem to think that because one of the characteristics of a currency is that people can't counterfeit it then the only characteristic of a currency is that people can't counterfeit it. Because no government demands payment in Bitcoin any supposed value it has is a bubble". 

 

He's on the political left. We don't agree on much. But he's got a decent degree from Aberdeen - not acquired through an online course - and isn't thick, so we found it easy to agree on this. 

 

If blockchain technology has applications then IT companies who can provide it efficiently could be worth money: dollars, pounds, euros, or Swiss francs. If idiots can't distinguish that from buying tokens that indicate ledger entries created and recorded by such technology there's not a lot that I, or anyone else, can do about that. 

 

 

Not sure what any one that has to do with what we are talking about.    Flowery wording doesn't hide that fact that you are clueless about blockchain technology.  

Blockchain ledgers are immutable, they can only be changed by a hard fork (this does happen) with consensus from a sufficiently large number of the miners and these changes are almost never changes to roll back entries.   

Most blockchains (including BTC) are still in their infancy and still being developed towards a possible final version (although those of us in IT know there is never a final version).

Anyway for simplicity sake, you can't "Alter it anywhere it alters it everywhere."   nor can you "So there is, in effect, a ledger entry called "Craig's coin". I can cause that to alter to "Sean's coin", if you send me a bag of hash, or whatever. "


If I were you I would admit I don't really understand blockchains and the tech and leave it at that.    If you don't understand it, and don't want to invest then that is your choice.

 

[Craig krup]

1 minute ago, seancbk said:

 

 

Not sure what any one that has to do with what we are talking about.    Flowery wording doesn't hide that fact that you are clueless about blockchain technology.  

Blockchain ledgers are immutable, they can only be changed by a hard fork (this does happen) with consensus from a sufficiently large number of the miners and these changes are almost never changes to roll back entries.   

Most blockchains (including BTC) are still in their infancy and still being developed towards a possible final version (although those of us in IT know there is never a final version).

Anyway for simplicity sake, you can't "Alter it anywhere it alters it everywhere."   nor can you "So there is, in effect, a ledger entry called "Craig's coin". I can cause that to alter to "Sean's coin", if you send me a bag of hash, or whatever. "


If I were you I would admit I don't really understand blockchains and the tech and leave it at that.    If you don't understand it, and don't want to invest then that is your choice.

 

If you do understand anything you're doing a brilliant job of hiding it. 

 

There once was a man

And he saw a tree

And he was a fan

Of the tree he did see

But there was a wood

And would that he could

See the wood and the tree

That old Craigie could see

[seancbk]

1 minute ago, Craig krup said:

If you do understand anything you're doing a brilliant job of hiding it. 

 

 

I have tried to explain to you where your knowledge is lacking or you have misunderstood aspects of the tech, but you seem to be uninterested in learning, and only interested in talking nonsense. 

I guarantee I know more about Blockchain platforms and tokens and the Financial market for crypto currencies than you'll ever know.   


 

[Craig krup]

1 minute ago, seancbk said:

 

I have tried to explain to you where your knowledge is lacking or you have misunderstood aspects of the tech, but you seem to be uninterested in learning, and only interested in talking nonsense. 

I guarantee I know more about Blockchain platforms and tokens and the Financial market for crypto currencies than you'll ever know.   


 

 

I'm not interested in your guarantees - they're meaningless, just like your Bitcoins. 

 

You don't know how to see past incidentals. You don't know how to get to the nub of the issue. Mathew Parris - former Tory MP - said something cutting last week about Enoch Powell. Powell was an ordinary man's idea of an intellectual. This b*llshit that's all over the web appeals to a particular group of people. You wouldn't get away with it in a decent university. You don't know the character of what you're producing. You can't see it. You've not had essays back with painful criticisms. You've not failed the exams. You've not had all the pseudo-intellectual junk knocked out of you. You think that my language is "flowery", but that's not how it seems to those who know. Mine is the good old Hobbesian plain speaking. Yours is the flower, and you can't even see it. The great lawyer Jonathan Sumption began as an historian, and moved to the law to make money. He can get to the nub of the issue. He can crystallise what's at stake. Then you've got the kids studying law, who aren't really bright enough, and can't get a hold of the character of the activity. So they spray words around for the sound of them. 

 

If blockchain "platforms" provide services then the companies which can produce them might be worth money.

If these companies' key asset is the workers then the income will end up in the pockets of the workers, just as it does in a football club. This would be a poor investment.

In a competitive market the returns to these workers, and their companies, will drift towards what economists call "normal profits". The workers will be paid what similarly skilled workers get paid - competition will bid away any extraordinary wages - and the companies too will make normal profits. 

If there's a first mover advantage, and the chance of screwing super-normal profits out of the public in the long run, the US will smash the first mover. They did this back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and more recently with the creation of the "baby Bells".

A Bitcoin is a ledger entry, or - if you prefer - a ledgers entry.

It cannot possibly be a way of participating in any economic opportunity afforded by blockchain technology. 

 

 

All of the above can be read by anyone, and understood. You can't do this, or anything like it. Real experts can crisply explain the gist of something. You can't, and we both know it. 

 

[phycokiller]

1 hour ago, Craig krup said:

Advantage "3" is one that'll either be given to all providers, or none. States will tolerate it, or they won't. Law enforcement is awfully good at terrifying the crap out of people - witness Silk Road.

silk road? the dark net markets are bigger then ever. partly due to the silk road case publicizing them. Im not sure who you think is scared? 

[Craig krup]

Just now, phycokiller said:

silk road? the dark net markets are bigger then ever. partly due to the silk road case publicizing them. Im not sure who you think is scared? 

How large do you think the market would be if, 1) states banned usage and shafted those who ignored the ban, and 2) "rights" to "currency" were declared pacta illicita - illicit agreements and unenforceable? 

[phycokiller]

8 minutes ago, Craig krup said:

All of the above can be read by anyone, and understood. You can't do this, or anything like it. Real experts can crisply explain the gist of something. You can't, and we both know it. 

 

after your 500 word paragraph that meanders all over the place from Enoch Powell to  Jonathan Sumption in a long winded attempt to somehow prove that you are a plain speaker it should be obvious even to yourself that you dont have the ability to crisply explain the gist of anything

[phycokiller]

10 minutes ago, Craig krup said:

How large do you think the market would be if, 1) states banned usage and shafted those who ignored the ban, and 2) "rights" to "currency" were declared pacta illicita - illicit agreements and unenforceable? 

ban usage of what? how?

[Craig krup]

11 minutes ago, phycokiller said:

after your 500 word paragraph that meanders all over the place from Enoch Powell to  Jonathan Sumption in a long winded attempt to somehow prove that you are a plain speaker it should be obvious even to yourself that you dont have the ability to crisply explain the gist of anything

But Jesus: you won't accept short, and you won't accept a (necessarily) long explanation as to why you won't accept short!!

 

To own a Bitcoin is to be recognised as having a right to a ledger(s) entry, and the right to transfer the right to such recognition. 

This has ***k all to do with anything regarding the money that might be made through providing IT solutions to genuine business problems. 

 

There's nothing I can do. It's hard to persuade a man of anything if his pleasant delusion requires him to not understand it. 

 

Incidentally, another colleague two minutes ago said that her husband's pal bought Bitcoin early and sold out, banking £1m. He has now retired. But my colleague isn't stupid. She can see that all he did was get lucky: he wasn't the last fool in the greater fool game. Or as another colleague said, "Those who cashed out of Bernie Madoff's "investments" did well". 

[Craig krup]

17 minutes ago, phycokiller said:

ban usage of what? how?

"To vend, purchase, transfer, facilitate the movement or delivery of any service or good, through the transfer, offer to transfer, or creation of a right, to any distributed ledger entry of any notional, actual or declared virtual currency shall be a federal offence subject to a maximum period of imprisonment of not more than eighty years, and/or an unlimited fine". 

 

The US could collapse all this crypto jobbies in a second, and if it ever took off and threatened their tax revenues they would. The coercive ower of states is vastly underestimated. How many heads need the application of Chinese lead before it becomes mightily difficult to make a crypto work in the Middle Kingdom. 

 

It's all s**t, and if it isn't there's no future or money in it.  

[seancbk]

44 minutes ago, Craig krup said:

 

I'm not interested in your guarantees - they're meaningless, just like your Bitcoins. 

 

You don't know how to see past incidentals. You don't know how to get to the nub of the issue. Mathew Parris - former Tory MP - said something cutting last week about Enoch Powell. Powell was an ordinary man's idea of an intellectual. This b*llshit that's all over the web appeals to a particular group of people. You wouldn't get away with it in a decent university. You don't know the character of what you're producing. You can't see it. You've not had essays back with painful criticisms. You've not failed the exams. You've not had all the pseudo-intellectual junk knocked out of you. You think that my language is "flowery", but that's not how it seems to those who know. Mine is the good old Hobbesian plain speaking. Yours is the flower, and you can't even see it. The great lawyer Jonathan Sumption began as an historian, and moved to the law to make money. He can get to the nub of the issue. He can crystallise what's at stake. Then you've got the kids studying law, who aren't really bright enough, and can't get a hold of the character of the activity. So they spray words around for the sound of them. 

 

If blockchain "platforms" provide services then the companies which can produce them might be worth money.

If these companies' key asset is the workers then the income will end up in the pockets of the workers, just as it does in a football club. This would be a poor investment.

In a competitive market the returns to these workers, and their companies, will drift towards what economists call "normal profits". The workers will be paid what similarly skilled workers get paid - competition will bid away any extraordinary wages - and the companies too will make normal profits. 

If there's a first mover advantage, and the chance of screwing super-normal profits out of the public in the long run, the US will smash the first mover. They did this back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and more recently with the creation of the "baby Bells".

A Bitcoin is a ledger entry, or - if you prefer - a ledgers entry.

It cannot possibly be a way of participating in any economic opportunity afforded by blockchain technology. 

 

 

All of the above can be read by anyone, and understood. You can't do this, or anything like it. Real experts can crisply explain the gist of something. You can't, and we both know it. 

 

 

I'm not even going to bother trying to explain why you are wrong.

 

[Craig krup]

1 minute ago, seancbk said:

 

I'm not even going to bother trying to explain why you are wrong.

 

Good. Nobody wants to watch you try. 

[phycokiller]

3 minutes ago, Craig krup said:

"To vend, purchase, transfer, facilitate the movement or delivery of any service or good, through the transfer, offer to transfer, or creation of a right, to any distributed ledger entry of any notional, actual or declared virtual currency shall be a federal offence subject to a maximum period of imprisonment of not more than eighty years, and/or an unlimited fine". 

 

The US could collapse all this crypto jobbies in a second, and if it ever took off and threatened their tax revenues they would. The coercive ower of states is vastly underestimated. How many heads need the application of Chinese lead before it becomes mightily difficult to make a crypto work in the Middle Kingdom. 

 

It's all s**t, and if it isn't there's no future or money in it.  

you forgot to explain how they will police it. will this be like the war on drugs? oh, I see, like the Chinese, where they closed the exchanges but people continue to use them anyway? 

[phycokiller]

1 minute ago, Craig krup said:

Good. Nobody wants to watch you try. 

great reply, makes your point that you are not interested in listening to anyone elses opinion on the subject and shows that you are egotistical enough to think you can speak for everyone here. well done. and did I mention, short

[Craig krup]

3 minutes ago, phycokiller said:

you forgot to explain how they will police it. will this be like the war on drugs? oh, I see, like the Chinese, where they closed the exchanges but people continue to use them anyway? 

Well, you then concede the point. Usage will be low. Ordinary people, given the option of the quick and easy payment options presently available, won't touch anything that lands them in a world of trouble". 

 

My pal said something funny a minute ago. "Bitcoin's a bit like Paypal if Paypal was completely sh*t". His brother bought and sold out of Bitcoin. he knew, and could explain why, it was nonsense, but his mate had made £10,000 so he couldn't resist buying in. 

 

All this has nothing to do with currencies, or technology. It's about human psychology. 

[Craig krup]

Just now, phycokiller said:

great reply, makes your point that you are not interested in listening to anyone elses opinion on the subject and shows that you are egotistical enough to think you can speak for everyone here. well done. and did I mention, short

No, I'd love it if he'd explain it. If the dog can walk on its hind legs bring it on. But if it only has one leg, and that short, diseased and wobbly, it's probably a good idea to stand the band down and refund the tickets. 

[seancbk]

15 minutes ago, Craig krup said:

Incidentally, another colleague two minutes ago said that her husband's pal bought Bitcoin early and sold out, banking £1m. He has now retired. But my colleague isn't stupid. She can see that all he did was get lucky: he wasn't the last fool in the greater fool game. Or as another colleague said, "Those who cashed out of Bernie Madoff's "investments" did well". 

 

Markets go up and down, timing is often luck.   

My father was lucky to sell his properties in Hong Kong at the top of the market (and lucky to have bought them near the bottom).   

Was the guy who bought our house for US$ 2 million only to have it drop in value a few years later to less than $1 million the greater fool or just unlucky?  What about the fact that had he held the property for a few years as the market recovered he would have recovered his losses and made a profit (to be fair I don't know if he did or not).

We get it, you don't understand where the value is in crypto currencies and crypto platforms.   You obviously haven't spent any real time researching it.

So you seem to be completely blinkered by your misunderstanding and refusal to see value in any of it, or see that blockchain is changing the way almost every aspect of business and finance is done.

I actually feel sorry for dinosaurs like you.



 

[Craig krup]

Just now, seancbk said:

I actually feel sorry for dinosaurs like you.
 

Good! "Buddy, can you spare a dime!"

 

Sorry, I forgot. You don't believe in dimes. 

[seancbk]

4 minutes ago, Craig krup said:

Good! "Buddy, can you spare a dime!"

 

Sorry, I forgot. You don't believe in dimes. 

 

Why would you think I don't believe in dimes?   

That's a bizarre comment.

[Andaman Al]

On 4/22/2018 at 2:48 PM, FreddieRoyle said:

 

 Downsides? Well I recently bought some more BTC at $6,800 with a new account before the price rise only to get an email 32 hours later from the exchange that they detected suspicious activity on my account so they reversed the transaction and refunded me, plus closed my account! This cost me good money and they never responded to emails. So, the ease of buying crypto needs to be worked on. Better regulation of exchanges would be a good thing too.

Freddie, you need to report these people properly to the SEC or FCA etc depending on where they are. This is the biggest scam in the books. They use your money to make themselves huge profit. If the value would have gone down you lose, once the value goes above what you paid, then......you lose, as they come out with the crap "suspicious activity bolleux'. They are simply using your money to buy bitcoin, if it crashes they lose nothing, if it goes up through the roof, you lose, if you try and cash out, you lose. They think that by giving you your money back they will keep you quiet and get away with it. There are traders doing this using millions and millions of dollars of other peoples money. Please report it.

[phycokiller]

1 hour ago, Craig krup said:

Incidentally, another colleague two minutes ago said that her husband's pal bought Bitcoin early and sold out, banking £1m. He has now retired. But my colleague isn't stupid. She can see that all he did was get lucky: he wasn't the last fool in the greater fool game. Or as another colleague said, "Those who cashed out of Bernie Madoff's "investments" did well". 

right, an example of why not to follow your advice? or perhaps an attempt to show that your colleagues ignore your advice to their benefit? or perhaps both?

[Craig krup]

36 minutes ago, Andaman Al said:

Freddie, you need to report these people properly to the SEC or FCA etc depending on where they are. This is the biggest scam in the books. They use your money to make themselves huge profit. If the value would have gone down you lose, once the value goes above what you paid, then......you lose, as they come out with the crap "suspicious activity bolleux'. They are simply using your money to buy bitcoin, if it crashes they lose nothing, if it goes up through the roof, you lose, if you try and cash out, you lose. They think that by giving you your money back they will keep you quiet and get away with it. There are traders doing this using millions and millions of dollars of other peoples money. Please report it.

This is nonsense. Bitcoin is a secure means of exchange and a store of value, not dependent on a bankrupt banking system reliant on fiat money, the tool of a crony capitalist elite who seize social value for personal benefit*. 

 

 

 

[*Where's my tongue? Where? What have I done with my tongue? Oh yes. There it is. In my cheek all along]. 

[Craig krup]

4 minutes ago, phycokiller said:

right, an example of why not to follow your advice? or perhaps an attempt to show that your colleagues ignore your advice to their benefit? or perhaps both?

Jesus Christ. Speak to your primary carer.

 

1) If something is volatile and has no ultimate value, then it starts at zero (or $1m, or whatever), and goes to zero.

2) If you hold it your chance of holding it when it goes to zero is precisely proportional to the time you hold it. 

3) You can't know when it'll go to zero. You think you know, but you don't. 

_________________________________________

It's completely irrational to hold it for one nanosecond. 

 

As I said 5,000 words ago, you could achieve the same result by betting red (or black) with £1,000 ten times. In a British casino people doing this would only lose less than 2% of the cash they wager. You could bet once and nearly half the time you could, "I doubled my money. Look at the size of primary sexual organs!!!" You could keep going until you had £500,000, or had lost it all. It's the same thing. If the junk is just a volatile "wheel" - and the punters are just transferring money from each other - it never makes any sense to participate at all. 

 

Okay, I'll modify that last bit. Suppose you had £1,000. You'll definitely die in twenty minutes unless you obtain £1m. You should, then, gamble. Now few people are in this position. Lots of young guys think they are, though. They think, "I don't have the dough to stay indefinitely in Thailand if I don't gamble, I can't face leaving, ergo I must gamble". 

 

Diminishing marginal utility - your second dollar doesn't buy quite as much "utility" as the first - means that these gambles, in the real world, never make sense. $5,000 buys you more than half the utility of $10,000. But a crazy Thai woman heading for Laos with the business takings doesn't see that. She thinks she has to be rich, and nothing else can be tolerated. She can't see that the risk of the move from x to y state is the loss of x. She's fixated on y. She can't imagine worse than x. When it arrives, though, when she's lost everything, then she knows. 

 

A young guy in Thailand just about able to keep his digital gonad dreams going on the $280 a month he has coming in as real money could stay somewhere cack-ish in a 2,000 baht fan room, and buy a rice cooker. But he thinks this is worse than death. So he gambles away that option in the hope of something much better. Then he discovers that your own front door, 2,500 kcals a day and internet access is better than being on the street. Too late he realises. 

 

This has all been going on since the dawn of time.  

 

[phycokiller]

4 minutes ago, Craig krup said:

Jesus Christ. Speak to your primary carer.

 

1) If something is volatile and has no ultimate value, then it starts at zero (or $1m, or whatever), and goes to zero.

2) If you hold it your chance of holding it when it goes to zero is precisely proportional to the time you hold it. 

3) You can't know when it'll go to zero. You think you know, but you don't. 

_________________________________________

It's completely irrational to hold it for one nanosecond. 

 

As I said 5,000 words ago, you could achieve the same result by betting red (or black) with £1,000 ten times. In a British casino people doing this would only lose less than 2% of the cash they wager. You could bet once and nearly half the time you could, "I doubled my money. Look at the size of primary sexual organs!!!" You could keep going until you had £500,000, or had lost it all. It's the same thing. If the junk is just a volatile "wheel" - and the punters are just transferring money from each other - it never makes any sense to participate at all. 

 

Okay, I'll modify that last bit. Suppose you had £1,000. You'll definitely die in twenty minutes unless you obtain £1m. You should, then, gamble. Now few people are in this position. Lots of young guys think they are, though. They think, "I don't have the dough to stay indefinitely in Thailand if I don't gamble, I can't face leaving, ergo I must gamble". 

 

Diminishing marginal utility - your second dollar doesn't buy quite as much "utility" as the first - means that these gambles, in the real world, never make sense. $5,000 buys you more than half the utility of $10,000. But a crazy Thai woman heading for Laos with the business takings doesn't see that. She thinks she has to be rich, and nothing else can be tolerated. She can't see that the risk of the move from x to y state is the loss of x. She's fixated on y. She can't imagine worse than x. When it arrives, though, when she's lost everything, then she knows. 

 

A young guy in Thailand just about able to keep his digital gonad dreams going on the $280 a month he has coming in as real money could stay somewhere cack-ish in a 2,000 baht fan room, and buy a rice cooker. But he thinks this is worse than death. So he gambles away that option in the hope of something much better. Then he discovers that your own front door, 2,500 kcals a day and internet access is better than being on the street. Too late he realises. 

 

This has all been going on since the dawn of time.  

 

an insult, a strawman and then the long meaningless rambling rant, but keep them coming. 

[Craig krup]

11 minutes ago, phycokiller said:

an insult, a strawman and then the long meaningless rambling rant, but keep them coming. 

Why isn't my characterisation accurate? 

 

If Bitcoin is - long run - worth $100, but it could pop to $10m next month, or fall to $100 - why are those gambling by holding it not doing exactly what I say they're doing? 

 

There's nothing to be done, as I said at the start. Folk can't be arsed with distinctions. 

 

Imagine ten limited liability companies, with lots of debt. the debt holders get their interest, and are first in line if the company goes bust. One company will multiply your investment twenty times. In nine you'll lose the lot. In just those circumstances you should buy the Ordinary shares, and people do. It's rational. But people have no f***s left to give if you try to distinguish that from Bitcoin.