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Re:Bitcoin pyramid schemes wreak havoc on Brazil's 'New Egypt' by mrtksn on Saturday January 22, 2022 @03:42PM (#30040650)
It's a cash out opportunity for some but for others it's a medium of exchange. There are also quite a lot of ideological people.

If you believe that Bitcoin has a bright future and even may become a global currency, it's a bad investment move to sell your bitcoins at any time. Sure, you can argue that you can sell high and later buy more for less but that's timing the market and no one can actually reliably do that and as a result if someone believes that BTC will be huge in the future will never sell. When the mission is accomplished, they will use it as money to purchase goods and services.

Re:Bitcoin pyramid schemes wreak havoc on Brazil's 'New Egypt' by ChuckNorris89 on Saturday January 22, 2022 @03:59PM (#30040765)
>It's a cash out opportunity for some but for others it's a medium of exchange.

Here's a thought, if your medium of exchange is someone else's cash-out, pump-and-dump opportunity, then maybe it's not a good medium of exchange.

Re:Bitcoin pyramid schemes wreak havoc on Brazil's 'New Egypt' by disruptalot on Saturday January 22, 2022 @04:18PM (#30040918)
You make it sound like this is somehow a unique property Bitcoin. In truth, every asset and even medium of exchange can and has been manipulated for gain.

JP Morgan spoofed the precious metals market and got caught.

In the medium of exchange category, the forex market has been manipulated for decades.

You are more at risk of volatility and manipulation in crypto markets because they are immature. Bitcoin is still in the discovery stage.

Re:Bitcoin pyramid schemes wreak havoc on Brazil's 'New Egypt' by ChuckNorris89 on Saturday January 22, 2022 @04:29PM (#30041006)
>In truth, every asset and even medium of exchange can and has been manipulated for gain.

Well yeah, that was my point. That's why in many countries with rampant inflation they use USD or EUR, as mediums of exchange because they're currencies controlled by powerful economies and governments which have proven to be mostly stable throughout recent history, save for major disasters, therefore their currencies exert a large amount of trust and stability on the financial markets, vs BTC that fluctuates more extremely more quickly without any brakes from any government as the BTC you got yesterday for selling your PS4 on ebay could maybe now buy you a yacht or maybe not even a big mac.

Re:Bitcoin pyramid schemes wreak havoc on Brazil's 'New Egypt' by nradov on Saturday January 22, 2022 @05:56PM (#30041649)
The "evidence" of forex market manipulation seems to consist primarily of sore losers complaining that their trading strategies should have been profitable in theory but lost money in practice. Sure if you're trading some obscure low volume currency pair then there can occasionally be some temporary funny business, but no one other than central banks has sufficient capital reserves to significantly manipulate the major reserve currencies.
Re:Bitcoin pyramid schemes wreak havoc on Brazil's 'New Egypt' by mrtksn on Saturday January 22, 2022 @04:09PM (#30040847)
Maybe. But maybe it offers some value that is not found in the classical systems and for many people that's good enough.

Also don't forget that if it happens that BTC replaces the government controlled currencies as some pundits claim, there won't be pump and dumps etc. No one pumps and dumps USD in the USA but they do it in other countries.

A quick example is Turkey where the USD gained against the Turkish lira a lot and lost over %30 value overnight but USD is still good.

Re:Bitcoin pyramid schemes wreak havoc on Brazil's 'New Egypt' by ChuckNorris89 on Saturday January 22, 2022 @04:11PM (#30040869)
>A quick example is Turkey where the USD gained against the Turkish lira a lot and lost over %30 value overnight but USD is still good.

Your comment serves to make a point for strong and stable fiat like USD, not for Bitcoin which also just lost around 40% of its value in a month.

Re:Bitcoin pyramid schemes wreak havoc on Brazil's 'New Egypt' by mrtksn on Saturday January 22, 2022 @04:29PM (#30041004)
Only small part of the worlds population lives in a western democracy(about %10). People around the globe(the %90) pump and dump all kind of currencies all the time, including USD. Don't forget that sudden value increase and decrease cuts both ways. BTC is just like USD for a lot of people, just easier to trade.

BTW I don't hold any crypto, I simply find it fascinating and I think there's some merit in its ideas and technologies.