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111 sats \ 0 replies \ @79c9095526 31 Mar \ on: I stopped listening to podcasts--I'm about twice as productive now alter_native
Mostly they've just gone to shit. What bitcoin did is a slog to get through, rabbit hole recap is just a current events/politics podcast, the jack mallers thing is so hard to listen to with his repetitive ranting style, etc...
There was a golden age of these and I think it ended sometime last year, if you're a newbie, you're probably better off listening to some older pods to get the good stuff
As someone who is retired with the majority of my wealth in bitcoin (and without a pension, social security yet), price drops can be a struggle.
I think the total net worth number is much more anxiety inducing than the % profit you're in, particularly when you're past your sat stacking days. That would apply even to a traditional retiree with a stock portfolio. It doesn't matter that you bought Apple at 1/4 of today's price, what matters is how much your net worth is fluctuating to the downside.
Bitcoin is money, magical internet money, but still money. The point of money is to be able to buy things of actual value to a finite human life. Things like shelter, transportation, food. Purchasing power of a money going down is bad. I don't want to be able to buy less bananas today than I could yesterday.
Now, I believe on a long timescale the purchasing power of bitcoin will go up and it has proven a very worthy store of my life's monetary value thus far. But drops still hurt.
To be honest, I think at some point, I will diversify a little bit and put some amount into more 'stable' stores of value that I know can hold me over for 5ish years. That way I don't have to think about bitcoin price as much or selling during a bear market.
Yeah, perhaps we just disagree on the percentages? My guesstimate is that 80%+ of material wants/desires of man are driven by the advertising industry.
I think there are natural evolutionary desires that push humans (or any animal for that matter) to survive, make themselves an attractive mate in order to procreate and pass on their genes.
Advertising/PR industries have bastardized those desires by making brainwashing society into believing that the Rolex or BMW or Prada shoes signify you are an attractive mate. Their advertisements make it clear they are trying to brainwash the population into believing these things. The man with the Rolex is a jetsetter with an attractive lady at his side. The gorgeous lady with the Prada shoes is an attractive mate.
They are trying as hard as possible to link their product to the fundamental human desires of survival, procreation, love, happiness, etc... and I must say they are quite successful at it!
I think I'm well informed about certain things and less informed about other things. With that said, I'm a minimalist, at least by typical American standards so I'm less of a consumer in general (despite how uninformed or informed I may be).
"Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what's happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works."
-Morgan Housel (The Psychology of Money)
Capitalism/marketing has made people feel these "unlimited wants of human desire". Those are not natural feelings, but rather ones that we have been conditioned to believe. In the words of Noam Chomsky:
- Advertising is meant to fabricate consumers. The PR and advertising industry were developed in the freest countries [Great Britain and the US].
It quickly became very clear that it wasn't going to be very easy to control the population by force —too much freedom had been won.
(...) It was understood and expressed that you have to control them [the people] by the control of beliefs and attitudes. And the best way to do this is by "fabricating consumers."
- Measurement of a decent life [Internet and Television] present you what the proper life would be, what kind of gadgets you should have.
You spend your time and effort gaining those things which you don't need, you don't want, and maybe you will throw them away...
But that's the measure of a decent life.
- Advertising create uninformed consumers
If you have taken an economics course, you know that markets are based on "informed consumers making rational choices."
Well, if we had a market system like that, a market system, then a television ad of, say, General Motors, putting up information, saying, "Here's what we have for sale."
That's not what an ad for a car is.
An ad for a car is a football hero, and actress, a car doing some crazy thing like going up a mountain or something.
The point [of advertising] is to create uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices —and for politics, it works in the same way.
Folks, let me tell you, cryptocurrencies, they're unbelievable, just the best. I mean, Bitcoin, it's like a big league baseball, it's gonna hit a home run, and Ethereum, it's like a fantastic wall, it's gonna keep all the bad guys out. And the other ones, Litecoin, Ripple, they're all tremendous, folks, they're all gonna be so big, so strong, so powerful, that it's gonna make your head spin. I mean, I've made some of the greatest deals, the greatest, with cryptocurrencies, and I'm telling you, nobody, nobody, is better at cryptocurrency than I am. I've got the best words, the best brain, and I know more about blockchain than any expert, any expert, folks. In fact, I'm pretty sure I invented blockchain, it's a great word, a fantastic word, and I'm gonna trademark it, just watch. And let me tell you, folks, cryptocurrency is gonna be so huge, so massive, that we're gonna have to build a wall around it, a beautiful wall, to keep all the fake coins out. And I'm gonna make the hackers pay for it, mark my words. Believe me, folks, it's gonna be yuge, just yuge, the future of cryptocurrency is gonna be so big, so strong, so powerful, that it's gonna make America great again, again, and again.
Generally agree with you. But the market price is the market price.
While I believe bitcoin is worth more than $500k/coin, the market will only give me $78k for that coin should I require trading my money for a car or a banana.
Hopefully over time, more people will understand bitcoin's value, but it increasingly looks like the market rate of increase in price is slowing dramatically cycle after cycle.
Yeah, I mean we can all do many different analysis to get different results. But I think intuitively, most bitcoiners would believe that if you hodl for any 4 year period, your purchasing power should go up tremendously. Instead, it hasn't kept up with the nasdaq and barely held up compared to s&p500.
it was around 60k in March 2021.
I wholeheartedly agree that the purchasing power of money is very important. Bitcoin is money. It literally serves no other purpose than to be exchanged at some point of time for a real world good. You can't eat a bitcoin, live in a bitcoin, drive to the park in your bitcoin, etc... I agree its stupid for people who are heavily invested in bitcoin to act all happy that the price is going down, this is just a "the grapes are sour" type of coping mechanism.
But markets are a fickle beast. 80%+ of the wealth is owned by a tiny fraction of the population, and they tend to have insider knowledge of policies before they are implemented. Prices are also set on the edge, based on the last trade.
Humans tend to follow herd behavior and the algos that do the vast majority of trading are even worse and are hard trend followers.
Throw in the extreme uncertainty and chaos of Trump into the global mix, and yes we have a chaotic stock market which bitcoin is a tiny tiny tiny little subset of.
I am leaning towards the theory that Trump wants to crash the market hard in 2025. Why? Because he can then blame it on Biden and his followers are stupid enough to parrot and believe it. Interest rates will plummet alongside the stock market which will allow Bessent to roll over much of the debt at lower rates. The federal reserve will then implement several cuts this year to combat the weakening economy. The end of 2025 and 2026 will begin the roaring comeback, which plays very nicely politically for Trump going into the midterms.
I wouldn't be shocked if we've seen the bitcoin high for several months and don't revisit the 100k+ until Q4 of this year. But on a positive note, we may not have the typical cycle crash next year and could have another up year...
I'd keep my expectations very low for this. I imagine it will be a bunch of suits, ranging from VCs to shitcoin founders (cardano, xrp) to hedge fund billionaires.
Trump being elected was certainly positive for the shitcoin/memecoin industry and the crypto casinos (coinbase, gemini, etc...) but I really don't see anything positive for bitcoin coming from him.
Its not a stupid bet if you have conviction about something. Its one thing to say you believe something, its another to put your money where your mouth is. I believe bitcoin price will hit an ATH before 10/1 and am willing to bet some sats on it.
We are all making a bet whether we think about it or not. You are making a bet that bitcoin is a good money and will continue to be in the future (by presumably holding all your net worth in bitcoin). That is a bet.