Bitcoin is Legit, BlackRock's Larry Fink Says (qz.com) 66
Speaking of crypto, BlackRock's co-founder and CEO Larry Fink is now embracing crypto more than ever. From a report: In an interview with CNBC on Monday, he mentioned that he had abandoned his initial skepticism of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. He now firmly believes that there is a place for crypto in the average investor's portfolio. "I believe Bitcoin is legitimate. I'm not saying there aren't misuses like everything else, but it is a legitimate financial instrument that allows you to have uncorrelated returns," Fink told CNBC host Jim Cramer.
When asked whether the U.S. budget deficit makes a case for investing in crypto, Fink responded, "absolutely." He added that crypto can help buyers hedge against countries that are devaluing their currencies.
When asked whether the U.S. budget deficit makes a case for investing in crypto, Fink responded, "absolutely." He added that crypto can help buyers hedge against countries that are devaluing their currencies.
Pump and Dump (Score:5, Insightful)
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Then sell it. The market just absorbed billions of dollars of Bitcoin that Germany sold. There's enough liquidity for even a moderate sized whale to dump it all without seriously affecting price.
Blackrock? BAHAHAHAHA (Score:5, Insightful)
Blackrock? Seriously?
No matter how we may feel about crypto$ in the world, this is like hearing that cocaine distribution is an excellent business..according to Pablo Escobar.
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Blackrock? Seriously?
No matter how we may feel about crypto$ in the world, this is like hearing that cocaine distribution is an excellent business..according to Pablo Escobar.
Are you kidding with that analogy... Pablo Escobar had at leas some redeeming qualities, like a lot of crime bosses, he did sink large amounts of his fortune into the city he lived. One of the key reasons Medellin flourished in the 90's was due to the amount of capital they had (as well as some quite forward thinking mayors who used it to build useful stuff like a public transport system). Not that this in any way makes up for the horror he also bought to the streets of Medellin.
Legit? (Score:2, Troll)
Yup, a legit form of gambling that contributes nothing of value to the economy
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Well, you can say that... but realistically? Bitcoin's continued usage contributes things to the economy. It has to, by design. There's a lot of power being consumed to keep it going, and it requires a lot of computer hardware and network connectivity. All of those things are provided by people making a profit providing them.
And sure, it's a form of gambling to invest in it, but so is anything in the stock market. People tend to overlook that by purchasing big swatches of stocks into portfolios and funds th
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Right, this is absolutely true if you ignore economic opportunity cost. Which you shouldn't.
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Also, I was just wondering which part of cryptos is the "legitimate" part. Haven't quite figured that out yet
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It is an oft repeated myth that war is somehow "good for the economy". An application of the broken window fallacy.
“War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings.” --Ludwig von Mises
https://fee.org/articles/the-m... [fee.org]
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look at my other two examples
The idea that you need AI to write a memo
So my point is wasting energy and pollution is good for the economy... irony, no?
Still sounds alot like the war case, imo.
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If by "some guy" you mean Mises, father of the Austrian school of Economics and/or Tom Woods, famous historian, author, podcaster and austrian economist then yeah I'm more inclined to respect their arguments and opinions than yours. But that's also because I've read their works and they routinely use sound reasoning and logic. I can't say the same for you at this point.
If you wish to refute their position, perhaps you could begin by explaining either:
1) how and why the broken window fallacy is wrong.
2) ho
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What about planned obsolesence? Throw your computer and phone out. Get a new one!
10x more energy for AI to correct spelling mistakes.
It's willfully wasteful. Take that seriously.
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Putting money in Tesla stock is a gamble. In the eyes of many, it is overvalued. Sure, I'll give you that. But, at the end of the day, Tesla builds products that people love and buy. So there is some value there. How much is that value can be debated. Bitcoin on the other hand produces nothing of value, but consumes enormous amount of energy to keep the grift working.
For a while people claimed that it could be used as currency. I think this one can be put to rest. Despite many attempts to use it as
Currency (Score:2)
Yep as long as it's unsuitable for use as a currency there is nothing but hopes and dreams behind it.
Sure I could use it as a currency if I was running a business where losing half my value is an acceptable risk but I can't think of a lot of businesses like that.
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Even worse, would you agree to a contract to pay someone bitcoin in the future for some product or service?
If you own bitcoin, your losses are limited to 100% of what you hold, but if you owe bitcoin, your potential losses are unlimited.
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Now that's pretty crazy I never thought about that. Just lol @ your hosting contract bankrupts you because Fidelity announced a bitcoin 401k option.
Yeah I had high hopes bitcoin would kill paypal and take a chunk out of visa but that shit is never happening.
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Transaction fees are a killer, absolutely yes.
The other killers are:
- the length of time it takes to complete a transaction, compared to the 3-10 seconds it takes for example UK banks to do transfers.
- the fact that it has a tendency to go up in value. You might be prepared to buy it if you think it is going to go up in value, but you sign a contract denominated in bitcoin that requires you to pay money to someone in the future, such as for example a rental contract or a phone service contract?
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2018 called and they want their arguments back. If you're purchasing something with bitcoin it would be silly to do it on the main chain, that's what the lightning network is for. Using lightning, Bitcoin transaction are faster, cheaper and can handle far more transactions per second that all major credit card companies combined. Bitcoin is still only a teenager but oh is it maturing.
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If you want a hedge against countries that are devaluing their currencies, you put your money in USD
Slashdot needs a reminder bot that will pop up 10 years later with a comment so we can all have a good nostalgic chuckle at our naivete.
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If you want a hedge against countries that are devaluing their currencies, you put your money in USD
Slashdot needs a reminder bot that will pop up 10 years later with a comment so we can all have a good nostalgic chuckle at our naivete.
I dare you to name up to five other currencies, weighted however you like, without looking up their historical performance versus the dollar.
Then we can have a good chuckle now and later.
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Gold and Bitcoin
The USD being the least shitty of all the FIAT currencies, does not make it smell better.
Its still loosing purchasing value every year on average between 7-13%.
Which is why people put their money in the stock market and real estate to protect against that devaluation.
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If you want a hedge against countries that are devaluing their currencies, you put your money in USD
Slashdot needs a reminder bot that will pop up 10 years later with a comment so we can all have a good nostalgic chuckle at our naivete.
I dare you to name up to five other currencies, weighted however you like, without looking up their historical performance versus the dollar.
Then we can have a good chuckle now and later.
Is the value of a dollar today higher, or lower, than it was 10 years ago? 20 years ago? 60 years ago?
When you say "devaluing their currencies" what measurement are you using to define devaluation? Is that measurement pegged to anything consistent, or is it a relative statement of comparison to other fluctuating factors like the value of USD?
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Bitcoin on the other hand produces nothing of value
I'm guessing you live in a first world country, have access to banks/credit cards, and have never experienced triple digit inflation? Yeah, bitcoin isn't for you. For everyone else, it's a game changer!
For a while people claimed that it could be used as currency. I think this one can be put to rest. Despite many attempts to use it as currency, it never caught on. Transaction fees are a killer.
It's working fabulous as a currency. The lightning network has made bitcoin faster and cheaper than any credit card on the market. The number of people actually using bitcoin as a currency are growing every day. You may not use it but that doesn't mean others aren't.
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The problem isn't Bitcoin itself.
It's the fact that it is "free'er"
But it also opens up scam behavior as a legitimate threat.
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[...]Bitcoin's continued usage contributes things to the economy. It has to, by design. There's a lot of power being consumed to keep it going, and it requires a lot of computer hardware and network connectivity. All of those things are provided by people making a profit providing them.
Yeah - ain't it absolutely amazing how fundamentally uneconomical this thing we call the economy is?
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And sure, it's a form of gambling to invest in it, but so is anything in the stock market.
Investing with the stock market is like gambling with sports.
Investing with crypto is like gambling with cards.
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Some things are more gambling than others. The stock market looks like gambling, but buying a stock is buying a piece of a business - which is a money making machine essentially. Bonds are a promise to replay a sum. plus interest at a fixed later time. Real estate is useful in itself (you need to live somewhere after all) and typically appreciates in value over time. Those are productive assets - they produce something for you over time - dividends, interest payments, value appreciation, etc.
Cryptocur
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contributes nothing of value to the economy
How dare you! Think of the 50 data center jobs created globally for people who sit around staring at the racks of computers generating coins.
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So someone who believe in bitcoin... (Score:1)
So someone who believe in bitcoin is a Fink?
Naturally this isn't a claim about all people who believe in bitcoin. (I feel a bit guilty of insulting his name in that way, but when I consider Blackrock, I forgive myself.)
Oh, well... (Score:2)
Re:Have u used a bitcon? (Score:4)
I bought my house with Bitcoin.
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Know 3 people who retired on spinning up a miner, getting bored, and then digging that old hard drive out of the closet when their $100 worth of nothing turned into a million bucks.
The only thing good to come from crypto was putting a bunch of money in the hands of random nerds.
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...along with... (Score:1)
bitcoin shitcoin (Score:1)
Re: bitcoin shitcoin (Score:2)
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can i spend it on gas & groceries at the local brick & mortar stores? what if i get a flat tire will the tire shop take bitcoin? i seriously doubt any of those stores in the small town i am near would even consider it, cash is king otherwise bitcoin vendors would not be peddling bitcoin for cash
Yes and yes!
There are a number of places that offer bitcoin debit cards. You can swipe these anywhere cards are accepted. Your bitcoin is automatically exchanged to dollars and your debt paid. The tire shop doesn't even need to know that you just spent bitcoin.
greater fool theory (Score:1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Blackrock needs bitcoin to be an investment vehicle. The reality is that bitcoin does nothing by itself and to make not-bitcoin-money on bitcoin you have to sell your bitcoin to someone else for more than you bought. By making bitcoin an investment vehicle, Blackrock is attempting to always line up the next customer.
I'm the thinking relates to the fact that bitcoins programmed to be finite. As long as there is interest in this finite "asset" then the price can theoretically
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There are legitimate reasons why a hedge fund would like something like Bitcoin. Hedge funds have a wild reputation but they're actually in the business of making moderate but consistent returns. To do that they need assets that are anticorrelated: when the stock market is up something else is down, and vice versa.
Stocks and bonds kind of do that. Gold and stocks doesn't really, but lots of people think they do. Neither does bitcoin and stocks, but the bitcoin types say it should.
It's still mostly money laundering (Score:2, Interesting)
Anytime the governments get their act together and crack down on the money laundering that's it for crypto. It's just a become so dysfunctional that something as simple as cracking down on money laundering isn't an option.
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So no it's not legit. Also if you have a lot of it good luck selling it. There isn't enough liquidity in the market for you to convert it to Fiat currency if you own even a moderate amount.
I’m not trying to water down your point here, but how exactly does this differ from the stock market today? Short term capital gains taxes are NO joke if you decide to liquidate your Wall Street investments “prematurely” after 11 months and 29 days.
The biggest mistake with $hitcoin, is assuming it was ever a true Fiat currency. Takes a LOT more blood, as clarified by Military Draft and every parent who was forced to make the ultimate sacrifice.
The stock market is gambling (Score:2)
With the stock market there are legitimate companies in there. Now you are right about some fundamental aspects of the stock market being fucked to Kingdom come. Most notably allowing stock buybacks completely blew everything up. It creates all sorts of perv
If the goal is an uncorrolated asset (Score:2)
The wokest (Score:2)
Yep Blackrock is definitely the wokest company to ever exist.
Blackrock lives matter amirite? Great post. Super funny, super informative.
I like bitcoin! (Score:2)
It's a great system custom-made for tech bros to steal money from each other while leaving most everyone else unharmed (except for being stupid energy hogs).
Where does the yield come from? (Score:2)
it is a legitimate financial instrument that allows you to have uncorrelated returns
Really? Where do the returns come from Larry? Because I'm not aware of any way that Bitcoin "returns" anything other than by selling it to a Greater Fool for more than you paid for it.
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He's really saying it's a great way for a bunch of super rich guys to hedge their bets in something that doesn't closely track the greater market so they can use that money to buy up everything for a bargain.
Only useful advice if you can have multiple pots of hedges in different things and it's ok if any of them happen to lose 2/3rds of their value at any given time cause the money isn't a big deal to you.
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Well all these hedges blew up in value around april so looks like the powers that be are planning on crashing the market. Will be fantastic.
The grand master plan of crypto (Score:1)
The plan for all cryptocurrencies isn't what they want to make you think it is. It's more sinister than the egalitarian image the crypto boys portray for it.
After the 2008 financial meltdown, cryptocurrencies were born out of it, declared to be the means by which people could be freed from banks/governments, and promised to avoid any such future meltdowns from happening ever again.
But the crypto boys watched closely the result of that meltdown, and formulated their plan: create a new form of currency, and
It's election season ... (Score:2)
Trump seems in the pocket of crypto lobbyists this time around, Biden is not (see Intelligence Authorization Act). Also a Trump win would likely drive inflation. Trump's odds increased recently, so the odds of a greater fool stampede increased, so he bought in, so he promotes it.
Re: It's election season ... (Score:1)
The frightening thing for me about buying Bitcoin (Score:1)