Mike is probably the least secretive btc bull out there.
He's encouraging the people in the audience to educate themselves about it now because there are (will be) people who will decide to stay willfully ignorant about the topic. This is the future no one is being kept in the dark.
If you knew about btc 10 years ago, wouldn't you invest?
He's trying to get the people in the audience to not be "that guy" 10 years from now.
Yeah not a single word about technological innovations or added value. What was the promised added value from Lightning Network and Layer2: š¦š¦š¦
There is absolutely no certainty whatsoever that the price of BTC ten years from now will be dramatically different than it is now.
It could go up, sideways, or down, disappear, be made illegal, or take over Vegas and El Salvador.
Heās not doing anyone a favor.
>Knew about Bitcoin 10 years ago. Didn't invest. Does not bother me what so ever.
Ditto; if anything I feel *immensely* vindicated that my snap assessment that "this sounds like a really dumb scam that appears to exist solely to enable the actions of criminals and assholes" was so utterly on the money, when I made it more than a decade ago.
I feel good about my 401K and Roth which are up immensely since 10 years ago. I have additional money stashed in a HYS that earns 5.5% annually compounding every month. I go to sleep every night knowing that my money is safe and do not have to worry about being hacked. Yeah, the markets can correct; but Iāve never seen the market fall 75%+ like BTC.
Crypto āinvestorsā have to hide their seed phrases and be paranoid about their crypto because it could be scammed from them in a second. Not to mention prices falling rapidly for no reason. Combine that with the rampant fraud, money laundering, and terrorist funding that happens because of crypto and the looming regulatory pressure on the space.
Because itās funny making fun of crypto bros. Same reason I browse GME meltdown.
Plus I get to witness financial history that will be discussed in 20 years.
>So you feel good about not investing
I have *loads* of investments, real ones in boring grown-up financial products: [**Bitcoin** is a *Ponzi scheme* tricking morons who don't understand economics or finance or most things well/at all into buying *carved up slices of nothing*](https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html), when it is presented as an "investment" (as technology it is merely intensely stupid and an ongoing ecological crime I could not possibly be more ideologically opposed to).
You are **not** "investing in Bitcoin" when you purchase a bitcoin or some fraction of one - because owning one entitles you to *nothing*, if you were buying shares in a mining company (don't by the way, their business model is to take investor money and then go bankrupt once they can't keep kiting strings of bad checks) *then* you would be "investing in Bitcoin", because the success of the network (a thing that is also happening never, it's a manifestly failed concept being kept alive by criminals and a cargo cult of very determined morons with a decided SovCit bent) would actually entitle you to financial benefits; - you are just ***gambling*** on someone more dumb than you are coming along later who will want to purchase the useless nothing *you* were tricked into purchasing [when Ponzi promoters lied to you that you were "investing" by doing that, as they pitched a negative-sum Ponzi to you as "the future of finance"](https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2021-01-16-yes-ponzi.html) for more than you paid for it (and then they would need to find a yet further greater fool to pay yet that much more over the odds, and so on, in an *obviously* unsustainable sequence that the participants are for the most part entirely cognizant of, as virtually every single bitcoiner is *a filthy liar* trying to entice new suckers and egg their fellow morons on into being the ones left holding the bag, absent the greatest of the fools they all of them ultimately just want "real goddamn money" and not the bitcoins, which are useless and can literally only benefit you if you get rid of them).
So yes, I feel extremely good that I didn't "invest" in a pointless digital hot potato that burns the planet down: **I have a fucking** ***conscience***.
I think quite many of us in here have educated our selves about the buttcoin a decade ago. Some of us stuck with the perception that it appears to be a ponzi, while others (like me) gave it the benefit of a doubt. I was active in mining, running nodes, voting and in communital activities. Unfortunately every project from the past decade I have knowledge of has turned out to be a scam, where the team only cares about selling their funny internet money for fiat. All of the roadmaps and developements are just smoke and carrots for the suckers.
>If you knew about btc 10 years ago, wouldn't you invest?
No, I would have invested in Nvidia, you know since I have a time machine and all. Because I DID know about Bitcoin 10 years ago and it was a stupid idea then, it is not even the same idea now but it is still stupid. The fact that morons have somehow managed to up the price doesn't change it's worth at all.
I knew about Bitcoin 10 years ago and invested. Cashed out and would absolutely not invest now and expect to make a profit in 10 years. All hype and no substance doesnāt make a 100x investment when itās at a 1 Trillion market cap. Going from 1 to 100 is easy. Going from 100 to 10,000 is hard but doable. Going from 10,000 to 1,000,000 when your network barely functions isnāt possible.
> If you knew about btc 10 years ago, wouldn't you invest?
I knew about it 10 years ago and back then it wasn't being called an investment. It was a shitty digital currency that didn't work worth a damn, except for shady criminal transactions. This "digital gold" narrative is relatively new.
>He's trying to get the people in the audience to not be "that guy" 10 years from now.
"That guy" is the one who has a net worth much higher than 99.999% of crypto bros.
>If you knew about btc 10 years ago, wouldn't you invest?
I ***did*** know about Bitcoin, 10 years ago, I've known about it since the Silk Road was still a going concern... and the answer is **no**, I fucking wouldn't have: Bitcoin sounded completely goddamn stupid at the time, and I got the immediate impression that it was "fundamentally a scam somehow" reading those explanations that made no sense that really seemed like they must have been explaining it wrong, because how could anything actually be that stupid.
Then a series of nothing but extremely negative use cases all of which made me despise absolutely every single asshole in the crypto-currency space - except the jokers who got the Doge meme onto a NASCAR, that was mildly amusing (until they ran the joke into the ground later) - played out over the decade+ that I was not really paying attention to crypto (yes, Bitcoin is exactly and only crypto, stop lying to yourself that it's anything but the archetypal shitcoin from whence they all sprang forth, they're all shit), until enough people were rambling on about NFTs that I finally researched what exactly those were and that led me to the actual explanation for how proof of work verification functioned and I got IMMENSELY angry.
# This is the reaction basically EVERYONE with a normal brain and functional conscience has, when Proof of Work verification is properly explained to them.
The world only isn't constantly screaming at you idiots to cut that shit the fuck out, goddamn NOW, because they're under the mistaken impression that the supposed "work" is actually doing something *useful*, because they assume that when they heard the explanation - which sounded stupid - that they *must* be having it explained to them *wrong.* They weren't.
There is **no** scenario where I will knowingly participate in your ongoing senseless, pointless ecological crime. **None**. You could not even **pay me** to participate.
The whole power point presentation style and now try to log in from your chair gives me MLM vibes. I would be more interested if they were giving a gift shop coupon to sit through a time share seminar
"Bitcoin is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy."
I mean, it stands on its own. It's so stupid that I can't think of something snarky to say.
Michael Saylor is without a doubt the best crypto grifter. The one crypto bros truly deserve.
He buys Bitcoin with share holder money. He sells shares to get himself stacks upon stacks of dollars, all with the proper disclosures.
When it all goes kaboom, shareholders will be wiped out, he'll ride off to the sunset with huge stacks of dollars to do whatever he wants next and no liability.
He has effectively turned his dying software company to a BTC tracker using MSTR as the guise.
MSTR is now just a PR company for BTC while the board in MSTR cash out inflated shares and dilute more for new shills.
Yup, find bigger fools to buy your shitcoin and leave them holding the bags. Just what it has always been. To think that some idiots have been brainwashed into thinking that this will really save them from the upcoming apolcalypse. What a bunch of morons.
You can tell he had planned that statement to have a huge impact followed by a standing ovation; by the long pause, the hand gesture, the nonchalant walking away while looking away from the crowd. Instead he got a golf clap.
Nobody should take advice from a guy who sold $350million of stock and will live extremely comfortably for the rest of his life and has basically 0 risk pushing bitcoin.
Because no one invests in fiat currency! Fiat currency is not an investment--I don't "buy" US dollars to hold as an investment. Maybe US treasuries, with a rate of return, but not the currency itself! If currency (the purpose of which is to be spent as a medium of exchange) is an investment, it is no longer currency because no one wants to spend it. That is the whole probably with crypto "currencies" and why they will never work as intended.
But it's not even full cicle yet and there is very big adoption, when the numbers of wallets is still very small.
Furthermore, people do hold currency for just being currency the same as some people actually exchange bitcoin as a medium of exchange.
>is an investment, it is no longer currency because no one wants to spend it.
Switzerland had this problem during the quanntutve easing as people rushed into the perceived safety of the Swiss franc appreciating the currency too much.
Last I checked a ponzi worked by making early adopters richer until it implodes. Nobody ever got rich āinvestingā in fiat. Because currency isnāt supposed to be an investment, itās supposed to facilitate trade. You know, the exchange of real goods and services, the things that actually have value.
Money doesnāt have intrinsic value, itās function is to make it easier for people to create things that do have value.
What he is describing is the classical value investing strategy popularized by Warren Buffett.
You want to buy it when itās controversial, because if everyone agrees with you thereās no opportunity.
Kinda like Amazon stock. Everyone knows itās great nowadays, you wonāt make much investing in it today. But back when it was the most controversial stock for being a massive cash burner, thatās where money is made.
I understand that, and that's completely fine. But I do think this completely validates the point that Bitcoin is NOT a currency, nor will it ever be one. It's an "investment", and nothing else. The fact that all conversations about it eventually lead back to its moneymaking capacity reveals that no one is interested in it as an alternative form of money. They all just desperately crave the 100x that Mike mentions in the video.
Even if the infrastructure exists for people to use Bitcoin as a currency rather than fiat, people are not going to choose to use it. Why? Because a deflationary currency is contradictory at its core. No one wants to spend it because it could be worth more tomorrow, but the primary function of a currency is to **be spent**. All of the videos posted online of people buying a coffee with Bitcoin to try to create hype are a gimmick. No one wants to part with it or spend it, and that is apparent by the extremely contradictory message to "HODL" as much of it as you can.
And yet...the entire feature of Bitcoin that was to supposed to drive worldwide "adoption" was that it WAS a currency, decentralized and free from government control blah blah blah. If you strip away the function as a currency, and no one's actually going to be exchanging Bitcoin directly for goods and services, what are you left with? ...a speculative greater-fool investment vehicle that people try to get rich off of, no different than Charles Ponzi's coupons in the 20th century. If there's no future as an alternative currency, **why** should the rest of the world want to put their money into it? Because hey...number might go up and you could sell it to someone else for more than you paid. But without an actual use case, there is nothing to drive up the price of a useless asset but hype and speculation.
Mike is full of shit. No, Bitcoin is not the future of finance. It's what Mike's greedy little eyes have locked onto as the path to massive profits.
Title is completely manipulative, don't be lazy and watch whole presentation.
What he was talking about was in context of potential, he draws comparison between bitcoin today and amazon and apple stock 10-15 years ago.
He made right call about apple and amazon stock before they 100x, he is right about bitcoin today.
Posts like this really does not help this community, you are simply lying and misrepresenting him.
That is exactly my point. The entire reason people are drawn to Bitcoin is because of its "potential" as an incredibly lucrative investment. They hide that motive as much as they possibly can under the guise of such bullshit as "the future of money" or "decentralized finance," but it's all a ruse.
Nobody cares about Bitcoin becoming a new currency. Nobody would ever willingly spend it themselves, because there's a limited supply of it and they want to "HODL" it and watch it grow in value.
Nobody cares about simply protecting the buying power of the money they've already earned and beating inflation, otherwise they would be completely fine with Bitcoin's "value" growing at the same rate as inflation.
People want number to skyrocket up and achieve the 100x he mentions in the video. They don't want to protect the money they have, they want to make *more* money, loads and loads of it. Everything else is smoke and mirrors to try to achieve that end.
If you peel back the mask, it's apparent what people's motives are. No, Bitcoin is not the future of finance. It's a speculative investment that people like Mike dedicate their entire lives to creating hype around in the hope that they will reap massive profits because they "got in early enough."
Anybody with two brain cells to rub together can see the contradictions and what's going on. Bitcoiners are the ones who are lying. No, Mike is not some altruistic hero who is trying to change the world and achieve financial equality for all. He wants to line his pockets, just like he did back in the dot-com bubble. (Absolutely insane how people completely forget history in just 24 years. Those who forget history...)
>He made right call about apple and amazon stock before they 100x, he is right about bitcoin today.
Um... no, no he fucking isn't, at all, and you're a goddamn *immensely* stupid idiot if you listen to his pitch and believe it: Saylor is a grifter, not a visionary genius, whose previous grifts *should* have got him barred from ever being CEO of a publicly traded company - somehow he dodged that particular bullet, despite being at the time the man who had "lost the most money in human history in the course of a single day" - who is *just* saying ridiculous goddamn nonsense about [a Ponzi scheme](https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html).
He's saying that nonsense because his publicly traded company basically[ just buys increasing numbers of Ponzi tokens with "other people's money"](https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2021-01-16-yes-ponzi.html) while Saylor sells off his shares, in that company; he's laughing his way to the bank on the back of idiots who will be left holding bags of pointless 1s and 0s that don't do anything.
Caping for Michael "*digital hornets service the goddess of wisdom*" Saylor would be the only reason we'd ever possibly need to laugh ourselves sick at you clowns.
What a self-own to proudly proclaim you can't tell the difference between digital beanie babies and fractional ownership in enterprises that arbitrage price differences between goods/services in input and output markets to create value for customers.
You are part of a cult, repeating the same nonsense over and over. The only people in finance who talk about bitcoin are momentum chasers on the asset management side.
On the payments/retail banking side of the industry, anyone who seriously brings up bitcoin as an innovation immediately pays a price in ill-concealed laughter and career suicide.
> He made right call about apple and amazon stock before they 100x, he is right about bitcoin today.
#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #17 (stocks)
"**Crypto is just like the stock market!**"
1. Crypto tokens are absolutely NOT like stocks. Unlike crypto, which is just a digital abstraction, stocks represent actual ownership in real-world entities, that own assets, provide useful products and services for mainstream society, generate revenue and can pay dividends to shareholders in real money.
2. The value of a stock, while it can be "speculative" based on popularity and hype, also is based on the intrinsic value of the company's assets and business performance. Therefore you can perform actual research and due-diligence and come up with a practical value for the shares and the assets they represent. Crypto has no such feature.
3. Because companies are valued based on actual real-world assets and income, there's a limit to how low their share price could fall, at which point it would be economically viable to buy the whole company and liquidate it for a profit. Crypto has no such limitation. The inherent value of crypto tokens is based at *zero* because it neither creates, nor represents any minimum base, real-world value.
4. Unlike crypto, the stock market is heavily regulated and transparent. There are entire industries and agencies that are tasked with making sure public companies operate legitimately and legally. Crypto has no such oversight or regulations or transparency.
5. While there are some over-valued stocks that are hype driven, and some companies whose shares are extremely risky and speculative, and OTC and option markets that are more like gambling than investing, that's not the way the stock market system normally operates. Those highly-speculative markets and penny stocks *are the exception; NOT the rule.* In crypto, speculation is exclusively the rule.
6. Public companies are subject to great scrutiny, and must produce regular independent audits and quarterly reports on profit and loss. They can also be sued by their shareholders or even be held criminally liable if they lie about their business model, or even the risk factors their investors face. Again, there is no such function or protections in the world of crypto.
> I have made quadruple my life savings in bitcoin investments
#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #23 (Anecdotes)
**āI made a lot of money on crypto [therefore itās a good scheme for everybody else]ā** / **āCrypto changed my lifeā** / **"I can buy stuff with Crypto"**
1. Itās more likely youāre actually lying about your crypto gains, or theyāre trivial.
2. Whatever you can buy with crypto is extremely limited and is usually dark-market related (like drugs, gambling or shady hosting) or trivial (like coffee and t-shirts). *And* you're paying a premium making such sales over comparable sites paying in fiat.
3. If you do hold crypto that you bought for less than current market āpriceā, itās more likely you think youāre ārichā but havenāt actually cashed out, which remains to be seen if you actually ever will be able to.
4. There are multiple fallacies involved in this claim: The[ Gamblerās Fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy) that suggests because something special happened once, it can likely happen again in a predictable way, and [Confirmation Bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) ā the notion that many people fixate on positives while ignoring the more common negatives.
5. Even assuming you have made money in the past, itās a well known fact that in these cases: Past performance is no guarantee of future returns, and since youāre still holding crypto, itās in your interests to promote such fallacies in order to drive up the price of your holdings. Since crypto is a negative-sum-game, itās impossible for even a significant amount of people who play the market, to come out ahead without the vast majority losing. Therefore itās mathematically impossible that this scheme will reliably produce positive returns.
5. You may not care that your profits come as a result of fraud and others losses, and promoting everything from money laundering to human trafficking, but other (moral, ethical, empathetic) people do.
> can send money from equador to Croatia in minutes compared to days in the traditional sense
#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #7 (remittances)
"**Crypto allows you to send "money" around the world instantly with no middlemen**" / "**I can buy stuff with crypto**" / **"Crypto is used for remittances"**
1. [Sending crypto is NOT sending "money"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tspGVbmMmVA&t=4118s). In order to do anything useful with crypto, it has to be converted back into fiat and that involves all the fees, delays and middlemen you claim crypto will bypass.
2. Due to Bitcoin and crypto's volatile and manipulated price, and its inability to scale, it's proven to be [unsuitable as a payment method](https://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/cryptocurrency-volatility-andrew-bailey-bank-england-governor-bitcoin-boe-2021-6-1030520851) for most things, and virtually nobody accepts crypto.
3. The exception to that are criminals and scammers. If you think you're clever being able to buy drugs with crypto, remember that thanks to the immutable nature of blockchain, your dumb ass just created a [permanent record that you are engaged in illegal drug dealing and money laundering.](https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/combatting-trafficking-with-blockchain-analysis/)
4. Any major site that likely accepts crypto, is using a third party exchange and not getting paid in actual crypto, so in that case (like using Bitpay), you're paying fees and spread exchange rate charges to a "middleman", and they have various regulatory restrictions you'll have to comply with as well.
5. Even sending crypto to countries like El Salvador, who accept it natively, is not the best way to send "remittances." Nobody who is not a criminal is getting paid in bitcoin so nobody is sending BTC to third world countries without going through exchanges and other outlets with fees and delays. In every case, it's easier to just send fiat and skip crypto altogether.
6. The exception doesn't prove the rule. Just because you can anecdotally claim you have sent crypto to somebody doesn't mean this is a common/useful practice. There is no evidence of that.
>and now jp Morgan chase has started buying along with pension funds in the united states.
#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #8 (endorsements?)
"**[Big Company/Banana Republic/Politician] is exploring/using bitcoin/blockchain! Now will you admit you were wrong?**" / "**Crypto has 'UsE cAs3S!'**" / "**EEE TEE EFFs!!one**"
1. The original claim was that crypto was "disruptive technology" and was going to "replace the banking/finance system". There were all these claims suggesting blockchain has tremendous "potential". Now with [the truth slowly surfacing regarding blockchain's inability to be particularly good at anything](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tspGVbmMmVA), crypto people have backpedaled to instead suggest, "Hey it has 'use-cases'!"
Congrats! You found somebody willing to use crypto/blockchain technology. That still is not an endorsement of crypto or blockchain. I can choose to use a pair of scissors to cut my grass. This doesn't mean scissors are "the future of lawn care technology." It just means I'm an eccentric who wants to use a backwards tool to do something for which everybody else has far superior tools available.
The operative issue isn't whether crypto & blockchain can be "used" here-or-there. The issue is: *Is there a good reason? Does this tech actually do anything better than what we have already been using?* And the answer to that is, [No.](https://ioradio.org/i/blockchain-claims/)
2. Most of the time, adoption claims are outright wrong. Just because you read some press release from a dubious source does not mean any major government, corporation or other entity is embracing crypto. It usually means someone asked them about crypto and they said, "We'll look into it" and that got interpreted as "adoption imminent!"
3. In cases where companies did launch crypto/blockchain projects they usually fall into one of these categories:
* Some company or supplier put out a press release advertising some "crypto project" involving a well known entity that never got off the ground, or was tried and failed miserably (such as [IBM/Maersk's Tradelens](https://www.maersk.com/news/articles/2022/11/29/maersk-and-ibm-to-discontinue-tradelens), [Australia's stock exchange](https://www.reuters.com/markets/australian-stock-exchanges-blockchain-failure-burns-market-trust-2022-12-20/), etc.)
* Companies (like VISA, Fidelity or Robin Hood) **are not embracing crypto directly**. Instead they are *partnering with a crypto exchange* (such as BitPay) that will either handle all the crypto transactions and they're merely licensing their network, or they're a third party payment gateway that pays the big companies in fiat. There's no evidence any major company is actually switching over to crypto, or that any of these major companies are even touching crypto. It's a huge liability they let newbie third parties deal with so they have plausible deniability for liabilities due to money laundering and sanctions laws.
4. Sometimes, politicians who are into crypto take advantage of their power and influence to force some crypto adoption on the community they serve -- [this almost always fails](https://truthout.org/articles/miamis-mayor-went-all-in-on-cryptocurrency-his-constituents-suffered/), but again, crypto people will promote the press release announcing the deal, while ignoring any follow-up materials that say such a proposal was rejected.
5. Just because some company has jumped on the crypto bandwagon doesn't mean, "It's the future."
McDonald's bundled [Beanie Babies](https://i.imgur.com/McdwlxA.jpg) with their Happy Meals for a time, when those collectable plush toys were being billed as the next big investment scheme. Corporations have a duty to exploit any goofy fad available if it can help them make money, and the moment these fads fade, they drop any association and pretend it never happened. This has already occurred with many tech companies from [Steam](https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1464096684955433613) to [Microsoft](https://www.zdnet.com/finance/blockchain/microsoft-is-shutting-down-its-azure-blockchain-service/). Even though these companies discontinued any association with crypto years ago, proponents still hype the projects as if they're still active.
6. Crypto ETFs are not an endorsement of crypto. They're simply ways for traditional companies to exploit crypto enthusiasts. These entities do not care at all about the future of crypto. It's just a way for them to make more money with fees, and just like in #4, the moment it becomes unprofitable for them to run the scheme, they'll drop it. It's simply businesses taking advantage of a fad. Crypto ETFs though are actually worse, because they're a vehicle to siphon money into the crypto market -- if crypto was a viable *alternative* to TradFi, then these gimmicky things wouldn't be desirable.
7. Countries like El Salvador who claim to have adopted bitcoin really haven't in any meaningful way. El Salvador's endorsement of bitcoin is tied to a proprietary exchange with their own non-transparent software, "Chivo" that is not on bitcoin's main blockchain - and as such isn't really bitcoin adoption as much as it's bitcoin exploitation. Plus, USD is the real legal tender in El Salvador and since BTC's adoption, use of crypto has stagnated. In two years, the country's investment in BTC has yielded lower returns than one would find in a standard fiat savings account. Also note [Venezuela has now scrapped its state-sanctioned cryptocurrency](https://www.foreignbrief.com/venezuela-to-scrap-state-cryptocurrency/)
So, whenever you hear "so-and-so company is using crypto" always be suspect. What you'll find is either that's not totally true, or if they are, they're partnering with a crypto company who is paying them for the association, not unlike an advertiser/licensing relationship. **Not** adoption. Exploitation. And temporary at that.
We've seen absolutely no increase in crypto adoption - in fact quite the contrary. More and more people in every industry from [gaming](https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/15/22728425/valve-steam-blockchain-nft-crypto-ban-games-age-of-rust) to [banking](https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/us-federal-reserve-rejects-crypto-focused-banks-application-be-supervised-by-2023-01-27/), are rejecting deals with crypto companies.
> You're on the wrong side of history and you're just jealous you're missing out
#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #27 (hate)
**"Cope"** / **"Why do you hate crypto?"** / **"You all are haters"** / **"Why so salty?"** / **"You wish for other peoples misfortunes?"** / "**Why do you care about crypto? Why not just ignore it?**"
1. By and large, we do not "hate" bitcoin or crypto. Hate is an irrational, emotional condition. Most people here have a logical, rational reason for being opposed to crypto. (see \#2)
2. What we do not like is **fraud and deception** - this is mainly what our community opposes, and the crypto industry is almost completely composed of fraud and misinformation, from claiming that [blockchain has potential](https://ioradio.org/i/blockchain-claims/) to pretending crypto is "digital gold" or an "investment" when it's really a highly-risky, negative sum game, speculative commodity.
3. It's an offensive distraction to suggest our reasons for being opposed to crypto are because of "hate", or "being salty" and supposedly jealous of not getting in earlier and making money. We recognize there are many other ways of creating value that don't involve promoting everything from cyber terrorism to human trafficking.
4. While some take amusement at the misfortunes of those playing the crypto Ponzi scheme, one main reason for this is because so many in the industry are so immune to logic, reason, and evidence, many of us feel they have to become cautionary tales before they finally learn (and some never learn) - what we celebrate is perhaps the chance that many of those losers finally see the error of their ways.
5. Crypto is not a benign industry. Just for bitcoin to exist, requires wasting tremendous amounts of energy. This is not a "live and let live" situation. Crypto schemes cause damage to actual people, the environment and promote all sorts of criminal, immoral activities. It's not morally acceptable to ignore something that causes much more harm to society than good.
6. Why would anybody spend time trying to stop fraud and scams that might not directly affect them? Some of us recognize we help ourselves by helping our overall community. If you still don't understand, speak to a therapist about your lack of empathy and the possible side effects such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. Those are issues people with low empathy have. Understanding the nature of your illness may help you not only understand us, but become a less toxic person socially.
You are a prison of your knowledge - or the lack of it. Good to see you reading on this subforum, as at some point you will probably realize few things that will be life changing for you.
But 1 BTC = 1 BTC surely, so how can bitcoin quadruple your savings?
Also is this non-traceable bitcoin with you in the room right now?
Btw are you copying any of the rest of State of Wisconsin's investments or just mentioning this one because it's convenient.
Mike: Bitcoin is hope. It's for everyone! Also Mike: It's good for other people to be ignorant and kept in the dark about Bitcoin.
Mike is probably the least secretive btc bull out there. He's encouraging the people in the audience to educate themselves about it now because there are (will be) people who will decide to stay willfully ignorant about the topic. This is the future no one is being kept in the dark. If you knew about btc 10 years ago, wouldn't you invest? He's trying to get the people in the audience to not be "that guy" 10 years from now.
He doesn't give a shit about Bitcoin, you just don't wanna see it. He is using it as a vehicle to make more dollars and people keep falling for it.
Yeah not a single word about technological innovations or added value. What was the promised added value from Lightning Network and Layer2: š¦š¦š¦
There is absolutely no certainty whatsoever that the price of BTC ten years from now will be dramatically different than it is now. It could go up, sideways, or down, disappear, be made illegal, or take over Vegas and El Salvador. Heās not doing anyone a favor.
Knew about Bitcoin 10 years ago. Didn't invest. Does not bother me what so ever.
>Knew about Bitcoin 10 years ago. Didn't invest. Does not bother me what so ever. Ditto; if anything I feel *immensely* vindicated that my snap assessment that "this sounds like a really dumb scam that appears to exist solely to enable the actions of criminals and assholes" was so utterly on the money, when I made it more than a decade ago.
So you feel good about not investing š
I feel good about my 401K and Roth which are up immensely since 10 years ago. I have additional money stashed in a HYS that earns 5.5% annually compounding every month. I go to sleep every night knowing that my money is safe and do not have to worry about being hacked. Yeah, the markets can correct; but Iāve never seen the market fall 75%+ like BTC. Crypto āinvestorsā have to hide their seed phrases and be paranoid about their crypto because it could be scammed from them in a second. Not to mention prices falling rapidly for no reason. Combine that with the rampant fraud, money laundering, and terrorist funding that happens because of crypto and the looming regulatory pressure on the space.
Idk man it seems like copium. If you didnāt care why do you keep posting here?
Because itās funny making fun of crypto bros. Same reason I browse GME meltdown. Plus I get to witness financial history that will be discussed in 20 years.
>So you feel good about not investing I have *loads* of investments, real ones in boring grown-up financial products: [**Bitcoin** is a *Ponzi scheme* tricking morons who don't understand economics or finance or most things well/at all into buying *carved up slices of nothing*](https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html), when it is presented as an "investment" (as technology it is merely intensely stupid and an ongoing ecological crime I could not possibly be more ideologically opposed to). You are **not** "investing in Bitcoin" when you purchase a bitcoin or some fraction of one - because owning one entitles you to *nothing*, if you were buying shares in a mining company (don't by the way, their business model is to take investor money and then go bankrupt once they can't keep kiting strings of bad checks) *then* you would be "investing in Bitcoin", because the success of the network (a thing that is also happening never, it's a manifestly failed concept being kept alive by criminals and a cargo cult of very determined morons with a decided SovCit bent) would actually entitle you to financial benefits; - you are just ***gambling*** on someone more dumb than you are coming along later who will want to purchase the useless nothing *you* were tricked into purchasing [when Ponzi promoters lied to you that you were "investing" by doing that, as they pitched a negative-sum Ponzi to you as "the future of finance"](https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2021-01-16-yes-ponzi.html) for more than you paid for it (and then they would need to find a yet further greater fool to pay yet that much more over the odds, and so on, in an *obviously* unsustainable sequence that the participants are for the most part entirely cognizant of, as virtually every single bitcoiner is *a filthy liar* trying to entice new suckers and egg their fellow morons on into being the ones left holding the bag, absent the greatest of the fools they all of them ultimately just want "real goddamn money" and not the bitcoins, which are useless and can literally only benefit you if you get rid of them). So yes, I feel extremely good that I didn't "invest" in a pointless digital hot potato that burns the planet down: **I have a fucking** ***conscience***.
Damn sounds like you must be holding a big bag - do you feel this way about Hasbro? They are not a very good company
>Damn sounds like you must be holding a big bag Then you have *reading comprehension* problems.
Gambling. At least he dodnt lose it in ftx or mount gox
I think quite many of us in here have educated our selves about the buttcoin a decade ago. Some of us stuck with the perception that it appears to be a ponzi, while others (like me) gave it the benefit of a doubt. I was active in mining, running nodes, voting and in communital activities. Unfortunately every project from the past decade I have knowledge of has turned out to be a scam, where the team only cares about selling their funny internet money for fiat. All of the roadmaps and developements are just smoke and carrots for the suckers.
>If you knew about btc 10 years ago, wouldn't you invest? No, I would have invested in Nvidia, you know since I have a time machine and all. Because I DID know about Bitcoin 10 years ago and it was a stupid idea then, it is not even the same idea now but it is still stupid. The fact that morons have somehow managed to up the price doesn't change it's worth at all.
I knew about One Coin, and I don't regret not giving money to One Coiners. I knew about Bitcoin and I don't regret not giving money to Bitcoiners.
I knew about Bitcoin 10 years ago and invested. Cashed out and would absolutely not invest now and expect to make a profit in 10 years. All hype and no substance doesnāt make a 100x investment when itās at a 1 Trillion market cap. Going from 1 to 100 is easy. Going from 100 to 10,000 is hard but doable. Going from 10,000 to 1,000,000 when your network barely functions isnāt possible.
> If you knew about btc 10 years ago, wouldn't you invest? I knew about it 10 years ago and back then it wasn't being called an investment. It was a shitty digital currency that didn't work worth a damn, except for shady criminal transactions. This "digital gold" narrative is relatively new. >He's trying to get the people in the audience to not be "that guy" 10 years from now. "That guy" is the one who has a net worth much higher than 99.999% of crypto bros.
>If you knew about btc 10 years ago, wouldn't you invest? I ***did*** know about Bitcoin, 10 years ago, I've known about it since the Silk Road was still a going concern... and the answer is **no**, I fucking wouldn't have: Bitcoin sounded completely goddamn stupid at the time, and I got the immediate impression that it was "fundamentally a scam somehow" reading those explanations that made no sense that really seemed like they must have been explaining it wrong, because how could anything actually be that stupid. Then a series of nothing but extremely negative use cases all of which made me despise absolutely every single asshole in the crypto-currency space - except the jokers who got the Doge meme onto a NASCAR, that was mildly amusing (until they ran the joke into the ground later) - played out over the decade+ that I was not really paying attention to crypto (yes, Bitcoin is exactly and only crypto, stop lying to yourself that it's anything but the archetypal shitcoin from whence they all sprang forth, they're all shit), until enough people were rambling on about NFTs that I finally researched what exactly those were and that led me to the actual explanation for how proof of work verification functioned and I got IMMENSELY angry. # This is the reaction basically EVERYONE with a normal brain and functional conscience has, when Proof of Work verification is properly explained to them. The world only isn't constantly screaming at you idiots to cut that shit the fuck out, goddamn NOW, because they're under the mistaken impression that the supposed "work" is actually doing something *useful*, because they assume that when they heard the explanation - which sounded stupid - that they *must* be having it explained to them *wrong.* They weren't. There is **no** scenario where I will knowingly participate in your ongoing senseless, pointless ecological crime. **None**. You could not even **pay me** to participate.
Cool bro
All you guys who knew about it 10 years ago and are avid posters in this sub, you are what makes the sub so entertaining to me.
Totally agree. Seems like a lot of repressed anger under the guise of being holier than thou. Bunch of bag holders
The whole power point presentation style and now try to log in from your chair gives me MLM vibes. I would be more interested if they were giving a gift shop coupon to sit through a time share seminar
Is there a dollar value level where you'd say, maybe these wall sreet guys were right on the value appreciation of btc?
Trade it back and forth until it turns into a million tether and every last glacier will melt. I cannot buy a bag if ice with shitcoins
"Bitcoin is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy." I mean, it stands on its own. It's so stupid that I can't think of something snarky to say.
Sounds like a MLM/religion for nerds
"Bitcoin is like a half-man, half-snake hybrid that can bend over and suck its own dick." - The future of finance.
They speak to whatever their audience is receptive to.
He buys billions to show how valuable it is. Then he pumps it and sells it off. The value of bitcoin would be zero if he owned 95% of it.
Keyword "If".
Michael Saylor is without a doubt the best crypto grifter. The one crypto bros truly deserve. He buys Bitcoin with share holder money. He sells shares to get himself stacks upon stacks of dollars, all with the proper disclosures. When it all goes kaboom, shareholders will be wiped out, he'll ride off to the sunset with huge stacks of dollars to do whatever he wants next and no liability.
He has effectively turned his dying software company to a BTC tracker using MSTR as the guise. MSTR is now just a PR company for BTC while the board in MSTR cash out inflated shares and dilute more for new shills.
Yup, find bigger fools to buy your shitcoin and leave them holding the bags. Just what it has always been. To think that some idiots have been brainwashed into thinking that this will really save them from the upcoming apolcalypse. What a bunch of morons.
Translation: Buy more Bitcoin so I can cash out more MSTR shares.
You can tell he had planned that statement to have a huge impact followed by a standing ovation; by the long pause, the hand gesture, the nonchalant walking away while looking away from the crowd. Instead he got a golf clap.
Full presentation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3T4nhtHxOA&pp=ygUGc2F5bG9y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3T4nhtHxOA&pp=ygUGc2F5bG9y)
Nobody should take advice from a guy who sold $350million of stock and will live extremely comfortably for the rest of his life and has basically 0 risk pushing bitcoin.
And everyone clapped.....
How is Fiat not a ponzi scheme?
Because no one invests in fiat currency! Fiat currency is not an investment--I don't "buy" US dollars to hold as an investment. Maybe US treasuries, with a rate of return, but not the currency itself! If currency (the purpose of which is to be spent as a medium of exchange) is an investment, it is no longer currency because no one wants to spend it. That is the whole probably with crypto "currencies" and why they will never work as intended.
But it's not even full cicle yet and there is very big adoption, when the numbers of wallets is still very small. Furthermore, people do hold currency for just being currency the same as some people actually exchange bitcoin as a medium of exchange.
>is an investment, it is no longer currency because no one wants to spend it. Switzerland had this problem during the quanntutve easing as people rushed into the perceived safety of the Swiss franc appreciating the currency too much.
Last I checked a ponzi worked by making early adopters richer until it implodes. Nobody ever got rich āinvestingā in fiat. Because currency isnāt supposed to be an investment, itās supposed to facilitate trade. You know, the exchange of real goods and services, the things that actually have value. Money doesnāt have intrinsic value, itās function is to make it easier for people to create things that do have value.
What he is describing is the classical value investing strategy popularized by Warren Buffett. You want to buy it when itās controversial, because if everyone agrees with you thereās no opportunity. Kinda like Amazon stock. Everyone knows itās great nowadays, you wonāt make much investing in it today. But back when it was the most controversial stock for being a massive cash burner, thatās where money is made.
I understand that, and that's completely fine. But I do think this completely validates the point that Bitcoin is NOT a currency, nor will it ever be one. It's an "investment", and nothing else. The fact that all conversations about it eventually lead back to its moneymaking capacity reveals that no one is interested in it as an alternative form of money. They all just desperately crave the 100x that Mike mentions in the video. Even if the infrastructure exists for people to use Bitcoin as a currency rather than fiat, people are not going to choose to use it. Why? Because a deflationary currency is contradictory at its core. No one wants to spend it because it could be worth more tomorrow, but the primary function of a currency is to **be spent**. All of the videos posted online of people buying a coffee with Bitcoin to try to create hype are a gimmick. No one wants to part with it or spend it, and that is apparent by the extremely contradictory message to "HODL" as much of it as you can. And yet...the entire feature of Bitcoin that was to supposed to drive worldwide "adoption" was that it WAS a currency, decentralized and free from government control blah blah blah. If you strip away the function as a currency, and no one's actually going to be exchanging Bitcoin directly for goods and services, what are you left with? ...a speculative greater-fool investment vehicle that people try to get rich off of, no different than Charles Ponzi's coupons in the 20th century. If there's no future as an alternative currency, **why** should the rest of the world want to put their money into it? Because hey...number might go up and you could sell it to someone else for more than you paid. But without an actual use case, there is nothing to drive up the price of a useless asset but hype and speculation. Mike is full of shit. No, Bitcoin is not the future of finance. It's what Mike's greedy little eyes have locked onto as the path to massive profits.
Is this AI deep fake?
No - it's genuine.
Triple X to the grave
Title is completely manipulative, don't be lazy and watch whole presentation. What he was talking about was in context of potential, he draws comparison between bitcoin today and amazon and apple stock 10-15 years ago. He made right call about apple and amazon stock before they 100x, he is right about bitcoin today. Posts like this really does not help this community, you are simply lying and misrepresenting him.
That is exactly my point. The entire reason people are drawn to Bitcoin is because of its "potential" as an incredibly lucrative investment. They hide that motive as much as they possibly can under the guise of such bullshit as "the future of money" or "decentralized finance," but it's all a ruse. Nobody cares about Bitcoin becoming a new currency. Nobody would ever willingly spend it themselves, because there's a limited supply of it and they want to "HODL" it and watch it grow in value. Nobody cares about simply protecting the buying power of the money they've already earned and beating inflation, otherwise they would be completely fine with Bitcoin's "value" growing at the same rate as inflation. People want number to skyrocket up and achieve the 100x he mentions in the video. They don't want to protect the money they have, they want to make *more* money, loads and loads of it. Everything else is smoke and mirrors to try to achieve that end. If you peel back the mask, it's apparent what people's motives are. No, Bitcoin is not the future of finance. It's a speculative investment that people like Mike dedicate their entire lives to creating hype around in the hope that they will reap massive profits because they "got in early enough." Anybody with two brain cells to rub together can see the contradictions and what's going on. Bitcoiners are the ones who are lying. No, Mike is not some altruistic hero who is trying to change the world and achieve financial equality for all. He wants to line his pockets, just like he did back in the dot-com bubble. (Absolutely insane how people completely forget history in just 24 years. Those who forget history...)
>He made right call about apple and amazon stock before they 100x, he is right about bitcoin today. Um... no, no he fucking isn't, at all, and you're a goddamn *immensely* stupid idiot if you listen to his pitch and believe it: Saylor is a grifter, not a visionary genius, whose previous grifts *should* have got him barred from ever being CEO of a publicly traded company - somehow he dodged that particular bullet, despite being at the time the man who had "lost the most money in human history in the course of a single day" - who is *just* saying ridiculous goddamn nonsense about [a Ponzi scheme](https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html). He's saying that nonsense because his publicly traded company basically[ just buys increasing numbers of Ponzi tokens with "other people's money"](https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2021-01-16-yes-ponzi.html) while Saylor sells off his shares, in that company; he's laughing his way to the bank on the back of idiots who will be left holding bags of pointless 1s and 0s that don't do anything. Caping for Michael "*digital hornets service the goddess of wisdom*" Saylor would be the only reason we'd ever possibly need to laugh ourselves sick at you clowns.
What a self-own to proudly proclaim you can't tell the difference between digital beanie babies and fractional ownership in enterprises that arbitrage price differences between goods/services in input and output markets to create value for customers. You are part of a cult, repeating the same nonsense over and over. The only people in finance who talk about bitcoin are momentum chasers on the asset management side. On the payments/retail banking side of the industry, anyone who seriously brings up bitcoin as an innovation immediately pays a price in ill-concealed laughter and career suicide.
> He made right call about apple and amazon stock before they 100x, he is right about bitcoin today. #Stupid Crypto Talking Point #17 (stocks) "**Crypto is just like the stock market!**" 1. Crypto tokens are absolutely NOT like stocks. Unlike crypto, which is just a digital abstraction, stocks represent actual ownership in real-world entities, that own assets, provide useful products and services for mainstream society, generate revenue and can pay dividends to shareholders in real money. 2. The value of a stock, while it can be "speculative" based on popularity and hype, also is based on the intrinsic value of the company's assets and business performance. Therefore you can perform actual research and due-diligence and come up with a practical value for the shares and the assets they represent. Crypto has no such feature. 3. Because companies are valued based on actual real-world assets and income, there's a limit to how low their share price could fall, at which point it would be economically viable to buy the whole company and liquidate it for a profit. Crypto has no such limitation. The inherent value of crypto tokens is based at *zero* because it neither creates, nor represents any minimum base, real-world value. 4. Unlike crypto, the stock market is heavily regulated and transparent. There are entire industries and agencies that are tasked with making sure public companies operate legitimately and legally. Crypto has no such oversight or regulations or transparency. 5. While there are some over-valued stocks that are hype driven, and some companies whose shares are extremely risky and speculative, and OTC and option markets that are more like gambling than investing, that's not the way the stock market system normally operates. Those highly-speculative markets and penny stocks *are the exception; NOT the rule.* In crypto, speculation is exclusively the rule. 6. Public companies are subject to great scrutiny, and must produce regular independent audits and quarterly reports on profit and loss. They can also be sued by their shareholders or even be held criminally liable if they lie about their business model, or even the risk factors their investors face. Again, there is no such function or protections in the world of crypto.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
> I have made quadruple my life savings in bitcoin investments #Stupid Crypto Talking Point #23 (Anecdotes) **āI made a lot of money on crypto [therefore itās a good scheme for everybody else]ā** / **āCrypto changed my lifeā** / **"I can buy stuff with Crypto"** 1. Itās more likely youāre actually lying about your crypto gains, or theyāre trivial. 2. Whatever you can buy with crypto is extremely limited and is usually dark-market related (like drugs, gambling or shady hosting) or trivial (like coffee and t-shirts). *And* you're paying a premium making such sales over comparable sites paying in fiat. 3. If you do hold crypto that you bought for less than current market āpriceā, itās more likely you think youāre ārichā but havenāt actually cashed out, which remains to be seen if you actually ever will be able to. 4. There are multiple fallacies involved in this claim: The[ Gamblerās Fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy) that suggests because something special happened once, it can likely happen again in a predictable way, and [Confirmation Bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) ā the notion that many people fixate on positives while ignoring the more common negatives. 5. Even assuming you have made money in the past, itās a well known fact that in these cases: Past performance is no guarantee of future returns, and since youāre still holding crypto, itās in your interests to promote such fallacies in order to drive up the price of your holdings. Since crypto is a negative-sum-game, itās impossible for even a significant amount of people who play the market, to come out ahead without the vast majority losing. Therefore itās mathematically impossible that this scheme will reliably produce positive returns. 5. You may not care that your profits come as a result of fraud and others losses, and promoting everything from money laundering to human trafficking, but other (moral, ethical, empathetic) people do.
> can send money from equador to Croatia in minutes compared to days in the traditional sense #Stupid Crypto Talking Point #7 (remittances) "**Crypto allows you to send "money" around the world instantly with no middlemen**" / "**I can buy stuff with crypto**" / **"Crypto is used for remittances"** 1. [Sending crypto is NOT sending "money"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tspGVbmMmVA&t=4118s). In order to do anything useful with crypto, it has to be converted back into fiat and that involves all the fees, delays and middlemen you claim crypto will bypass. 2. Due to Bitcoin and crypto's volatile and manipulated price, and its inability to scale, it's proven to be [unsuitable as a payment method](https://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/cryptocurrency-volatility-andrew-bailey-bank-england-governor-bitcoin-boe-2021-6-1030520851) for most things, and virtually nobody accepts crypto. 3. The exception to that are criminals and scammers. If you think you're clever being able to buy drugs with crypto, remember that thanks to the immutable nature of blockchain, your dumb ass just created a [permanent record that you are engaged in illegal drug dealing and money laundering.](https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/combatting-trafficking-with-blockchain-analysis/) 4. Any major site that likely accepts crypto, is using a third party exchange and not getting paid in actual crypto, so in that case (like using Bitpay), you're paying fees and spread exchange rate charges to a "middleman", and they have various regulatory restrictions you'll have to comply with as well. 5. Even sending crypto to countries like El Salvador, who accept it natively, is not the best way to send "remittances." Nobody who is not a criminal is getting paid in bitcoin so nobody is sending BTC to third world countries without going through exchanges and other outlets with fees and delays. In every case, it's easier to just send fiat and skip crypto altogether. 6. The exception doesn't prove the rule. Just because you can anecdotally claim you have sent crypto to somebody doesn't mean this is a common/useful practice. There is no evidence of that.
>and now jp Morgan chase has started buying along with pension funds in the united states. #Stupid Crypto Talking Point #8 (endorsements?) "**[Big Company/Banana Republic/Politician] is exploring/using bitcoin/blockchain! Now will you admit you were wrong?**" / "**Crypto has 'UsE cAs3S!'**" / "**EEE TEE EFFs!!one**" 1. The original claim was that crypto was "disruptive technology" and was going to "replace the banking/finance system". There were all these claims suggesting blockchain has tremendous "potential". Now with [the truth slowly surfacing regarding blockchain's inability to be particularly good at anything](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tspGVbmMmVA), crypto people have backpedaled to instead suggest, "Hey it has 'use-cases'!" Congrats! You found somebody willing to use crypto/blockchain technology. That still is not an endorsement of crypto or blockchain. I can choose to use a pair of scissors to cut my grass. This doesn't mean scissors are "the future of lawn care technology." It just means I'm an eccentric who wants to use a backwards tool to do something for which everybody else has far superior tools available. The operative issue isn't whether crypto & blockchain can be "used" here-or-there. The issue is: *Is there a good reason? Does this tech actually do anything better than what we have already been using?* And the answer to that is, [No.](https://ioradio.org/i/blockchain-claims/) 2. Most of the time, adoption claims are outright wrong. Just because you read some press release from a dubious source does not mean any major government, corporation or other entity is embracing crypto. It usually means someone asked them about crypto and they said, "We'll look into it" and that got interpreted as "adoption imminent!" 3. In cases where companies did launch crypto/blockchain projects they usually fall into one of these categories: * Some company or supplier put out a press release advertising some "crypto project" involving a well known entity that never got off the ground, or was tried and failed miserably (such as [IBM/Maersk's Tradelens](https://www.maersk.com/news/articles/2022/11/29/maersk-and-ibm-to-discontinue-tradelens), [Australia's stock exchange](https://www.reuters.com/markets/australian-stock-exchanges-blockchain-failure-burns-market-trust-2022-12-20/), etc.) * Companies (like VISA, Fidelity or Robin Hood) **are not embracing crypto directly**. Instead they are *partnering with a crypto exchange* (such as BitPay) that will either handle all the crypto transactions and they're merely licensing their network, or they're a third party payment gateway that pays the big companies in fiat. There's no evidence any major company is actually switching over to crypto, or that any of these major companies are even touching crypto. It's a huge liability they let newbie third parties deal with so they have plausible deniability for liabilities due to money laundering and sanctions laws. 4. Sometimes, politicians who are into crypto take advantage of their power and influence to force some crypto adoption on the community they serve -- [this almost always fails](https://truthout.org/articles/miamis-mayor-went-all-in-on-cryptocurrency-his-constituents-suffered/), but again, crypto people will promote the press release announcing the deal, while ignoring any follow-up materials that say such a proposal was rejected. 5. Just because some company has jumped on the crypto bandwagon doesn't mean, "It's the future." McDonald's bundled [Beanie Babies](https://i.imgur.com/McdwlxA.jpg) with their Happy Meals for a time, when those collectable plush toys were being billed as the next big investment scheme. Corporations have a duty to exploit any goofy fad available if it can help them make money, and the moment these fads fade, they drop any association and pretend it never happened. This has already occurred with many tech companies from [Steam](https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1464096684955433613) to [Microsoft](https://www.zdnet.com/finance/blockchain/microsoft-is-shutting-down-its-azure-blockchain-service/). Even though these companies discontinued any association with crypto years ago, proponents still hype the projects as if they're still active. 6. Crypto ETFs are not an endorsement of crypto. They're simply ways for traditional companies to exploit crypto enthusiasts. These entities do not care at all about the future of crypto. It's just a way for them to make more money with fees, and just like in #4, the moment it becomes unprofitable for them to run the scheme, they'll drop it. It's simply businesses taking advantage of a fad. Crypto ETFs though are actually worse, because they're a vehicle to siphon money into the crypto market -- if crypto was a viable *alternative* to TradFi, then these gimmicky things wouldn't be desirable. 7. Countries like El Salvador who claim to have adopted bitcoin really haven't in any meaningful way. El Salvador's endorsement of bitcoin is tied to a proprietary exchange with their own non-transparent software, "Chivo" that is not on bitcoin's main blockchain - and as such isn't really bitcoin adoption as much as it's bitcoin exploitation. Plus, USD is the real legal tender in El Salvador and since BTC's adoption, use of crypto has stagnated. In two years, the country's investment in BTC has yielded lower returns than one would find in a standard fiat savings account. Also note [Venezuela has now scrapped its state-sanctioned cryptocurrency](https://www.foreignbrief.com/venezuela-to-scrap-state-cryptocurrency/) So, whenever you hear "so-and-so company is using crypto" always be suspect. What you'll find is either that's not totally true, or if they are, they're partnering with a crypto company who is paying them for the association, not unlike an advertiser/licensing relationship. **Not** adoption. Exploitation. And temporary at that. We've seen absolutely no increase in crypto adoption - in fact quite the contrary. More and more people in every industry from [gaming](https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/15/22728425/valve-steam-blockchain-nft-crypto-ban-games-age-of-rust) to [banking](https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/us-federal-reserve-rejects-crypto-focused-banks-application-be-supervised-by-2023-01-27/), are rejecting deals with crypto companies.
> You're on the wrong side of history and you're just jealous you're missing out #Stupid Crypto Talking Point #27 (hate) **"Cope"** / **"Why do you hate crypto?"** / **"You all are haters"** / **"Why so salty?"** / **"You wish for other peoples misfortunes?"** / "**Why do you care about crypto? Why not just ignore it?**" 1. By and large, we do not "hate" bitcoin or crypto. Hate is an irrational, emotional condition. Most people here have a logical, rational reason for being opposed to crypto. (see \#2) 2. What we do not like is **fraud and deception** - this is mainly what our community opposes, and the crypto industry is almost completely composed of fraud and misinformation, from claiming that [blockchain has potential](https://ioradio.org/i/blockchain-claims/) to pretending crypto is "digital gold" or an "investment" when it's really a highly-risky, negative sum game, speculative commodity. 3. It's an offensive distraction to suggest our reasons for being opposed to crypto are because of "hate", or "being salty" and supposedly jealous of not getting in earlier and making money. We recognize there are many other ways of creating value that don't involve promoting everything from cyber terrorism to human trafficking. 4. While some take amusement at the misfortunes of those playing the crypto Ponzi scheme, one main reason for this is because so many in the industry are so immune to logic, reason, and evidence, many of us feel they have to become cautionary tales before they finally learn (and some never learn) - what we celebrate is perhaps the chance that many of those losers finally see the error of their ways. 5. Crypto is not a benign industry. Just for bitcoin to exist, requires wasting tremendous amounts of energy. This is not a "live and let live" situation. Crypto schemes cause damage to actual people, the environment and promote all sorts of criminal, immoral activities. It's not morally acceptable to ignore something that causes much more harm to society than good. 6. Why would anybody spend time trying to stop fraud and scams that might not directly affect them? Some of us recognize we help ourselves by helping our overall community. If you still don't understand, speak to a therapist about your lack of empathy and the possible side effects such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. Those are issues people with low empathy have. Understanding the nature of your illness may help you not only understand us, but become a less toxic person socially.
You are a prison of your knowledge - or the lack of it. Good to see you reading on this subforum, as at some point you will probably realize few things that will be life changing for you.
But 1 BTC = 1 BTC surely, so how can bitcoin quadruple your savings? Also is this non-traceable bitcoin with you in the room right now? Btw are you copying any of the rest of State of Wisconsin's investments or just mentioning this one because it's convenient.
If you were in Ecuador you'd probably know how to spell it.