<story><title>Coinbase is exploring the addition of new currencies</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/07/coinbase-dabbles-in-shitcoins/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>khuey</author><text>Piles of cow manure are readily verifiable but have comparatively little value.</text></item><item><author>dnautics</author><text>Gold&amp;#x27;s value does not come from its beauty.  It comes from its verifiability.  If someone presents you a sample of gold you can very quickly verify its authenticity and approximate purity with very little technology.</text></item><item><author>CPLX</author><text>It’s nothing like buying gold. Gold is widely considered to be beautiful, and was considered a store of very high value in many cultures that were completely isolated from each other, and human desire for it has remained consistent for literally thousands of years.&lt;p&gt;Astonishingly, crypto even less defensible.</text></item><item><author>Moodles</author><text>Indeed Warren Buffet made a similar point: if you buy a farm, you&amp;#x27;re buying the land, the potential to grow crops that people actually consume, etc. whereas cryptocurrency doesn&amp;#x27;t really have a purpose except as a store of value. It&amp;#x27;s not a productive asset; it doesn&amp;#x27;t produce anything. It is a bit like buying gold.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=LtITDtZPYEw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=LtITDtZPYEw&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>muhneesh</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s call a spade a spade.&lt;p&gt;This market is a bust, and there&amp;#x27;s no value-driven economic model to justify cryptos collectively being worth $50B-$100B.&lt;p&gt;With any startup, there is an expected future value of the company discounted back to the present.  It then just becomes a risk-weighted probability question of whether that startup will achieve that expected future value in the expected timeframe.&lt;p&gt;Conversely, the valuations of the crypto market are driven mostly by momentum and prayers.  It&amp;#x27;s ultimately a case study of what happens when you mix unsophisticated investors, no regulation, frictionless market entry, memes as an investment philosophy (&amp;quot;HODL&amp;quot;) and the psychological highs of winning a lot of money.  It&amp;#x27;s gambling, not investing.&lt;p&gt;In terms of Coinbase - sure, they&amp;#x27;re selling pickaxes during a gold rush, but gold rushes end and the pickaxe salesmen go out of business too.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MichaelApproved</author><text>While funny, it&amp;#x27;s actually not easy to verify the &lt;i&gt;quality&lt;/i&gt; of manure.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Animal manures are a valuable source of nutrients for crop growth. But, since every farm operation is different, each manure will have unique characteristics. Make regular laboratory manure analysis an important step in your manure and nutrient management planning. Understand that the total nutrient content in manure is not available the first year and that some nutrients may be lost depending on management practices.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;extension.umn.edu&amp;#x2F;manure-land-application&amp;#x2F;manure-characteristics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;extension.umn.edu&amp;#x2F;manure-land-application&amp;#x2F;manure-cha...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Coinbase is exploring the addition of new currencies</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/07/coinbase-dabbles-in-shitcoins/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>khuey</author><text>Piles of cow manure are readily verifiable but have comparatively little value.</text></item><item><author>dnautics</author><text>Gold&amp;#x27;s value does not come from its beauty.  It comes from its verifiability.  If someone presents you a sample of gold you can very quickly verify its authenticity and approximate purity with very little technology.</text></item><item><author>CPLX</author><text>It’s nothing like buying gold. Gold is widely considered to be beautiful, and was considered a store of very high value in many cultures that were completely isolated from each other, and human desire for it has remained consistent for literally thousands of years.&lt;p&gt;Astonishingly, crypto even less defensible.</text></item><item><author>Moodles</author><text>Indeed Warren Buffet made a similar point: if you buy a farm, you&amp;#x27;re buying the land, the potential to grow crops that people actually consume, etc. whereas cryptocurrency doesn&amp;#x27;t really have a purpose except as a store of value. It&amp;#x27;s not a productive asset; it doesn&amp;#x27;t produce anything. It is a bit like buying gold.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=LtITDtZPYEw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=LtITDtZPYEw&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>muhneesh</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s call a spade a spade.&lt;p&gt;This market is a bust, and there&amp;#x27;s no value-driven economic model to justify cryptos collectively being worth $50B-$100B.&lt;p&gt;With any startup, there is an expected future value of the company discounted back to the present.  It then just becomes a risk-weighted probability question of whether that startup will achieve that expected future value in the expected timeframe.&lt;p&gt;Conversely, the valuations of the crypto market are driven mostly by momentum and prayers.  It&amp;#x27;s ultimately a case study of what happens when you mix unsophisticated investors, no regulation, frictionless market entry, memes as an investment philosophy (&amp;quot;HODL&amp;quot;) and the psychological highs of winning a lot of money.  It&amp;#x27;s gambling, not investing.&lt;p&gt;In terms of Coinbase - sure, they&amp;#x27;re selling pickaxes during a gold rush, but gold rushes end and the pickaxe salesmen go out of business too.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dnautics</author><text>There is a web service that sends animal manure to people if you would like to use it as a medium of exchange.</text></comment>