Everything The Felder Report Did Wrong About Bitcoin

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Bitcoiners are crying at former hedge fund manager Jesse Felder’s “inaccurate” blog post on Bitcoin today stating that cryptocurrency “makes no sense as an investment or currency alternative.” Bitcoiners seemed taken by surprise at the number of factual inaccuracies in the post from someone who worked in finance.

In his November 18 post on his financial blog titled “Please Stop Asking Me About Bitcoin,” Felder states that Bitcoin (BTC) is not used as a medium of exchange, nor does it provide any store of value. He also questioned the value of one of the cryptocurrency’s key characteristics – its scarcity, with only 21 million coins possible – stating that hard forks are “multiplying the number and type of Bitcoin in circulation.”

“If you put together all the hard forks that Bitcoin has undergone since it was created, the total number of Bitcoins has actually grown faster than the number of dollars,” Felder said. “This is a fact.”

However, that’s not a given unless you confuse BCH or BSV as part of the Bitcoin supply. Coin Metrics co-founder Nic Carter was quick to correct this, stating that “almost everything in this post is wrong” and pointed out that “hard forks have not diluted Bitcoin”.

The former hedge fund manager also said Bitcoin could “be supplanted by a better cryptocurrency” that hasn’t been created yet. More than one Twitter user She said that this would be “highly unlikely” due to network effects.

Felder also appeared to operate under the belief that the Bitcoin network itself had been attacked, rather than insecure exchanges or poorly secured wallets, when he claimed that “millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin have been hacked.” Has continued:

“Bitcoin can make a lot of sense as a speculation. Ponzi schemes can work great for early adopters.”

Felder’s confident claims about Bitcoin have caused many Twitter users to fight to get it right.

Bitcoin bull Anthony ‘Pomp’ Pompliano was one of the first to respond, calling Felder’s words “really inaccurate” and an offer to instruct the former hedge fund manager via a phone call. Alex Gladstein, Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation, followed suit, stating Felder was “too lazy to do the research” and out of his depth.

Part of Felder’s apparent confusion may be due to his claiming to rely on an “old-school definition” of investing, however the fact is that hard forks do not affect Bitcoin’s total supply of 21 million coins. Although hackers are able to steal coins from time to time, these crimes are generally limited to exchanges and custodians, phishing attempts and misplaced private keys, not to the Bitcoin network itself.

“Better to have no opinions than a poorly reasoned one”, She said Twitter user anilsaidso.