The Left Hand of Equals - <AUTHOR> http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/5509 <comment><USER2> I've found that the concept of identity and its relationship to equals in OO is a _confusion._ And by confusion, I mean an accidental combination that creates _accidental_ complexity. Because in the OO I've seen, you have a permanent fusion of of state and identity. Which is to say what happens to the object is the same thing as the object. Which is not true about things in the real world at all. Does this paper address this problem?

<comment><USER3> The real problem is that equality is an __operator __that creates a relation between two objects. Equality is not and should never be decided by one object -- both objects must "agree". An object A _in itself_ cannot say for sure that another object B is equal unless A asks B (and then B asks A leading to infinite recursion). The classic case of this, as pointed out in the paper, is inheritance which is the prime culprit for broken symmetry eg:

Point a = ...;

ColoredPoint b = ...;

a.equals(b) // false, a says b is not a 'Point'

b.equals(a) // true, b says my 'color-ness' is irrelevant, I'm a Point -- represent!

The only way to ensure that a. equals(b) and b.equals(a) is always true is to reify the equality relation into its own first-class type or method.

class Point { public static boolean operator_equals(Point a, Point b); }

It's too bad that Java and other languages do not offer first class support for operators. a == b can be shorthand for Point.operator_equals(a, b). If there is any ambiguity at all (because b is a subclass and there exists a method ColoredPoint.operator_equals()) then raise an error and force the developer to be explicit about exactly which equality operator is intended. If such a method doesn't exist then _raise an error_ and force the developer to say exactly what is intended by equality. (Don't fall back to reference equality!).

This would eliminate a whole lot of bugs and all the confusion around equality.

<comment><USER4> I re-read your comment a couple times, and understood your main point to succinctly be this:

If `Point` is a subclass of `ColoredPoint`, and `p` and `cp` exist as instances respectively, there is ambiguity between `p == cp` and `cp == p`.

In Python there is first class support for operators: the `eq` dunder method:

        def __eq__(self, other):
            if not isinstance(other, type(self)):
                return False
            return self.point == other.point

This ambiguity is hard to solve around.

<comment><USER5> A solution was suggested by the grandparent: make `a==b` call _both_ equality methods.

Dunno if you raise or just return false if they disagree.

<comment><USER6> I was working on a hobby language a few years ago and trying to figure out a way to handle equality to avoid these problems. One solution I considered was:

1\. Ask the LHS for its equality function.

2\. Ask the RHS for its equality function.

3\. If the two return different functions (non-identical), the objects are not equal.

4\. Otherwise, return the result of invoking the function.

The first two steps are polymorphic, so objects can define interesting equality semantics with whatever policy makes sense for them. But step 3 ensures that the two objects must _agree_ on that policy before you can compare them.

<comment><USER5> > One solution I considered

It sounds pretty reasonable, but I have no idea how "sounds reasonable" correlates with "is helpful in practice". (I think one of the commenters in the linked page might have raised that point too.)

Fulfilling axioms of equality definitely _does_ sound useful for being able to write code, though -- having symmetry, not having to think about whether you need to write `a==b` or `b==a`, seems like it'd lighten the cognitive load.

I suppose also when the objects disagree about equality you also have some license to say "this may not do quite what you expect" and do your best to make the most of it.

> I was working on a hobby language a few years ago

Hah, you're famous enough that we've all probably heard of the language if it has seen the light of day ;-).

My own hobby language has no methods or dynamic dispatch of any kind, haha. It's a little stressful to have to come up with some equality rule that works for essentially every use-case, though -- I don't think it's sufficient to enumerate the data types in the language, I really have to go over all the ways I think they could be used :-/.

Oh well, it's fun at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Direct link [http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~black/publications/egal.pdf](http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~black/publications/egal.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> A lot of the complexity comes from having a top-level type (Object) and inheritance. Functional languages often don't have this, so comparing two objects of different types doesn't come up. (Collections don't contain objects of different types either.)

<comment><USER9> Sure, but most functional languages don't permit useful comparisons between functions of same type either, so while the complexity is limited, the power is limited as well.

<comment><USER8> Well, an equality function could be defined that compares closure values and instructions, as mentioned in the article.

As I understand it, the reason it isn't typically done is conceptual: two functions are mathematically equal if the same inputs produce the same outputs. (The same way you'd define equality for a hashmap by comparing keys and values.) But this is impossible to calculate for arbitrary functions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm assuming the title supposed to be a reference to The Left Hand of Darkness [0], a book that also deals with equality and comparisons.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness)

Edit: Ah, the reference is explicit inside the linked PDF, but I'll leave this up for anybody else is ctrl-f-ing to satisfy the same curiosity.

</comment><comment><USER11> The identity stuff is fine.

But the talk about OO philosophy is the same old fool's gold. OO is a very useful filing system for organizing large amounts of code. Sure, code organization can tend to mirror code function, and even sometimes in some ways mirror parts of the application space. Philosophers could talk about that, but it's philosophy not coding.

The philosophy is a distraction, especially for new people learning OO.

So OO as a 'model of reality'? OO is a model of reality to about the same extent that the Dewey Decimal System is a model of reality. Every branch of "OO philosophy" that doesn't make this simple point clear is a barrier to entry.</comment>


The modern tech CEO: Barefoot and 21 - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/11/02/seth.priebatsch.scvngr/index.html

<comment><USER2> Having just done an exhaustive review of LBS services and systems.... a check- in is a simple game mechanic that can be useful but does not appear to be an enormous tentpole for an entire eco-system to develop around. Literally hundreds of apps, games and services are launching around the check-in as we speak. They are going to have a difficult time getting traction.

One of our startups just did launched several high-profile retailers onto Foursquare, gowalla, mytown and others with great incentives for checking in... and the check-ins were simply too underwhelming too continue with the program.

It is going to be darned near impossible to come up with a service that will get the needed critical mass. Facebook is the likely service to use, but people aren't flocking to check-ins there either.

And this legend in the making needs to lose the hideous glasses. It's not a good trademark.

There, now I can be positive for the rest of the day.

<comment><USER3> might be all true.

but thats an article about this guy, CEO and his amazing achievements at 21 yo, not about his current company.

one might say "whatever another rich kid with all his papa money and connections", but i see young and hard-working individual. nice read.</comment></comment>


Love After Life: Richard Feynman's Letter to His Departed Wife (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/10/17/richard-feynman-arline-letter/ <comment><USER2> What a heartwrenching letter. I thought it was a great read. There's something so profound about being human, it confounds all reason.</comment>


Wind Waker Graphics Analysis - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@gordonnl/wind-waker-graphics-analysis-a0b575a31127 <comment><USER2> One tiny thing that might help in your analysis: Nintendo accidentally included all the symbol names and locations on the Wind Waker disc in a file called "framework.map".

Doing some basic demangling on the CodeWarriors names gives you C++ classes and methods:

[http://funny.computer/cloud/Random/zww_functions.txt](http://funny.computer/cloud/Random/zww_functions.txt)

The "sea" animation is controlled by "daSea" \-- "da" meaning "dynamic actor" in Nintendo's naming terminology.

It's extremely unlikely they used texture distortion for the sea effect, since the GPU they used didn't have fragment shaders -- the only method of texture warping is INDTEXMTX, which was only used for the heat effects in Dragon Roost Cavern.

They probably modified UVs directly on their triangular sea mesh.

Smoke effects and such use their in-house particle engine, "JPA".

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish Nintendo were more open about some of the incredible stuff they've done over the years.</comment>


HighwayHash: Fast hashing at over 10 GB/s per core in Golang - <AUTHOR> https://blog.minio.io/highwayhash-fast-hashing-at-over-10-gb-s-per-core-in-golang-fee938b5218a <comment><USER2> This is a pretty sweet hash function, with security guarantees similar to SipHash but about 5x faster. Here's more info:

[https://github.com/google/highwayhash](https://github.com/google/highwayhash)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wicked.

      BenchmarkHighwayHash            11986.98 MB/s
      BenchmarkSHA256_AVX512           3552.74 MB/s
      BenchmarkBlake2b                  972.38 MB/s
      BenchmarkSHA1                     950.64 MB/s
      BenchmarkMD5                      684.18 MB/s
      BenchmarkSHA512                   562.04 MB/s
      BenchmarkSHA256                   383.07 MB/s

<comment><USER4> HighwayHash is explicitly called out as being not cryptographically secure. Every other hash in your list is (or was) considered cryptographically secure. Therefore these aren't really comparable, and it was somewhat disingenuous of the authors here to make that comparison.

<comment><USER5> I think somewhat disingenuous is a bit soft, given these people should know better, in my mind it is scientific misconduct to only compare against cryptographicly secure hashes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Would be interesting to see how MeowHash compares.

</comment><comment><USER7> For all enthusiastic folks you may want to read more here on SipHash comparisons

[https://github.com/fwessels/HashCompare/blob/master/README.m...](https://github.com/fwessels/HashCompare/blob/master/README.md)

[https://github.com/fwessels/HashCompare/issues/1](https://github.com/fwessels/HashCompare/issues/1)

</comment><comment><USER8> It is a very cool function. It'd be interesting if a more thorough cryptanalysis were performed (though if you read the Google Research paper, you get an impression that they are breaking fresh ground, so there would be a lot more effort involved in such an analysis). I think this function or ones like it may not only be very fast on AVX2, but on some other systems as well.

</comment><comment><USER9> Would be cool to have something like this in the standard library. This is getting close to being memory bound. In fact it will be memory bound on most amd64 machines if you use more than 2 cores. It's kinda pointless to optimize much further, even if further optimization is possible.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is it really written in Go if they're using optimized assembly to implement parts of it?

<comment><USER11> Its written in C++ and Assembly, the go library is just a wrapper

<comment><USER7> There is no C++ in the code, it is a native Go library of Google's HighwayHash implementation

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They claim the same "fastness" as Siphash whilst actually being on the slower end of all good hash functions. Too slow for real world usage, and not secure enough for real world security attacks. Compare [https://github.com/rurban/smhasher](https://github.com/rurban/smhasher) and my complaints [https://github.com/google/highwayhash/issues/28](https://github.com/google/highwayhash/issues/28)

<comment><USER13> No offense, but you don't come off very nicely in that thread. Perhaps you could rephrase your criticism in a way that would make the maintainers more likely to listen to you?

<comment><USER12> No, it lead to actual harm on billions of users. And Google did listen and reacted accordingly.

But they still didn't put their hash to external scrutinity, still waiting for the pull request to get it tested with smhasher.

<comment><USER13> Still, there's no need to be rude.

<comment><USER12> I'm never rude.

<comment><USER13> …I personally find that very hard to believe. Maybe you weren't specifically "rude" here, but you were clearly unpleasant–you called their claims "false" and "nonsense" repeatedly, which is rarely if ever necessary.

<comment><USER12> Calling false claims "false" is necessary and not rude.

And I just added Highwayhash now to smhasher by myself and my initial analysis was confirmed. It's the 2nd slowest of all tested good hashes, only behind Siphash. Every other is simplier and faster. Chi-Square on the lower 32bits was 0.00 so it's really a good one. But I see no usecase for it, really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Title should probably mention "(2018)".</comment>


Steve Jobs's Law: Why Founders Make the Best Leaders - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/steve-jobss-law-why-founders-make-better-leaders/244439/?google_editors_picks=true

<comment><USER2> IMO, it's even simpler...

Founders care about the company. Ultimately their focus is "what can I do for my company".

Everyone else cares about themselves (stock options, positions/titles, image/power, etc). Ultimately their focus is "what can the company do for me".

<comment><USER3> I agree.

For a founder, the company is their life's blood. For a new CEO, it's just another job. It's the difference between raising your own kid, and babysitting someone else's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I always say Wozniak should lead Apple after Jobs leaves.

Just kidding. I don't think he would be very interested in Cook's position. However, I'd love to see him back guiding the electronic design of Apple products and, being a founder, the guardian of the company's soul. Current Macs have PC hearts. That's not the genius we saw with the Apple II or the IWM.

Seriously, if Apple can be boiled down to an idea, it's the marriage of art and clever engineering. Jobs brought the art and Wozniak, the engineering.

<comment><USER5> I don't think Woz has done that kind of work since the 1980's at the latest.

Everyone knows the x86 architecture is inelegant. The 1990's saw a number of new CPU architectures being introduced and marketed to replace it, but none of them could keep up with the performance of x86. Apple fought that battle for the longest, up until PPC petered out. When they gave up and adopted x86, Macs became that much more useful for their ability to dual-boot Windows, or to run Windows in a VM. Apple was able to ignore some of the rougher parts of the PC architecture by avoiding BIOS and MBR.

<comment><USER6> Does anyone here know what Woz does, technically, at Fusion I/O? He may be more involved in modern engineering than we give him credit for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can very well relate to this.

In the past, I could never really understand the affection between a newborn and her parents, till I became a father recently. Having seen my son right from the time of delivery I know it better than the other relatives what works and what doesn't, since I have seen it in person many times.

It is this involvement from the start, the familiarity, and attention to all the small little things, which lead to affection towards the child, or in this case towards the company which literally is the founder's child.

</comment><comment><USER8> print version: [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/print/2011/09/steve- jobs...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/print/2011/09/steve-jobss-law- why-founders-make-the-best-leaders/244439/)

</comment><comment><USER9> How much of this is that the company was hugely influenced by the founder? Steve Jobs was famous for making sure all the machines at the NeXT factory were painted the same color and that no third party logs were displayed. A certain kind of OCD employee is attracted to that attention to detail and will succeed and advance within the company. Jeff Bezos is famous for the door desk at Amazon and creating a frugal company culture. Both companies are wildly successful but it seems like Bezos would make a horrible Apple CEO and I suspect that a building full of door desks would be amazingly crass to Steve Jobs. Neither is one is better, they are both successful, but I think they attract and utilize different talents. I've often wondered if Balmer's time at the top of Microsoft has been hampered by not being a coder.

</comment><comment><USER10> One thing that makes great leaders is to understand your value in an organization. Some founders are better suited to run an agile below 100 startups but dont have the capacity to deal with the ops complexities that come with scaling a business.

If you look closely, the successful founder CEOs had a strong ops person by their side helping them scale. Understanding yourself and your weaknesses earlier on and enlisting people that would complement you is the key. Otherwise, even your passion, vision and right incentives won't help you be a great leader.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think that the ideal situation is having a CEO/Founder but one who realizes what his deficiencies are and can accept bringing in someone to help the company...but not necessarily have the ultimate word. There is a lot to be said about keeping the originator whose vision proved to be successful be in charge of future ideas and directions or at least have the final say on them. At the same time often a founder's organizational skills arent up to par for managing scale.

</comment><comment><USER12> Founder control of the board makes the best companies, avoiding that "adult supervision needed" syndrome.

</comment><comment><USER13> There's no better leader then the one who created the path on the first place.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's perhaps because founders give a shit.

</comment><comment><USER15> In line with what I've been saying here in every CEO discussion.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have not read the article but RIM jumps out at me as not following this...

<comment><USER17> I have to agree with that</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you use Quora? - <AUTHOR>

Do you use Quora? If so, how and for what purposes? <comment><USER2> I was pretty happy with Quora as a source of knowledge until about a month or so ago.

When I was using it, I was getting timely, interesting emails on a weekly basis about startup companies and silicon valley inside information. After receiving an email with an interesting topic I would spend about 45 minutes browsing similar topics that interested me. To sum it up I found Quora to be a very informative source of entertainment.

Now, over the last month or two the emails I've been getting have been ridiculous topics more fitting for entertainment weekly than YCombinator.

On one hand I hope it returns to the level that it was in the past. On the other hand there may not be a large enough user base with my requirements for the owners to create a viable business so I would be understanding if my needs where disregarded in a pivot.

</comment><comment><USER3> In addition to Quora's main features I use the custom boards to create various "Buckets" so that as I discover content, I can sort it based on what I'd like to use it for. As an example - I have a "Learning Bucket" and a "Stuff Bucket". If I come across some content (article, online PDF, blog post, ...) that will contribute to my knowledge I add it to my Learning Bucket board in case I'd like to read it later or have a quick reference to it. If I come across content I simply find interesting and may want to reference or check out again I add it to my Stuff Bucket board. Quora provides a really clean interface to organize your content and I highly recommend trying it out if not solely for this purpose!

</comment><comment><USER4> Yep, it's my main procrastination tool. I like procrastinating in a way where I can at least post hoc justify that it wasn't a _complete_ waste of time. On Quora I do regularly learn new stuff, some of which has even been useful to my life, rather than just trivia.

I've also come around to the boards feature. I originally hated the whole concept because it seemed like noise in what was a pretty good source of signal, but eventually it settled down a bit more. Most people now seem to use them the way I do, just as a place to dump interesting content or things I want to remember later, rather than a way to spam one's followers with uselessness.

</comment><comment><USER5> I do use it to find relevant information for running a startup. In our case I find a wealth of information on running a startup in US, convertible notes & various other useful details which I find is hard to get expert advice on elsewhere.

Having said that I sometimes find it a distraction as there is plenty of 'curious' stuff going on that could become a time sink. So I stay away from that on most days. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> I use Quora a fair bit, but it has been overrun in the past several months with worthless (negative value, really) survey questions and reddit style memes.

It is great for startup questions (financing/vc things), but otherwise isn't that compelling.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nope. But I did just start on Askolo.com

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes, I love it.</comment>


How the US government inadvertently created Wikileaks - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2013/09/14/how-the-us-government-inadvertently-created-wikileaks/ <comment><USER2> Of course they (and other overly secret governments) did. Wikileaks reason for existence is transparency. US Government's secrecy _forced_ the eventual creation of wikileaks or things like it. Same with Snowden. Protesters, leakers, et al don't spontaneously erupt. They are created by bad governments.

<comment><USER3> " _Protesters, leakers, et al don 't spontaneously erupt. They are created by bad governments._"

There are two models that could be at work here: (1) "dissident agents" occur randomly (i.e. they _do_ "spontaneously erupt") but have greater value and visibility when they occur amidst bad government or (2) bad governments cause good agents to become "dissident agents".

In all likelihood it's a combination of both: people have varying tendencies of becoming "dissidents". Some people will rebel without a cause, others will follow their leaders to hell. Most are in between, more likely to (a) become, and (b) be empowered upon becoming, dissidents the more "bad" a government becomes.

There are varying opinions of what constitutes "bad" government. It would not be surprising that there are correlations between certain worldviews and their populations' propensities to engage in dissident activity. Stylised: pro-war advocates might be expected to go dissident quicker than pro-peace advocates.

Point is it isn't obvious. The more likely outcome would have been for Julian to have shut up and kept going his way. What made this time different is worth looking into.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess you could call this another one of those "blowbacks" that US has been creating by being too aggressive with certain things or people.

When tons of documents start to become "classified", when they shouldn't be, this sort of thing is inevitable.

<comment><USER5> What is more detrimental is the uselessness of the phrase "classified" in the after math of leaks. When leaks show that a lot of classified documents are not really that important it will desensitize people to the word classified in the long run and when really important and classified info is leaked, it will be treated with carelessness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "So here you have a non-US citizen at a foreign university doing graduate > work studies, and the United States government came barreling in and not > only snuffed out the funding and killed his studies, it also barred him from > knowing what it was he had been funded to research."

Help me understand this. How could the US Govt bar Assange from knowing what _he_ had already been researching at the University of Melbourne (funded by the NSA and DARPA apparently)?

<comment><USER7> If

1\. document X becomes classified;

2\. you are have a government security clearance;

and 3. your government security clearance isn't high enough to be allowed to look at X,

then you must not look at X, keep copies of X, etc. even if X is public knowledge. This came up more recently in the context of government employees getting in trouble for having publicly-leaked _but still classified_ documents on their computers.

I imagine, if the research you were funded to create is classified out from under you, you have to delete all public copies of it, and have to pretend you don't _officially_ "know" it any more.

<comment><USER8> Can Australian citizens have a US security clearance?

<comment><USER9> Yes, foreign nationals are allowed to obtain basic security clearances. However, in the defense and intelligence communities classified material may also be marked "NOFORN" – no foreign nationals regardless of their security clearance.

<comment><USER10> It would be nice if every single government secret classified not classified as NOFORN became public very quickly (a few years at absolute most). I can understand justifications of keeping data marked NOFORN secret for many many years, but see no reason why the American people should support secrecy that lasts any longer than the amount of time it takes to achieve some political objective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Julian should not lie on his side like that to use a computer. You can end up with awful back problems and numb fingers.

<comment><USER12> And awkward photos.

<comment><USER11> I'm thinking he had trouble finding enough space to use his laptop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is strange is that the government used the classification of information as a way control it. But what stops others from conducting the same research? In fact I would argue that classifying info will result in people pursuing that info even more than other non-classified research. The Streisand effect all over again.

<comment><USER13> Money, no one else will fund it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wikileaks is nothing new, folks. What is the actual innovation here? Governments and the interested parties that fund them through bond purchases have always over-stepped the practical boundaries in the quest to maintain and increase their power and control in relation to their peers and the masses.

It is true, however, that there would be no market for anything such as Wikileaks if there was no opaqueness in the public sector.

"Send us an anonymous package with information through post and we will vet it and publish it, if it's juicy" is nothing new under the sun though.</comment>


Why you can't cash out part 1: Bitcoin's "price" is largely fictional - <AUTHOR> https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2017/12/17/why-you-cant-cash-out-pt-1-why-bitcoins-price-is-largely-fictional/ <comment><USER4> You can cash out Bitcoin and the price is actually very accurate. The money I see in my bank account is real I can assure you of that. Also I know friends that cash out six figures at a time and the price they get is within less than 1% difference to the last sell price.

The number is accurate enough for most orders under $10,000,000. Has this person actually traded Bitcoin?

You might not be able to sell a large order to the cent, but with Bitcoin you are certainly able to cash out within less than 1% of the listed price. I move orders around a lot and I see real money, so I know it's not fictional. In addition I frequently use an exchange with about 100 times less volume than the USA exchanges.

Also shares have a spread too.

The Bitcoin order book is not razor thin, unless you are trying to sell $10,000,000 in one go. Then you just need to spread out the sell over about 5 hours.

Also the issue with arbitrage isn't the Bitcoin side of the transactions, it's often the USD or AUD side.

But arbitrage does work and the price is much closer worldwide than it used to be.

These little islands that the author talks about range from $1,000,000 24 hour volume for the smallest exchanges to $200,000,000 24 hour volume for a mid - high size exchange.

TL:DR I can assure you the price is real, cashing out is easy and viable. If you want to cash in $10 million just expect your limit order to execute gradually over about 5 hours.

<comment><USER5> Article author actually makes a great point and it stands regardless of your ability to cash out within 1%. Big investors on current markets can whip out huge profits for themselves by using techniques such as front running, wash trades, willybot, spoofing etc. Exchanges are not even prohibited from doing their own secret trades and using their own internal database and full knowledge of all other players.

If you are a trader with deep pockets, you should immediately realize all above established techniques (which is illegal on stock market) can generate you huge profits in no time in crypto market. Big players would literally have all the strings to play the market according to their will. Currently prices are 100X higher and 1% difference seems irrelevant but in mature markets 1% move is news worthy event.

I think its also worth pointing out that less than 1000 entities owns 40% of the bitcoins. I wouldn't be surprised if set of entities are willing to burn short term cash to inflate the prices just to attract other large scale investors in the game. This is like burning tinder to start the fire. The end game usually is massive cash outs as soon as fire has started. Typically this would kill the fire but in some cases it may keep going. In any case, the bad news to small investors is that expect to get killed at any point in time when your big brother decides to cash out. Until then, party on.

<comment><USER6> > Until then, party on

Indeed. Earlier this year, mid-summer, I got curious about all this, so I decided to start an experiment, uploaded $100 to an exchange and started trading and programming against their API. Today, I am running fully automated bots which are winning, got about $25k in exchanges and cashed out about $15 to my bank account (no problem cashing out btw). That's 40000% in 6 month.

So all of this is absolutely crazy. I don't believe this can go on forever. But until then, yes, party on.

(I am using a throwaway for this - not being any careful, moderators should be able to easily track my other account if they want. I just don't want to associate my other account with this post.)

<comment><USER7> Care to share general outlines of how your bots work?

<comment><USER8> "Buy Bitcoin, hold Bitcoin, buy some more Bitcoin."

It'll work until it suddenly doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't all of the complaints about exchange rate and market cap apply to virtually any other item that is traded? Spread exists in forex and stock markets. Market cap is extremely commonly cited for stock markets.

Sure, the effects may be stronger in Bitcoin due to its higher volatility, lower volume, etc., but that should be the author's argument, instead of "if you don't know the basic Finance 101 definitions of some common terms, then you might get confused."

<comment><AUTHOR> (author here) This is targeted to the general public, who do actually need Finance 101, because they really don't know what they're getting lured into by the mindlessly positive articles and headlines in the mainstream press. Mostly written by people who don't understand either.

I actually consider it seriously unethical to market cryptos as an investment to retail investors - they just _do not understand_ the insane levels of risk, including the actual _exchange_ as a threat. And yes, I know what Bitcoin's pitch is. I still think it's unethical in practice, and this bubble is going to show why.

Market cap makes more sense for a stock, because it's in the range of the value for a company, and a whole company is something that does get bought and sold. This idea doesn't make any sense for a crypto.

<comment><USER10> But at the end of the day, how is it different from the current equities market? (aside from immature tools and imperfect infrastructure that is just shaping up). Stock market can tank 50% like it did in 2009 (together with the real estate market) and your average investor will be screwed just the same. Even tech and fundamental analysis gurus cannot explain the endless bull market we're on, how is getting lured into stock market with positive press today is any different than BTC? Currently both are different forms of gambling imho.

<comment><USER11> Investing actually achieves something.

When I make an investment in a company I'm providing capital that that company can use in various ways.

In return I become an (very small) owner of the company. I get a say in how it's run (voting rights), and I get a share of the profit (in dividends).

If you hold on to a stock like coca cola for 30 years, never looking at the stock price, and never sell, you'll actually make money.

Yes there's risk, coca cola could go out of business. But that's pretty unlikely, and if you're not willing to take that risk, consider using a diversification strategy. Buy some passively managed ETFs.

Even with the crisis, in the long run, you would've made money. Investing is not gambling, it's not a zero sum game and the fundamentals of it have some basis in reality.

Whatever is happening with Bitcoin right now makes no sense. Eventually things like this have to realign with reality.

<comment><USER12> 1\. the stock market, other than the IPO is a secondary market. You are not providing capital to the company but just paying another trader for his shares.

2\. The majority of stocks do not provide (and will never) dividends and the majority of buyers have no voting rights.

but you are right. For practical purposes, the stock market is not pure gambling. There are institutions that make it legitimate. Such as the SEC, pensions, 401ks and brokerage firms. And the fact the government cares so much about it going up (because it funds so many pensions and social security might go away)

But lets not fool ourselves in thinking the stock market is a virtuous piece of infrastructure. The vast majority of stock holders dont know anything about the conpanies they invest nor how stocks even work. They invest blindly in it through mutual funds or 401ks.

<comment><USER13> This isn't entirely true. If secondary market trades increase the value of the stock then the company can sell some of their stock to get more funding, or can borrow at better terms.

Similarly, buying and holding Bitcoin has a range of effects that help the network and generate real wealth. Bitcoin is a services company, a payment network, a bank, and investment vehicle, a reflection of wealth in that economy, a notary, a liberated, sound money and a protest - all disguised as a get rich quick scheme.

<comment><USER14> Almost no companies today are selling stock to grow the company. Tesla is a big exception. Somehow we have gotten to a place where there is lots of capital wanting to invest in something that will make returns, but few people/companies wanting to work with large sums of capital to try new business ideas.

<comment><USER15> > _Almost no companies today are selling stock to grow the company_

Public market performance influences IPO performance. IPO performance directly knocks on future managements' decisions around going public or raising a private round. The performance of those moves influences early-stage capital availability through multiple channels. Equity markets, broadly, are complicated, but they are an essential component to fuelling firm creation and growth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The article states "The singular "price" of Bitcoin doesn't exist — it's a made-up number."

This is the same for every stock traded on any stock exchange in the world. The "singular price" is, in most cases, just the mean of the closest bid and offer listed on the exchange and is thus a "made-up number"

On top of this, it obviously doesn't take into account everything from transaction costs to the fact that attempts to purchase substantial volume at this price would not be possible.

<comment><USER17> No, it's the fact that the trading in Bitcoin is so thin. A modestly-large trade can completely swamp the markets.

The NYSE sees on the order of a billion trades per day. The high over the past year is about 1.9, the low about 0.46. The dollar trade was $16 - $107 billion/day.

I'm not finding transactional volume for bitcoin, but the dollar vollume has _peaked_ at $2.5 billion, and until September, 2017, was under $500 million.

Before that date, roughly, more money moves through _one stock exchange_ in a single _day_ than all of Bitcoin in a _year_.

Which gets to an interesting question of just what it is price is, and represents. If you can control and regulate the supply of a good then price is something of a fiction: it's the amount demanded, relative to the supply. But for a fixed asset, the more you can restrict that supply, the higher the price goes.

There's an analogy with electric circuits that I was kicking around with Gerard some months back. Just as R = V/I, the higher the demand (V), and the lower the supply (I), the greater the price. (This ... doesn't entirely hold up, but it's an interesting parallel.)

[http://www.nyxdata.com/nysedata/asp/factbook/viewer_edition....](http://www.nyxdata.com/nysedata/asp/factbook/viewer_edition.asp?mode=table&key=3141&category=3)

[https://blockchain.info/charts/trade- volume?timespan=1year&d...](https://blockchain.info/charts/trade- volume?timespan=1year&daysAverageString=7)

<comment><USER18> 24-hour trading volume for Bitcoin is $4.86 billion ([https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin)).

Most active NYSE stock last Friday was Bank of America, trading about $3.1 billion ([http://www.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3021-activnyse- actives....](http://www.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3021-activnyse- actives.html)).

I don't understand why you'd compare a single security's trading volume to an entire stock exchange's volume. It is not a meaningful comparison.

<comment><USER17> If you wanted a fair comparison, we wouldn't be comparing exchanges at all, but total financial transactions. That is if we're going to treat Bitcoin as a currency and not some sort of asset transfer vehicle.

Visa International handles 300 million transactions/day, and $3 trillion/year.

Or you could look at total US GDP or GWP (gross world product), which are in very rough numbers, $17 trillion and $70 trillion respectively.

Bitcoin at a $5 billion daily trade is 1/8 the US financial transactions market, and roughly 1/40th that of total global trade.

Honestly, that's higher than I'd have expected, but it's also in vastly greater trade blocks than most daily purchases.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, I was thinking the same thing after leaving the prior comment. There is exchange-to-other-currency volume (largely BTC as store of value), and then there is exchange-as-money volume (BTC as currency).

In theory you subtract the former from the total transaction volume ($4.6B over last 24 hours according to [https://blockchain.info/stats](https://blockchain.info/stats)). Unfortunately that gives me a negative number ($4.6B - $5.4B = negative), which at first suggests the methodology is wrong, but then I remember that not all currency- exchange transactions happen on-chain. Send BTC to GDAX, then buy/sell/buy/sell/buy/sell, then receive $$$... all that could be as little as a single blockchain transaction.

I'm sure someone has tried to determine how much of BTC traffic is closed-loop within the BTC ecosystem. I doubt it's much. Anyway, I'm ratholing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > The delays — ten minutes to over an hour — and fees add enough friction to > generate the spread between exchanges, even if you assume everyone's using > trading bots as quickly as possible.

Can an arbitrager not simply hold both BTC and cash on multiple exchanges at once? When a price difference swings one way, sell on one exchange and buy on the other, without worrying about transferring anything between exchanges. When the price difference swings the other way, do it the other way round.

If price differences average in both directions over time, you shouldn't run short of either BTC or cash but you will make a profit.

If price difference average in one particular direction, you can notice that trend and transfer across in advance.

An initial investment is required, but that is true of any arbitraging activity.

I had assumed that this is what arbitragers have always done.

<comment><USER20> You could do that. It's not really zero risk though because the coin could drop in value. Usually (real) traders who find arbs on (real) exchanges will submit simultaneous bid/ask orders without holding the actual product. They can clear the trades later.

<comment><USER20> Of course.. if you could take a short position against the coin, you could hedge and eliminate your risk.

<comment><USER15> > _if you could take a short position against the coin_

How can you short it? CBOE futures only exist for one exchange. What if that exchange's price stays steady while others crash? Or that exchange goes up while others crash, thereby triggering margin calls while you lose money? Sure, the situation will eventually rectify itself. In the short term, however, you're broke.

<comment><USER20> Margin accounts? It seems like many crypto exchanges offer this. Isn't the example you described the perfect arb situation where you would short sell on the expensive exchange and buy on the cheap exchange?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What the article dances around is the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which, in short, claims that there is one true price for every financial asset. No market is truly efficient, but some are more efficient than others. Low spreads and lack of arbitrage opportunities (the ability to buy an asset on one exchange and immediately sell it on another for a profit) are signs of a more efficient market.

Bitcoin, clearly, is far from an efficient market. Everybody knows that. A lot of people are profiting from that, although there is a significant risk involved from the shoddy state of most exchanges.

As a nitpick, smart order routing is not something stock and futures exchanges give you, it's a layer you can buy or build on top of the available exchanges.

<comment><USER22> You are confusing terms. Efficient Market Hypothesis and Market Efficiency are not relevant here.

Operational efficiency in the investment market (trading exchanges) is the issue. Transaction costs, manipulation, spreads, unfairness etc. add cost for doing transactions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> For all those posting variants of "It's no different from stocks", this is answered in TFA but even more clearly in the Paulo Santos article linked from it[1]. Editing it down a bit,

> ...overwhelmingly, bitcoin is traded on bitcoin exchanges... So here's the > thing: Each of these markets does not communicate with the others. [That] > ... means that buyers/sellers on each exchange are reliant on bids/asks > exclusively from other members trading on the very same exchange.

> Now, that doesn't seem all that different from what happens with stocks in > countries like the U.S., with all kinds of markets and ECNs, does it? But it > really is massively different... because with stocks, a broker can quickly > reroute his orders from one exchange to the other. The depositary/custodian > of his stockholdings is not the exchange. With bitcoin, it's different. The > exchange is also the depositary of one's bitcoin holdings ...[describes the > difficulty and delay of moving BTC from one exchange to another, also > discussed at length in TFA] ... The result of this highly inefficient market > structure is that the same asset (Bitcoin) trades at significantly different > prices from exchange to exchange...

So with stocks, if you want to buy or sell shares of AAPL, the price will be essentially the same whether you talk to Schwab or to eTrade, and if it isn't the same to within a penny, a script somewhere will take advantage of the difference to make money by buying from one and selling at the other _in seconds_ -- arbitrage which is not possible with bitcoin exchanges owing to the transaction delay and fee.

TFA also makes the important point that there is no regulation whatever of bitcoin exchanges, and that also makes them very different from the likes of Schwab.

[1] [https://seekingalpha.com/article/4130380-bitcoin-series- adde...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4130380-bitcoin-series-addendum- market-structure)

<comment><USER24> >So with stocks, if you want to buy or sell shares of AAPL, the price will be essentially the same whether you talk to Schwab or to eTrade, and if it isn't the same to within a penny, a script somewhere will take advantage of the difference to make money by buying from one and selling at the other _in seconds_ -- arbitrage which is not possible with bitcoin exchanges owing to the transaction delay and fee.

Partially true of the most largest and most liquid stocks and those that are electronically traded. Not true for those trading massive blocks of stock or those trading in 'dark pools'. Also not true for stocks, options, bonds and other financial instruments with low liquidity or those that aren't traded electronically (such as OTC stocks). Also not true in times of financial distress (you know, the times when you really want to sell) when everyone is running for the exits.

Anyone who doesn't understand the basics of how markets work (the people this article is aimed at) shouldn't be trading anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Anyone who doesn't understand the basics of how markets work (the people > this article is aimed at) shouldn't be trading anything.

(author here) I'll second that. Unfortunately, they are ...

I've never personally felt so comfortable with "accredited investor" rules, they feel too much like "only the rich can get richer" \- but junk-quality assets like this being marketed to normal people, I can appreciate why this sort of rule exists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't know nearly enough to comment on the article but at this point I started to think Bitcoin is an abomination that will ultimately hurt everyone - not just the people who invested in it. I think Bitcoin is an abomination because after 9 years of idealistic search for meaningful use case it is almost evident there is none. Instead, Bitcoin becomes this no-face monster swallowing more and more speculative investments. "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop". Bitcoin investors know this and they all hope they will be the ones to withdraw before the bubble bursts and that their gains will be paid by the misfortune of those who are not as "smart" as them.

If pyramid scheme is all we want from cryptocurrencies, we could have done it without the invention of the blockchain.

</comment><comment><USER26> Fortunately, USD balances on GDAX are FDIC insured for US citizens [0]. I accept that I might not be able to cash out of cryptos in an emergency, due to liquidity or transaction times or something else, but I sure as hell will be able to get out any USD I might have in GDAX, which is a big confidence boost to me. They claim that all crypto deposits are "fully insured" as well, by a "syndicate of insurers through Lloyd's of London".

[0]: [https://support.gdax.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2689803...](https://support.gdax.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2689803-how- deposits-are-insured-on-gdax)

<comment><USER27> Can we all take a moment to appreciate the irony here?

You're enthused about dealing with cryptocurrencies for reasons of being insured by a _centralized_ , _third-party_ , who you've placed your _trust_ in.

<comment><USER26> It's ironic, but I don't feel too bad about it.

1\. For all of the things we mistrust the US government for, the FDIC is, as far as anyone can tell, rock-solid. If, by some catastrophe, the FDIC were no longer able to ensure deposits, we would likely all have much bigger problems than trying to get your cash out of GDAX.

2\. It spreads risk. GDAX itself is a centralized authority. Instead of putting all my trust in one entity, I now only need one of GDAX _or_ the SEC _or_ the FDIC to be functional.

3\. It brings legitimacy. For better or worse, your average person is not a crypto cyber hippie, and neither are executives at most traditional companies. If we are to start seeing crypto currency actually become useful as currency in the USA, rather than just the speculation instrument, we need adoption by both average people and business executives. When they see that one of the top exchanges is based in the USA, and is fully certified and regulated by the US government, it ought to help allay some fears about the safety and usefulness of digital currency.

4\. Some things I don't trust the US government for any further than I can throw it. Other things, I trust it pretty thoroughly. This falls in the latter category.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Ok, I'll put my theory here.

We have seen weird spikes in the past that looked like a speculation bubble and it has taken us a few days or weeks to understand their cause. They usually crash a bit but stay at relatively high levels compared to where they started.

One was caused by Russians discovering they could evade sanctions that way. Another one was caused by people hiding money in Cyprus discovering that it could be seized by the government.

For the current rise, my money is on the anti-corruption operation happening in Saudi Arabia. Whatever you think about the crown prince's true goals, the move is not just theater. Hundreds of billions of dollars are changing hands.

I suspect that what we see is half of the royal family's wealth being shuffled around in a hope to escape being seized.

</comment><comment><USER29> From the article: "Market cap" [...] is a bogus number that's not actually applicable to anything — it's not money that was put into the crypto, it's not a realisable value like a company market cap.

I am not sure what the author means by "realizable". If their intention is to say, "Ok, let's liquidate every single coin for fiat currency... and we expect to have the market-cap equivalent in that currency" Well, whats going to happen is the price is going to collapse. The same thing would happen with the value of any publicly traded company. The market cap of Apple is $900bn - <USER2> you can't just tell every shareholder to sell their stock for cash... you would never be able to realize anywhere near that amount.

Article reads a bit weird. Here are my 2 cents - markets are a voting machine. They are also about perception. If people perceive that there is value - <USER3> they will vote with their dollars. If people lose faith in the system, the market collapses. This is true in any market dynamic, including the one that fiat currency operates in.

<comment><USER30> What would you pay to own every single bitcoin? The answer should be nothing --- if you owned all of them, they'd be completely worthless.

What would someone pay for all of Apple's stock? Suffice to say, a lot --- because Apple has actual value.

<comment><USER29> > The answer should be nothing

I don't think the answer is nothing. And there's also a very different dynamic you're proposing in your comment. If I were to go in and buy every BTC out there - the price would probably double/quadruple/whatever... in a short time ('cause its bitcoin!).

If all BTC holders collectively decide to sell, however, the price would most probably collapse. The "value" of bitcoin - or any security for that matter - is determined by the marginal buyer or seller. He or she is the last person to set the price.

There is inherent value in bitcoin. Just like Apple sells phones and other things of value, bitcoin was created for some reasons that you can attach a value to ... I think those initial reasons are not what bitcoin stands for today - which is really a store of wealth. So maybe that is why people are incredulous that this thing has any value at all.

<comment><USER30> > I don't think the answer is nothing.

Seriously? Think about it. If you could pay, say, $100k to own all the bitcoin in the world, would that be smart or would that be stupid?

Why would anybody buy bitcoin from you if you owned all of it? Everyone will prefer to use a cryptocurrency that either: a) they already own some of; or b) a merchant is requesting; or c) they expect to go up in value more than an alternative. Now, in calculating c), everyone knows that everyone else is looking at a) and b) as well. The expectation of Bitcoin if you're the only holder is really bad.

If you like your chances at 100k, take the experiment out further. How about 1 million? 10 million? The ceiling here is super low relative to the "market cap" people are talking about.

So it's not _just_ the buy/sell dynamics. Bitcoin doesn't have intrinsic value, and that's actually weird --- most other securities do. The most similar security is gold, which is like, 1% intrinsic value and 99% this type of speculative logic. The difference is that gold is unique --- bitcoin isn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> That's one of the main caveats of the entire cryptocurrency effort: the exchanges. Unfortunately for investors, the prices don't reflect the actual projects (and honestly why would you expect them to), and for the developers they have to operate under these expectations of performance for what are essentially experiments that need time to mature.

What these projects are trying to do and the things they've already achieved is just amazing and really exciting. When you actually use this stuff instead of just HODling it, you realize why it has value.

Should these crytpocurrencies actually cost this much at this point? Would bitcoin be any less useful if it was worth $5 instead of $20k? Probably not and definitely not. These things aren't the sort of assets we're used to. It's not like an equity share of the company that makes the car--it is the car. We need to actually start driving for it to be worth anything in the long term.

</comment><comment><USER32> Why is the fact that arbitrage is harder with btc a disadvantage? And the fact that the "price" reflects recent sales rather than future sales seems, well, obvious, and identical to other securities/commodities.

<comment><USER33> > Why is the fact that arbitrage is harder with btc a disadvantage

Arbitrage is the method by which segregated markets are aggregated into a single market with a common price; if that is harder you have segregated markets.

> And the fact that the "price" reflects recent sales rather than future sales > seems, well, obvious, and identical to other securities/commodities.

The same issue is raised with commodity/security markets in general, but it's practically more significant when the market(s) for a product have significant liquidity issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm cashing out a little bit every month. I already made back more than 10x my investment, so it's free money going forward.

</comment><comment><USER35> "The important thing about securities regulations is that every single one is there because someone ripped a lot of people off that way."

Yup. You can argue about how to apply them in any given situation, but if you want a fair exchange, you will spend lots of time re-creating most of the regulatory environment.

</comment><comment><USER36> I think the comparison of bitcoin with gold is a better one than stocks. The value of gold today is not tied to the underlying precious metal any more. Gold is kept in vaults likely never to be looked at or touched. It might as well be a digital number. Instead gold is a place to store capital with a value agreed between buyers and sellers. It is limited in quantity and is very difficult to copy. Bitcoin is quite similar is many respects. It also doesn't have to be stored and corrupt governments cant easily steal it.

</comment><comment><USER37> This article is pure FUD with lies.

1) The spread is not "plus or minus $500", it's a lot less. See for yourself:

[http://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD](http://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD)

At this particular moment the spread is $23 on Bitstamp, zero on GDAX, $11 on Bitfinex, zero on Kraken, zero on it it (where "zero" is something under a dollar, there's not enough precision to display it).

2) Yes, you can cash out, a lot. There are dozens of huge exchanges where the daily volume is in billions.

[https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets)

For instance, Bitfinex USD/BTC 24-hr volume is $1.2 billion.

And that's just one currency pair on one exchange.

<comment><USER38> You can't get dollars out of bitfinex.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had a commenter on the original post claiming he'd gotten millions of dollars out of Bitfinex two months ago! I pointed out this was actually news, and asked who the sending bank was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> From the article: In normal securities trading, if a share is listed on multiple exchanges, orders will often be applied via smart order routing — so that a given buy or sell order is in the context of all the order books for that stock. This avoids liquidity fragmentation

By definition, if you have multiple exchanges - your liquidity is already fragmented. In the US Equity Market - you're also not obligated to route to dark pools - only exchanges have order protection. And maybe 30%+ of volume trades on the dark pools.

The bitcoin exchanges do publish market data - so its up to arbitrageurs to step in and bring markets in line. We're still in the early stages - and I expect bitcoin futures and wider adoption of new concepts (like continuous swaps) to alleviate some of the price differences.

</comment><comment><USER39> This is pretty much spot-on. Almost all of the 'value' that Bitcoin currently has is hype and insane over-inflation. I weep for those that won't be able to cash out on the exchanges when the price crashes, and they lose all their money.

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure if it is an illusion of safety, because the infrastructure around Bitcoin (which itself seems safe) is remarkably better now than it was 5 or 6 years ago. This is nothing like how wild it was then, so in comparison, it seems like it is almost regulated.

<comment><USER40> Says who? Most of the popular exchanges don't trade in USD, they trade in Tethers, which only have a promise, not a basic audit, that they are backed by actual USD.

<comment><USER13> Everybody knows Tethers are worthless, and "backed" by a flimsy promise that they are not backed by anything. I would say that this is remarkably transparent that the Emporer has no clothes. Compared to Mt Gox, which I suspected was insolvent from their actions only while the world kept on believing. This is a major improvement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I am not going to defend bitcoin's thin markets but here are couple of things I noted:

First, _Quoting a number like "$19699.46" to seven significant figures when your data's got a 5% spread would get your high school physics teacher slapping you upside the head. It's entirely deceptive. It should say something like "$19,700 plus or minus $500 depending," and that line graph should be a thick grey bar._

The question is does the 5% spread change my buying price? I need to buy a bitcoin. Will coinbase honor the price when order is placed ie if it shows $19700 then will it let me buy 0.1 BTC at this price? Similarly, will it allow me to sell them back at whatever price they show on screen? If yes, how does it matter?

Sure, if coinbase cannot honor the price and let's in a huge slippage [1], then that is a concern. Though in most cases where they see markets moving too fast for them, they have routinely shut down trading.

Second, in stock markets it is not about smart order routing but NBBO or nation best bid and offer. Brokers need to route orders to best price available else they are liable for damages. There are no such rules in bitcoin. And as the article notes, there are issues in getting the best price available due to transaction times. In which case, coinbase can set whatever price they want. But if they honor it, there is not much to talk about.

[1] [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/slippage.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/slippage.asp)

<comment><USER42> > Will coinbase honor the price when order is placed ie if it shows $19700 > then will it let me buy 0.1 BTC at this price?

No, neither the price at which they actually allow you to buy or sell BTC matches the price they display. They set the price for you, which is different in both operations (and on top they charge a fee). GDAX on the other hand (same company as coinbase, different service) is an actual market where you can place orders at whatever price you want, and somebody will take them if your price matches theirs.

<comment><USER41> It seems you misunderstood the point. So let me re-phrase as per what you said:

> They set the price for you

>> Will coinbase honor the price _they set_ when order is placed ie if it is _set_ $19700 then will it let me buy 0.1 BTC at this price?

In which case, the _spread_ question is only about whether there is a huge _spread_ between the display (average) price and their _set_ price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Any price is just the amount someone is willing to pay. This is why prices change even for things that _do_ have intrinsic value like food commodities, oil, etc.

More specifically, price is a function of supply and demand. Bitcoin was created with a very specific bootstrapping plan baked into the design.

What people are missing is that the bootstrapping plan is well known and obvious to investors, and is meant to incentivize a speculative motivation for mining, which it has done successfully.

But think about it this way, the price of a currency is only loosely linked to supply and demand. Nobody really knows how many dollars exist, yet the currency has characteristics that make it trustworthy.

Bitcoin is the same phenomenon. The price is based on the success of the governance model and the appealing characteristics of the ecosystem.

Based on these appealing characteristics, there is the widespread expectation that Bitcoin will _win_ market share from other currencies over the long term.

We know there will be a finite number of Bitcoin mined, what we don't know is how much market share Bitcoin will have in comparison to other currencies.

Market share is not a function of money supply as much as it is a function of the holders of the currency that rely on the currency because of its governance mechanism, fungibility, etc. Many countries hold USD in reserve because they find the governance characteristics of the USD appealing. Bitcoin is just a novel way of doing currency governance.

For all uses of currency other than holding inventory, the governance mechanism matters very little, since there is little risk exposure to price fluctuations or the risks associated with bad governance.

Critiques of Bitcoin get mired in an imprecise understanding of all of the above, but the most notable blind spot is that Bitcoin is a governance mechanism first and a currency second, and investors are pleased because the governance mechanism has been tested a few times and has (thus far) performed admirably.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm not sure the headline is at all connected to the article.

The article points out very real concerns with exchanges.

But there is such a thing as a "strike price" when converting BTC to fiat, just like there is in the stock market.

When you sell (or buy) your coins on Coinbase, it gives you a strike price that updates periodically. But when you hit the submit button, that transaction is locked in, so you know exactly the amount that will be transferred to (or from) your traditional bank account.

There are very real flaws in the current exchanges, but "price being fictional" isn't any more real than it is on the traditional stock market.

</comment><comment><USER45> A normal corporate stock price and hence market capitalization, is entirely a function of its actual book value (assets minus liabilities) and a factor representing expectations of future profits.

Bitcoins price and hence market capitalization, is entirely based on speculative buying and selling. It has no value if there are no speculative buyers, and that day will come.

What really saddens me is that the noble aspirations of Bitcoin being a decentralized, transparent medium of exchange and store of value, have been so totally crushed in the face of crazy bubble scale speculation.

</comment><comment><USER46> imo this is basic supply and demand.

Bitcoin comes into this world at a fixed supply rate. Demand is currently exceeding supply, so the price goes up. With bitcoin so far, the higher the price, the more press is generated, which increases demand, so we have a feedback loop.

The only difference is, demand can change very quickly, causing drastic swings in price. Which then generates press, which generates demand.

Most every crypto currency will follow the same model. As long as enough demand outpaces supply, the price will rise.

<comment><USER47> >With bitcoin so far, the higher the price, the more press is generated, which increases demand, so we have a feedback loop.

The technical term for this feedback loop is "bubble".

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Bitcoin is just a dressed up pyramid scheme to enrich ones at the top. The lack of oversight and regulation is pretty much a welcome sign for every scammer in the world.

<comment><USER49> We don't need to make this general comment on every specific Bitcoin thread. A pyramid scheme requires a central actor to run the scheme, Bitcoin has none. This article is specifically about the author's opinion of what "price" and "market cap" mean in the context of Bitcoin.

<comment><AUTHOR> It can reasonably be called a headless ponzi, I think.

[https://prestonbyrne.com/2017/12/08/bitcoin_ponzi/](https://prestonbyrne.com/2017/12/08/bitcoin_ponzi/)

<comment><USER49> A Ponzi scheme's definition relies even more on a central actor, meaning Bitcoin by definition, is not one. The author of the article you linked to makes this clear, and goes on to make false claims.

>it promises insane investment returns

Nothing in the Bitcoin spec promises insane investment returns, internet comments saying "buy bitcoin!" are not part of the Bitcoin spec. This is vastly different than a Ponzi and hard to link to Bitcoin itself, even abstractly.

Again, the author relies on many false truths and abstract concepts:

>turning every victim of the scheme into a new principal as they talk up their books for the purpose of recruiting new investors to subsidize their exits

If 1 person has bought Bitcoin or suggested another buy it for any reason other than driving up the price, this is instantly false.

In pyramid and Ponzi schemes, the scheme is not abstract, it is run by actual people. The endlessly rehashed argument that Bitcoin _is_ a Ponzi scheme relies on these actors being represented by abstract notions, like comments on a message board.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> edit: removing because I don't enjoy getting into internet arguments. All the best to you.

<comment><USER51> FYI OP claims $400mm USD was withdrawn to make a counterpoint about liquidity, but did not specify the exchange. Not sure why this would generate an argument? In addition, how can anyone infer that a sell indicates liquidity? A sell on an exchange only indicates one asset was exchanged for another.

FWIW I saw several large buys on the GDAX history today at the $18.4k price point. One was for 36 bitcoins, and I've never seen a purchase over 5. I shortly after saw another for 18.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Can someone weigh in on the relatively large difference in prices between various exchanges. I have always mentally chalked it up to friction--caused by the fees of converting from fiat to bitcoin--eating up all the edge in the arb. Is that all it is?

[1] [https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/btc/markets/USD](https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/btc/markets/USD)

<comment><USER53> the exchanges I looked at with the lowest prices didn't have a way to buy/sell with USD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> It's getting more upset, day by day, to see that how intelligent people's mind tricked by talking about the energy cost of a trading tool. Same goes for "follow the money,... if you can't; force people to make their money be traceable"..

1.Why don't we try to find new energy sources. ( If I start to travel at light speed, will you still blame me -us, whoever- to use a lot of energy. ) Or should we stand in a state ,we curve dots on the rock, to keep track of our beloved money.

2.Why can't we find another way to fight with crime -or generally bad ,evil whatever you want to define -. If one of -ancient- way of fight fails.

Does constant observation of the subject, is a scientific method to control environment, that you responsible to keep at a peaceful state.

Will you blame god -or some other exterior source of what you believe to make that happen (luck,... )? If you lose one of your eyes, or ear -which is an interface -tool- to collect information around -what ever you believe exterior, external...) Or continue with other -what you have currently- to continue operating in a healthy state.

</comment><comment><USER55> You can indeed cash out Bitcoin and the number is reasonably accurate... up to a certain amount. $100? Sure. $1000? Yeah. $10k? That's alright too. $100k and upwards is when your order might actually start having an effect on your exchange to shift the price upwards or downwards.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> (author here) I originally submitted this with just the second part of the title, 'cos Part 1 doesn't deliver on "why you can't cash out". I expect two or three more parts, that answer the question: KYC/AML, oddly-convenient ineptitude, and hoo boy Tethers.

<comment><USER56> This article is completely overblown and full of made up nonsense. It's super easy to sell BTC and on a decent exchange like GDAX you can sell a million dollars via market order right now with less than $100 slippage. That's 0.5%. They will then send it to your bank account in 24 hours no problem whatsoever. I don't know where you are seeing a 5% spread but certainly not on the major exchanges. Spoofing and all that nonsense doesn't prevent anyone from selling at a decent price, I know this for a fact cause I've done it multiple times in the last few weeks.

You should buy and sell some BTC on a big exchange before you make these nonsense claims.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Don't most of the massive cash outs happen off-exchange between two parties agreeing on a price?

<comment><USER58> yes and no, exchanges like Coin Floor let you pick an amount and price, then auto match buy offers with sale offers. so its technically on the exchange and between two parties.

<comment><USER57> What about selling a hardware wallet with something like an OpenDime?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Why can't another service provider provide best-effort execution? Suppose you had a reserve of btc and trading accounts on the various exchanges. Couldn't a customer come to you, ask for some btc, and you could quote them the best price + fees?

</comment><comment><USER24> This article is total trash. Liquidity is always a factor in any asset that you buy or sell, whether its a stock, a bond, a work of fine art, or a bitcoin. All prices are fictional until you execute a contract and receive payment for a sale.

</comment><comment><USER60> SALT Lending has an interesting take on this that is actually healthy for crypto. They say never cash out and lose your crypto. It's hard to argue with that point. Remember there were people that cashed out Bitcoin at $100.

</comment><comment><USER61> I've been very happy doing my bitcoin trading through ETFs and equities in Charles Schwab.

Not sure if the upside is as strong but it's definitely skyrocketed multiples times in the past few weeks without any of the "hassle" of bitcoin trading.

</comment><comment><USER62> The best long term failure of bitcoin argument I've heard is that when bitcoins stop minting, that transaction fees won't be enough to maintain the "mining" pools and you might get 51% attacks.

</comment><comment><USER63> This is a pretty appropiate video for this post: [https://youtu.be/hAQA_29Htts](https://youtu.be/hAQA_29Htts) fugazi?

</comment><comment><USER64> I completely agree that it is the wild west and given certain scenarios you would not be able to reliably cash out. However, I have had no issues cashing out so far.

</comment><comment><USER65> This is just FUD. As others have stated I can cash out any time I want. I have USDT, localbitcoins.com and BTC ATMs at my disposal.

</comment><comment><USER50> edit: removing because I don't enjoy getting into internet arguments. All the best to you.

<comment><USER66> "replace bitcoin with gold" and you'd have a different article. One of the two has a many-thousand-year history of liquidity, and a lot more market demand and trading (on regulated exchanges) today.

<comment><USER36> I don't think the history of gold changes the argument here. As a store of capital gold has also been stolen by corrupt governments in history.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> All of the bitcoin craze comes down to this:

Do you know what's behind a fiat currency? A country

What is behind bitcoin? Thin air.

Yes, it is working really good for some people, but the logic behind it is flawed.

</comment><comment><USER68> >If you look at the spreads between exchanges — the different prices for one interchangeable bitcoin — you'll see spreads of hundreds of dollars, and in volatile moments it can be in the thousands.

that's plainly false. i'm not sure what exchange he was checking, but spreads for gdax (the biggest exchange) at the moment is 1 cent. [https://i.imgur.com/JCQfmkc.png](https://i.imgur.com/JCQfmkc.png)

<comment><USER69> >spreads _between_ exchanges</comment></comment>


Blink an LED with JavaScript – Spark Blog - <AUTHOR> http://blog.spark.io/2014/09/29/blink-an-led-with-javascript/ <comment><USER2> Am I the only one around here who thinks that Spark is a bit of an overloaded term in tech nowadays. There's:

      - Apache Spark project
      - Spark web framework www.sparkjava.com
      - SparkFun data.sparkfun.com
      - Spark.io

Tbh, I'm getting confused sometimes.

<comment><USER3> It's nuts, I think I hear about a new Spark company, product, or service every few days. Where's the company name version of this? [http://jezebel.com/imagine-typing-it-a-couple-hundred- times-...](http://jezebel.com/imagine-typing-it-a-couple-hundred- times-1451534249)</comment></comment>


PHP – Replace all whitelist/blacklist with allowlist/blocklist - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/5685 <comment><USER2> This is reaching a new level of silly. Blacklist does not have its origin in race. This is what happens when people have no knowledge of history but want virtue signalling to feel good.

The whole getting rid of the master / slave for engineering concepts isn't something I can agree with but I can at least understand it as without context someone may be confused about the reference.

But blacklist/whitelist... Has not, will not, is not a racial thing. The allow/deny list is just as bad because we're discriminating and segregating things! How dare we make choices and separate things that we consider good and things we consider bad. Maybe the lists should just be done away with.

This doesn't even account for the fact that all of this is myopic American centric culturalization of world wide technical terms. We want to feel good about being culturally sensitive but we're not looking at how cultures feel about this world wide.

</comment><comment><USER3> Too much, this is pure technical context, long time used terms.

What's next Cisco, Kernel, etc.et.c

"How do you Whitelist a Trusted Sender?" [https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/security/email- se...](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/security/email-security- appliance/118585-qa-esa-00.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitelisting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitelisting) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting)

</comment><comment><USER4> In computing, a blacklist is an access control system that denies entry to a specific list (or a defined range) of users, programs, or network addresses</comment>


Ask HN: Selling your successes on engineering teams at large companies - <AUTHOR> I'm at a FAANG company in an IC engineering role. I am paid well for my work, and like what I do.  But I hit a ceiling and was rejected for a promotion. This process gave me feedback on where I need to grow to get promoted in the "next quarter." It is also an opportunity to pause and figure out what I want out of my career.
The promotion wouldn't change my work, but it's a validation of some successes.
One negative data point was low git commits. I work in an ambiguous space with a new product.  I spend much time understanding the problem, org, and dependencies before I write code. Everything is decentralized and little is documented. The code solves for a well defined problem and doesn't need a lot of refactoring after launch. I also break down complicated problems into designs for smaller projects that other SDE's on the team can run with.  The low commits are a reflection of this.
From leadership books I've read like Good to Great, making space for others to grow and be successful is a key element of long-term success of a company. I have no regrets about taking on this mindset in my work, and have seen some peers I mentored get promoted. It feels good to see my teammates grow and our product mature. But I'm not getting the same support from my management chain.
How do you "sell" your successes with management and peers who are focused on micro details like commit history?  I'm feeling discouraged about staying on my current team. "Next quarter" promotion is not guaranteed.  My career is my responsibility but it feels like I've outgrown what my team can offer me, and I have a fear that this "stagnation" is now tagged to me, and communicated to peers and managers who were involved in my promotion evaluation.
Appreciate any advice from folks who've gone through similar situations and bounced back stronger. <comment><USER2> No risk, no reward. Internalize that.

I heard a story that that before Stan Lee had his success, he was ready to quit. He thought he'd take crazy risks since he was on his way out anyways. Well .. I did the same. Took some massive career risk, reach out to execs to show them my work, kept promoting my most impactful (and non-conformative) tech ideas. One of the executives who took me under his wing said I should just act 2-3 levels above my current level. I did it.. ended up getting a series of massive promotions without asking for them. Ended up doing this without leaving my org too.

You seem like a nice big brother/big sister dev. I'd love to have someone like you to work with. I have been there where I supported others and got zero recognition for it. It sucks. Key lesson from me .. no risk, no reward. Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is encouraging. I've been focused on "checking the boxes" for the next level. No reason to artificially limit myself or slow down.

I'm going to focus on at least 2 levels up no matter if I stay or leave. That will give me more growth and make sure the right boxes are checked come the next promo review cycle.

I never liked working to check boxes but it's a necessary evil of big companies I guess.</comment></comment>


React Native 0.60 - <AUTHOR> https://facebook.github.io/react-native/blog/ <comment><USER2> I just really can't see RN gaining much traction outside of experimental/small apps. You very much still need experienced mobile devs to debug the multitude of Java/kotlin/XCode/Android issues that come up because of how fragile the entire workflow is. Running a business on that is non-starter.

<comment><USER3> The Discord devs use RN and their app is anything but experimental or small. And there are by far not the only one (Skype, Instagram, Wix, UberEats, Tesla, Baidu, Salesforce).

Native devs don't like RN because the mobile dev supply gets bigger which hurts their market value. That's the real reason of your post, spreading FUD.

RN has its limitations but for 80% of apps it's absolutely fine.

<comment><USER4> I am quite sure uber eats is not using RN anymore (evidence here: [https://www.appbrain.com/app/uber-eats:-local-food- delivery/...](https://www.appbrain.com/app/uber-eats:-local-food- delivery/com.ubercab.eats)). There are many examples of companies abandoning RN, e.g. udacity, airbnb...

<comment><USER3> But the vast majority stays with RN.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. It's the same with Rails.

<comment><USER6> I love rails.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I tried Nativescript, React Native and Ionic. I've had previous experience with both React and Angular. I found Ionic to have the most enjoyable and cogent end-to-end experience amongst the three.

Interopt with Nativescript and other libs was hard, React Native didn't support Typescript as a first-class citizen (which as a prereq of mine) and the developer tooling wasn't as mature as the Ionic/Cordova/Angular cli(s) were.

A lot of noise around Flutter but haven't given it a try yet, but I'm weary because of defining views-as-code rather then a flavor of JSX/Angular Templates.

<comment><USER8> (Ionic co-founder here) glad you're enjoying Ionic, we're working on a ton of stuff to improve it even more right now. Have you tried Capacitor yet, our Cordova alternative?

<comment><USER9> Sounds interesting. We're looking into Cordova right now. Do you have a page which explains the benefits of this vs. Cordova?

<comment><USER8> Yep lots more info here: [https://capacitor.ionicframework.com/docs/cordova](https://capacitor.ionicframework.com/docs/cordova)

Also see some past blog posts with more: [https://ionicframework.com/blog/announcing- capacitor-1-0/](https://ionicframework.com/blog/announcing-capacitor-1-0/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://www.npmtrends.com/ionic-vs-quasar-framework-vs- react...](https://www.npmtrends.com/ionic-vs-quasar-framework-vs-react-native) at the moment react-native remains way ahead of ionic and quasar alternatives.

in real ionic is mainly about Angular while Quasar is mainly about Vue, so React Native must be mainly about React, which happens to be the largest framework comparing to Angular and Vue these days.

<comment><USER11> Assuming you are someone who thinks "number of downloads" is a proxy metric for "quality" or "developer experience" or "production ready", maybe.

<comment><USER12> This isn't some Oracle or SAP product your boss bought and forced you to use it...

<comment><USER11> Downloads != actually using in "production"

Not discrediting RN, just calling out that the number of downloads is a terrible proxy metric for quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So looks like upgrading existing apps to RN 0.60 is going to be pain! Same old RN story. So many backwards incompatible changes.

</comment><comment><USER14> Still a few bugs to iron out (esp. with React Native Maps) - but good work to the team on this one. The autolinking is a game changer. Also looking forward to giving Hermes a spin!

</comment><comment><USER15> Past discussions:

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20344705](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20344705) \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20360060](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20360060)

<comment><USER16> Second one has no comments, not much of a discussion.

<comment><USER15> Well seen! I should have said "past posts" instead

<comment><USER17> Though what's the point of linking past posts if they have no discussion? It's not like anyone would want to post in a dead submission.

<comment><USER15> To demonstrate that the same story has been ashtray posted another 2 times within a span of roughly a week. It has little value to repost it a 3rd time again.

Edit: interestingly, the most recent re-post did gain some traction this time!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lenovo.com defaced - <AUTHOR> http://lenovo.com/

<comment><USER2> This is vigilante justice. No authority held Lenovo accountable for their blatant and repulsive disrespect for their customers privacy, so someone else did.

Vigilante justice is bad, but lack of accountability for corporations when they pull off stunts like this is far far worse.

</comment><comment><USER3> Gotta love the tags <meta name="description" content="The new and improved rebranded Lenovo website featuring Ryan King and Rory Andrew Godfrey">

</comment><comment><USER4> It's [http://paste2.org/_M631b9cy](http://paste2.org/_M631b9cy) for the archive.

</comment><comment><USER5> Pasting such links is a bad idea. Flagged.

ESET Alert: Threat: HTML/Iframe.B.Gen virus

Edit: never mind, false positive.

<comment><USER3> Read the source. HTML/Iframe.B.Gen is a generic false positive.

<comment><USER5> Just did. Edited post. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am laughing extremely hard. Why is this so god damn idiotic?

</comment><comment><USER7> WHy does this work on my PC, but not on my iPhone?

<comment><USER3> DNS caching most likely, your iPhone is using a DNS server that has the old lenovo.com records in it's cache.

<comment><USER7> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>