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The CBC reports, http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bitcoin-s-gender-divide-could-be-a-bad-sign-experts-say
Bitcoin, and the world of cryptocurrency, is a boys' club, say some experts, and that should be cause for concern.
Google Analytics results put the divide at 96.57 per cent men to 3.43 per cent women: https://coin.dance/stats/gender.
That's a huge red flag to Duncan Stewart, research director of Deloitte Canada's technology division. "It isn't merely that the value has risen as far and as fast as it has; it's the fact that it's 97 per cent men — that is, in and of itself, a potential danger sign," he says. "There are studies out there that suggest men are predisposed towards bubbles in a way that women are not."
Stewart made his case in a recent online post about the subject: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bitcoin-bubble-gender-split-says-probably-duncan-stewart/?trackingId=LlXWi2rCxUW0itfA92%2BhSQ%3D%3D
Stewart said he "cannot think of any security, currency or asset class in history that shows that extreme a gender divide and has been sustainable."
[...] Iliana Oris Valiente is a rarity in the cryptocurrency world. She has emerged as a female leader in this space and was recently chosen to lead consulting firm Accenture's global blockchain innovation division. Oris Valiente doesn't buy into the theory that an outsized amount of male interest in a particular asset in and of itself creates a bubble. "If we have primarily men involved in building the businesses and being the early-stage investors, they're likely to share the new tidbits and the new deals with their own established networks."
But without a major catalyst, she doesn't see the gender divide in this field narrowing anytime soon.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 04 2018, @12:42PM (11 children)
I have a feeling that most people who invest in baseball cards are also men. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 04 2018, @02:47PM (10 children)
If you want to put value into baseball cards, on the theory that others will value these baseball cards in the future, then, sure, no problem.
At least a baseball card is a tangible asset, with some assignable quality. After a crash, there's still some intrinsic value and a chance of recovery in better times that may come in the future. Bitcoin is a club of like-minded individuals trading money for an idea, and the only idea in most heads is that this thing is going to make them rich.
Has anybody done the zero-sum-game analysis on Bitcoin yet? When the crash to zero comes, it looks to me like the miners have spent lots of energy and hardware depreciation and received BTC which they have hopefully cashed out at least enough to cover their investment, but the straight BTC investors are just out cash, period, and the promoters and exchanges are just middlemen also siphoning out investor cash. If you aren't already on the cash+ side of the BTCcash relationship, then a crash to zero is just a total loss - no tangible assets backing the value (unless you own mining or exchange hardware), and no organization standing behind it in any way.
As for the sex bias, BTC interfaces are still very tech-heavy - nobody has made a Facebook or similar friendly way to feel good about paying for BTC as part of your monthly credit card bill. Might be worth the investment, more potential upside - the women of the world are not immune to gambling addiction.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 04 2018, @03:19PM (9 children)
Interesting. Now apply that same line of reasoning to every other currency. Yeah, there's really no difference. All money is only money because those using it agree to use it. No other reason.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 04 2018, @04:46PM (6 children)
BTC doesn't have a standing army with the potential to enforce conscription orders. Nor, a police-government-power pyramid enforcing taxes, eviction, etc. Nor, for that matter, a social security system.
So, yeah, fiat currency analyzed as an excised entity, an organ explanted from the larger state that sponsors it, is "just like" BTC... fiat currencies attached to weak states, small countries that offer no stability or power to back up the currency do tend to hyper-inflate and become worthless.
BTC has rigged a scheme to hyper-deflate, but it's not even attached to a weak state sponsor - and it has already managed to garner negative attention from law enforcement and other regulatory bodies of states that do have standing armies, etc. The only "power" behind BTC is the conviction of the people who have invested time or effort in it, and unless those people are willing to invest a lot more outside of just obtaining secret sequences of numbers that "prove" their ownership of some piece of this concept, I do believe the whole shithouse will indeed be going up in flames - my advice would be to get your kicks in before it does.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 04 2018, @05:19PM (5 children)
Three paragraphs of attempted refutation but nowhere in them is anything that refutes the notion that the only value of any currency is the willingness of those using it to use it. Without that willingness, it is not a currency of any value for all intents and purposes. No matter who says it is. With that willingness, it is. No matter who says it isn't.
The endorsement by a government does not give a currency value. It only stabilizes its market-driven value fluctuations somewhat.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 04 2018, @07:14PM (3 children)
I thought the problem with taxes was that they're taken at "gunpoint." Not a lot of willingness there....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 04 2018, @07:45PM
Don't point out the intellectual hypocrisy, it just leads to ad-hominems and pointless discussions where logic is ignored.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 04 2018, @08:26PM (1 child)
Your point? Mugging isn't by consent either but it does nothing to invalidate what I've said.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 04 2018, @09:19PM
If I've got to carry "mug coins" to pass a neighborhood without being physically assaulted, and I want to pass that neighborhood, then "mug coins" do indeed have value - and will be fungible for other forms of currency, goods, etc.
You don't have to like it, but there is a lot of value derived from unpleasant things.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 04 2018, @09:17PM
I thought that's what the whole armies, police, tax collectors and social security system were about.
They're not my favorite things in life, but they do put value into my US dollars.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 04 2018, @07:12PM (1 child)
Well, most of it has some other properties. Fungibility is one of those that BTC doesn't have (monero does though). Another property is the ability to exchange it in a timely manner. Theoretically, bitcoin will get there once Lightning is rolled out, but for now, it takes an insane amount of time to transfer it. And where did everyone go who years ago touted how Bitcoin didn't cost as much to send as money does with banking organizations? I've never seen a $20 credit card transaction fee...
Crypto is here to stay, I'll happily admit, but Bitcoin's days may be seriously numbered.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 04 2018, @08:28PM
Agreed. It was obviously designed by someone who was either shitty at economics or shitty at programming.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.