<story><title>Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO</title><url>https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/heed-warren-buffetts-warning-bitcoin-is-pure-fomo-2017-12-26</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>noncoml</author><text>&amp;gt; its a bad _currency_&lt;p&gt;The problems that I see are:&lt;p&gt;1. There is a finite number of bitcoins, which  means you can never have inflation, or in other words the bitcoin price is only going up tomorrow. So it doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense for people to spend it.&lt;p&gt;2. Mining. It costs a lot to mine a bitcoin. Imagine if the US government had to spend 1 billion worth of energy to print 1 billion dollars.&lt;p&gt;I think Bitcoin was designed to be analogous to gold. We stopped using gold as currency many years ago.&lt;p&gt;But then again, I know little about economics and finance, so don&amp;#x27;t take my word for it.</text></item><item><author>mholmes680</author><text>&amp;quot;Rather, dollars are a temporary store of value, a means of transmitting that value from one person to another. As Buffett says, valuing bitcoin is like trying to value a paper check drawn on a bank. Pointless.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I agree with the premise of the article, but isn&amp;#x27;t this quote a jump from that? Whats preventing bitcoin from being a temporary store of value to transmit from one person to another; Isn&amp;#x27;t there a second argument to be made on why its a bad _currency_ or not?  I think something like this article:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;view&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2017-12-27&amp;#x2F;bitcoin-is-an-implausible-currency&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;view&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2017-12-27&amp;#x2F;bitcoin-i...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dpc_pw</author><text>&amp;gt;  or in other words the bitcoin price is only going up tomorrow. So it doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense for people to spend it.&lt;p&gt;Yes. That&amp;#x27;s why I&amp;#x27;ve never bought a computer - next year there will be a faster and cheaper one on the market. And that&amp;#x27;s why people regularly starved before fiat currencies were introduced. They were just hoping they can buy more food tomorrow for the same money.&lt;p&gt;People don&amp;#x27;t need encouragement to spend. They need encouragement to save. Whoever thinks otherwise, should talk a bit about it with an average American.&lt;p&gt;Noone is going to stop spending because their currency will have 2% more purchasing power in a year. And the economy would run much better if we weren&amp;#x27;t wasting so many resources on shit that we don&amp;#x27;t need and never-ending boom and bust cycles.</text></comment>
<story><title>Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO</title><url>https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/heed-warren-buffetts-warning-bitcoin-is-pure-fomo-2017-12-26</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>noncoml</author><text>&amp;gt; its a bad _currency_&lt;p&gt;The problems that I see are:&lt;p&gt;1. There is a finite number of bitcoins, which  means you can never have inflation, or in other words the bitcoin price is only going up tomorrow. So it doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense for people to spend it.&lt;p&gt;2. Mining. It costs a lot to mine a bitcoin. Imagine if the US government had to spend 1 billion worth of energy to print 1 billion dollars.&lt;p&gt;I think Bitcoin was designed to be analogous to gold. We stopped using gold as currency many years ago.&lt;p&gt;But then again, I know little about economics and finance, so don&amp;#x27;t take my word for it.</text></item><item><author>mholmes680</author><text>&amp;quot;Rather, dollars are a temporary store of value, a means of transmitting that value from one person to another. As Buffett says, valuing bitcoin is like trying to value a paper check drawn on a bank. Pointless.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I agree with the premise of the article, but isn&amp;#x27;t this quote a jump from that? Whats preventing bitcoin from being a temporary store of value to transmit from one person to another; Isn&amp;#x27;t there a second argument to be made on why its a bad _currency_ or not?  I think something like this article:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;view&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2017-12-27&amp;#x2F;bitcoin-is-an-implausible-currency&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;view&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2017-12-27&amp;#x2F;bitcoin-i...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>adventured</author><text>&amp;gt; or in other words the bitcoin price is only going up tomorrow&lt;p&gt;That depends on both it remaining valuable technologically and in terms of adoption, neither of which will sustain over time. Bitcoin will die due to replacement if nothing else, the market will innovate until Bitcoin is worthless. It&amp;#x27;s AltaVista.&lt;p&gt;It makes sense for people to spend it if: 1) there is actually a bubble and the average value for Bitcoin over the coming years is lower; or 2) if Bitcoin is going to get replaced in the next 3 to 5 years and this general time frame is the highest Bitcoin will ever be.&lt;p&gt;In the best case scenario it may take a decade to reclaim whatever high Bitcoin puts in during this mania phase. That&amp;#x27;s typical of bubble pricing, even the things that have legitimate value often take many years to again reach their former high valuations. That&amp;#x27;s if it doesn&amp;#x27;t get supplanted in the meantime.</text></comment>