[Cryptography] On Security Architecture, The Panopticon, And "The Law"

[ianG]

On 31/12/13 06:40 AM, Robert Christian wrote:

> =========================
> Regarding calling it a bubble:
> =========================
>
> A bubble is “A theory that security prices rise above their true value
> and will continue to do so until prices go into free fall and the bubble
> bursts.”


Probably best put as 'price rises above its long term ability to deliver 
returns to the owners, ...'  because...

> To call it a bubble means that you must have a tangible grasp on its
> true value.
>
> Nobody knows what the true value is, but we know that:


There is no such thing as 'true value' in any measurable or definable 
sense.  There is only price on a market.  This might indicate today's 
'value' but it changes momentarily, and it's better to talk about 
today's price if one wants to test economic theories.


...
> If BitCoin saw only a 1% adoption worldwide, each coin would be valued
> at $31,000 US dollars. From that perspective, it’s a deal today at $750
> per coin.

 From that perspective, you have an expectation of future prices going up.

Hold that thought close.

> The point being, you can’t call it a bubble unless you can identify what
> its value should be.


Wrong.  You can't call it a bubble unless the people inside have an 
expectation that the price will rise, where that expectation is based 
more on people's expectations than the delivery of productivity and real 
returns.

Probably you're confusing 'tangible' value with measurable metrics in 
some physical sense such as commodities.

Payments are an 'information' good, sometimes called a virtual good. 
They no less valuable than say movies or web pages, all of which are 
virtual and intangible in terms of not being haptic or touchable.

A payment's value can be proxy-measured by transaction costs.  So, a 
wire has value, with costs from $10 to $100 with costs rising with the 
bank's incapabilities.  Paypal has fees of around 4.2%, plus the 
incompetence loading.

That's a value that people will pay to get that good.  BTC has clear 
benefits there that are definitely measurable.


> Today it represents .015% of the world's currency. The question we ought
> to be asking is, what will that number look like in 2014, 2015, and the
> foreseeable future?

One of the *symptoms* of a bubble is that insiders frequently talk it up 
  :)  That's a simple incentives result, there's no reason to believe 
that insiders have the lock on economic analysis just because they hold BTC.

Before we go further, why is it that Bitcoin community don't want to 
label their thing as a bubble?  Or a ponzi or pyramid?

Is it just because these are bad words, of poor respect?

iang