Comment by esperent
1 day ago
> Bitcoin is higher than ever
That's just speculation though. I saw a cynical comment on reddit yesterday that unfortunately made a lot of sense. Many people now are just so certain that the future of work is not going to include many humans, so they're throwing everything into stocks and crypto, which is why they remain so high even in the face of so much political uncertainty. It's not that people are investing because they have hope. People are just betting everything as a last ditch survival attempt before the robots take over.
Of course this is hyperbolic - market forces are never that simple. But I think there might be some truth to it.
What does 'just' mean here? The monetary value of a thing is what people will pay you for it. Full stop.
The question was about people using crypto to buy things. The person above me was implying that because it's going up in value, people are using it that way. I replied to say that it's (mostly) just speculation. Which is a kind of use, but not the one being implied.
The irony is that these people think their rights as shareholders will be respected in this future world.
It's a bit like when peasants had to sell their land for cash and ended up enslaved working their own land.
It'll work at first but it's just what the parent poster said: a last ditch effort of the desperate and soon to be desperater.
Wait until you hear about this thing called gold and how its price behaves during periods of uncertainty.
Gold (and land, jewels, antiques etc.) are bought and held during times of uncertainty because people believe they will retain their value through virtually anything. Stocks don't work that way. In times of uncertainty, gold should increase in value, stocks should decrease.
Crypto is high because people keep believing some sucker in the future will buy it from them even higher. So far, they've been right all along. You really think crypto is ever going to pay some kind of dividend?
Isn't that equivalent to saying the USD won't pay dividends. Correct, but also not the point. I say this as someone with no crypto ownership.
There is always demand for USD, it is the only way to pay taxes in the US.
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