Misinformation Mondays: What Social Media Has Wrong
Bitcoin ≠ investment: intrinsic value confusion persists
We have Taco Tuesdays, and now we have Misinformation Mondays– brought to you by NFI. Every Monday we are going to issue the Misinformation Award to one person or entity and give our reasons why.
Why, and why now? Because misinformation in finance has crossed a line. There’s far too much of it, and some of it is downright irresponsible and dangerous. If AI is going to absorb this nonsense, process it in a black box and regurgitate even more nonsense, there needs to be a counterbalancing force. That’s where we come in.
AI may not be great at reasoning just yet, but one day it will be. When that happens, it better has some sensible content that it can learn from so it can reason properly.
Now, for our first award …
Adam Livingston, the self-proclaimed Bitcoin Wizard, earns the award for this post:
Why is this post misinformation? Because Livingston fundamentally misunderstands intrinsic value–making the same mistake as Pomp and this CFA.
Some argue that gold, U.S. Dollar, or even oil have intrinsic value. We’re not in that camp, so if Livingston is taking issue with that position, we don’t disagree. But Livingston’s main take seems to be something else entirely.
Livingston says:
The fools screaming "no intrinsic value" are conflating ontological value with pragmatic adoption curves.
What does that even mean? One reader wondered if Livingston is using AI to generate these posts. Maybe he is–and that’s fine–unless he’s using AI to make his thesis sound sophisticated to make it more believable.
Quick reminder Adam: using big words doesn’t mean that you understand the subject. Often, the exact opposite is true--people don’t fully grasp a concept and end up hiding behind overly complex language. Instead of dismissing critics as fools, how about investing some time into basic finance principles?
Here’s what Livingston doesn’t get: The no cash flow/no intrinsic value argument does not mean Bitcoin has no utility.
After all these years, we still can’t buy most things online or locally with Bitcoin that we can with fiat, so we’re skeptical of its overall utility–but we’re also happy to wait and see if that changes over time.
Even if Bitcoin eventually proves to be useful to everyone, that still wouldn’t change this simple fact:
One cannot invest in Bitcoin.
That’s it. Purchase it if you derive some sort of utility from it or speculate on it if you believe there’s another party willing to buy it from you for more. Just don’t buy it–or advocate for others to–as an investment.
