i don't really understand crypto.
It seems like a successful one required widespread adoption, yet being volatile and hoarded by speculators goes counter to merchant adoption. On the other hand one that is stable and non-volatile which merchants may adopt is not one which you can speculate on.
It is basically lose lose.
The price of many cryptocurrencies continues to move way up, they have been on a tear all week.
https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/#USD
Bitcoin now has a >$25B marketcap and Ether >$8B. There are 4 cryptocurrencies with marketcaps above $1B, 13 above $100M, and ~185 of them above $1M.
My once small speculative/experimental positions in BTC, ETH, DASH, & XMR are starting to look significant.
The price of many cryptocurrencies continues to move way up, they have been on a tear all week.
https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/#USD
Bitcoin now has a >$25B marketcap and Ether >$8B. There are 4 cryptocurrencies with marketcaps above $1B, 13 above $100M, and ~185 of them above $1M.
My once small speculative/experimental positions in BTC, ETH, DASH, & XMR are starting to look significant.
Congrats. I read the paper on this forum late 2011 and the high conviction posters were framing this as digital gold. I loved the philosophy of the paper. The math i didnt understand so i stayed away. For others to learn( myself):
1.) What was thesis when invested?
2.) What is current thesis?
3.) When is this vehicle a sell? Or riding it out using power law?
Thanks
-premfan
When your mechanic and plumber start investing and touting the wonders of cryptocurrency, you should start to get concerned! Both have tried to arrange meetings with me recently on how amazing and hot Bitcoin is, as well as they want to introduce me to their Bitcoin guys.
Also, the fact that Patrick Byrne is now spending Overstock.com money on this, should also concern people!
Cryptocurrency is the future, but the winners will be few and far between, like how Amazon presently leads the internet wars with the dead carcasses of its competitors littering the street or barely surviving.
Cheers!
When your mechanic and plumber start investing and touting the wonders of cryptocurrency, you should start to get concerned! Both have tried to arrange meetings with me recently on how amazing and hot Bitcoin is, as well as they want to introduce me to their Bitcoin guys.
Also, the fact that Patrick Byrne is now spending Overstock.com money on this, should also concern people!
Cryptocurrency is the future, but the winners will be few and far between, like how Amazon presently leads the internet wars with the dead carcasses of its competitors littering the street or barely surviving.
Cheers!
When your mechanic and plumber start investing and touting the wonders of cryptocurrency, you should start to get concerned! Both have tried to arrange meetings with me recently on how amazing and hot Bitcoin is, as well as they want to introduce me to their Bitcoin guys.
Also, the fact that Patrick Byrne is now spending Overstock.com money on this, should also concern people!
Cryptocurrency is the future, but the winners will be few and far between, like how Amazon presently leads the internet wars with the dead carcasses of its competitors littering the street or barely surviving.
Cheers!
Agree 100% when these sort of people are getting excited about stocks or real estate, or other assets they can speculate on, which have a maximum intrinsic value... the one difference here is that bitcoin has positive network effects, so hysteria/speculation can actually end up increasing their intrinsic value
Exactly. Similar to Facebook. The more people using it the more valuable it is. The only question is if Bitcoin is the Facebook of cryptocurrencies or the MySpace?
Exactly. Similar to Facebook. The more people using it the more valuable it is. The only question is if Bitcoin is the Facebook of cryptocurrencies or the MySpace?
I'm not sure if it is even comparable like this. If there is a huge advancement in social media, Facebook can simply change their core code to put that feature into it. Other smaller social networks did stuff like videos, live streaming, stories, etc first and Facebook adopted the ones that worked well. Facebook at launch was a wall that people can write on. Now it is very different.
The crypto-currencies are very limited in their ability to change like that. What if someone figures out something better than Bitcoin's block chain? It's almost certain to happen over time. When someone invents a vastly superior crypto-currency, is everybody going to stick with the old one?
Exactly. Similar to Facebook. The more people using it the more valuable it is. The only question is if Bitcoin is the Facebook of cryptocurrencies or the MySpace?
I'm not sure if it is even comparable like this. If there is a huge advancement in social media, Facebook can simply change their core code to put that feature into it. Other smaller social networks did stuff like videos, live streaming, stories, etc first and Facebook adopted the ones that worked well. Facebook at launch was a wall that people can write on. Now it is very different.
The crypto-currencies are very limited in their ability to change like that. What if someone figures out something better than Bitcoin's block chain? It's almost certain to happen over time. When someone invents a vastly superior crypto-currency, is everybody going to stick with the old one?
Over time sure something better might be found. Thus far it took all of human civilization to come up with a solution for the Byzantine generals problems allowing for the trust-less transactions enabled in Bitcoin.
i don't really understand crypto.
It seems like a successful one required widespread adoption, yet being volatile and hoarded by speculators goes counter to merchant adoption. On the other hand one that is stable and non-volatile which merchants may adopt is not one which you can speculate on.
It is basically lose lose.
When your mechanic and plumber start investing and touting the wonders of cryptocurrency, you should start to get concerned! Both have tried to arrange meetings with me recently on how amazing and hot Bitcoin is, as well as they want to introduce me to their Bitcoin guys.
Also, the fact that Patrick Byrne is now spending Overstock.com money on this, should also concern people!
Cryptocurrency is the future, but the winners will be few and far between, like how Amazon presently leads the internet wars with the dead carcasses of its competitors littering the street or barely surviving.
There are Bitcoin mixers which can anonymize your Bitcoin, but you could be correct. I am not concerned about the short term price though. If it falls by half or more it won't be the first time nor the last. I plan to hold for a decade or more.
We live and learn every day ...
http://www.ibtimes.com/wannacry-ransomware-attack-hackers-raised-50000-bitcoins-now-what-2539199
Yet by Monday morning, the London-based bitcoin tracking experts at Elliptic Enterprises Ltd. found only about $50,000 worth of bitcoin ransoms were paid, Bloomberg reported.
SD
We live and learn every day ...
http://www.ibtimes.com/wannacry-ransomware-attack-hackers-raised-50000-bitcoins-now-what-2539199
Yet by Monday morning, the London-based bitcoin tracking experts at Elliptic Enterprises Ltd. found only about $50,000 worth of bitcoin ransoms were paid, Bloomberg reported.
SD
Crime just doesn't pay... enough. 8)
Aren't these cryptocurrencies inflationary? As I understand that it, mining these cryptocurrencies does not create any real value, so basically, a fan cryptocurrency has a value, this means that the value of the currency we currently own is devalued. Right now, the total value of the crypto currency creates an s probably still too small to matter, but if it becomes significant, there should be an inflationary impact on the economies.
I also think that the government eventually will crack down on this for above reason and the ease to use it for money laundry. Sure, the government mayn't be able to control who owns it or who uses it, but if they make the use of he cryptocurrency unlawful, then the cryptocurrency would become a Mafia currency of some sort and be worth far less for most of us.
I think it is just a matter of time when this get regulated to some extend. This is now like the "Wild West", but eventually, the Wild West was ruled by law as well.
Aren't these cryptocurrencies inflationary? As I understand that it, mining these cryptocurrencies does not create any real value, so basically, a fan cryptocurrency has a value, this means that the value of the currency we currently own is devalued. Right now, the total value of the crypto currency creates an s probably still too small to matter, but if it becomes significant, there should be an inflationary impact on the economies.
I also think that the government eventually will crack down on this for above reason and the ease to use it for money laundry. Sure, the government mayn't be able to control who owns it or who uses it, but if they make the use of he cryptocurrency unlawful, then the cryptocurrency would become a Mafia currency of some sort and be worth far less for most of us.
I think it is just a matter of time when this get regulated to some extend. This is now like the "Wild West", but eventually, the Wild West was ruled by law as well.
"If you bought $100 of bitcoin 7 years ago, you'd be sitting on $72.9 million now after new record high"
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bought-100-bitcoin-7-years-081422112.html (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bought-100-bitcoin-7-years-081422112.html)
I found this particularly depressing because I sought to do that but had such a hard time acquiring them I passed. But if I had bought my target amount ($1000) I may still be holding them as I do krugerrands bought 20~ years ago.
$729,000,000!
Didn't MtGox go under and everyone who held bitcoin in it get shafted? (Yeah, I know you coulda moved bitcoin out of its wallets, but still).
Didn't MtGox go under and everyone who held bitcoin in it get shafted? (Yeah, I know you coulda moved bitcoin out of its wallets, but still).
Aren't these cryptocurrencies inflationary? As I understand that it, mining these cryptocurrencies does not create any real value, so basically, a fan cryptocurrency has a value, this means that the value of the currency we currently own is devalued. Right now, the total value of the crypto currency creates an s probably still too small to matter, but if it becomes significant, there should be an inflationary impact on the economies.
I also think that the government eventually will crack down on this for above reason and the ease to use it for money laundry. Sure, the government mayn't be able to control who owns it or who uses it, but if they make the use of he cryptocurrency unlawful, then the cryptocurrency would become a Mafia currency of some sort and be worth far less for most of us.
I think it is just a matter of time when this get regulated to some extend. This is now like the "Wild West", but eventually, the Wild West was ruled by law as well.
For those of you that have experience with Cryptocurrencies can you please provide insight on the following.
What is the best exchange to buy ETH?
Is the ETH just stored on the account (ex. Gemini)?
Is there an up-to-date guide on how all this works? I get confused when I read about opening wallets and the 5 other hoops you have to jump through.
Any additional insight I should know (other then I will probably lose all my money)?
For those of you that have experience with Cryptocurrencies can you please provide insight on the following.
What is the best exchange to buy ETH?
Is the ETH just stored on the account (ex. Gemini)?
Is there an up-to-date guide on how all this works? I get confused when I read about opening wallets and the 5 other hoops you have to jump through.
Any additional insight I should know (other then I will probably lose all my money)?
For those of you that have experience with Cryptocurrencies can you please provide insight on the following.
What is the best exchange to buy ETH?
Is the ETH just stored on the account (ex. Gemini)?
If you use coinbase it works like Gemini you have an account and need to trust coinbase. You could however use coinbase (or Gemini) to acquire your cryptocurrency and then send it to a wallet which you control the private keys, such as Jaxx (or another I've used is Bread Wallet, but I like Jaxx better now from a usability standpoint and the fact that it supports other currencies besides bitcoin and has Shapeshift integration. Bread Wallet is bitcoin only). coinbase and Gemini will report your transactions to the IRS, so if you use this method you should keep track of all of your buys and sells for capital gains purposes (you are legally obligated to do this in the US even if you acquire your bitcoins using cash at an ATM or from a private party).QuoteIs there an up-to-date guide on how all this works? I get confused when I read about opening wallets and the 5 other hoops you have to jump through.
Any additional insight I should know (other then I will probably lose all my money)?
Here's a guide I found, but have not read through it, so YMMV. http://www.coindesk.com/information/
I did read "Mastering Bitcoin" by Andreas Antonopoulos which I'd recommend if you want a deeper understanding of how it all works. Not necessary to use it though.
My best advice would be to open an account with coinbase or Gemini and make some small transactions to see how it works. Buy some bitcoin and ether, transfer it to your Jaxx mobile wallet, use shapeshift to convert some to Dash or something else. Get a feel for it. And yes, it might be just a bubble and you can lose money.
For those of you that have experience with Cryptocurrencies can you please provide insight on the following.
What is the best exchange to buy ETH?
Is the ETH just stored on the account (ex. Gemini)?
If you use coinbase it works like Gemini you have an account and need to trust coinbase. You could however use coinbase (or Gemini) to acquire your cryptocurrency and then send it to a wallet which you control the private keys, such as Jaxx (or another I've used is Bread Wallet, but I like Jaxx better now from a usability standpoint and the fact that it supports other currencies besides bitcoin and has Shapeshift integration. Bread Wallet is bitcoin only). coinbase and Gemini will report your transactions to the IRS, so if you use this method you should keep track of all of your buys and sells for capital gains purposes (you are legally obligated to do this in the US even if you acquire your bitcoins using cash at an ATM or from a private party).QuoteIs there an up-to-date guide on how all this works? I get confused when I read about opening wallets and the 5 other hoops you have to jump through.
Any additional insight I should know (other then I will probably lose all my money)?
Here's a guide I found, but have not read through it, so YMMV. http://www.coindesk.com/information/
I did read "Mastering Bitcoin" by Andreas Antonopoulos which I'd recommend if you want a deeper understanding of how it all works. Not necessary to use it though.
My best advice would be to open an account with coinbase or Gemini and make some small transactions to see how it works. Buy some bitcoin and ether, transfer it to your Jaxx mobile wallet, use shapeshift to convert some to Dash or something else. Get a feel for it. And yes, it might be just a bubble and you can lose money.
Thank you very much. If I download it into a wallet and stored it on my PC do I need to have a fear of someone hacking my computer and stealing the wallet? If my hard drive crashed am I just screwed out of the bitcoins?
rkbabang - thanks for your insight, definitely learning a lot observing your posts.
Have you looked into ZCash? JPmorgan just did a deal with the founders (http://www.coindesk.com/jpmorgan-partners-zcash-team-add-enterprise-security/). Also, Naval Ravikant (https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Naval-Ravikant-TKP.pdf) has publicly talked about having a position in ZCash.
Curious if you have any thoughts/if you own?
rkbabang - thanks for your insight, definitely learning a lot observing your posts.
Have you looked into ZCash? JPmorgan just did a deal with the founders (http://www.coindesk.com/jpmorgan-partners-zcash-team-add-enterprise-security/). Also, Naval Ravikant (https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Naval-Ravikant-TKP.pdf) has publicly talked about having a position in ZCash.
Curious if you have any thoughts/if you own?
Zcash has been on my list to look further into, but so far I haven't. There are so many interesting projects out there that there isn't enough time to look into them all. Bytecoin is another one and I just heard about EOS recently which looks interesting too https://steemit.com/@eosio
I really like the article Liberty posted above: https://stratechery.com/2017/tulips-myths-and-cryptocurrencies/
I think that if this is a bubble it is more analogous to the late 90s internet bubble. A lot of development, a lot of money poured into a lot of different ideas, but most of them will fail. It is probably too early to know which ones will be the Amazon.com's or the Ebay's and which ones are the pets.com or the Netscape's.
I only own Ethereum(ETH), bitcoin(BTC), Monero(XMR), & Dash(DASH). And that is the order from my largest holding to my smallest at today's prices.
Aren't these cryptocurrencies inflationary? As I understand that it, mining these cryptocurrencies does not create any real value, so basically, a fan cryptocurrency has a value, this means that the value of the currency we currently own is devalued. Right now, the total value of the crypto currency creates an s probably still too small to matter, but if it becomes significant, there should be an inflationary impact on the economies.
I also think that the government eventually will crack down on this for above reason and the ease to use it for money laundry. Sure, the government mayn't be able to control who owns it or who uses it, but if they make the use of he cryptocurrency unlawful, then the cryptocurrency would become a Mafia currency of some sort and be worth far less for most of us.
I think it is just a matter of time when this get regulated to some extend. This is now like the "Wild West", but eventually, the Wild West was ruled by law as well.
The experience to date suggests that cryptocurrency is not inflationary. Given that very little cryptocurrency is actually accepted for payment purposes, & those that are (ie: Bitcoin) don’t transact very much – that’s not unreasonable.
The broader problem is the inflation metric itself – quantity of money/goods available, usually measured as an ‘M’ number, divided by GDP. Where’s everything (flight, hotel, meals, etc.) you bought using loyalty points? (ie Visa, Aeroplan, Airmiles, Car Rentals, Travelocity, Uber, airBnB, etc.) – all of which is just another type of cryptocurrency. If the ‘M’ isn’t capturing it, the official inflation rate may well be understating by a good 25-35bp.
Central banks are heavily involved in cryptocurrency, and it will ultimately be regulated by central banks – with everything linked to the internet of things (IoT). Anything not on the IoT essentially being unusable for most purposes - because it doesn’t have a blockchain history.
SD
CONeal,
Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93E_GzvpMA0
Then this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_160oMzblY8
CONeal,
Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93E_GzvpMA0
Then this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_160oMzblY8
Ahh, thanks for those videos. Now beginning to see how this could be used for places like a hospital. Gives me a completely different perspective of what is going on.
Am I correct with the following statement? Don't focus on the cryptocurrency value attached to to the blockchain technology. Focus on the specific blockchain technology and what it's intended to do. The release of cryptocurrency is more or less a test of the validity of the underlying blockchain technology. Companies will then use the underlying technology (the blockchain copy) for their intended use.
CONeal,
Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93E_GzvpMA0
Then this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_160oMzblY8
Ahh, thanks for those videos. Now beginning to see how this could be used for places like a hospital. Gives me a completely different perspective of what is going on.
Am I correct with the following statement? Don't focus on the cryptocurrency value attached to to the blockchain technology. Focus on the specific blockchain technology and what it's intended to do. The release of cryptocurrency is more or less a test of the validity of the underlying blockchain technology. Companies will then use the underlying technology (the blockchain copy) for their intended use.
I found these articles informing. One question I had was why do these apps lately all seem to be issuing their own tokens on top of the Ethereum blockchain rather than using Ether directly in their apps. It is a way to raise money around US securities law. That is why they issue a token rather than a share of equity.
From: The difference between App Coins and Protocol Tokens (https://medium.com/0x-project/the-difference-between-app-coins-and-protocol-tokens-7281a428348c)
"Unfortunately due to securities regulations it is difficult for dApp developers to raise money on the blockchain through a public sale of unregistered securities. So while equity app coins might provide the most logical incentives for both dApp developers and investors alike, it is currently too risky to structure app coins in this way. That being said, public crowd sales are an irresistible source of funding for dApp developers and with traditional venture capital firms just starting to dip their feet into the world of digital assets, there aren’t many reliable alternatives."
------
And from: A beginner’s guide to Ethereum tokens (https://blog.coinbase.com/a-beginners-guide-to-ethereum-tokens-fbd5611fe30b)
(https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/1*fG1euKN8v0-Q32gWGPuihA.png)
Interesting discussion here. One thing I don't understand about Bitcoin is what happens after 2040? From my understanding there is a hard cap of 21 million Bitcoins with the last ones being produced in 2040. Why would people continue to mine / verify transactions after 2040 if there is no financial reward?
A blockchain has no value without the monetary aspect because there is no incentive to secure it without it. The tokens on a blockchain need to have value (so yes bitcoin is by far the most interesting one, by several orders of magnitude).
The price of many cryptocurrencies continues to move way up, they have been on a tear all week.
https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/#USD
Bitcoin now has a >$25B marketcap and Ether >$8B. There are 4 cryptocurrencies with marketcaps above $1B, 13 above $100M, and ~185 of them above $1M
91B is still only 91B/60T = 0.15% of world wide M2 currency
91B is still only 91B/60T = 0.15% of world wide M2 currency
So if you think this will represent 2% there is still a lot of growth left. If you think it will be 15%, or 51%, or 80% there is a hell of lot of growth left. :)
91B is still only 91B/60T = 0.15% of world wide M2 currency
So if you think this will represent 2% there is still a lot of growth left. If you think it will be 15%, or 51%, or 80% there is a hell of lot of growth left. :)
Exactly. If you think there is any value at all, either as currency or store of value, then even at present prices, crypto in general is one of the most asymmetric bets of all time.
I can understand people saying bitcoin will go to zero. What I find odd is when people say the fair value is 50b to 100b. Your basically saying it should be exactly 1% of world money supply which seems oddly specific
Hey all:
I hate to be contrarian...but could the recent spike in the value of Bitcoin be related to two things?
A). people in China looking to get some of their capital out the country/renminbi?
B). a spike in demand for Bitcoin due to demand from ransonware? I have an elderly friend of the family who was looking to get bitcoin as their computer had been locked up.
I have no doubt that Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies could be very valuable. It sure would be nice to easily move $$$ across political boundaries...to have no counter party risk, etc.
I just think that the recent spike might be the result of abnormal factors that are likely to prove temporary.
Has anyone looked into potentially profiting from the current spread between the bitcoin ETF (GBTC) and bitcoin? The ETF is trading at a 100% premium to NAV, seems to me like a no brainer trade to put on (long Bitcoin/Short ETF), but not sure which brokerages let you short the ETF since it's OTC. Looking at the historical spread it seems to get out of whack every now and then and then come back to earth.
Any thoughts appreciated.
Credits to Barron's article over the weekend which mentioned this.
http://www.barrons.com/articles/bitcoin-and-tech-stocks-a-21st-century-tulipmania-1495858829
Has anyone looked into potentially profiting from the current spread between the bitcoin ETF (GBTC) and bitcoin? The ETF is trading at a 100% premium to NAV, seems to me like a no brainer trade to put on (long Bitcoin/Short ETF), but not sure which brokerages let you short the ETF since it's OTC. Looking at the historical spread it seems to get out of whack every now and then and then come back to earth.
Any thoughts appreciated.
Credits to Barron's article over the weekend which mentioned this.
http://www.barrons.com/articles/bitcoin-and-tech-stocks-a-21st-century-tulipmania-1495858829
lookup the ticker symbol on seeking alpha. If I remember correctly, it has a few articles talking about the spread and how people think about it.
I bought a tiny bit of etherium today
Good choice, ETH is my largest crypto holding by far, not because it is the one I bought the most of, that would be Bitcoin, but because I bought ETH at around $8 where my BTC was acquired between $200-$800. I purchased some ZEC a few days ago to further diversify.
Good choice, ETH is my largest crypto holding by far, not because it is the one I bought the most of, that would be Bitcoin, but because I bought ETH at around $8 where my BTC was acquired between $200-$800. I purchased some ZEC a few days ago to further diversify.
What are your thoughts on Ripple and XRP?
Good choice, ETH is my largest crypto holding by far, not because it is the one I bought the most of, that would be Bitcoin, but because I bought ETH at around $8 where my BTC was acquired between $200-$800. I purchased some ZEC a few days ago to further diversify.
What are your thoughts on Ripple and XRP?
Ripple truly is the largest scam around. It's a company releasing a currency which the can inflate infinitely and assign to themselves. On top of that it's not even a cryptocurrency, there is no mining either through POW or POS.
Good choice, ETH is my largest crypto holding by far, not because it is the one I bought the most of, that would be Bitcoin, but because I bought ETH at around $8 where my BTC was acquired between $200-$800. I purchased some ZEC a few days ago to further diversify.
What are your thoughts on Ripple and XRP?
Ripple truly is the largest scam around. It's a company releasing a currency which the can inflate infinitely and assign to themselves. On top of that it's not even a cryptocurrency, there is no mining either through POW or POS.
At the current valuation I would own most scamcoins over ETH, it's fully centralized, has an infinite supply and trades at half the valuation of Bitcoin?
On top of that it's Turing complete so it will be exploited until it dies. I would be really surprised if Ethereum exists in 10 years, while I would be equally surprised if Bitcoin did not.
At the current valuation I would own most scamcoins over ETH, it's fully centralized, has an infinite supply and trades at half the valuation of Bitcoin?
On top of that it's Turing complete so it will be exploited until it dies. I would be really surprised if Ethereum exists in 10 years, while I would be equally surprised if Bitcoin did not.
Edit:
Why would you buy ZEC? Did you read what it is? They can't prove they didnt keep the initialization seed and if the did can create an infinite supply without it being visible. On top of this they assign themselves 20% (iirc) from the block reward of every mined block.
At the current valuation I would own most scamcoins over ETH, it's fully centralized, has an infinite supply and trades at half the valuation of Bitcoin?
On top of that it's Turing complete so it will be exploited until it dies. I would be really surprised if Ethereum exists in 10 years, while I would be equally surprised if Bitcoin did not.
Edit:
Why would you buy ZEC? Did you read what it is? They can't prove they didnt keep the initialization seed and if the did can create an infinite supply without it being visible. On top of this they assign themselves 20% (iirc) from the block reward of every mined block.
I disagree with you on ETH. It is technically infinite, but it increases by a small fixed amount of ETH every year, so the inflation starts out tiny and approaches (but never quite reaches 0%). In fact it may even be deflationary in some years due to coin losses, which nobody disputes is a thing. I've heard some estimates that as much as 15% of bitcoin may be irretrievably lost already. People are not always smart about backing up things, thumb drives are lost, hard drives crash, hardware wallets are lost/damaged, paper wallets are lost/damaged, people die without leaving instructions to their heirs on how to retrieve their cryptocurrencies maybe the heirs don't even know it exists at all. Back in the first few years when bitcoin was almost worthless many people lost a lot of coins and didn't worry too much about it, etc, etc. There will always be some loss, so the tiny, almost zero inflation rate doesn't worry me. These new coins will be used to pay miners every year which is something I see as a problem with bitcoin. Once mining isn't very profitable because of coin creation I think fees are going to rise dramatically. The bitcoin fees are already too high.
I did some reading on ZCash and I now think you are correct. I was reading too much of the ZCash official line on how the trusted setup went and cheerleading by supporters on how secure the encryption is. I only had a tiny amount, but I just shapeshifted it back into BTC as I am no longer comfortable with it. Thank You for bringing this to my attention. There is a lot of back and forth and lies, and tribalism, on the message boards about this, and it is hard to know what to believe, but this piece written by one of the 6 people involved in the trusted setup is what really changed my mind. I just don't see ZCash as one of the eventual winners.
My Role In The 2016 Zcash Trusted Setup Ceremony (https://petertodd.org/2016/cypherpunk-desert-bus-zcash-trusted-setup-ceremony)
I wouldn't say I invested in Ethereum, so I am not the person to answer that question. But my reason for throwing money at it are as follows:
My buddy turned 10K into 300K with bitcoin over the last 4 years or so.
I have no clue about the technology, the winners/losers, the this, the that...this is purely speculative and either I'll lose it all or it will balloon to something.
Tiny % of my portfolio, it's like gambling to me: figure out how much money I am OK with setting on fire, and go from there.
So (correct me if am wrong) the technology is a distributed ledger? To simplify, it's pretty much bittorrent for transactions (or even more generally, any records in general)?
The value is that, if party A makes a transaction with party B, and then both party A and B sends a signed receipt to everyone else in the world...well nobody can come by later and say "well no, party A still has not transacted with party B".
I can see how this adds another level of security, for sure.
So my thoughts are, the technology and the coin aspect are two distinct things.
The technology is just a record keeping platform, which is stronger the more people use it. You can't generate profit from it, correct?
The coin aspect is only as valuable as people make it. So, the more people who transfer their wealth into bitcoins, the more valuable bitcoins are. Until of course, the last marginal person converts their dollars into bitcoin.
So to value the coin aspect, you have to have an understanding on how and why people will move their wealth into bitcoins. What drives this behavior? Is it security (i.e. people fearing the bank holding their money)? Is it ease-of-use (i.e. a completely digital society where everything is bought/paid for digitally?). Some other reason?
Curious to your two cents on these thoughts, particularly the last one...
Even after the last person moves to Bitcoin it's value, i.e. What you can buy with it, will increase due to supply and demand. And given a fixed or even shrinking supply and a growing demand from a growing society with increasing wealth and increasing productivity, you should see a certain amount of increasing value. This of course is a simplistic example as I don't think Bitcoin will be the only currency in society. So it will always be able to also gain or lose against the other currencies in existence.
Even after the last person moves to Bitcoin it's value, i.e. What you can buy with it, will increase due to supply and demand. And given a fixed or even shrinking supply and a growing demand from a growing society with increasing wealth and increasing productivity, you should see a certain amount of increasing value. This of course is a simplistic example as I don't think Bitcoin will be the only currency in society. So it will always be able to also gain or lose against the other currencies in existence.
The supply of bitcoin is fixed (and declining as people lose access to them..), but the supply of cryptocurrencies in general is infinite. That'll be an interesting dynamic to see in action over the coming years and decades..
So (correct me if am wrong) the technology is a distributed ledger? To simplify, it's pretty much bittorrent for transactions (or even more generally, any records in general)?
The value is that, if party A makes a transaction with party B, and then both party A and B sends a signed receipt to everyone else in the world...well nobody can come by later and say "well no, party A still has not transacted with party B".
I can see how this adds another level of security, for sure.
So my thoughts are, the technology and the coin aspect are two distinct things.
The technology is just a record keeping platform, which is stronger the more people use it. You can't generate profit from it, correct?
The coin aspect is only as valuable as people make it. So, the more people who transfer their wealth into bitcoins, the more valuable bitcoins are. Until of course, the last marginal person converts their dollars into bitcoin.
So to value the coin aspect, you have to have an understanding on how and why people will move their wealth into bitcoins. What drives this behavior? Is it security (i.e. people fearing the bank holding their money)? Is it ease-of-use (i.e. a completely digital society where everything is bought/paid for digitally?). Some other reason?
Curious to your two cents on these thoughts, particularly the last one...
@rkabang I agree with you about Bitcoin and Monero being the likely winners for their respective categories. Although there is a chance Bitcoin will get strong privacy (for example through Mimblewimble).
I'm not yet sure about your second category and if it ends up proving useful I expect something like RSK to win as its build on Bitcoin and the currency aspects of Ethereum are just beyond terrible.
At some point this is all going to go mainstream, if people think its a bubble now just wait until the masses start speculating.
Anyone have any thoughts on SegWit?
Ya my concern is that it will be too divisive and in the end lead to a nasty split hammering the value. I'm debating closing out my positions in advance and buy back in after. To me at least it seems like the downside risk is greater than the upside.
91B is still only 91B/60T = 0.15% of world wide M2 currency
So if you think this will represent 2% there is still a lot of growth left. If you think it will be 15%, or 51%, or 80% there is a hell of lot of growth left. :)
Exactly. If you think there is any value at all, either as currency or store of value, then even at present prices, crypto in general is one of the most asymmetric bets of all time.
I can understand people saying bitcoin will go to zero. What I find odd is when people say the fair value is 50b to 100b. Your basically saying it should be exactly 1% of world money supply which seems oddly specific
GDAX is bailing out margin traders who lost their shirts (and people who sold due to a stop-loss order) from the company (VC?) coffers. https://blog.gdax.com/eth-usd-trading-update-2-216a3b946ef6
GSB ICO [1]
Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) [2] are the hot new way to get rich with very little effort. To do an ICO all you need is an idea that runs on Ethereum. Then, you sell shares of your "company" in tokens to raise capital, similar to an IPO. From this you can compute the market valuation of your company. These valuations are absolutely insane given that most of these ICOs haven't actually implemented or planned anything. In one case, an ICO led to a valuation of $300 million [3].
Given all that, we here at GSB are doing an ICO by following the conventional steps:
1. Come up with an idea. Deep learning is hot now, so maybe a distributed deep learning thing? Throw in some internet of things for good luck. [4]
2. Pitch the idea. I've put the important bits between asterisks:
"GSB is a *distributed deep learning framework* built on top of the Ethereum network. The *internet of things* can leverage our GSB layer to access the *global supercomputer*, enabling never before seen levels of *interoperability*. I'm an *MIT student* doing an ICO of *5%* of GSB with a target valuation of $200 million so I can work full time on GSB.
Note that I'm only offering 5% of GSB. This is important because it means that your investors have essentially no say in how the thing runs.
No one will notice this.
3. (Optional) Write a white paper with some technical details of how you'll accomplish your goal. This used to be necessary but now a flashy website with no technical details will do just fine.
4. Pick a date for your ICO and hype it like crazy on Reddit. Retail investors with no understanding of computer science or Ethereum will buy your coins like crazy.
5. After you sell out of tokens, cash out everything. ICOs often perform worse than ether. Whether you can actually flood the market with your 95% share is yet to be seen, so you should probably do it slowly.
6. Don't build anything. You already have the money. Kick back and relax!
7. Fight off the paranoia. This isn't illegal, right? I mean, sure the SEC will probably make an example of a few people and send them to federal prison for securities fraud for a very long time, but come on, that won't be YOU, right? Move to a country that doesn't extradite to the US to be safe.
Buy the GSB ICO at this week's [5]
*G i R L S C O U T B E N E F i T*
</snip>
---------------------------------------------------
1. I really wanted to call this email, "How I Made $200 Million From Home," but last week's email (All Natural AWS) got caught in a lot of spam filters and this definitely would too.
2. http://fortune.com/2017/03/31/initial-coin-offering/
3.
http://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-ico-irrationality-300-million-gnosis-valuation-sparks-market-concerns/
4. I overheard some people in Kendall square the other day talking about how they wanted to do an ICO but they didn't have any ideas.
Their first mistake was thinking that they *need* an idea.
5. Thanks to Ben Sherman for the GSB ICO idea.
IDK much about blockchain & this article doesn't add much to the discussion of crypto$ valuation but the Question raised by the author
"Why do I want 2 remove the intermediary?"
seems like it could be asked of other industries (and I'm interested in the comments of wayyyy more knowledgable posters here...)
http://www.zkorman.com/blockchain.html
BTW - I have no interest in trading crypto$ & instead, am interested in seeing if there are other applications for the tech beyond finance.
There are some who think the move to triple entry accounting will have a larger long term impact on the world's civilization & economy than the move from single entry to double entry accounting did.
Why Everyone Missed the Most Important Invention in the Last 500 Years (https://hackernoon.com/why-everyone-missed-the-most-important-invention-in-the-last-500-years-c90b0151c169)
Blockchain Technology A game-changer in accounting? (https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/de/Documents/Innovation/Blockchain_A%20game-changer%20in%20accounting.pdf)
There are some who think the move to triple entry accounting will have a larger long term impact on the world's civilization & economy than the move from single entry to double entry accounting did.
Why Everyone Missed the Most Important Invention in the Last 500 Years (https://hackernoon.com/why-everyone-missed-the-most-important-invention-in-the-last-500-years-c90b0151c169)
Blockchain Technology A game-changer in accounting? (https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/de/Documents/Innovation/Blockchain_A%20game-changer%20in%20accounting.pdf)
Thanks!
I wonder how triple entry will affect companies like Robert Half which provides temp & ad hoc accounting & audit personnel?
My skepticism for cryptocurrencies has blinded me to the opportunities in blockchain.
I've frequently been blinded a by knee jerk, distaste for ideas based upon their most visible characteristics (unable to see the forest 4 one big ugly tree) (Blackberry & AIG come to mind...)
Or to rephrase it, the cost of a blockchain likely outweighs the benefits.
Or to rephrase it, the cost of a blockchain likely outweighs the benefits.
Right now it almost certainly does. The bullish case is that the costs will come down over time (i.e. computing, electricity, storage) while the benefits will increase over time as more applications for this are found and become widely used. If either of those assumptions doesn't turn out to be true then there is nothing to see here but a big tulip bubble.
Or to rephrase it, the cost of a blockchain likely outweighs the benefits.
Right now it almost certainly does. The bullish case is that the costs will come down over time (i.e. computing, electricity, storage) while the benefits will increase over time as more applications for this are found and become widely used. If either of those assumptions doesn't turn out to be true then there is nothing to see here but a big tulip bubble.
I'm stepping way out of my knowledge zone here, but isn't the security of blockchain based on high cost? I.e. isn't it by design based on hard (and also useless - which makes this doubly waste) problems to solve?
Maybe there are solutions for blockchain that don't require the above while it still remains blockchain. My suspicion is that solutions just make it not-blockchain-that-is-still-called-blockchain-for-sales/marketing-easy-money. But I might be totally wrong. 8)
Or to rephrase it, the cost of a blockchain likely outweighs the benefits.
Right now it almost certainly does. The bullish case is that the costs will come down over time (i.e. computing, electricity, storage) while the benefits will increase over time as more applications for this are found and become widely used. If either of those assumptions doesn't turn out to be true then there is nothing to see here but a big tulip bubble.
I'm stepping way out of my knowledge zone here, but isn't the security of blockchain based on high cost? I.e. isn't it by design based on hard (and also useless - which makes this doubly waste) problems to solve?
Maybe there are solutions for blockchain that don't require the above while it still remains blockchain. My suspicion is that solutions just make it not-blockchain-that-is-still-called-blockchain-for-sales/marketing-easy-money. But I might be totally wrong. 8)
So two questions have been troubling my mind over crypto currencies and I'm lik e non fanatic opinions on each of those.
The ledger or full blockchain size.
I don`t see how it would be feasible to have an exponentially growing ledger at the rate that would make bitcoin widely adopted. I can foresee the size growing at a rate much faster than any hd of SSD capacity. Las time I checked HDD were doubling every 3 years but I'm fairly certain that a a full transaction ledger would grow much faster than that. It has two problems against it, 1st as the growing user base grows it also grows the amount of transactions. So in a sense we might not be working on a much more aggresive power than HHD drive capacity. ID be happy to see anybody prove me wrong on this one but I do think there is one fundamental law, the size of the ledger cango to infinity, the size of a hard drive cannot.
I fully agree with beerbarron and this why the block size is not simply being increased despite the pressure. However, far from all transactions need the level of security and censorship resistance as Bitcoin and therefore part will be offloaded to less secure channels. Read about lightning if you're interested for a possible implementation.
The bitcoin blockchain is currently 124GB (it would fit on a USB stick). That is tiny, it could grow 100X and it would still be easy for anyone to keep a copy of it. Even if it were to grow 1000X it wouldn't be much of a problem to keep at home. If it were to grow a million times it wouldn't be much of a problem for miners to keep a copy of it (and probably not home users either by the time it does get that big).
QuoteThe bitcoin blockchain is currently 124GB (it would fit on a USB stick). That is tiny, it could grow 100X and it would still be easy for anyone to keep a copy of it. Even if it were to grow 1000X it wouldn't be much of a problem to keep at home. If it were to grow a million times it wouldn't be much of a problem for miners to keep a copy of it (and probably not home users either by the time it does get that big).
Are you talking about current storage or future theoretical storage?
Because your examples seem a little stretched to me.
124GB growing 100x is 12.4TB, which is more than what most people have available at home, so I wouldn't say it's "easy for anyone to keep a copy".
124GB growth 1000x is 124TB, which is definitely out of reach of any normal person right now, so I wouldn't say "it wouldn't be much of a problem to keep at home"... Even at the sweet spot of a 4TB HDD, that's 31 hard-drives, or about $4,000 of HDDs, plus the NAS enclosures, plus probably redundancy, which is many other thousands depending on the RAID scheme. So we're probably talking about close to the price of a small car just to store a 1000x larger blockchain.
As for a million times bigger than 124GB, that's definitely not that easy to keep a bunch of distributed copies among miners everywhere with anything close to current technology.
Maybe I misread, or misunderstood what you said, but I was thinking that the multiples of 124GB you were talking about didn't seem that small to me. Maybe you were thinking about theoretical future storage capabilities...
So two questions have been troubling my mind over crypto currencies and I'm lik e non fanatic opinions on each of those.
The ledger or full blockchain size.
I don`t see how it would be feasible to have an exponentially growing ledger at the rate that would make bitcoin widely adopted. I can foresee the size growing at a rate much faster than any hd of SSD capacity. Las time I checked HDD were doubling every 3 years but I'm fairly certain that a a full transaction ledger would grow much faster than that. It has two problems against it, 1st as the growing user base grows it also grows the amount of transactions. So in a sense we might not be working on a much more aggresive power than HHD drive capacity. ID be happy to see anybody prove me wrong on this one but I do think there is one fundamental law, the size of the ledger cango to infinity, the size of a hard drive cannot.
While it is true that the ledger size is open ended, at any given time the ledger size is finite and will always be finite. There is no such thing as an infinite sized ledger. The bitcoin blockchain is currently 124GB (https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size?scale=1×pan=all) (it would fit on a USB stick). That is tiny, it could grow 100X and it would still be easy for anyone to keep a copy of it. Even if it were to grow 1000X it wouldn't be much of a problem to keep at home. If it were to grow a million times it wouldn't be much of a problem for miners to keep a copy of it (and probably not home users either by the time it does get that big). To put 124GB in proportion to the amount of storage in the world from wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petabyte) (keep in mind that 1 petabyte = 1,000,000 GB:
- Games: World of Warcraft uses 1.3 petabytes of storage to maintain its game
- Steam, a digital distribution service, delivers over 16 petabytes of content to American users weekly
- Cloud backup: Multiple backup vendors, including Code42, Backblaze, and Mozy claim to store 90 or more petabytes of user backup data
- Physics: The experiments in the Large Hadron Collider produce about 15 petabytes of data per year, which are distributed over the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid.[26] In July 2012 it was revealed that CERN amassed about 200 petabytes of data from the more than 800 trillion collisions looking for the Higgs boson
- Climate science: The German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ) has a storage capacity of 60 petabytes of climate data
- Folding@home (Scientific Data): Folding@home has generated 0.5 petabytes of simulated data
- Google Photos has an estimated of 13.7 petabytes worth of photos uploaded in the first year of its existence
The storage capacity of the world right now is measured in zettabytes (1 zettabyte = 1,000,000 petabytes), and it is doubling every 1-3 years. Blockchains would have to grow at an enormous rate for a long-long time before storage would be an issue. And if it did become an issue someday that would push innovation and start to drive the storage industry the way mining (and AI as well) is going to start to drive the GPU industry. There won't be a shortage for long as NVIDIA, AMD, and others will ramp up production to try and meet demand. There are already GPU cards coming out specifically designed for mining. And bitcoin, of course isn't even mined with GPUs anymore, but custom chips specifically designed to mine bitcoins.
BTC just went to 1800, ETH to 130... Talk about volatility for 'currencies'.
I did buy some bitcoin in the 1800s but I am accumulating some powder for closer to or after august first. I am hesitant to put much more in until I get a better sense of how Segwit is going to play out, I personally see that as the cause of a lot of the current volatility
I did buy some bitcoin in the 1800s
I did buy some bitcoin in the 1800s
I also time-travelled back to the 1800s and tried to buy bitcoin, but the Amsterdam folks were all talking tulips to me...
Oh wait...
NVM.
8)
I did buy some bitcoin in the 1800s
I also time-travelled back to the 1800s and tried to buy bitcoin, but the Amsterdam folks were all talking tulips to me...
Oh wait...
NVM.
8)
SD,
At what price are you buying bitcoin, and at what price are you selling?
It's looking like 80%+ of the bitcoin miners are already signaling support for the BIP91 proposal.
https://www.xbt.eu/
Good brief summary of the possible timelines here:
UASF/Segwit2x Scenarios and Timelines (https://medium.com/@jimmysong/uasf-segwit2x-scenarios-and-timelines-1a540336c4be)
Cazes's assets seized by the U.S. government included $6.6 million Cdn in bitcoin, $2.4 million in Etherium, $622,000 in Monero, and $980,512 in Zcash.
Aside: Do you want to clone the AlphaBay creator's cryptocurrency allocations? ;D
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/alexandre-cazes-millionaire-cars-property-alphabay-1.4215894QuoteCazes's assets seized by the U.S. government included $6.6 million Cdn in bitcoin, $2.4 million in Etherium, $622,000 in Monero, and $980,512 in Zcash.
Aside: Do you want to clone the AlphaBay creator's cryptocurrency allocations? ;D
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/alexandre-cazes-millionaire-cars-property-alphabay-1.4215894QuoteCazes's assets seized by the U.S. government included $6.6 million Cdn in bitcoin, $2.4 million in Etherium, $622,000 in Monero, and $980,512 in Zcash.
I'd love to. Unfortunately my balances are somewhat lower. :(
On the bright side though, I still have mine. :)
What a tragic story though. Since I don't think any object or substance should be illegal, I don't think he did anything wrong. Quite the opposite, he provided a way for people to safely buy what they wanted without the dangers of dealing in person with shady and possibly dangerous characters. In short he put his own life and freedom on the line everyday, not only to profit, but to save lives as well. If this guy was anything he was a hero. In other words the exact opposite of people for whom my disdain couldn't be greater, like Jeff Sessions and others involved in taking him out.
Aside: Do you want to clone the AlphaBay creator's cryptocurrency allocations? ;D
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/alexandre-cazes-millionaire-cars-property-alphabay-1.4215894QuoteCazes's assets seized by the U.S. government included $6.6 million Cdn in bitcoin, $2.4 million in Etherium, $622,000 in Monero, and $980,512 in Zcash.
I'd love to. Unfortunately my balances are somewhat lower. :(
On the bright side though, I still have mine. :)
What a tragic story though. Since I don't think any object or substance should be illegal, I don't think he did anything wrong. Quite the opposite, he provided a way for people to safely buy what they wanted without the dangers of dealing in person with shady and possibly dangerous characters. In short he put his own life and freedom on the line everyday, not only to profit, but to save lives as well. If this guy was anything he was a hero. In other words the exact opposite of people for whom my disdain couldn't be greater, like Jeff Sessions and others involved in taking him out.
Yes, what will you do without the ability to easily commit identity and financial frauds on a massive scale? You're going to have to find a new marketplace to buy and sell the financial records of >100k innocent people and malware to procure more. As you said, I'm sure hackers and fraudsters will die without the ability to anonymously buy/sell malware. /s
Aside: Do you want to clone the AlphaBay creator's cryptocurrency allocations? ;D
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/alexandre-cazes-millionaire-cars-property-alphabay-1.4215894QuoteCazes's assets seized by the U.S. government included $6.6 million Cdn in bitcoin, $2.4 million in Etherium, $622,000 in Monero, and $980,512 in Zcash.
I'd love to. Unfortunately my balances are somewhat lower. :(
On the bright side though, I still have mine. :)
What a tragic story though. Since I don't think any object or substance should be illegal, I don't think he did anything wrong. Quite the opposite, he provided a way for people to safely buy what they wanted without the dangers of dealing in person with shady and possibly dangerous characters. In short he put his own life and freedom on the line everyday, not only to profit, but to save lives as well. If this guy was anything he was a hero. In other words the exact opposite of people for whom my disdain couldn't be greater, like Jeff Sessions and others involved in taking him out.
Yes, what will you do without the ability to easily commit identity and financial frauds on a massive scale? You're going to have to find a new marketplace to buy and sell the financial records of >100k innocent people and malware to procure more. As you said, I'm sure hackers and fraudsters will die without the ability to anonymously buy/sell malware. /s
That's a small part of what went on there. That's like saying craigslist is bad because stolen goods are sometimes sold there. The people creating and using malware are doing something wrong, not the person running an online marketplace where things can be bought and sold. If someone finds a hitman on craigslist and pays him in cash does that mean Craigslist and the US Dollar are to blame? That is the same kind of thinking that says if someone is stabbed you blame the company who made the knife and the retailer who sold the knife rather than the person who actually committed murder.
Aside: Do you want to clone the AlphaBay creator's cryptocurrency allocations? ;D
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/alexandre-cazes-millionaire-cars-property-alphabay-1.4215894QuoteCazes's assets seized by the U.S. government included $6.6 million Cdn in bitcoin, $2.4 million in Etherium, $622,000 in Monero, and $980,512 in Zcash.
I'd love to. Unfortunately my balances are somewhat lower. :(
On the bright side though, I still have mine. :)
What a tragic story though. Since I don't think any object or substance should be illegal, I don't think he did anything wrong. Quite the opposite, he provided a way for people to safely buy what they wanted without the dangers of dealing in person with shady and possibly dangerous characters. In short he put his own life and freedom on the line everyday, not only to profit, but to save lives as well. If this guy was anything he was a hero. In other words the exact opposite of people for whom my disdain couldn't be greater, like Jeff Sessions and others involved in taking him out.
Yes, what will you do without the ability to easily commit identity and financial frauds on a massive scale? You're going to have to find a new marketplace to buy and sell the financial records of >100k innocent people and malware to procure more. As you said, I'm sure hackers and fraudsters will die without the ability to anonymously buy/sell malware. /s
That's a small part of what went on there. That's like saying craigslist is bad because stolen goods are sometimes sold there. The people creating and using malware are doing something wrong, not the person running an online marketplace where things can be bought and sold. If someone finds a hitman on craigslist and pays him in cash does that mean Craigslist and the US Dollar are to blame? That is the same kind of thinking that says if someone is stabbed you blame the company who made the knife and the retailer who sold the knife rather than the person who actually committed murder.
If Craigslist is actively aware of hitmen advertising themselves on Craigslist and continue to make their platform available to said hitmen then they are bad and their management should be imprisoned. Craigslist would be actively facilitating murder for hire.
Are you under the impression that Craigslist actively facilitates this and would refuse to comply with authorities if hitmen classifieds are found on their site? This is insane.
Aside: Do you want to clone the AlphaBay creator's cryptocurrency allocations? ;D
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/alexandre-cazes-millionaire-cars-property-alphabay-1.4215894QuoteCazes's assets seized by the U.S. government included $6.6 million Cdn in bitcoin, $2.4 million in Etherium, $622,000 in Monero, and $980,512 in Zcash.
I'd love to. Unfortunately my balances are somewhat lower. :(
On the bright side though, I still have mine. :)
What a tragic story though. Since I don't think any object or substance should be illegal, I don't think he did anything wrong. Quite the opposite, he provided a way for people to safely buy what they wanted without the dangers of dealing in person with shady and possibly dangerous characters. In short he put his own life and freedom on the line everyday, not only to profit, but to save lives as well. If this guy was anything he was a hero. In other words the exact opposite of people for whom my disdain couldn't be greater, like Jeff Sessions and others involved in taking him out.
Yes, what will you do without the ability to easily commit identity and financial frauds on a massive scale? You're going to have to find a new marketplace to buy and sell the financial records of >100k innocent people and malware to procure more. As you said, I'm sure hackers and fraudsters will die without the ability to anonymously buy/sell malware. /s
That's a small part of what went on there. That's like saying craigslist is bad because stolen goods are sometimes sold there. The people creating and using malware are doing something wrong, not the person running an online marketplace where things can be bought and sold. If someone finds a hitman on craigslist and pays him in cash does that mean Craigslist and the US Dollar are to blame? That is the same kind of thinking that says if someone is stabbed you blame the company who made the knife and the retailer who sold the knife rather than the person who actually committed murder.
If Craigslist is actively aware of hitmen advertising themselves on Craigslist and continue to make their platform available to said hitmen then they are bad and their management should be imprisoned. Craigslist would be actively facilitating murder for hire.
Are you under the impression that Craigslist actively facilitates this and would refuse to comply with authorities if hitmen classifieds are found on their site? This is insane.
I'm not saying that Craigslist actively facilitates this, but let's just say compared to say ebay or Amazon, it is a lot easier to fence stolen goods, or advertize sex for hire, or even something as extreme as a hitman for hire, on Craigslist. I'm not saying that Craigslist should change, or that they are liable, I'm just saying that there are things they could do and they don't.
In this case, it seems like alphabay was actively engaged in the promotion and distribution of malware and identity theft portfolios. Assuming you are a libertarian ideologue, both of those things should count as aggression/violence. Just as someone who fences knowingly stolen goods has responsibility in the chain of the crime whether they stole those goods or not, so does a platform that knowingly and actively enables these crimes. It's very disturbing that you believe this is a heroic action. It's like you don't think a getaway driver should be held liable for a drive by shooting because he didn't pull the trigger, he only actively facilitated the crime, and therefore should be lauded and rewarded as a hero.
If anyone is holding Bitcoin at Coinbase, an exchange, or with some other 3rd party system where you don't control your keys. You might want to transfer it to a wallet which you control the private keys before August 1st, this way in the case of a hard fork you will end up holding an equal amount of both coins. If you hold Bitcoin in Coinbase you will most likely not get any Bitcoin Cash (BCC). You can always transfer BTC right back into coinbase afterwards if that is where you want to hold it.
https://news.bitcoin.com/what-every-bitcoiner-should-know-about-bitcoin-cash/
In this case, it seems like alphabay was actively engaged in the promotion and distribution of malware and identity theft portfolios. Assuming you are a libertarian ideologue, both of those things should count as aggression/violence. Just as someone who fences knowingly stolen goods has responsibility in the chain of the crime whether they stole those goods or not, so does a platform that knowingly and actively enables these crimes. It's very disturbing that you believe this is a heroic action. It's like you don't think a getaway driver should be held liable for a drive by shooting because he didn't pull the trigger, he only actively facilitated the crime, and therefore should be lauded and rewarded as a hero.
If alphabay was actively engaged in the promotion and distribution of malware and identity theft as you say then I will concede that you are correct. If they simply setup an anonymous marketplace and didn't police it, then I will stick by my previous statements. I do think a getaway driver is just as guilty as the one who pulls the trigger.
A distributed ledger is a tamperproof sequence of data that can be read and augmented by everyone. Distributed ledgers stand to revolutionize the way a democratic society operates. They secure all kinds of traditional transactions—such as payments, asset transfers, titling—in the exact order in which they occur; and enable totally new transactions—such as cryptocurrencies and smart contracts. They can remove intermediaries and usher in a new paradigm for trust. As currently implemented, however, distributed ledgers cannot achieve their enormous potential.
Algorand is an alternative, democratic, and efficient distributed ledger. Unlike prior ledgers based on "proof of work," it dispenses with "miners." Indeed, Algorand requires only a negligible amount of computation. Moreover, its transaction history does not "fork" with overwhelming probability: i.e., Algorand guarantees the finality of all transactions.
SPEAKER
Silvio Micali
Faculty at MIT and ACM A.M. Turing Award Winner
Date: 10/13/17
Time: 12:00 PM ET
Duration: 1 Hour
You need to be very clear why you are in these things, and what your thesis is.
You also need to mindful that the distributed security of Bitcoin isn't really working as claimed anymore, as >50% of miners are under the same 'controlling mind'.
SD
You need to be very clear why you are in these things, and what your thesis is.
You also need to mindful that the distributed security of Bitcoin isn't really working as claimed anymore, as >50% of miners are under the same 'controlling mind'.
SD
The switching costs are quite low for mining pools. If there was rampant abuse by a certain pool, I believe most miners would quickly switch mining pools.
Podcast on blockchain and cryptocurrencies:
http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpower/
Very smart move. Lots of suckers willing to hand over their money.
I teach a due diligence course in the implementation of block chain/smart applications that advocates doing something very similar to this :)
All it really needs is an existing (profitable) business, a group of developers, and a long-term funder. The JV gets bought out, the funder takes stock over cash, & resells later at inflated CF multiples when the applications deliver the greatly increased CF/share from automation.
Everybody involved ends up doing very, very well.
SD
I am reading "Blockchain Revolution" by Don Tapscott, and I find it to be quite fascinating so far.
Here you can find the most interesting excerpts:
https://twitter.com/giovfranchi/status/881169480755314688
Cheers,
Gio
Don't know if this was posted here before, but here's Jamie Dimon on bitcoin: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-13/jamie-dimon-lasts-one-day-on-his-vow-to-not-talk-about-bitcoin
I happen to agree with him. He completely understands how fiat currencies work, and how currencies MUST go hand in hand with governments and sovereign state power.
Links:
https://www.wired.com/story/captains-of-finance-dismiss-bitcoin-at-their-peril/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2017/10/22/bitcoins-surge-to-5600-reveals-why-its-a-junk-currency/#4ca9293f61c8
from Mark Jr: "These things are an inelastic currency that use asymmetric cryptography to facilitate zero knowledge capital flow."
One of my tests for investment ideas requires that I could convincingly explain the thesis to my 10 year-old in less than two minutes.
I'm not there yet.
First, I have to review the meanings of trust and agreement in the dictionary.
Then again, who can you trust these days?
More fun info on Algorand. Seminar is today, so I removed time/date/location since I doubt that anyone will make it. I'm sure there's more info online.
I have a question for all the crypto longs:
When do you sell?
Do you hold until it becomes used as a currency? If it is used as a currency, would there be no tax revenue for the government (since all transactions are anonymous)? Assuming there will be no tax revenue, don't you think that the government will try and prevent it's use?
Apologies if this has been asked before.
I have a question for all the crypto longs:
When do you sell?
Do you hold until it becomes used as a currency? If it is used as a currency, would there be no tax revenue for the government (since all transactions are anonymous)? Assuming there will be no tax revenue, don't you think that the government will try and prevent it's use?
Apologies if this has been asked before.
It seems unsustainable for bitcoin or any blockchain-based currency to carry all the unnecessary data with each transaction.
It seems unsustainable for bitcoin or any blockchain-based currency to carry all the unnecessary data with each transaction.
Bingo.
They are looking at scaling solutions... It's just kind of crazy that it's valued at $120B and they haven't implemented scaling yet. Usually when you develop a software solution that needs to scale you take care of that at step 1, not after the software is live.
It seems unsustainable for bitcoin or any blockchain-based currency to carry all the unnecessary data with each transaction.
Bingo.
They are looking at scaling solutions... It's just kind of crazy that it's valued at $120B and they haven't implemented scaling yet. Usually when you develop a software solution that needs to scale you take care of that at step 1, not after the software is live.
The payment network Visa achieved 47,000 peak transactions per second
(tps) on its network during the 2013 holidays[2], and currently averages
hundreds of millions per day. Currently, Bitcoin supports less than 7 transactions
per second with a 1 megabyte block limit. If we use an average of 300
bytes per bitcoin transaction and assumed unlimited block sizes, an equivalent
capacity to peak Visa transaction volume of 47,000/tps would be nearly
8 gigabytes per Bitcoin block, every ten minutes on average. Continuously,
that would be over 400 terabytes of data per year.
Clearly, achieving Visa-like capacity on the Bitcoin network isn’t feasible
today. No home computer in the world can operate with that kind of
bandwidth and storage. If Bitcoin is to replace all electronic payments in
the future, and not just Visa, it would result in outright collapse of the Bitcoin
network, or at best, extreme centralization of Bitcoin nodes and miners
to the only ones who could afford it. This centralization would then defeat
aspects of network decentralization that make Bitcoin secure, as the ability
for entities to validate the chain is what allows Bitcoin to ensure ledger
accuracy and security.
It seems unsustainable for bitcoin or any blockchain-based currency to carry all the unnecessary data with each transaction.
Bingo.
They are looking at scaling solutions... It's just kind of crazy that it's valued at $120B and they haven't implemented scaling yet. Usually when you develop a software solution that needs to scale you take care of that at step 1, not after the software is live.
The single most important demographic opinion on Bitcoin: https://www.forbes.com/sites/spencerbogart/2017/11/08/7-stats-that-highlight-a-millennial-propensity-for-bitcoin/#4297b62232c4
Decent chance 120B will look very very cheap down the road.It seems unsustainable for bitcoin or any blockchain-based currency to carry all the unnecessary data with each transaction.
Bingo.
They are looking at scaling solutions... It's just kind of crazy that it's valued at $120B and they haven't implemented scaling yet. Usually when you develop a software solution that needs to scale you take care of that at step 1, not after the software is live.
The single most important demographic opinion on Bitcoin: https://www.forbes.com/sites/spencerbogart/2017/11/08/7-stats-that-highlight-a-millennial-propensity-for-bitcoin/#4297b62232c4
Decent chance 120B will look very very cheap down the road.It seems unsustainable for bitcoin or any blockchain-based currency to carry all the unnecessary data with each transaction.
Bingo.
They are looking at scaling solutions... It's just kind of crazy that it's valued at $120B and they haven't implemented scaling yet. Usually when you develop a software solution that needs to scale you take care of that at step 1, not after the software is live.
The single most important demographic opinion on Bitcoin: https://www.forbes.com/sites/spencerbogart/2017/11/08/7-stats-that-highlight-a-millennial-propensity-for-bitcoin/#4297b62232c4
Decent chance 120B will look very very cheap down the road.It seems unsustainable for bitcoin or any blockchain-based currency to carry all the unnecessary data with each transaction.
Bingo.
They are looking at scaling solutions... It's just kind of crazy that it's valued at $120B and they haven't implemented scaling yet. Usually when you develop a software solution that needs to scale you take care of that at step 1, not after the software is live.
I am very intrigued to see what happens to bitcoin in a major global recession (perhaps in the next year or two?). People loved internet stocks in the late 1990s. I have a feeling the 20-30 somethings at the time were the most confident in their internet stock holdings (these people had never seen stocks decline, perhaps like bitcoin holders today). Did their confidence prevent them from losing 90-100% of their money? People that ask me about bitcoin are certainly intrigued by the price rising - if that is why you are buying it, who will be left to buy when it's 'cheap'? I'm not sure there will be enough bitcoin bargain-hunters to stop the panic.
The single most important demographic opinion on Bitcoin: https://www.forbes.com/sites/spencerbogart/2017/11/08/7-stats-that-highlight-a-millennial-propensity-for-bitcoin/#4297b62232c4
Decent chance 120B will look very very cheap down the road.It seems unsustainable for bitcoin or any blockchain-based currency to carry all the unnecessary data with each transaction.
Bingo.
They are looking at scaling solutions... It's just kind of crazy that it's valued at $120B and they haven't implemented scaling yet. Usually when you develop a software solution that needs to scale you take care of that at step 1, not after the software is live.
The single most important demographic opinion on Bitcoin: https://www.forbes.com/sites/spencerbogart/2017/11/08/7-stats-that-highlight-a-millennial-propensity-for-bitcoin/#4297b62232c4
Decent chance 120B will look very very cheap down the road.It seems unsustainable for bitcoin or any blockchain-based currency to carry all the unnecessary data with each transaction.
Bingo.
They are looking at scaling solutions... It's just kind of crazy that it's valued at $120B and they haven't implemented scaling yet. Usually when you develop a software solution that needs to scale you take care of that at step 1, not after the software is live.
This sounds like another way to say "there are so many fools left to sell to!" It takes slightly more than 8 days of energy for the average house to complete each bitcoin transaction. If 10x more people used bitcoin then I'd guess at least 10% of all US electricity consumption would go towards bitcoin mining (currently 0.7% but we'd need to account for consumption inflation inherent to bitcoin design)...
We'll all be spending our bitcoins to pay our electricity bills to keep our bitcoins valuable!
This is to discount moore's law. Don't you think there will be advances in ASCI chips to make them more energy efficient? 5 billion has been invested in mining hardware just this year alone.The single most important demographic opinion on Bitcoin: https://www.forbes.com/sites/spencerbogart/2017/11/08/7-stats-that-highlight-a-millennial-propensity-for-bitcoin/#4297b62232c4
Decent chance 120B will look very very cheap down the road.It seems unsustainable for bitcoin or any blockchain-based currency to carry all the unnecessary data with each transaction.
Bingo.
They are looking at scaling solutions... It's just kind of crazy that it's valued at $120B and they haven't implemented scaling yet. Usually when you develop a software solution that needs to scale you take care of that at step 1, not after the software is live.
This sounds like another way to say "there are so many fools left to sell to!" It takes slightly more than 8 days of energy for the average house to complete each bitcoin transaction. If 10x more people used bitcoin then I'd guess at least 10% of all US electricity consumption would go towards bitcoin mining (currently 0.7% but we'd need to account for consumption inflation inherent to bitcoin design)...
We'll all be spending our bitcoins to pay our electricity bills to keep our bitcoins valuable!
And what would smart miners do if chips suddenly get twice as efficient?Actually we can just look at what happened historically when bitcoin went from CPU mining to GPU mining, and then from GPU mining to ASICs. Those moves increased the computational efficiency by an order of magnitude more than just 2x. Guess what happened? The mining difficulty just increased rapidly to nullify those computational gains.
Bram Cohen (BitTorrent creator) announces a new cryptocurrency with aim to reduce power consumption required for a secure blockchain/currencyI like the idea, but I don't think it can work (but will admit that I haven't read the whole technical paper). But the basic argument is as follows. If it's a "green" solution with less power and resource consumption (because it's using unused space) it's vulnerable because these cheap resources would also be available for an attacker.
TechCrunch: BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly bitcoin competitor Chia (https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/08/chia-network-cryptocurrency/)
Chia site w/ whitepaper and talk (https://chia.network)
Bram Cohen (BitTorrent creator) announces a new cryptocurrency with aim to reduce power consumption required for a secure blockchain/currencyI like the idea, but I don't think it can work (but will admit that I haven't read the whole technical paper). But the basic argument is as follows. If it's a "green" solution with less power and resource consumption (because it's using unused space) it's vulnerable because these cheap resources would also be available for an attacker.
TechCrunch: BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly bitcoin competitor Chia (https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/08/chia-network-cryptocurrency/)
Chia site w/ whitepaper and talk (https://chia.network)
Now, maybe you have heard about something called 'the lightning network'. It is important to understand that the Lighting Network (networked bi-directional payment channels) does very little to scale the number of users. Use of payment-channels requires on-chain transactions to both open and close channels. More importantly, money has to be tied up in those channels and, at a practical level, ordinary users cannot afford to lock up thousands of dollars in open payment channels; subjecting themselves to volatility risk they may not be comfortable with or is simply more money than they have.
Things like the Lightning-Network provide a great solution for very low value payments (think less than a $1) but doesn't really do much for the higher-value use case. Individual users still need to be able to hold value, directly on chain. Even if they don't need to perform on-chain transactions on a daily basis, maybe just once a week, or once every two weeks, the same problem applies. You need a massive blocksize limit to accommodate them. Also, the average backlog would grow to be measured not in hours, but in days and weeks, maybe even months. (@see Nyquist sampling theorem )
FWIW the economist on cryptocurrencies:
https://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2017/11/greater-fool-theory-0
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-14/bitcoin-points-way-to-massive-change-for-commodity-businesses
I have couple questions for blockchain/crypto experts:
1. When these companies are talking about using blockchain for trading physical commodities or for land register, what underlying blockchain are they planning to use? I would assume they are not building this on top of Bitcoin blockchain, are they? Are they using blockchain of one of the public cryptos or deploying their own?
2. Assuming they are using their own blockchain, how is security achieved? I doubt that proof-of-work security works for small/private crypto setups. Are then they using something else? Just relying on single trusted authority (but then why use blockchain)?
3. Why not use DBs? For simplicity, let's assume transaction write-once journaling DB which is pretty much the same as blockchain except not distributed. Especially in the case of crop land registry in Ukraine, I don't see how blockchain can prevent fraud any more than such DB. What are scenarios where blockchain prevents fraud and centralized DB doesn't? Corrupt bureaucrat transferring your land to someone else by changing DB without your knowledge? How would they do that if DB required your authorization/code/password? Hacking? Why hacking DB would be easier than hacking blockchain (also see question2 regarding how the heck you achieve blockchain security on own blockchain)?
Edit:
This https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21677228-technology-behind-bitcoin-lets-people-who-do-not-know-or-trust-each-other-build-dependable and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain answer most of the questions above (if you read through and think a bit...coin ;D)
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/12/07/2196526/what-happens-when-bitcoins-market-cap-overtakes-world-gdp/
Interesting article on the FT to the effect that the market structure even with the advent of futures trading could see prices go a lot higher.
Just buy coal!
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-15/turning-coal-into-bitcoin-dirty-secret-of-2017-s-hottest-market
POW scales very well because the difficulty adapts to the perceived value in the system. This is exactly the intention.
Funny how people always want to fix things that aren't broken ...
POW scales very well because the difficulty adapts to the perceived value in the system. This is exactly the intention.
Funny how people always want to fix things that aren't broken ...
The neverending quest for a free lunch continues. TANSTAAFL!
IF crypto bubble blows up, what would be the best way to make money out of it?
Are there any legit blockchain companies that when blowing up with everything else, will become a good investment? something like Amazon in 2001?
you cant make this stuff up...from $2 to $7 on this news:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/long-island-iced-tea-micro-cap-adds-blockchain-to-name-and-stock-soars.html (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/long-island-iced-tea-micro-cap-adds-blockchain-to-name-and-stock-soars.html)
you cant make this stuff up...from $2 to $7 on this news:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/long-island-iced-tea-micro-cap-adds-blockchain-to-name-and-stock-soars.html (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/long-island-iced-tea-micro-cap-adds-blockchain-to-name-and-stock-soars.html)
I hope Warren Buffet changes the name of his company to "Berkshire Blockchain", in seconds it will be the most valuable company in the world leaving Apple in the dust. Unless of course Apple changes its name to Apple Blockchain.
you cant make this stuff up...from $2 to $7 on this news:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/long-island-iced-tea-micro-cap-adds-blockchain-to-name-and-stock-soars.html (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/long-island-iced-tea-micro-cap-adds-blockchain-to-name-and-stock-soars.html)
I hope Warren Buffet changes the name of his company to "Berkshire Blockchain", in seconds it will be the most valuable company in the world leaving Apple in the dust. Unless of course Apple changes its name to Apple Blockchain.
Its pretty amazing actually. Even stranger IMO is XIN, highlighted a couple days ago by a fairly well respected author on SA, with real assets, profitability, a dividend, and supposedly blockchain technology partnerships with 58.com and IBM... barely budging 10%. Went long yesterday for a swing trade but it seems like people only want crappy, worthless companies to invest in.
Monitoring - Due to today's high traffic, buys and sells may be temporarily offline. We're working on restoring full availability as soon as possible.
Dec 22, 08:35 PST
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This is just LOL: https://status.coinbase.com/QuoteMonitoring - Due to today's high traffic, buys and sells may be temporarily offline. We're working on restoring full availability as soon as possible.
Dec 22, 08:35 PST
Buys/Sells temporarily disabled
Investigating - All buys and sells have been temporarily disabled. We are working on a fix and apologize for any inconvenience.
Dec 22, 08:11 PST
Wire Processing Delays
Update - Wire deposits and withdrawals may be delayed by up to 5 business days. Rejected & reversed wires will now be processed within 48 business hours. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Just shut up and don't take my money? ::)
My check is in the mail 8)
https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100
https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100
https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100
The United Nations World Food Programme uses the Ethereum Blockchain to transfer vouchers based on cryptocurrencies to refugees in Syria. The platform was able to transfer cryptocurrency vouchers to a total of 10,000 people. It was done through another platform that was created by Parity Technologies.
I for one am thankful for the discussions regarding bitcoin and block chain. I am not buying into the bitcoin bull market, but there is certainly an investment opportunity here. It seems to me that block chain based protocols have a place where counter party or third party trust cannot be obtained or is not desired. I think the underground economy is one, but I could also see an institution like the United Nations using it to transfer funds, Why shouldn’t they create their own block chain based currency currency to facilitize funds movements acros nations borders without interference from anyone? Gaming is another advantage where it could be used to exchange goods between gamers. I am sure there are many others.
It's useful to recognize that Bitcoin is simply one combination of 4 SEPARATE technologies 1) token crypto-currency, 2) distributed ledger, 3) block chain, and the 4) smart contract. It's a very smart combination, and performs its function extremely well, but like everything - it has limitations.
It's useful to recognize that Bitcoin is simply one combination of 4 SEPARATE technologies 1) token crypto-currency, 2) distributed ledger, 3) block chain, and the 4) smart contract. It's a very smart combination, and performs its function extremely well, but like everything - it has limitations.
As far as I know, Bitcoin doesn't have the ability to perform smart contracts natively, not without layering a third party on top. You might be thinking of Ethereum.
Can someone explain to me Munger's comments around how the incentives allow people to create more Bitcoin? How would this work exactly?Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin whatever etc....
Can someone explain to me Munger's comments around how the incentives allow people to create more Bitcoin? How would this work exactly?Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin whatever etc....
Can someone explain to me Munger's comments around how the incentives allow people to create more Bitcoin? How would this work exactly?
@sharper
"For most block chain applications running on a database (ie: IBM): 1) Yes, 2) No, 3) Yes, 4) Yes"
but isnt the most intriguing application of blockchain those niches where there is no individual database...such as securities lending? cf medici. putting inventory together from many suppliers onto a distributed ledger makes a lot of sense...to everyone but the prime brokers
It's useful to recognize that Bitcoin is simply one combination of 4 SEPARATE technologies 1) token crypto-currency, 2) distributed ledger, 3) block chain, and the 4) smart contract. It's a very smart combination, and performs its function extremely well, but like everything - it has limitations.
As far as I know, Bitcoin doesn't have the ability to perform smart contracts natively, not without layering a third party on top. You might be thinking of Ethereum.
@sharper
"For most block chain applications running on a database (ie: IBM): 1) Yes, 2) No, 3) Yes, 4) Yes"
but isnt the most intriguing application of blockchain those niches where there is no individual database...such as securities lending? cf medici. putting inventory together from many suppliers onto a distributed ledger makes a lot of sense...to everyone but the prime brokers
No - it's ability to raise productivity by keeping output constant, and permanently reducing input. Securities lending is already automated in the R3 Corda ledger, runs on a data base, and most prime brokers are already R3 members. Bigger suppliers already maintain their inventory on in-house ERP systems (data bases) - block chain and smart contracts simply run on top. Outputs stay the same, but most of the related 'admin/back-office' processing gets displaced.
SD
No they are doing the same thing - but on their own competing database. Use our database and you don't need many of the staff you currently have, or the space they currently occupy - were they not currently doing an ICO, most folks would never have heard of them. https://www.tzero.com/#home
There is nothing wrong with competition. But the gorilla in the room is the R3 Consortium consisting of the biggest FI's in the world (80%+ of the entire global market), its Corda ledger, and its backing by many of the major CB's in the world. Corda, with its CB blessing, is to become the FI portion of the hyper-ledger (internet-of-things). We wish Tzero luck, but it's hard to see how they survive as anything other than a tiny boutique; maybe 2-3 principals running an Oracle, & a bunch of sales people.
Ya pays yur money, 'n ya takes ya chances,
SD
http://www.smh.com.au/business/bitcoin-tensions-rise-as-investors-claim-banks-freezing-their-accounts-20171229-p4yy3z.html
I want to experiment with buying bitcoins, to learn the system initially. should I give them all credentials such as date of birth, social, bank account # etc ? I am concerned as I read these exchanges are hacked and would lose all the information in the hands of hackers. What do you advise? It looks like I may need to give all of the info as I give to a brokerage account?
I want to experiment with buying bitcoins, to learn the system initially. should I give them all credentials such as date of birth, social, bank account # etc ? I am concerned as I read these exchanges are hacked and would lose all the information in the hands of hackers. What do you advise? It looks like I may need to give all of the info as I give to a brokerage account?
If you want to use Coinbase or a similar company than you will need to give all the same info as opening a bank or brokerage account. If you want to do it without that download a bitcoin wallet to your phone (Bread or Jaxx are good), then find a bitcoin ATM (https://coinatmradar.com/), you simply put cash in the machine and scan your QR receive code from your phone and no one knows you own that bitcoin but you.
I want to experiment with buying bitcoins, to learn the system initially. should I give them all credentials such as date of birth, social, bank account # etc ? I am concerned as I read these exchanges are hacked and would lose all the information in the hands of hackers. What do you advise? It looks like I may need to give all of the info as I give to a brokerage account?
If you want to use Coinbase or a similar company than you will need to give all the same info as opening a bank or brokerage account. If you want to do it without that download a bitcoin wallet to your phone (Bread or Jaxx are good), then find a bitcoin ATM (https://coinatmradar.com/), you simply put cash in the machine and scan your QR receive code from your phone and no one knows you own that bitcoin but you.
In case anyone is interested a high quality paper on the economic state and future of the whole crypto space. Very well written and researched:
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/john-pfeffer/An+Investor%27s+Take+on+Cryptoassets+v6.pdf
How could one possibly compare gold with crypto is beyond me? There is simply no comparison in terms of confidentiality, liquidity, ease to buy and sell, and on and on.
Maybe you made lots of money, maybe it will continue but, it isn't comparable at all.
Cardboard
How could one possibly compare gold with crypto is beyond me? There is simply no comparison in terms of confidentiality, liquidity, ease to buy and sell, and on and on.
Maybe you made lots of money, maybe it will continue but, it isn't comparable at all.
Cardboard
Agree, there is no comparison - bitcoin wins/will win each of these and more if you are skating to where the puck is going
How could one possibly compare gold with crypto is beyond me? There is simply no comparison in terms of confidentiality, liquidity, ease to buy and sell, and on and on.
Maybe you made lots of money, maybe it will continue but, it isn't comparable at all.
Cardboard
Agree, there is no comparison - bitcoin wins/will win each of these and more if you are skating to where the puck is going
for me, the skating in this analogy is an ability to understand blockchain tech sufficiently to know what i dont know about this space. i dont see myself getting on this ice much less skating towards this puck
put another way, while i can understand bitcoin as a store of value, there is an alternative to gold and cash/treasuries that is more understandable for me, namely real estate. has utility, cant replicate land and hard to replicate buildings, can transfer for value (albeit with transaction costs).
when i read pfeffer's interesting analysis, i wonder why he analyzes bitcoin as an alternative to gold only (silver in passing) when he should really also include RE...isnt RE much bigger than gold as a store of value?
@snark
there are far fewer transaction costs to me to buy and sell RE than BTC. i would have to understand BTC first of all, which i really dont, whereas i sort of understand RE.
also BTC can be (and i expect it to be) regulated just as much as RE. no one is taking my RE away from me without compensation. it's there in the US constitution.
look at RE values in NYC, london, miami beach. store of value with utility
@snark
right, except many of the people seeking a store of value in those countries you mentioned own condos in NYC/miami beach
The value of bitcoins was in the fact that you could not have more than 21 million bitcoins. Now there are many more alternate coins. Does that still make bitcoins valuable?
https://coinmarketcap.com/
Even gold was confiscated by Roosevelt in the 30's. No asset is totally "safe" from governments.
Remember 2003? What happens to confidence when electricity goes out? Even gold dropped in 2008 with the crash...
Cardboard
What would be the advantage of doing it via ATM? Privacy? Skirting taxes? I really do not care about taxes as we all have to pay them. How does ATM protect privacy? I read on the link that you have to wait like an hour to get your money, 6 verifications to withdraw money (privacy?) and there are limits to withdrawal. So it leads me to using coinbase.
Anything I should be careful of when opening account and giving them info? Just worried about losing all the info if coinbase gets hackedI want to experiment with buying bitcoins, to learn the system initially. should I give them all credentials such as date of birth, social, bank account # etc ? I am concerned as I read these exchanges are hacked and would lose all the information in the hands of hackers. What do you advise? It looks like I may need to give all of the info as I give to a brokerage account?
If you want to use Coinbase or a similar company than you will need to give all the same info as opening a bank or brokerage account. If you want to do it without that download a bitcoin wallet to your phone (Bread or Jaxx are good), then find a bitcoin ATM (https://coinatmradar.com/), you simply put cash in the machine and scan your QR receive code from your phone and no one knows you own that bitcoin but you.
What would be the advantage of doing it via ATM? Privacy? Skirting taxes? I really do not care about taxes as we all have to pay them. How does ATM protect privacy? I read on the link that you have to wait like an hour to get your money, 6 verifications to withdraw money (privacy?) and there are limits to withdrawal. So it leads me to using coinbase.
Anything I should be careful of when opening account and giving them info? Just worried about losing all the info if coinbase gets hacked
@watch
I thought pfeffer neatly explained coin overvaluation as payment. But his explanation for coin undervaluation as store of money was entirely straw man. That coin will replace gold. both limited supply. Pure leap of faith. IMO
edit: also as to fixed supply point, which is such a preferred alternative to printable fiat. i didnt see that pfeffer countered the notion that all of these coins can have their tech/platform forked and then you have mini-me coins running all around. remember the old saw bad money destroys good.
@watch
I thought pfeffer neatly explained coin overvaluation as payment. But his explanation for coin undervaluation as store of money was entirely straw man. That coin will replace gold. both limited supply. Pure leap of faith. IMO
edit: also as to fixed supply point, which is such a preferred alternative to printable fiat. i didnt see that pfeffer countered the notion that all of these coins can have their tech/platform forked and then you have mini-me coins running all around. remember the old saw bad money destroys good.
You are misunderstanding Gresham's law. Bad money doesn't destroy good, bad money drives out good (from circulation). It doesn't destroy the value of the good money, in fact it makes it harder to get and thus increases its value. It is always easy to use the good money if you wish to because the demand is so high. It is just that people will tend to save the good money and spend the bad.
@watch
I thought pfeffer neatly explained coin overvaluation as payment. But his explanation for coin undervaluation as store of money was entirely straw man. That coin will replace gold. both limited supply. Pure leap of faith. IMO
edit: also as to fixed supply point, which is such a preferred alternative to printable fiat. i didnt see that pfeffer countered the notion that all of these coins can have their tech/platform forked and then you have mini-me coins running all around. remember the old saw bad money destroys good.
You are misunderstanding Gresham's law. Bad money doesn't destroy good, bad money drives out good (from circulation). It doesn't destroy the value of the good money, in fact it makes it harder to get and thus increases its value. It is always easy to use the good money if you wish to because the demand is so high. It is just that people will tend to save the good money and spend the bad.
so you are saying the proliferation of mini-me bitcoin is good for bitcoin?
In case anyone is interested a high quality paper on the economic state and future of the whole crypto space. Very well written and researched:
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/john-pfeffer/An+Investor%27s+Take+on+Cryptoassets+v6.pdf
You seem to have the best handle on this change. What companies are you eyeing, or investing in, to benefit from these changes?
@joe
i do not have a handle on blockchain tech. i think i have an emerging handle on the potential uses of blockchain as something that can disintermediate or reduce transaction cost and increase efficiency.
@joe
i do not have a handle on blockchain tech. i think i have an emerging handle on the potential uses of blockchain as something that can disintermediate or reduce transaction cost and increase efficiency.
Honest question about efficiency and transaction costs:
Given what I've read about the transaction costs for bitcoin and the amount of computing power needed to validate transactions, it seems like these two points are potential problems, not solutions. Seems like infrequent, high-priority transactions might be well served, but small and frequent transactions would get killed by the transaction costs. Is that a bitcoin-specific issue or a more general block-chain challenge?
In case anyone is interested a high quality paper on the economic state and future of the whole crypto space. Very well written and researched:
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/john-pfeffer/An+Investor%27s+Take+on+Cryptoassets+v6.pdf
Thanks for posting this
@joe
i do not have a handle on blockchain tech. i think i have an emerging handle on the potential uses of blockchain as something that can disintermediate or reduce transaction cost and increase efficiency.
Honest question about efficiency and transaction costs:
Given what I've read about the transaction costs for bitcoin and the amount of computing power needed to validate transactions, it seems like these two points are potential problems, not solutions. Seems like infrequent, high-priority transactions might be well served, but small and frequent transactions would get killed by the transaction costs. Is that a bitcoin-specific issue or a more general block-chain challenge?
I have been thinking about this too. They just can't write it all to the chain, it takes too long and incurs significant costs. Unless they are using something other than bitcoin. I wonder if they are running their own private chain / database that they periodically tokenize (basically just encode everything to say a single 256 byte string) and then they write that token to the block-chain. So you can then look at their chain and verify that at each step it was linked to the true block-chain which provides your proof of legitimacy and timing. Just a theory.
In case anyone is interested a high quality paper on the economic state and future of the whole crypto space. Very well written and researched:
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/john-pfeffer/An+Investor%27s+Take+on+Cryptoassets+v6.pdf
Thanks for posting this
Add another +1. Thank you. I'm heavily invested in Ethereum and yet I am having a hard time seeing where he is wrong.
the only company that i have found that seems to be aggressively moving to commercialize blockchain in interesting use cases is OSTK...first, in seeking to cut out prime brokerage from finding locates for short selling, which is a very opaque and therefore lucrative business for prime brokers (especially for hard to find names, which are the 80% in this 80/20 market). of course prime brokers could implement their own blockchain platform, but they wont do it in a way that cannibalizes their own profit center...it has to come from outside
would welcome other use case examples/companies
the only company that i have found that seems to be aggressively moving to commercialize blockchain in interesting use cases is OSTK...first, in seeking to cut out prime brokerage from finding locates for short selling, which is a very opaque and therefore lucrative business for prime brokers (especially for hard to find names, which are the 80% in this 80/20 market). of course prime brokers could implement their own blockchain platform, but they wont do it in a way that cannibalizes their own profit center...it has to come from outside
would welcome other use case examples/companies
Ripple sells a private block-chain that is used for very quick money transfers. Apparently transfers are just a few seconds to complete vs 10 minutes for bitcoin. Since it is private it has a mammoth advantage with energy efficiency / transaction capacity but you lose out on the robustness of a decentralized currency.
the only company that i have found that seems to be aggressively moving to commercialize blockchain in interesting use cases is OSTK...first, in seeking to cut out prime brokerage from finding locates for short selling, which is a very opaque and therefore lucrative business for prime brokers (especially for hard to find names, which are the 80% in this 80/20 market). of course prime brokers could implement their own blockchain platform, but they wont do it in a way that cannibalizes their own profit center...it has to come from outside
would welcome other use case examples/companies
Ripple sells a private block-chain that is used for very quick money transfers. Apparently transfers are just a few seconds to complete vs 10 minutes for bitcoin. Since it is private it has a mammoth advantage with energy efficiency / transaction capacity but you lose out on the robustness of a decentralized currency.
If the ledger is centrally controlled, what's the benefit over a conventional database ledger? These are already fast and secure.
https://www.coindesk.com/ripples-xrp-giving-third-largest-cryptocurrency-second-look/
https://twitter.com/prestonjbyrne/status/948636938088611841
2) I understand that the network are safe because information is distributed, but what would happen, if most of the processing Power were concentrated in one spot, even if temporarily so? Could China hijack the Bitcoin simply by flooding the network with mining servers, then temporarily or even permanetly damage it with fake transactions amongst each other, which makes it hard or even impossible to restore. A distributed network sort of lives in the moment, If I can gain control or quasi control over it for just a while, one could change its history ?
In case anyone is interested a high quality paper on the economic state and future of the whole crypto space. Very well written and researched:
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/john-pfeffer/An+Investor%27s+Take+on+Cryptoassets+v6.pdf
If it's privately owned, how is it not centrally controlled by the owner? What are those advantages was my question.
Which UNL should I select?
Since anybody can run a validator, the burden is on the network participants to choose a reliable set. Currently, Ripple (further mentions of Ripple in this document that are italicized represent the company) provides a default and recommended list which we expand based on watching the history of validators operated by Ripple and third parties. Eventually, Ripple intends to remove itself from this process entirely by having network participants select their own lists based on publicly available data about validator quality
Regarding inflation: there is a pre determined max for Bitcoin (not all of them) so there is no inflation in total supply. There is some inflation in what portion is free floating already (the release of new tokens exponentially decreases to zero).
Regarding inflation: there is a pre determined max for Bitcoin (not all of them) so there is no inflation in total supply. There is some inflation in what portion is free floating already (the release of new tokens exponentially decreases to zero).
I understand that the #of bitcoins is fixed, but this does not answer my question. Creating these cryptotokens is like creating money, as long as those tokens have a value and there is no economic benefit created (at least for the time being) with these tokens. This makes it inflationary in the real world.
Regarding inflation: there is a pre determined max for Bitcoin (not all of them) so there is no inflation in total supply. There is some inflation in what portion is free floating already (the release of new tokens exponentially decreases to zero).
I understand that the #of bitcoins is fixed, but this does not answer my question. Creating these cryptotokens is like creating money, as long as those tokens have a value and there is no economic benefit created (at least for the time being) with these tokens. This makes it inflationary in the real world.
In case anyone is interested a high quality paper on the economic state and future of the whole crypto space. Very well written and researched:
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/john-pfeffer/An+Investor%27s+Take+on+Cryptoassets+v6.pdf
Thanks for posting this
Add another +1. Thank you. I'm heavily invested in Ethereum and yet I am having a hard time seeing where he is wrong.
Sold my ETH and NEO for BTC today after reading it.
In case anyone is interested a high quality paper on the economic state and future of the whole crypto space. Very well written and researched:
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/john-pfeffer/An+Investor%27s+Take+on+Cryptoassets+v6.pdf
Thanks for posting this
Add another +1. Thank you. I'm heavily invested in Ethereum and yet I am having a hard time seeing where he is wrong.
Sold my ETH and NEO for BTC today after reading it.
First post. It seems to me he is using the equation of exchange incorrectly - P*Q should be total transaction volume on chain, not the value of computation behind it. It would be like valuing a fiat currency by the value of the government/police/gold/infrastructure/etc backing it, not the aggregate value of transactions.
Ripple co-founder is now richer than the Google founders on paper
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/04/ripple-co-founder-is-now-richer-than-the-google-founders-on-paper.html
Pretty crazy given that there is hardly any use for the product/service.
In case anyone is interested a high quality paper on the economic state and future of the whole crypto space. Very well written and researched:
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/john-pfeffer/An+Investor%27s+Take+on+Cryptoassets+v6.pdf
Thanks for posting this
Add another +1. Thank you. I'm heavily invested in Ethereum and yet I am having a hard time seeing where he is wrong.
Sold my ETH and NEO for BTC today after reading it.
First post. It seems to me he is using the equation of exchange incorrectly - P*Q should be total transaction volume on chain, not the value of computation behind it. It would be like valuing a fiat currency by the value of the government/police/gold/infrastructure/etc backing it, not the aggregate value of transactions.
Welcome to the board.
Still his main points are still valid even if the target valuation is some higher number. There is nothing stopping applications from moving from one turing complete app chain to another. If the value is located in the applications themselves, then what does it matter what chain any app is on as long as there is sufficient computing resources to run it. So there will be little stopping movement from one chain to another, or even from an app running on multiple chains at once and to switch between them (eventually even on the fly). And as long as there is more than one app-chain competing the prices will fall to some minimum level to provide the computing resources it needs to keep the chain operational (with maybe some small level of profit margin). And there will most likely be 10s or even hundreds of app-chains to choose from. There may be good investments in specific apps as they grow (just like stock in companies can be good investments), but the app chains themselves won't be the place the excess value will reside. I don't know, I'm still thinking through this myself.
If it's privately owned, how is it not centrally controlled by the owner? What are those advantages was my question.
The advantage is it is much, much faster as you don't need to do mining.
They do appear to have a custom set of validators, so you are trusting ripple to be honest about which validators they use.
question for those on this thread who are long bitcoin (either in coin or in theory):
Bitt is blockchainifying the barbados fiat currency. do you see this central bank adoption expanding to other countries? is this a plus or negative for blockchain/bitcoin adoption?
question for those on this thread who are long bitcoin (either in coin or in theory):
Bitt is blockchainifying the barbados fiat currency. do you see this central bank adoption expanding to other countries? is this a plus or negative for blockchain/bitcoin adoption?
I think it will have no effect. Rather than re-type my reasons read my posts in this discussion: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/money-mustache-why-bitcoin-is-stupid/
Regarding inflation: there is a pre determined max for Bitcoin (not all of them) so there is no inflation in total supply. There is some inflation in what portion is free floating already (the release of new tokens exponentially decreases to zero).
I understand that the #of bitcoins is fixed, but this does not answer my question. Creating these cryptotokens is like creating money, as long as those tokens have a value and there is no economic benefit created (at least for the time being) with these tokens. This makes it inflationary in the real world.
So the addition of these new currencies/stores of value on top of all of the currencies/stores of value already existing in the world is inflationary. I agree. I think any value these new currencies capture long term will come at the expense of something else, I would expect a decrease in value of fiat and precious metals. I think gold will be reduced in value somewhat, but gold will still have value because it has a feature Bitcoin doesn't (i.e. you still have it when the electricity goes out or the internet goes down), it is the best non-digital store of value. I would expect other metals like silver and copper to lose all value over the value they have as a commodity for industrial/commercial uses. I think the majority of value loss will come from fiat currencies as they will be used only for transactional purposes and lose all store-of-value uses almost completely and probably lose much of their transactional value to one or more altcoins as well.
Regarding inflation: there is a pre determined max for Bitcoin (not all of them) so there is no inflation in total supply. There is some inflation in what portion is free floating already (the release of new tokens exponentially decreases to zero).
I understand that the #of bitcoins is fixed, but this does not answer my question. Creating these cryptotokens is like creating money, as long as those tokens have a value and there is no economic benefit created (at least for the time being) with these tokens. This makes it inflationary in the real world.
So the addition of these new currencies/stores of value on top of all of the currencies/stores of value already existing in the world is inflationary. I agree. I think any value these new currencies capture long term will come at the expense of something else, I would expect a decrease in value of fiat and precious metals. I think gold will be reduced in value somewhat, but gold will still have value because it has a feature Bitcoin doesn't (i.e. you still have it when the electricity goes out or the internet goes down), it is the best non-digital store of value. I would expect other metals like silver and copper to lose all value over the value they have as a commodity for industrial/commercial uses. I think the majority of value loss will come from fiat currencies as they will be used only for transactional purposes and lose all store-of-value uses almost completely and probably lose much of their transactional value to one or more altcoins as well.
What is the mechanism by which 1 USD becomes worth less than 1 USD? It can become worth less in real terms through inflation, i.e., you can purchase fewer goods with 1 USD, but 1 USD is always 1 USD. It's not as if you can take 100 USD, and then it becomes 60 USD to "make room" for bitcoins valued at the equivalent of 40 USD.
Regarding inflation: there is a pre determined max for Bitcoin (not all of them) so there is no inflation in total supply. There is some inflation in what portion is free floating already (the release of new tokens exponentially decreases to zero).
I understand that the #of bitcoins is fixed, but this does not answer my question. Creating these cryptotokens is like creating money, as long as those tokens have a value and there is no economic benefit created (at least for the time being) with these tokens. This makes it inflationary in the real world.
So the addition of these new currencies/stores of value on top of all of the currencies/stores of value already existing in the world is inflationary. I agree. I think any value these new currencies capture long term will come at the expense of something else, I would expect a decrease in value of fiat and precious metals. I think gold will be reduced in value somewhat, but gold will still have value because it has a feature Bitcoin doesn't (i.e. you still have it when the electricity goes out or the internet goes down), it is the best non-digital store of value. I would expect other metals like silver and copper to lose all value over the value they have as a commodity for industrial/commercial uses. I think the majority of value loss will come from fiat currencies as they will be used only for transactional purposes and lose all store-of-value uses almost completely and probably lose much of their transactional value to one or more altcoins as well.
What is the mechanism by which 1 USD becomes worth less than 1 USD? It can become worth less in real terms through inflation, i.e., you can purchase fewer goods with 1 USD, but 1 USD is always 1 USD. It's not as if you can take 100 USD, and then it becomes 60 USD to "make room" for bitcoins valued at the equivalent of 40 USD.
1 2030 USD will buy less than 1 2018 USD used to and in 2030 the Bitcoin market cap will be equal to 4-12T 2018 USDs.
A few comments to aid in understanding cryptocurrency ...
1) A currency is simply a unit of account AND a payment system.
2) Every user must decide, per payment, what is MOST important to them; speed OR security (not both). If you're paying for coffee, 5-10 seconds for the machine to process your card is acceptable; 10 minutes+ for a miner to verify your token is not.
3) Every user must decide, per payment, the level of security required. If you're paying via a FI card, the FI stands behind the transaction, and fast processing via a database becomes practical. If you're paying with crypto, NOBODY stands behind the transaction, and slow processing via the miner network on a distributed ledger is a necessity.
4) Every user must decide, per payment, the level of anonymity required. The more it matters, the more you require the total anonymity of Bitcoin. Most of us will never require that level of anonymity, and if so - only very rarely.
Hence it should be very clear that for the vast majority of payments, we don't need a crypto running on a distributed ledger; the existing rails of cash and FI cards are more than adequate. With no demand for your product (MR), you cannot cover your costs (MC), and must go out of business. To survive, your payment system must offer something that people will pay for - level of anonymity.
Bitcoin is completely functional, anonymous digital cash, that exists entirely outside of the financial system. Records are immutable, it can be exchanged into any fiat currency you want, does everything that a fiat currency does, doesn't cost anything to keep secure, and is always available, at any time, anywhere in the world. It is an incredibly valuable store of value, and it is of most valuable to the criminal element.
Nothing prevents CBs from banding together to create a competing 'Bitcoin' under a non-sovereign organization (UN, World Bank, etc.). The coin could be used to settle global trade payments, removing the need to convert into fiat currency (USD, Euro, etc) to pay bills as they come due. The coin could partially displace current sovereign gold and foreign currency holdings, as an alternative diversifying asset. However, the coin could also support a global fractional reserve banking system - which Bitcoin CANNOT.
Throughout history, 'good' money has always chased out 'bad' money; most would expect a global CBDC to do something similar to a Bitcoin. The result is that Bitcoin survives as a valuable niche store of value, offering total anonymity as a unique value proposition. Nothing wrong in that.
SD
A few comments to aid in understanding cryptocurrency ...
1) A currency is simply a unit of account AND a payment system.
2) Every user must decide, per payment, what is MOST important to them; speed OR security (not both). If you're paying for coffee, 5-10 seconds for the machine to process your card is acceptable; 10 minutes+ for a miner to verify your token is not.
3) Every user must decide, per payment, the level of security required. If you're paying via a FI card, the FI stands behind the transaction, and fast processing via a database becomes practical. If you're paying with crypto, NOBODY stands behind the transaction, and slow processing via the miner network on a distributed ledger is a necessity.
4) Every user must decide, per payment, the level of anonymity required. The more it matters, the more you require the total anonymity of Bitcoin. Most of us will never require that level of anonymity, and if so - only very rarely.
Hence it should be very clear that for the vast majority of payments, we don't need a crypto running on a distributed ledger; the existing rails of cash and FI cards are more than adequate. With no demand for your product (MR), you cannot cover your costs (MC), and must go out of business. To survive, your payment system must offer something that people will pay for - level of anonymity.
Bitcoin is completely functional, anonymous digital cash, that exists entirely outside of the financial system. Records are immutable, it can be exchanged into any fiat currency you want, does everything that a fiat currency does, doesn't cost anything to keep secure, and is always available, at any time, anywhere in the world. It is an incredibly valuable store of value, and it is of most value to the criminal element.
Nothing prevents CBs from banding together to create a competing 'Bitcoin' under a non-sovereign organization (UN, World Bank, etc.). The coin could be used to settle global trade payments, removing the need to convert into fiat currency (USD, Euro, etc) to pay bills as they come due. The coin could partially displace current sovereign gold and foreign currency holdings, as an alternative diversifying asset. However, the coin could also support a global fractional reserve banking system - which Bitcoin CANNOT.
Throughout history, 'good' money has always chased out 'bad' money; most would expect a global CBDC to do something similar to a Bitcoin. The result is that Bitcoin survives as a valuable niche store of value, offering total anonymity as a unique value proposition, and there is nothing wrong in that.
SD
b) Bitcoin is the opposite of anonymous and is a great tool for tracking movements of money - no? Ross Ulbricht would probably support this statement. All transactions are publicly and immutably stored for everyone to see - how is this anonymous in any way under the current dynamic? Regulators should love this for AML.
A few comments to aid in understanding cryptocurrency ...
1) A currency is simply a unit of account AND a payment system.
2) Every user must decide, per payment, what is MOST important to them; speed OR security (not both). If you're paying for coffee, 5-10 seconds for the machine to process your card is acceptable; 10 minutes+ for a miner to verify your token is not.
3) Every user must decide, per payment, the level of security required. If you're paying via a FI card, the FI stands behind the transaction, and fast processing via a database becomes practical. If you're paying with crypto, NOBODY stands behind the transaction, and slow processing via the miner network on a distributed ledger is a necessity.
4) Every user must decide, per payment, the level of anonymity required. The more it matters, the more you require the total anonymity of Bitcoin. Most of us will never require that level of anonymity, and if so - only very rarely.
Hence it should be very clear that for the vast majority of payments, we don't need a crypto running on a distributed ledger; the existing rails of cash and FI cards are more than adequate. With no demand for your product (MR), you cannot cover your costs (MC), and must go out of business. To survive, your payment system must offer something that people will pay for - level of anonymity.
Bitcoin is completely functional, anonymous digital cash, that exists entirely outside of the financial system. Records are immutable, it can be exchanged into any fiat currency you want, does everything that a fiat currency does, doesn't cost anything to keep secure, and is always available, at any time, anywhere in the world. It is an incredibly valuable store of value, and it is of most value to the criminal element.
Nothing prevents CBs from banding together to create a competing 'Bitcoin' under a non-sovereign organization (UN, World Bank, etc.). The coin could be used to settle global trade payments, removing the need to convert into fiat currency (USD, Euro, etc) to pay bills as they come due. The coin could partially displace current sovereign gold and foreign currency holdings, as an alternative diversifying asset. However, the coin could also support a global fractional reserve banking system - which Bitcoin CANNOT.
Throughout history, 'good' money has always chased out 'bad' money; most would expect a global CBDC to do something similar to a Bitcoin. The result is that Bitcoin survives as a valuable niche store of value, offering total anonymity as a unique value proposition, and there is nothing wrong in that.
SD
Bitcoin does not do everything fiat does. Try paying your taxes with bitcoin and you will be posting to COBF from federal prison. I'd argue that satisfying government levies might be the most important function of a currency as it's the function that keeps you out of prison. Why is it that most bitcoin zealots always overlook this?
b) Bitcoin is the opposite of anonymous and is a great tool for tracking movements of money - no? Ross Ulbricht would probably support this statement. All transactions are publicly and immutably stored for everyone to see - how is this anonymous in any way under the current dynamic? Regulators should love this for AML.
If I may jump in to this. I think that this doesn't necessarily hold up, beyond a very theoretical sense. In practice there are bitcoin apps that pool transactions together and make it effectively impossible to trace who did what.
Imagine that you are going to give someone we will call A $1k. I am going to give someone called B $2k. There are tools that will make a single transaction such that deepsouth contributes $1k, no_free_lunch contributes $2k, then a gets $1k and b gets $2k. You can't really tell who gave the money to A versus who gave the money to B. Multiply that by a dozen or more people and then do that a couple of times and you can't ever know who was really giving the money to who. They would have to pass laws to ban transaction pooling to get around this.
A few comments to aid in understanding cryptocurrency ...
1) A currency is simply a unit of account AND a payment system.
2) Every user must decide, per payment, what is MOST important to them; speed OR security (not both). If you're paying for coffee, 5-10 seconds for the machine to process your card is acceptable; 10 minutes+ for a miner to verify your token is not.
3) Every user must decide, per payment, the level of security required. If you're paying via a FI card, the FI stands behind the transaction, and fast processing via a database becomes practical. If you're paying with crypto, NOBODY stands behind the transaction, and slow processing via the miner network on a distributed ledger is a necessity.
4) Every user must decide, per payment, the level of anonymity required. The more it matters, the more you require the total anonymity of Bitcoin. Most of us will never require that level of anonymity, and if so - only very rarely.
Hence it should be very clear that for the vast majority of payments, we don't need a crypto running on a distributed ledger; the existing rails of cash and FI cards are more than adequate. With no demand for your product (MR), you cannot cover your costs (MC), and must go out of business. To survive, your payment system must offer something that people will pay for - level of anonymity.
Bitcoin is completely functional, anonymous digital cash, that exists entirely outside of the financial system. Records are immutable, it can be exchanged into any fiat currency you want, does everything that a fiat currency does, doesn't cost anything to keep secure, and is always available, at any time, anywhere in the world. It is an incredibly valuable store of value, and it is of most value to the criminal element.
Nothing prevents CBs from banding together to create a competing 'Bitcoin' under a non-sovereign organization (UN, World Bank, etc.). The coin could be used to settle global trade payments, removing the need to convert into fiat currency (USD, Euro, etc) to pay bills as they come due. The coin could partially displace current sovereign gold and foreign currency holdings, as an alternative diversifying asset. However, the coin could also support a global fractional reserve banking system - which Bitcoin CANNOT.
Throughout history, 'good' money has always chased out 'bad' money; most would expect a global CBDC to do something similar to a Bitcoin. The result is that Bitcoin survives as a valuable niche store of value, offering total anonymity as a unique value proposition, and there is nothing wrong in that.
SD
Bitcoin does not do everything fiat does. Try paying your taxes with bitcoin and you will be posting to COBF from federal prison. I'd argue that satisfying government levies might be the most important function of a currency as it's the function that keeps you out of prison. Why is it that most bitcoin zealots always overlook this?
Can you pay taxes in gold today?
Fiat is a unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value (guaranteed by the issuing CB); a Bitcoin is exactly the same thing.
And you CAN use it to pay your taxes - as is commonly done in Estonia.
Crypto as a payment system runs far more effectively and efficiently on a database.
Until you do your own DD on how the technology works, no one can help you.
SD
A few comments to aid in understanding cryptocurrency ...
1) A currency is simply a unit of account AND a payment system.
2) Every user must decide, per payment, what is MOST important to them; speed OR security (not both). If you're paying for coffee, 5-10 seconds for the machine to process your card is acceptable; 10 minutes+ for a miner to verify your token is not.
3) Every user must decide, per payment, the level of security required. If you're paying via a FI card, the FI stands behind the transaction, and fast processing via a database becomes practical. If you're paying with crypto, NOBODY stands behind the transaction, and slow processing via the miner network on a distributed ledger is a necessity.
4) Every user must decide, per payment, the level of anonymity required. The more it matters, the more you require the total anonymity of Bitcoin. Most of us will never require that level of anonymity, and if so - only very rarely.
Hence it should be very clear that for the vast majority of payments, we don't need a crypto running on a distributed ledger; the existing rails of cash and FI cards are more than adequate. With no demand for your product (MR), you cannot cover your costs (MC), and must go out of business. To survive, your payment system must offer something that people will pay for - level of anonymity.
Bitcoin is completely functional, anonymous digital cash, that exists entirely outside of the financial system. Records are immutable, it can be exchanged into any fiat currency you want, does everything that a fiat currency does, doesn't cost anything to keep secure, and is always available, at any time, anywhere in the world. It is an incredibly valuable store of value, and it is of most value to the criminal element.
Nothing prevents CBs from banding together to create a competing 'Bitcoin' under a non-sovereign organization (UN, World Bank, etc.). The coin could be used to settle global trade payments, removing the need to convert into fiat currency (USD, Euro, etc) to pay bills as they come due. The coin could partially displace current sovereign gold and foreign currency holdings, as an alternative diversifying asset. However, the coin could also support a global fractional reserve banking system - which Bitcoin CANNOT.
Throughout history, 'good' money has always chased out 'bad' money; most would expect a global CBDC to do something similar to a Bitcoin. The result is that Bitcoin survives as a valuable niche store of value, offering total anonymity as a unique value proposition, and there is nothing wrong in that.
SD
Bitcoin does not do everything fiat does. Try paying your taxes with bitcoin and you will be posting to COBF from federal prison. I'd argue that satisfying government levies might be the most important function of a currency as it's the function that keeps you out of prison. Why is it that most bitcoin zealots always overlook this?
Can you pay taxes in gold today?
Of course not. I never said that it couldn't replace gold, I implied that it can't replace the dollar.
I own bitcoin because of fund flows on the bet that it becomes seen as a stable store of value.
Fiat is a unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value (guaranteed by the issuing CB); a Bitcoin is exactly the same thing.
And you CAN use it to pay your taxes - as is commonly done in Estonia.
Crypto as a payment system runs far more effectively and efficiently on a database.
Until you do your own DD on how the technology works, no one can help you.
SD
I have to ask what you mean by "store of value". Has fiat really been a good "store of value" over decades? Even the fiats that are seen as generally stable like the dollar have not retained their value in real terms in the 20th century, e.g., look at the change in the nominal price of a gallon of milk or a subway ride in NYC.
EDIT: I do note that you didn't say fiats were a "good" store of value. So, to the extent a "store of value" is anything that allows at least some preservation of value over time, then fiats would qualify, even if they're not great at it.
Technically a $1 bill is a bearer bond issued by the central bank, backed by the full faith and credit of the sovereign. The credit being supported by the sovereign ability to charge and collect on taxes, rents, etc. The store of value is 'dynamic', rather than a 'static' asset either sitting in a vault, or in the ground.
SD
If you want to see how an implementation of the lightning network wallet could look like check out the videos in the following twitter thread. He shows how you can add a payment contact (i.e. open a payment channel) and how to send, request and receive payments. I guess it will still take a few months until the bitcoin network has fully rolled out lightning, but it's great to glimpse how it might look like for users.
https://twitter.com/ln_zap/status/949160102883405824
Technically a $1 bill is a bearer bond issued by the central bank, backed by the full faith and credit of the sovereign. The credit being supported by the sovereign ability to charge and collect on taxes, rents, etc. The store of value is 'dynamic', rather than a 'static' asset either sitting in a vault, or in the ground.
SD
I don't understand what point you're trying to make.
I don't think it can be disputed that $1 will buy you far less milk or eggs or bacon or subway rides or movie tickets today than $1 would have bought you 100 years ago. See, e.g., https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-2/average-food-prices-a-snapshot-of-how-much-has-changed-over-a-century.htm
The link illustrates why I think USD is not a good store of value. If you think it's a good store of value, then I suspect we're using "store of value" to mean different things.
If you want to see how an implementation of the lightning network wallet could look like check out the videos in the following twitter thread. He shows how you can add a payment contact (i.e. open a payment channel) and how to send, request and receive payments. I guess it will still take a few months until the bitcoin network has fully rolled out lightning, but it's great to glimpse how it might look like for users.
https://twitter.com/ln_zap/status/949160102883405824
Would you pay with a currency that could move 10 or 20% a day?
What would be the advantage of doing it via ATM? Privacy? Skirting taxes? I really do not care about taxes as we all have to pay them. How does ATM protect privacy? I read on the link that you have to wait like an hour to get your money, 6 verifications to withdraw money (privacy?) and there are limits to withdrawal. So it leads me to using coinbase.
Anything I should be careful of when opening account and giving them info? Just worried about losing all the info if coinbase gets hacked
Buying from an ATM is easier and much quicker (if you have one nearby that is). You can download your wallet, put money in to the machine, and you have bitcoin. You can still keep track of your cost basis and pay your taxes after you sell. You can still open up a Coinbase account later and transfer your bitcoins in to convert back to $USD.
If you go through a company such as Coinbase you will need to setup an account (like you have already discovered) verify your ID, SSN, email address, etc. Then you will need to link your bank account which will take a few days. Then when you buy bitcoin from Coinbase it takes something like a week to show up in your account. They also have limits to the amount you can buy/sell in a day/week/month.
So with an ATM you have bitcoin in minutes(even if it takes an hour to be fully confirmed at peak times, it is usually less), with Coinbase it will take you over a week from the time you first setup your account until you have bitcoin in your account.
The downside of the ATM is that the fees are usually much higher. So you will save money in the end if you go the Coinbase route (if bitcoin doesn't shoot up in price by the time you get your account setup and your bank account linked and the money transferred in).
Another way to buy bitcoin is to find someone who is willing to sell you some. This can be as quick and easy as the ATM and potentially cost you less (depending on the deal you make), but it can be dangerous meeting a stranger with cash in hand. If you go this route try craigslist or http://localbitcoins.com/ for people in your area selling bitcoins. I have never done this, but I know people who have.
If you do use Coinbase and are worried about them being hacked, after you have your bitcoin in your coinbase account transfer it out to your own private wallet. This is what I do. I use coinbase to buy, but I don't store it there. Coinbase has never been hacked, but it is always a possibility.
Is bitcoin a code made of numbers and letters that I can vuisially see or is a barcode image that you can scan with a scanner?
After buying on coinbase, how do you transfer to Jaxx? Can it not be simply downloaded on a USB and saved on your hard drive? If so, would that be not most secure? Jaxx is a third party app and can be hacked.
Is bitcoin a code made of numbers and letters that I can vuisially see or is a barcode image that you can scan with a scanner?
Both. Your private key is made up of numbers and letters and your public address is also made up of different numbers and letters. But they can both be made into a QR code which can be scanned by a smartphone camera. Any string of numbers and letters can be made into a QR code, that includes website addresses, bitcoin addresses, or anything else.QuoteAfter buying on coinbase, how do you transfer to Jaxx? Can it not be simply downloaded on a USB and saved on your hard drive? If so, would that be not most secure? Jaxx is a third party app and can be hacked.
After buying on Coinbase go to your account and select "send", you will fill out a form which needs the amount to send and the address to send to. Fill in the amount to send, then go to jaxx and find your receive address, copy it, then paste it into the form on coinbase. Then hit the send button.
It is pretty easy. Jaxx is an application that runs on your computer or phone, but it doesn't send any info off of your device. But yes if someone got control of your device they could steal your bitcoin from you. This is the same if you kept your private key on your hard drive, if someone hacked your computer they could steal your bitcoin. If you have a substantial amount and you are afraid of someone hacking your device you don't have to keep the Jaxx software on your device. The best way to learn this I think is to actually do it. My recommendation would be to take $100 to experiment with for educational purposes.
1) Set up a Coinbase account and buy $100 worth of Bitcoin.
2) Download the Jaxx app to your phone.
3) Run the Jaxx app and set up a new wallet.
IMPORTANT: Write down the 12 word backup phrase that you are given and save it somewhere secure.
4) Once you have your Bitcoin available in Coinbase send it to your Jaxx wallet.
a) In Coinbase select "Send".
b) Put in the amount to send (the max amount).
c) In Jaxx copy the receive address.
d) in Coinbase paste your jaxx receive address in the address to send to. And hit the send button.
e) Wait until your Bitcoin shows up in Jaxx. This could be as quick as 2 min or as long as an hour. But will probably be within 10 min.
5) Now that you have Bitcoin in your private Jaxx wallet. You can remove the Jaxx app from your phone. Just uninstall the app completely. It is now gone and no one can get your Bitcoin by hacking into your phone. The only way anyone could steal your Bitcoin from you now would be to somehow get a hold of your 12 word backup phrase which you wrote down when setting up Jaxx.
6) Now to restore your wallet you simply re-install Jaxx and instead of creating a new wallet select restore wallet the first time you run it. It will ask you for your backup phrase. Type it in and your wallet containing your Bitcoins will be available for you to use. You can do this to check the balance or to make a transaction. Then you can uninstall Jaxx again to have your wallet exist nowhere but on paper again.
Is bitcoin a code made of numbers and letters that I can vuisially see or is a barcode image that you can scan with a scanner?
Both. Your private key is made up of numbers and letters and your public address is also made up of different numbers and letters. But they can both be made into a QR code which can be scanned by a smartphone camera. Any string of numbers and letters can be made into a QR code, that includes website addresses, bitcoin addresses, or anything else.QuoteAfter buying on coinbase, how do you transfer to Jaxx? Can it not be simply downloaded on a USB and saved on your hard drive? If so, would that be not most secure? Jaxx is a third party app and can be hacked.
After buying on Coinbase go to your account and select "send", you will fill out a form which needs the amount to send and the address to send to. Fill in the amount to send, then go to jaxx and find your receive address, copy it, then paste it into the form on coinbase. Then hit the send button.
It is pretty easy. Jaxx is an application that runs on your computer or phone, but it doesn't send any info off of your device. But yes if someone got control of your device they could steal your bitcoin from you. This is the same if you kept your private key on your hard drive, if someone hacked your computer they could steal your bitcoin. If you have a substantial amount and you are afraid of someone hacking your device you don't have to keep the Jaxx software on your device. The best way to learn this I think is to actually do it. My recommendation would be to take $100 to experiment with for educational purposes.
1) Set up a Coinbase account and buy $100 worth of Bitcoin.
2) Download the Jaxx app to your phone.
3) Run the Jaxx app and set up a new wallet.
IMPORTANT: Write down the 12 word backup phrase that you are given and save it somewhere secure.
4) Once you have your Bitcoin available in Coinbase send it to your Jaxx wallet.
a) In Coinbase select "Send".
b) Put in the amount to send (the max amount).
c) In Jaxx copy the receive address.
d) in Coinbase paste your jaxx receive address in the address to send to. And hit the send button.
e) Wait until your Bitcoin shows up in Jaxx. This could be as quick as 2 min or as long as an hour. But will probably be within 10 min.
5) Now that you have Bitcoin in your private Jaxx wallet. You can remove the Jaxx app from your phone. Just uninstall the app completely. It is now gone and no one can get your Bitcoin by hacking into your phone. The only way anyone could steal your Bitcoin from you now would be to somehow get a hold of your 12 word backup phrase which you wrote down when setting up Jaxx.
6) Now to restore your wallet you simply re-install Jaxx and instead of creating a new wallet select restore wallet the first time you run it. It will ask you for your backup phrase. Type it in and your wallet containing your Bitcoins will be available for you to use. You can do this to check the balance or to make a transaction. Then you can uninstall Jaxx again to have your wallet exist nowhere but on paper again.
rkbabang, are you just simplifying your explanation here about what is bitcoin and how its transactions work?
My understanding is that you never download a bitcoin. Bitcoins (more precisely, their values) are not stored on any specific device, but they "inhere" on transaction records on the blockchain network. By creating your own wallet and "sending bitcoins" to there, you are recording an additional transaction to your own address (this address is still part of the network). To make further transactions, you would need to know and use the private key that is generated by the wallet. And this private key is what gets stored in your wallet.
And to answer emily's question of why you cannot simply download "bitcoins" - Because it is simply not a download of an information artifact, but software like jaxx interacts with the blockchain to participate in the transaction recording (ledger) and manages the key generation / storage. You could write software yourself that does this, but obviously not straightforward like storing a file.
rkbabang, thank you. Is it possible to download the code to a USB (or on computer) and back up on a local drive not connected to the internet? I assume that would be the safest like you would store gold. Is that possible to do? Hacking is the biggest danger as I read.
The latest e-mails from Rkbabang should demonstrate clearly why this cannot replace gold. At least not for now.
The complexity, relying on third parties is way too high.
Moreover, I just entered this on my PC to see what this market is doing right now: https://www.coindesk.com/price/ and the screen is locked.
How could one of the largest exchanges be experiencing this on a regular basis and attract more users/demand and a sense of security?
Finally, when something goes up 20 times in any given year, it should give a pause to most rational players. That is at least what I would expect from participants on a website who know one thing or two about value investing.
This should also be especially true, when this new "hunt" for a supposedly store of value occurs during a raging bull market in paper assets.
Cardboard
The latest e-mails from Rkbabang should demonstrate clearly why this cannot replace gold. At least not for now.
The complexity, relying on third parties is way too high.
Moreover, I just entered this on my PC to see what this market is doing right now: https://www.coindesk.com/price/ and the screen is locked.
How could one of the largest exchanges be experiencing this on a regular basis and attract more users/demand and a sense of security?
Finally, when something goes up 20 times in any given year, it should give a pause to most rational players. That is at least what I would expect from participants on a website who know one thing or two about value investing.
This should also be especially true, when this new "hunt" for a supposedly store of value occurs during a raging bull market in paper assets.
Cardboard
"I've never physically owned gold as an investment, but I have in the past owned SGOL."
Do yourself an immense favour: go buy right now an ounce of gold and bring it back home. Johnson Matthey is a highly reputable refiner and these are accepted/recognized anywhere.
This will cost you near nothing as these have very little commission to buy but, the process could show you what I mean.
Cardboard
Finally, when something goes up 20 times in any given year, it should give a pause to most rational players. That is at least what I would expect from participants on a website who know one thing or two about value investing.
Finally, when something goes up 20 times in any given year, it should give a pause to most rational players. That is at least what I would expect from participants on a website who know one thing or two about value investing.
My problem with this is that "something going up 20x" doesn't account for fundamentals. Many value investors simply say its overvalued because of recent price action. Aren't we supposed to largely ignore past price movements in value investing and instead focus on fundamentals (% of gold market cap, % of world money supply, etc)?
I think what is really happening here is that crypto in general eliminates the IPO phase of investments. In its first 9 years as a company, Google went from $0 to $100B+, but people were less likely to call it a bubble because most of the price rise (in % terms ) was pre-IPO. The IPO market cap was around $20B, but if you chart gains in the pre IPO price of google shares they'd look almost exactly like crypto prices. Its largely optics imo.
Not saying crypto is a great investment or that it can't fall severly from here, but I don't see a lot of fundamental analysis from value investors going on in regards to crypto (both on the bullish and bearish side).
The latest e-mails from Rkbabang should demonstrate clearly why this cannot replace gold. At least not for now.
The complexity, relying on third parties is way too high.
"My problem with this is that "something going up 20x" doesn't account for fundamentals. Many value investors simply say its overvalued because of recent price action. Aren't we supposed to largely ignore past price movements in value investing and instead focus on fundamentals (% of gold market cap, % of world money supply, etc)?
I think what is really happening here is that crypto in general eliminates the IPO phase of investments. In its first 9 years as a company, Google went from $0 to $100B+, but people were less likely to call it a bubble because most of the price rise (in % terms ) was pre-IPO. The IPO market cap was around $20B, but if you chart gains in the pre IPO price of google shares they'd look almost exactly like crypto prices. Its largely optics imo.
Not saying crypto is a great investment or that it can't fall severly from here, but I don't see a lot of fundamental analysis from value investors going on in regards to crypto (both on the bullish and bearish side)."
A value investor will accept that something goes up 20 times in one year if there was large undervaluation and/or something fundamental that has changed to justify this 20 times. However, I will submit that in my 20+ years of investing that this is very rare occurence and much more likely to happen to obscure, small market cap securities vs billion $ assets.
So you should ask yourself, what has changed to cryptos in the span of 12 months to justify such move?
Moreover, the main thesis that I have heard on this board is that Bitcoin should be valued at $7 trillion mostly because gold has such valuation. Is this fundamental analysis?
Cardboard
So you should ask yourself, what has changed to cryptos in the span of 12 months to justify such move?
Cardboard
"My problem with this is that "something going up 20x" doesn't account for fundamentals. Many value investors simply say its overvalued because of recent price action. Aren't we supposed to largely ignore past price movements in value investing and instead focus on fundamentals (% of gold market cap, % of world money supply, etc)?
I think what is really happening here is that crypto in general eliminates the IPO phase of investments. In its first 9 years as a company, Google went from $0 to $100B+, but people were less likely to call it a bubble because most of the price rise (in % terms ) was pre-IPO. The IPO market cap was around $20B, but if you chart gains in the pre IPO price of google shares they'd look almost exactly like crypto prices. Its largely optics imo.
Not saying crypto is a great investment or that it can't fall severly from here, but I don't see a lot of fundamental analysis from value investors going on in regards to crypto (both on the bullish and bearish side)."
A value investor will accept that something goes up 20 times in one year if there was large undervaluation and/or something fundamental that has changed to justify this 20 times. However, I will submit that in my 20+ years of investing that this is very rare occurence and much more likely to happen to obscure, small market cap securities vs billion $ assets.
So you should ask yourself, what has changed to cryptos in the span of 12 months to justify such move?
Moreover, the main thesis that I have heard on this board is that Bitcoin should be valued at $7 trillion mostly because gold has such valuation. Is this fundamental analysis?
Cardboard
Gold went from $35/oz in 1970 to $850/oz in 1980. It fell to as low as $250 in 1999 and was trading over $1000 in 2008.
Just in my lifetime gold has ranged from $38 to $1800. That is a 47X difference on a store of value that has been in common use for thousands of years (you aren't going to get more stable than that). And it wasn't a smooth increase from $38 to $1800, but up and down massively.
QuoteGold went from $35/oz in 1970 to $850/oz in 1980. It fell to as low as $250 in 1999 and was trading over $1000 in 2008.
Just in my lifetime gold has ranged from $38 to $1800. That is a 47X difference on a store of value that has been in common use for thousands of years (you aren't going to get more stable than that). And it wasn't a smooth increase from $38 to $1800, but up and down massively.
The value of the US dollar also changed during that period.
Pretty big difference between changing that much over 40-50 year and that much in a year.
I think there is one limitation of cryptocurrecies that strikes at the core of its value proposition. The primary strength is its decentralization and its independence from any state or organization. However, it requires a global computer network, i.e., the Internet, for it to work. The problem is that the infrastructure that provides the Internet is centralized and owned by states / corporations. So the bedrock on which the blockchain network lives on is not decentralized and independent.
Also, if you are cut off from the network, you cannot participate in this. Just think of the citizens of North Korea - they cannot participate in any Bitcoin transactions because they cannot even access the public Internet.
What happens if a totalitarian state abolishes the infrastructure for the Internet because they see cryptocurrencies as their biggest threat? Maybe not even a single state, but the world as a whole decides for whatever reason that the Internet needs to be abolished? Or another world-war destroys all the digital infrastructures? I guess such conditions are so dire that considerations of the value of cryptocurrencies are moot... But don't these things supposed to be a store of value because these events could occur?
That is also one positive for gold. Even if we go back to fighting with rocks and sticks, gold could still have value.
I think there is one limitation of cryptocurrecies that strikes at the core of its value proposition. The primary strength is its decentralization and its independence from any state or organization. However, it requires a global computer network, i.e., the Internet, for it to work. The problem is that the infrastructure that provides the Internet is centralized and owned by states / corporations. So the bedrock on which the blockchain network lives on is not decentralized and independent.
Also, if you are cut off from the network, you cannot participate in this. Just think of the citizens of North Korea - they cannot participate in any Bitcoin transactions because they cannot even access the public Internet.
"Yes gold isn't going anywhere, but if the US government gets tyrannical to the point where it shuts down the internet I suspect I'll have larger problems than my Bitcoin holdings."
This gets to my point: there is no hunt right now for a store of value.
The hunt right now is related to greed, the fear to miss out on something or after almost 8 years into a major bull market.
Imagine this whole conversation in 2008-2009 during the major downturn. Even then the supposedly great store of value or gold was down quite a bit. Everything was thrown away. Raising cash was all that mattered.
I am not saying that Rkbabang is not onto something and that crypto is worthless. However, I am quite skeptical about the store of value argument especially after the kind of frenzy that we have seen.
Cardboard
"Yes gold isn't going anywhere, but if the US government gets tyrannical to the point where it shuts down the internet I suspect I'll have larger problems than my Bitcoin holdings."
This gets to my point: there is no hunt right now for a store of value.
The hunt right now is related to greed, the fear to miss out on something or after almost 8 years into a major bull market.
Imagine this whole conversation in 2008-2009 during the major downturn. Even then the supposedly great store of value or gold was down quite a bit. Everything was thrown away. Raising cash was all that mattered.
I am not saying that Rkbabang is not onto something and that crypto is worthless. However, I am quite skeptical about the store of value argument especially after the kind of frenzy that we have seen.
Cardboard
Similar to your thinking, one would assume that if people were looking for store of value one would assume that gain in cryto would translate into an equivalent drop in gold. When I look at charts of golds it seems quite flat, suggesting one is speculation while the other is business as usual.
BeerBaron
"So you should ask yourself, what has changed to cryptos in the span of 12 months to justify such move?"
Four major things changed for Bitcoin during 2017:
1) Attained critical mass. Coming together of enough early adopters outside of the IT/developer community, for social media to take it main stream. 12 months ago it was just a 'thing', now everyone wants to know how to buy/sell them.
2) 'Asset' recognition. Individually, we may be positive that Bitcoin is a 'tulip'; but if the folks that matter declare Bitcoin to be an 'asset', our opinion really doesn't matter.
3) It became credible in NA. Bitcoin was the example, that moved business conversation onto the blockchain technology that runs it.
4) It became mainstream. R3 Corda ledger tests were successful, providing the pipes to enable financial regulators/institutions to 'safely' participate in crypto currency investment. The outcome has been derivatives on Bitcoin, that enable institutions to control risk.
Given the large quantity of really bad ICO's issued in 2017, & the bad taste they are leaving; most would expect 2018 to see some of the air leave the bubble. The point here is that adoption 'events' are determining the valuation, not the technology itself.
SD
"So you should ask yourself, what has changed to cryptos in the span of 12 months to justify such move?"
Four major things changed for Bitcoin during 2017:
1) Attained critical mass. Coming together of enough early adopters outside of the IT/developer community, for social media to take it main stream. 12 months ago it was just a 'thing', now everyone wants to know how to buy/sell them.
2) 'Asset' recognition. Individually, we may be positive that Bitcoin is a 'tulip'; but if the folks that matter declare Bitcoin to be an 'asset', our opinion really doesn't matter.
3) It became credible in NA. Bitcoin was the example, that moved business conversation onto the blockchain technology that runs it.
4) It became mainstream. R3 Corda ledger tests were successful, providing the pipes to enable financial regulators/institutions to 'safely' participate in crypto currency investment. The outcome has been derivatives on Bitcoin, that enable institutions to control risk.
Given the large quantity of really bad ICO's issued in 2017, & the bad taste they are leaving; most would expect 2018 to see some of the air leave the bubble. The point here is that adoption 'events' are determining the valuation, not the technology itself.
SD
For example gold and human beings coexisted on this planet a long time before gold was used as money. What happened? Gold didn't change, but all of the sudden it had value where it previously did not.
"So you should ask yourself, what has changed to cryptos in the span of 12 months to justify such move?"
Four major things changed for Bitcoin during 2017:
1) Attained critical mass. Coming together of enough early adopters outside of the IT/developer community, for social media to take it main stream. 12 months ago it was just a 'thing', now everyone wants to know how to buy/sell them.
2) 'Asset' recognition. Individually, we may be positive that Bitcoin is a 'tulip'; but if the folks that matter declare Bitcoin to be an 'asset', our opinion really doesn't matter.
3) It became credible in NA. Bitcoin was the example, that moved business conversation onto the blockchain technology that runs it.
4) It became mainstream. R3 Corda ledger tests were successful, providing the pipes to enable financial regulators/institutions to 'safely' participate in crypto currency investment. The outcome has been derivatives on Bitcoin, that enable institutions to control risk.
Given the large quantity of really bad ICO's issued in 2017, & the bad taste they are leaving; most would expect 2018 to see some of the air leave the bubble. The point here is that adoption 'events' are determining the valuation, not the technology itself.
SD
For example gold and human beings coexisted on this planet a long time before gold was used as money. What happened? Gold didn't change, but all of the sudden it had value where it previously did not.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-12/crypto-exchange-kraken-goes-dark-and-user-anxiety-surges
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-12/crypto-exchange-kraken-goes-dark-and-user-anxiety-surges
Considering they went down for scheduled maintenance and haven't come back up, I'm assuming that they haven't been hacked (you don't usually schedule being hacked) and are just having unexpected technical difficulties with their upgrades. But as I've said a bunch of times by now: Don't leave any balance in an exchange. If you must use an exchange, make a deposit, make a trade, make a withdrawal. The whole process should take about 10-30min depending on the coins involved. Get in then get back out as quickly as you can.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/style/bitcoin-millionaires.html
At a jazz bar a few days later, I run into Mr. Fickel’s personal trainer, Alan Chen, who is now running in this crypto circle. Mr. Fickel had convinced Mr. Chen to put his savings into Ethereum.
“I’m retired, man,” Mr. Chen said. “I’m moving to L.A. next week. I got a penthouse on Marina del Rey.”
“Don’t say I’m retired,” he added. “I’m going into business now. I’m going to use blockchain to help personal trainers.”
nuts
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/style/bitcoin-millionaires.html
At a jazz bar a few days later, I run into Mr. Fickel’s personal trainer, Alan Chen, who is now running in this crypto circle. Mr. Fickel had convinced Mr. Chen to put his savings into Ethereum.
“I’m retired, man,” Mr. Chen said. “I’m moving to L.A. next week. I got a penthouse on Marina del Rey.”
“Don’t say I’m retired,” he added. “I’m going into business now. I’m going to use blockchain to help personal trainers.”
nuts
Both Bitcoin and Ethereum mining are very centralized, with the top four miners in Bitcoin and the top three miners in Ethereum controlling more than 50% of the hash rate.
The entire blockchain for both systems is determined by fewer than 20 mining entities [4].
http://hackingdistributed.com/2018/01/15/decentralization-bitcoin-ethereum/QuoteBoth Bitcoin and Ethereum mining are very centralized, with the top four miners in Bitcoin and the top three miners in Ethereum controlling more than 50% of the hash rate.
The entire blockchain for both systems is determined by fewer than 20 mining entities [4].
Is this correct ???
http://hackingdistributed.com/2018/01/15/decentralization-bitcoin-ethereum/QuoteBoth Bitcoin and Ethereum mining are very centralized, with the top four miners in Bitcoin and the top three miners in Ethereum controlling more than 50% of the hash rate.
The entire blockchain for both systems is determined by fewer than 20 mining entities [4].
Is this correct ???
https://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=4days
The big ones are mining pools, some have tens of thousands of members each of whom can switch pools or start mining on their own with a couple of keystrokes.
Is this a good time to buy Bitcoin? What price would you say? Do you have a preference of Bitcoin versus Ether?
Is this a good time to buy Bitcoin? What price would you say? Do you have a preference of Bitcoin versus Ether?
Read from around page 12 onwards. The inference is only buy in a collapse, only buy Bitcoin, and it'll be your kids who collect
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/john-pfeffer/An+Investor%27s+Take+on+Cryptoassets+v6.pdf
http://hackingdistributed.com/2018/01/15/decentralization-bitcoin-ethereum/QuoteBoth Bitcoin and Ethereum mining are very centralized, with the top four miners in Bitcoin and the top three miners in Ethereum controlling more than 50% of the hash rate.
The entire blockchain for both systems is determined by fewer than 20 mining entities [4].
Is this correct ???
https://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=4days
The big ones are mining pools, some have tens of thousands of members each of whom can switch pools or start mining on their own with a couple of keystrokes.
They also all know each other.
Distributed 'security' as advertised doesn't really exist; you're really relying on 'inertia' and self interest ( the fact that the 'craze' is worth much more to everyone if nobody screws the pooch, and the 'ethos' that you don't take your money out). Nothing wrong in that (everyone eventually grows up), but it's a different way of thinking.
SD
Is this a good time to buy Bitcoin? What price would you say? Do you have a preference of Bitcoin versus Ether?
Read from around page 12 onwards. The inference is only buy in a collapse, only buy Bitcoin, and it'll be your kids who collect
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/john-pfeffer/An+Investor%27s+Take+on+Cryptoassets+v6.pdf
SD
http://hackingdistributed.com/2018/01/15/decentralization-bitcoin-ethereum/QuoteBoth Bitcoin and Ethereum mining are very centralized, with the top four miners in Bitcoin and the top three miners in Ethereum controlling more than 50% of the hash rate.
The entire blockchain for both systems is determined by fewer than 20 mining entities [4].
Is this correct ???
https://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=4days
The big ones are mining pools, some have tens of thousands of members each of whom can switch pools or start mining on their own with a couple of keystrokes.
They also all know each other.
Distributed 'security' as advertised doesn't really exist; you're really relying on 'inertia' and self interest ( the fact that the 'craze' is worth much more to everyone if nobody screws the pooch, and the 'ethos' that you don't take your money out). Nothing wrong in that (everyone eventually grows up), but it's a different way of thinking.
SD
I owned Bitcoin back 5 years ago and sold out after 9 months because it volatility was too much for me. I got interested because of the Silk Road in 2012 and sold before Ullrich got caught. Back then the sellers on Silk Road didn't like it because they preferred a stable currency. I bought/sold through Mt. Gox which shut down later and it took weeks on both sides to set up an account/ get my cash.
A few summers ago work took me to China and I spent a lot of time with a few small(ish) business owners that were looking to retire as there were fears of corruption crackdowns as some of the heads of the biggest companies were arrested on their drive home from their towers. These guys were small scale distributors and these actions killed their business by 75% overnight as they waited to see what else would happen.
Two of the guys told me that their plan had been to set up a "business" in Canada (Vancouver). Then use the business to buy an asset (house) paid for by the business. Then wait 2 years and sell the house at a loss (10-20%) but it was a way to get around the currency controls. But they had started to hear about Bitcoin as a way to get their money out without doing it via asset purchases.
These mining groups are in China due to the huge subsidization of power to create domestic industry which makes their ability to mine (which updates the distributed ledgers) and due to these huge draws I guarantee that China will look to eliminate (reduce) it.
RKbabang - Have you downloaded the software to have a ledger on your computer. I did back in 2012 and it took over 3 days to download and setup. (yes speeds were lower but I expect that due its growth the time would still be long). I used it to "mine" for a few weeks - got a little. The infrastructure is more fragile than most people think.
(That said - I think there are uses for BlockChain tech but the coins feel like gambling).
Is this a good time to buy Bitcoin? What price would you say? Do you have a preference of Bitcoin versus Ether?
Read from around page 12 onwards. The inference is only buy in a collapse, only buy Bitcoin, and it'll be your kids who collect
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/john-pfeffer/An+Investor%27s+Take+on+Cryptoassets+v6.pdf
SD
interesting paper, but here's a slight critique which i'd agree with
https://medium.com/@elliotolds/thought-provoking-paper-but-it-seems-to-be-using-the-equation-of-exchange-incorrectly-25f3148b85ea
What is the cost of manufacturing of a bitcoin? Would that price be a signal of rock bottom price on it?
I read that one could store a bitcoin on a wallet like Jaxx in case the exchange goes under. Can't the app for a wallet disappear too? or one could chose to store the same code on multiple devices?
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/18/578800271/finding-your-lost-bitcoins
What is the cost of manufacturing of a bitcoin? Would that price be a signal of rock bottom price on it?
I read that one could store a bitcoin on a wallet like Jaxx in case the exchange goes under. Can't the app for a wallet disappear too? or one could chose to store the same code on multiple devices?
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/18/578800271/finding-your-lost-bitcoins
The HD wallets like Jaxx follow a standard. You can take your 12 word backup phrase from your Jaxx wallet and restore it on Exodus for example. Also you can list all of the private keys in Jaxx and write them down and restore them on any wallet software. Your Jaxx and wallets like it interact with the blockchain, but they don't store your Bitcoin. Your Bitcoin lives on the blockchain and any software can be used to access them. Jaxx can disappear tomorrow and I would not lose any of the Bitcoin that I have stored in my Jaxx wallet. The particular software you use to view your bitcoins or to spend them doesn't matter. What matters, and the only thing that matters, is that you know either your 12 word backup phrase or all of your private keys.
Spent a couple hours studying cryptocurrencies and my brain feels the same way as when I studied the Efficient Market Hypothesis in my MBA. A bunch of real smart people suffering from a mass delusion.
Exactly how I feel about fiat currency.
Crypto-currencies are of course wonderful inventions and are of great use - for drug dealers and terrorists.
Exactly how I feel about fiat currency.
I don't think many smart people are deluded by fiat currency. Most know that one of the safest currencies, US Dollar, has lost 90% of its value over the last 100 years. Many others have lost 100%.
Crypto-currencies are of course wonderful inventions and are of great use - for drug dealers and terrorists.
This is really the bull case. If the economy for criminals, terrorists, tax evaders, and money launderers is large enough (and it is), some of these tokens might actually have value as currencies. But which token will become the fiat currency of the underworld? There is a pretty good chance it hasn't even been invented yet. Are we still at the Napster stage of digital currencies?
I think you're very wrong on that one. Either that or you are far far stricter in your use of the term 'smart' than the generally accepted use of the term.
Crypto-currencies are of course wonderful inventions and are of great use - for drug dealers and terrorists.
This is really the bull case. If the economy for criminals, terrorists, tax evaders, and money launderers is large enough (and it is), some of these tokens might actually have value as currencies. But which token will become the fiat currency of the underworld? There is a pretty good chance it hasn't even been invented yet. Are we still at the Napster stage of digital currencies?
Yes, way back before that damn Satoshi published his paper criminals, terrorist, tax evaders, and money launderers didn't exist. There was just no way for them to apply their craft and trade. Obviously I'm joking, so don't worry, I'm sure the majority of criminals, terrorists, tax evaders, and money launderers will continue using the USD just as they always have for a long time to come.
This is why I don't think there will be a Fedcoin. If there is a Fedcoin then politics means that eventually the government drug dealer and terrorism ops will come out just like we are now finding out about ISIS. I think instead there will be private cryptos, some of them set up by intelligence agencies or their friends. It is part of the trend of changing from the public wave to the private wave. When computers record everything it is no longer possible to have big government with big secrets. It will be much safer to have small government and big secrets hidden among millions of private companies.Crypto-currencies are of course wonderful inventions and are of great use - for drug dealers and terrorists.
This is really the bull case. If the economy for criminals, terrorists, tax evaders, and money launderers is large enough (and it is), some of these tokens might actually have value as currencies. But which token will become the fiat currency of the underworld? There is a pretty good chance it hasn't even been invented yet. Are we still at the Napster stage of digital currencies?
This is why I don't think there will be a Fedcoin. If there is a Fedcoin then politics means that eventually the government drug dealer and terrorism ops will come out just like we are now finding out about ISIS. I think instead there will be private cryptos, some of them set up by intelligence agencies or their friends. It is part of the trend of changing from the public wave to the private wave. When computers record everything it is no longer possible to have big government with big secrets. It will be much safer to have small government and big secrets hidden among millions of private companies.Crypto-currencies are of course wonderful inventions and are of great use - for drug dealers and terrorists.
This is really the bull case. If the economy for criminals, terrorists, tax evaders, and money launderers is large enough (and it is), some of these tokens might actually have value as currencies. But which token will become the fiat currency of the underworld? There is a pretty good chance it hasn't even been invented yet. Are we still at the Napster stage of digital currencies?
Spent a couple hours studying cryptocurrencies and my brain feels the same way as when I studied the Efficient Market Hypothesis in my MBA. A bunch of real smart people suffering from a mass delusion. A libertarian fever dream mixed with some of the most elegant ponzi schemes ever devised. GLTA.
Spent a couple hours studying cryptocurrencies and my brain feels the same way as when I studied the Efficient Market Hypothesis in my MBA. A bunch of real smart people suffering from a mass delusion. A libertarian fever dream mixed with some of the most elegant ponzi schemes ever devised. GLTA.
To crypto bulls, you probably look like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg
(i'm joking here; take it lightly)
My son just build his own gaming computer (an i7 7700k with a 1070 ti video card) and I was telling him last night that he should try to mine some altcoins and earn some of his money back. My wife said, “so if he starts mining, how does he get his check?”.
I would think that is more a representation of people who still don’t get it.Next time get a Xeon and save yourself some money.
Funny story. My son just build his own gaming computer (an i7 7700k with a 1070 ti video card) and I was telling him last night that he should try to mine some altcoins and earn some of his money back. My wife said, “so if he starts mining, how does he get his check?”.
My son just build his own gaming computer (an i7 7700k with a 1070 ti video card) and I was telling him last night that he should try to mine some altcoins and earn some of his money back. My wife said, “so if he starts mining, how does he get his check?”.
FWIW, I am mining zcash with a 1070, and recently I've been making in the region of $3-5 per day. At this instant, it's $3.54 per day. Your son's 1070 TI should be slightly better than that.
It's not going to make anyone wealthy, but it's pretty fun.
"It says that he is earning between $5.50 and $6.00 per day right now (it changes from second to second). Yes I know they were hacked a month ago, but I figure if you cash out once in a while there will never be much in there to loose."
You cash out hmmm?
Sounds like a heck of a store of value. As soon as you make a few dollars, you want to leave asap because you are afraid of hacks. Then back to good old fiat despite its depreciating value.
I can only imagine what will happen to crypto values in the next crash when people rush to get their hands on liquid. They were selling their gold in the Great Recession to access liquidity...
Cardboard
We were looking into Zcash, Monero, Ether, etc but he decided to try this https://www.nicehash.com/cpu-gpu-mining
We were looking into Zcash, Monero, Ether, etc but he decided to try this https://www.nicehash.com/cpu-gpu-mining
Interesting. Based on your thoughts, I may give it a shot too.
Lol @Cardboard. All he said is he wants to withdraw from a 3rd party holding his money because they got hacked lost month.
Look, you don't have to be a fan but continuing to share your opinion on something you very obviously do not understand (or wish to understand) derails a legitimate thread.
Are any of the crypto bulls here concerned with Tether (USDT)? Especially the "printing" of new USDT and some indications that the main people behind it are also principals of the Bitfinex exchange.
Apparently major USDT printing occurred after bitcoin crashed to $10k and some say those were being used to prop-up the bitcoin price. Supposedly USDT are backed by US dollars in a bank account (in an obscure Polish bank if I recall correctly), but I'm very skeptical about that.
I thought this was an interesting video about this issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=MwKYbT9MoPE
We were looking into Zcash, Monero, Ether, etc but he decided to try this https://www.nicehash.com/cpu-gpu-mining
Interesting. Based on your thoughts, I may give it a shot too.
Just be mindful that today - much of the reason for selling you a rig; is because the seller expects to make MORE from you - than he would had he simply kept the rig, & mined for himself. It's OK for a hobby and experimentation, but it's not what it seems. Obviously, not a popular view among many!
At the aggregate:
1) Only the fastest miner gets paid. New rigs are always faster than yours; meaning that over time you progressively earn less, and more & more of it is in less desirable token. Rigs have a short economic life.
2) Appearance of distributed security. The more rigs sold outside of the 'tech' community, the more diverse the aggregate mining network 'appears' to be, and the more real distributed security 'seems' to be. Problem is that its a 70% layer of very fast computers in mining consortia, and a 30% layer of much slower computers spread throughout the world, with hash rate controlled by degree of hash complexity. A small drop in complexity, and the faster computers win - erasing distributed security.
3) Capital cost downloading. Every utility downloads the capital cost of producing its product onto its customers, most often by the customer paying a 'debt service' charge on their bill every month. An alternative is to simply have the customer build their own generation facility (take on the capital cost) and buy their net output. See any difference between this and a mining rig?
SD
Are any of the crypto bulls here concerned with Tether (USDT)? Especially the "printing" of new USDT and some indications that the main people behind it are also principals of the Bitfinex exchange.
Apparently major USDT printing occurred after bitcoin crashed to $10k and some say those were being used to prop-up the bitcoin price. Supposedly USDT are backed by US dollars in a bank account (in an obscure Polish bank if I recall correctly), but I'm very skeptical about that.
I thought this was an interesting video about this issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=MwKYbT9MoPE
Are any of the crypto bulls here concerned with Tether (USDT)? Especially the "printing" of new USDT and some indications that the main people behind it are also principals of the Bitfinex exchange.
Apparently major USDT printing occurred after bitcoin crashed to $10k and some say those were being used to prop-up the bitcoin price. Supposedly USDT are backed by US dollars in a bank account (in an obscure Polish bank if I recall correctly), but I'm very skeptical about that.
I thought this was an interesting video about this issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=MwKYbT9MoPE
Are any of the crypto bulls here concerned with Tether (USDT)? Especially the "printing" of new USDT and some indications that the main people behind it are also principals of the Bitfinex exchange.
Apparently major USDT printing occurred after bitcoin crashed to $10k and some say those were being used to prop-up the bitcoin price. Supposedly USDT are backed by US dollars in a bank account (in an obscure Polish bank if I recall correctly), but I'm very skeptical about that.
I thought this was an interesting video about this issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=MwKYbT9MoPE
Why would I be concerned? Don't touch Tether with a 5-foot pole and you'll be fine (it's 100% a scam).
If it goes to zero, any exchange with exposure to Tether/Bitfinex will suffer major fallout as well. It gives authorities a valid reason to freeze exchange bank accounts. It's going to cause a huge shitstorm. I don't think it's going to be a small, isolated event.
Even when you're a massive crypto bull, I don't see why you would want exposure to any coin before Tether blows up (provided you think it's a scam of course). Everything will be a lot cheaper after.
Are any of the crypto bulls here concerned with Tether (USDT)? Especially the "printing" of new USDT and some indications that the main people behind it are also principals of the Bitfinex exchange.
Apparently major USDT printing occurred after bitcoin crashed to $10k and some say those were being used to prop-up the bitcoin price. Supposedly USDT are backed by US dollars in a bank account (in an obscure Polish bank if I recall correctly), but I'm very skeptical about that.
I thought this was an interesting video about this issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=MwKYbT9MoPE
Why would I be concerned? Don't touch Tether with a 5-foot pole and you'll be fine (it's 100% a scam).
The theory is that they are “printing” thether out of nothing and using it to buy bitcoin, thus inflating the price of bitcoin far above its actual demand. I’m not sure how much of the bitcoin demand is tether related, but long term it means nothing either way.
"Look, you don't have to be a fan but continuing to share your opinion on something you very obviously do not understand (or wish to understand) derails a legitimate thread."
You are right, it would be a shame to derail a thread by some who have outsmarted Buffett, Munger, Dimon, Shiller and so many others... LOL!
So we will let you live your mania. Let you enjoy this Libertarian euphoria over magnetic 0´s and 1's sitting on some server.
Cardboard
"Look, you don't have to be a fan but continuing to share your opinion on something you very obviously do not understand (or wish to understand) derails a legitimate thread."
You are right, it would be a shame to derail a thread by some who have outsmarted Buffett, Munger, Dimon, Shiller and so many others... LOL!
So we will let you live your mania. Let you enjoy this Libertarian euphoria over magnetic 0´s and 1's sitting on some server.
Cardboard
Just be mindful that today - much of the reason for selling you a rig; is because the seller expects to make MORE from you - than he would had he simply kept the rig, & mined for himself. It's OK for a hobby and experimentation, but it's not what it seems. Obviously, not a popular view among many!
"Look, you don't have to be a fan but continuing to share your opinion on something you very obviously do not understand (or wish to understand) derails a legitimate thread."
You are right, it would be a shame to derail a thread by some who have outsmarted Buffett, Munger, Dimon, Shiller and so many others... LOL!
So we will let you live your mania. Let you enjoy this Libertarian euphoria overmagnetic 0´s and 1's sitting on some serverelectrons, protons, and neutrons arranged in some particular manner.
Cardboard
magnetic 0´s and 1's sitting on some serverelectrons, protons, and neutrons arranged in some particular manner.
magnetic 0´s and 1's sitting on some serverelectrons, protons, and neutrons arranged in some particular manner.
Though frankly you could also describe Berkshire that way.
magnetic 0´s and 1's sitting on some serverelectrons, protons, and neutrons arranged in some particular manner.
Though frankly you could also describe Berkshire that way.
Hence the fallacy of dismissing the value of any entity based on it's physical make-up.
"Look, you don't have to be a fan but continuing to share your opinion on something you very obviously do not understand (or wish to understand) derails a legitimate thread."
You are right, it would be a shame to derail a thread by some who have outsmarted Buffett, Munger, Dimon, Shiller and so many others... LOL!
So we will let you live your mania. Let you enjoy this Libertarian euphoria over magnetic 0´s and 1's sitting on some server.
Cardboard
Some server? ::) This is what I meant with talking about something you don't comprehend in the slightest.
"Look, you don't have to be a fan but continuing to share your opinion on something you very obviously do not understand (or wish to understand) derails a legitimate thread."
You are right, it would be a shame to derail a thread by some who have outsmarted Buffett, Munger, Dimon, Shiller and so many others... LOL!
So we will let you live your mania. Let you enjoy this Libertarian euphoria over magnetic 0´s and 1's sitting on some server.
Cardboard
Some server? ::) This is what I meant with talking about something you don't comprehend in the slightest.
This is rich coming from the poster who spews completely uninformed and error-ridden comments about the stability of the pre-Federal Reserve economy and believes there have been 20+ year recessions in the US in the last hundred years.
Just be mindful that today - much of the reason for selling you a rig; is because the seller expects to make MORE from you - than he would had he simply kept the rig, & mined for himself. It's OK for a hobby and experimentation, but it's not what it seems. Obviously, not a popular view among many!
Yeah, this is a good warning, SD. In my case, I bought a PC in September because my old one was 7 years old, slow, and getting BSOD every few days. I got a better graphics card than I would have otherwise--maybe an incremental cost of $300--so I could mine effectively. Normally my computer is on whenever I'm awake, so the incremental cost of electricity is low.
I don't know if it was a good decision, but seemed like a reasonable gamble in that $300 isn't that much money to me and I've enjoyed doing it. Economically, it has paid off, returning about $600 so far. Of course, that's just an outcome that says little about whether the decision to buy the better card had a positive expected return. Even if one happens to win at roulette, it doesn't imply it was a smart decision to play.
Another way to look at it is that if you would have bought $300 worth of Bitcoin in September at $3800 (it traded as low as $3500 in september) your bitcoin would be worth around $850 right now at bitcoin $10,630.00. You actually lost $250. This is why I have never bought hardware to mine. With the rising prices and rising difficulty it doesn't usually make sense to mine rather than purchase the coins outright unless you already own the hardware for other reasons.
Rework the numbers when the value of the token is FALLING, and this falls apart rapidly.
Essentially the transaction speed of bitcoin is super slow and there will be newer ways to do better.
So you either have to pay a shitload or your transaction takes ages. Doesn't sound like much of an improvement over existing systems but what do I know.
Munger said people will just make more bitcoin. However, I was under the impression it's set up so that can't happen. Can someone who understands this better than me explain whether Charlie is right or wrong and why?
Thanks
So you either have to pay a shitload or your transaction takes ages. Doesn't sound like much of an improvement over existing systems but what do I know.
No. You have to decide if you need the 'super security' of Bitcoin.
If you do need it, pay up for the product offered - 'super security'. If you don't need it - why are you in Bitcoin?
If Bitcoin is a 'investment', this is just the transaction fee. No different to the realtors commission when buying a house.
SD
So you either have to pay a shitload or your transaction takes ages. Doesn't sound like much of an improvement over existing systems but what do I know.
No. You have to decide if you need the 'super security' of Bitcoin.
If you do need it, pay up for the product offered - 'super security'. If you don't need it - why are you in Bitcoin?
If Bitcoin is a 'investment', this is just the transaction fee. No different to the realtors commission when buying a house.
SD
Couldn't Xi Jingping destroy bitcoin's security by nationalizing all Chinese mining power?
So you either have to pay a shitload or your transaction takes ages. Doesn't sound like much of an improvement over existing systems but what do I know.
No. You have to decide if you need the 'super security' of Bitcoin.
If you do need it, pay up for the product offered - 'super security'. If you don't need it - why are you in Bitcoin?
If Bitcoin is a 'investment', this is just the transaction fee. No different to the realtors commission when buying a house.
SD
Couldn't Xi Jingping destroy bitcoin's security by nationalizing all Chinese mining power?
Nation states have huge piles of money and weapons and often do crazy destructive things. So while the answer to that is yes. I think that would only serve to destroy bitcoin rather than control it. People would move on to another cryptocurrency if they did that as no one wants a cryptocurrency controlled by any nation state not just China.
Pardon my ignorance — but the slow transaction of bitcoin — can that not be improved over time with faster processors / chips? That is a computer problem is it not? just like how internet was slow 20 years ago?
So you either have to pay a shitload or your transaction takes ages. Doesn't sound like much of an improvement over existing systems but what do I know.
No. You have to decide if you need the 'super security' of Bitcoin.
If you do need it, pay up for the product offered - 'super security'. If you don't need it - why are you in Bitcoin?
If Bitcoin is a 'investment', this is just the transaction fee. No different to the realtors commission when buying a house.
SD
Couldn't Xi Jingping destroy bitcoin's security by nationalizing all Chinese mining power?
Nation states have huge piles of money and weapons and often do crazy destructive things. So while the answer to that is yes. I think that would only serve to destroy bitcoin rather than control it. People would move on to another cryptocurrency if they did that as no one wants a cryptocurrency controlled by any nation state not just China.
So instead of being a trustless protocol, bitcoin's existence relies on placing your complete trust that an authoritarian dictator doesn't won't ever decide to destroy it. I thought the key selling point of this was that crypto holders don't trust government?
So we sacrifice speed or cost of transactions in order to gain security, but it's not that secure for the average man on the street who doesn't understand all the steps to ensure their private key isn't hacked and on a protocol basis it's not secure because it could be destroyed by a single memo from the Chinese politburo.
I'll readily admit I'm not an expert but the cost/benefit of that asset over gold, TIPS, T-bills, etc seems pretty shoddy. I'm long and I've realized solid gains because most of the zealots seem to have a religious devotion to it therefore the flow of funds should be bullish, but it's hard for me to really understand the appeal.
So you either have to pay a shitload or your transaction takes ages. Doesn't sound like much of an improvement over existing systems but what do I know.
No. You have to decide if you need the 'super security' of Bitcoin.
If you do need it, pay up for the product offered - 'super security'. If you don't need it - why are you in Bitcoin?
If Bitcoin is a 'investment', this is just the transaction fee. No different to the realtors commission when buying a house.
SD
Couldn't Xi Jingping destroy bitcoin's security by nationalizing all Chinese mining power?
Nation states have huge piles of money and weapons and often do crazy destructive things. So while the answer to that is yes. I think that would only serve to destroy bitcoin rather than control it. People would move on to another cryptocurrency if they did that as no one wants a cryptocurrency controlled by any nation state not just China.
So instead of being a trustless protocol, bitcoin's existence relies on placing your complete trust that an authoritarian dictator doesn't won't ever decide to destroy it. I thought the key selling point of this was that crypto holders don't trust government?
So we sacrifice speed or cost of transactions in order to gain security, but it's not that secure for the average man on the street who doesn't understand all the steps to ensure their private key isn't hacked and on a protocol basis it's not secure because it could be destroyed by a single memo from the Chinese politburo.
I'll readily admit I'm not an expert but the cost/benefit of that asset over gold, TIPS, T-bills, etc seems pretty shoddy. I'm long and I've realized solid gains because most of the zealots seem to have a religious devotion to it therefore the flow of funds should be bullish, but it's hard for me to really understand the appeal.
It would cost a fortune (even for a nation state) to do this and because the target would be destroyed in the process, nothing would be accomplished. Of course those exact words could describe the US foreign policy so who knows?
I expect to see central banks eventually adding BTC to their reserves along side gold, not trying to destroy it.
My advice: use 2-factor authentication (with 2 independent factors. SMS is generally non-secure). Secondly I'd advice to keep any funds on the exchange only for the duration of the trade and withdraw it right after. This also mitigates counter party risk (exchanges have stolen or been hacked themselves relatively often).
Assuming you use a strong password on both the exchange and your email account the most common attack is social engineering: the hacker contacts a 3rd party (email provider or exchange) claiming he's you and that he wishes to change his password. For your email pick a third party who's least likely to cave for such a social engineering attack (? Any idea who?) or run a email server locally yourself (of course that increases the likelihood of the mail server itself getting hacked as e.g. google is better at security than you are).
Mitigating social engineering attacks is difficult. Don't become a target by keeping your affairs private.
An interesting piece of research: http://www.tetherreport.com/.Are any of the crypto bulls here concerned with Tether (USDT)? Especially the "printing" of new USDT and some indications that the main people behind it are also principals of the Bitfinex exchange.
Apparently major USDT printing occurred after bitcoin crashed to $10k and some say those were being used to prop-up the bitcoin price. Supposedly USDT are backed by US dollars in a bank account (in an obscure Polish bank if I recall correctly), but I'm very skeptical about that.
I thought this was an interesting video about this issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=MwKYbT9MoPE
Why would I be concerned? Don't touch Tether with a 5-foot pole and you'll be fine (it's 100% a scam).
The theory is that they are “printing” thether out of nothing and using it to buy bitcoin, thus inflating the price of bitcoin far above its actual demand. I’m not sure how much of the bitcoin demand is tether related, but long term it means nothing either way.
That's only the Thether Bitcoin price. Not USD/BTC. It has no effect other than some fools parting with their money.
Not sure the point of the continued anectodal links^.
Not sure the point of the continued anectodal links^.
Entertainment. That's the main way to be assured of getting net positive value out of this show right now.
Rework the numbers when the value of the token is FALLING, and this falls apart rapidly. Even if you've paid for your rig, the incremental electricity cost of running it will exceed the value of the token earned. You would stop mining and enjoy some awesome video instead.
We know that Bitcoin has long-term value, the market will be volatile, and that 'mania' is a limited term engagement.
Perhaps the smartest thing is to simply sell it into the rallies, park the proceeds in treasuries, and buy it back < 500-1000?
SD
Rework the numbers when the value of the token is FALLING, and this falls apart rapidly. Even if you've paid for your rig, the incremental electricity cost of running it will exceed the value of the token earned. You would stop mining and enjoy some awesome video instead.
We know that Bitcoin has long-term value, the market will be volatile, and that 'mania' is a limited term engagement.
Perhaps the smartest thing is to simply sell it into the rallies, park the proceeds in treasuries, and buy it back < 500-1000?
SD
I thought you first entry point was $7000 for bitcoin, why $500-1000? Why not $100 or $10?
While I agree that a lot of money can be made playing the rallies or the busts, the lack of intrinsic value for any crypto currencies makes it hard to get entry or exit pointe for three tokens.
Rework the numbers when the value of the token is FALLING, and this falls apart rapidly. Even if you've paid for your rig, the incremental electricity cost of running it will exceed the value of the token earned. You would stop mining and enjoy some awesome video instead.
We know that Bitcoin has long-term value, the market will be volatile, and that 'mania' is a limited term engagement.
Perhaps the smartest thing is to simply sell it into the rallies, park the proceeds in treasuries, and buy it back < 500-1000?
SD
I thought you first entry point was $7000 for bitcoin, why $500-1000? Why not $100 or $10?
While I agree that a lot of money can be made playing the rallies or the busts, the lack of intrinsic value for any crypto currencies makes it hard to get entry or exit pointe for three tokens.
Not sure the point of the continued anectodal links^.
Entertainment. That's the main way to be assured of getting net positive value out of this show right now.
So your opinion is that that the worlds first judgment resistant + trustless asset isn't worth anything?
Not sure the point of the continued anectodal links^.
Entertainment. That's the main way to be assured of getting net positive value out of this show right now.
So your opinion is that that the worlds first judgment resistant + trustless asset isn't worth anything?
I didn't say anything of the sort.
If I am not interested in cryptoassets but sees a use for blockchain technology... would it make sense to invest in technologies that enable blockchain rather than the crypto assets themselves? for example, i read running blockchain for any type of crypto asset requires significant processing power... would it not make sense to invest in say NVDA or AMD or even INTEL?
Sorry - the way I phrased that definitely implied that I already knew your opinion. Was moreso genuinely curious about your longer term views w/ respect to the store of value thesis.
If I am not interested in cryptoassets but sees a use for blockchain technology... would it make sense to invest in technologies that enable blockchain rather than the crypto assets themselves? for example, i read running blockchain for any type of crypto asset requires significant processing power... would it not make sense to invest in say NVDA or AMD or even INTEL?
If I am not interested in cryptoassets but sees a use for blockchain technology... would it make sense to invest in technologies that enable blockchain rather than the crypto assets themselves? for example, i read running blockchain for any type of crypto asset requires significant processing power... would it not make sense to invest in say NVDA or AMD or even INTEL?
That makes sense for some crypto's but for bitcoin it is mostly ASIC. Haven't ever actually mined but that is what they say. I don't think you can do ether with ASIC so your thesis might hold up if ether takes over.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-30/sec-seeks-to-freeze-crypto-assets-of-600-million-coin-offering
If I am not interested in cryptoassets but sees a use for blockchain technology... would it make sense to invest in technologies that enable blockchain rather than the crypto assets themselves? for example, i read running blockchain for any type of crypto asset requires significant processing power... would it not make sense to invest in say NVDA or AMD or even INTEL?
The major 'investables' are IBM - offering scaleable (DB) block chain on the cloud, and Etherium offering blockchain on a distributed ledger. Most of this is done via joint ventures, not using outside money.
SD
Is Etherium better to invest in for long term or Bitcoin ? I read a paper that was posted here says Bitcoin was better blockchain technology but then I read great things about Etherium too.
Is Etherium better to invest in for long term or Bitcoin ? I read a paper that was posted here says Bitcoin was better blockchain technology but then I read great things about Etherium too.
You need to be very clear on WHY you're investing in this.
In the long-term - a holding of Bitcoin is probably a worthwhile thing. You will have some wealth that is always portable, no matter what happens to you. You will also have experience in what will probably become a 'core' crypto coin (complete with futures & options markets). It does not mean buy it today.
In the nearer term, Etherium will make you familiar with how blockchain smart contract solutions can be applied across many different applications - but Ether token is not a substitute for Etherium stock (it's private). The solutions are where the money is, and the beneficiaries are the companies applying them (some of which are public). The downside is that distributed ledger applications have scaling limitations.
To 'make' wealth one concentrates - to 'preserve' wealth one diversifies. To 'make' wealth in this game, you need to be a partner in a JV building a blockchain smart contract solution. If that's part of the plan - Etherium is probably the better choice.
Notable is that it cannot be decided by conventional investment 'metrics'
They don't exist yet.
SD
Is Etherium better to invest in for long term or Bitcoin ? I read a paper that was posted here says Bitcoin was better blockchain technology but then I read great things about Etherium too.
Is Etherium better to invest in for long term or Bitcoin ? I read a paper that was posted here says Bitcoin was better blockchain technology but then I read great things about Etherium too.
You need to be very clear on WHY you're investing in this.
In the long-term - a holding of Bitcoin is probably a worthwhile thing. You will have some wealth that is always portable, no matter what happens to you. You will also have experience in what will probably become a 'core' crypto coin (complete with futures & options markets). It does not mean buy it today.
In the nearer term, Etherium will make you familiar with how blockchain smart contract solutions can be applied across many different applications - but Ether token is not a substitute for Etherium stock (it's private). The solutions are where the money is, and the beneficiaries are the companies applying them (some of which are public). The downside is that distributed ledger applications have scaling limitations.
To 'make' wealth one concentrates - to 'preserve' wealth one diversifies. To 'make' wealth in this game, you need to be a partner in a JV building a blockchain smart contract solution. If that's part of the plan - Etherium is probably the better choice.
Notable is that it cannot be decided by conventional investment 'metrics'
They don't exist yet.
SD
Is Etherium better to invest in for long term or Bitcoin ? I read a paper that was posted here says Bitcoin was better blockchain technology but then I read great things about Etherium too.
Did you not read the research I shared here a few weeks ago? Ethereum is 2 orders of magnitude overvalued.
Both these are true:
1. Smart contracts are an interesting technology.
2. Ethereum is a horrible investment at today's prices (or at any recent price.
Whilst I am a layman in crypto, I think the question I’d which one is the better store of wealth and which one is the better underlying technology to facilitate transactions. For the latter it seems Etherium, for the former it is most likely Bitcoin.
If you want to invest in the technology though, purchasing the underlying token (Ether) is not the way to do it, you need to invest in a company that owns or uses the technology.
This crypto bubble popping will be different from the last one due to the sheer volume of litigation to which it will give rise.
We are already seeing this with the class actions. Once the template is proven, the floodgates will open. No coin will be safe.
Will be interesting to see how Silicon Valley reacts when all of the "users" it has been so hungrily chasing down transmogrify into "plaintiffs."
It has a _Gremlins_ feel to it. "Don't give him any water. Never feed him after midnight. Don't sell him unregistered securities."
Tuition wise, your time would be better spent looking at how this technology affects the operations of a business - versus whether X or Y is the better investment. UoT has a handy 2-day course in the subject ;)
SD
QuoteThis crypto bubble popping will be different from the last one due to the sheer volume of litigation to which it will give rise.
We are already seeing this with the class actions. Once the template is proven, the floodgates will open. No coin will be safe.
Will be interesting to see how Silicon Valley reacts when all of the "users" it has been so hungrily chasing down transmogrify into "plaintiffs."
It has a _Gremlins_ feel to it. "Don't give him any water. Never feed him after midnight. Don't sell him unregistered securities."
https://twitter.com/prestonjbyrne/status/959120498381787136
https://twitter.com/prestonjbyrne/status/959120951597326338
https://twitter.com/prestonjbyrne/status/959122421856067585
Anyone has an idea what could be a good price to jump in for bitcoin and etherinium if bubble may pop?
Do you trust buying GBTC in retirement portfolio? It is the only option for exposure to Crypto in retirement fund but not sure if it is a reliable trust fund (Not planning to buy at these prices but when it falls more between $1 and $2)
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GBTC?p=GBTC
Do you trust buying GBTC in retirement portfolio? It is the only option for exposure to Crypto in retirement fund but not sure if it is a reliable trust fund (Not planning to buy at these prices but when it falls more between $1 and $2)
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GBTC?p=GBTC
Do you trust buying GBTC in retirement portfolio? It is the only option for exposure to Crypto in retirement fund but not sure if it is a reliable trust fund (Not planning to buy at these prices but when it falls more between $1 and $2)
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GBTC?p=GBTC
Isn't GBTC selling way above NAV (net asset value)?
Any investment you buy should be something you understand and are comfortable with. Not because someone on some forum told you to. You don't know us, some of us might sound convincing, but maybe we have no idea what we're talking about. But your money is real and I'm sure you worked hard for it. Don't fall for FOMO (fear of missing out), it usually ends badly.
Just a quick FYI for those in the Toronto area, with an interest in crypto-token, block chain, smart contracts, etc.
Look at the 'Finance' and 'Innovation' sections.
https://learn.utoronto.ca/courses-programs/business-professionals/courses/skill-builder-series
SD
Flying to Toronto is too expensive for me. Anything in US?Just a quick FYI for those in the Toronto area, with an interest in crypto-token, block chain, smart contracts, etc.
Look at the 'Finance' and 'Innovation' sections.
https://learn.utoronto.ca/courses-programs/business-professionals/courses/skill-builder-series
SD
Scene straight out of the big short:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/a-bitcoin-conference-rented-a-miami-strip-club-regrets-ensued
The smartest thing you can do right now - is educate yourself in the technology. Forget the FOMO - crypto will be around for a long time, and it's hard to short.
As at yesterday there are 1,512 tokens/coins in the world - about 131 (9.5%) MORE than they were, just ONE month ago https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/ . Pick 2-3 of the more obscure coins/tokens of interest & do a little research on them.
SD
Scene straight out of the big short:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/a-bitcoin-conference-rented-a-miami-strip-club-regrets-ensued
Scene straight out of the big short:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/a-bitcoin-conference-rented-a-miami-strip-club-regrets-ensued
I guess every bubble goes through a stripclub phase, right before it pops. it appears like the mortgage / RE bubble had a strip club phase. I can personally attest to the telecom bubble in 2000 having a strip club phase - there we’re plenty good ones in Ottawa at that time. Now here we are in the crypto strip club phase. History does not exactly repeat, but it it does rhyme.
What should I look for?
There isn’t much info on website of most. They have max supply and circulating supply numbers listed. Can they not increase the max supply? They also don't say what is unique that they can't be duplicated (or may be I don't understand).
I read that Ripple will be close to zero as time goes on as an example, and therefore what exactly to look for in these ICO’s? Everyone seems to be starting ICO’s.
For example this cloakcoin, lists no names on the team just alias. Weird.
https://www.cloakcoin.com/resources/cloak-team.pdfThe smartest thing you can do right now - is educate yourself in the technology. Forget the FOMO - crypto will be around for a long time, and it's hard to short.
As at yesterday there are 1,512 tokens/coins in the world - about 131 (9.5%) MORE than they were, just ONE month ago https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/ . Pick 2-3 of the more obscure coins/tokens of interest & do a little research on them.
SD
Simple, what you refer to as "Wallet apps" are not wallets.
Run Bitcoin core, control your own keys: https://bitcoin.org/en/download
Lowest cost of mining bitcoin is $530 - $600. So could it drop as low as $530 - $600 ?
Etherium mining cost is about $89.00 .
Trying to see how low could these drop when bubble pops fully.
=============================================================================
According to the data, Venezuela was named as the cheapest place in the world to mine a single Bitcoin – $530. This was followed by Trinidad and Tobago ($1,190), and Uzbekistan ($1,790).
https://businesstech.co.za/news/banking/221837/the-cost-of-mining-bitcoin-in-south-africa-vs-other-countries/
Depending on your power prices it will cost anywhere from $600 (at 3 cents per Kwh) to $1,800 (at 9 cents per Kwh) to mine one coin.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2018/01/16/bitcoin-mining-uses-as-much-power-as-ireland-and-why-thats-not-a-problem/
Is there a reliable source for mining cost of bitcoin? Is this $530 value as mining cost real? Mining cost of $89.00 for Etherium? I suspect the mining cost could go down by tapping solar energy.Lowest cost of mining bitcoin is $530 - $600. So could it drop as low as $530 - $600 ?
Etherium mining cost is about $89.00 .
Trying to see how low could these drop when bubble pops fully.
=============================================================================
According to the data, Venezuela was named as the cheapest place in the world to mine a single Bitcoin – $530. This was followed by Trinidad and Tobago ($1,190), and Uzbekistan ($1,790).
https://businesstech.co.za/news/banking/221837/the-cost-of-mining-bitcoin-in-south-africa-vs-other-countries/
Depending on your power prices it will cost anywhere from $600 (at 3 cents per Kwh) to $1,800 (at 9 cents per Kwh) to mine one coin.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2018/01/16/bitcoin-mining-uses-as-much-power-as-ireland-and-why-thats-not-a-problem/
Thank you. That makes sense. Does that mean I need to save my desktop all the time to preserve the downloaded software or it downloads just the bitcoin code in a specific folder so that I can save that folder in an online backup or to a USB?Simple, what you refer to as "Wallet apps" are not wallets.
Run Bitcoin core, control your own keys: https://bitcoin.org/en/download
Is there a reliable source for mining cost of bitcoin? Is this $530 value as mining cost real? Mining cost of $89.00 for Etherium? I suspect the mining cost could go down by tapping solar energy.Lowest cost of mining bitcoin is $530 - $600. So could it drop as low as $530 - $600 ?
Etherium mining cost is about $89.00 .
Trying to see how low could these drop when bubble pops fully.
=============================================================================
According to the data, Venezuela was named as the cheapest place in the world to mine a single Bitcoin – $530. This was followed by Trinidad and Tobago ($1,190), and Uzbekistan ($1,790).
https://businesstech.co.za/news/banking/221837/the-cost-of-mining-bitcoin-in-south-africa-vs-other-countries/
Depending on your power prices it will cost anywhere from $600 (at 3 cents per Kwh) to $1,800 (at 9 cents per Kwh) to mine one coin.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2018/01/16/bitcoin-mining-uses-as-much-power-as-ireland-and-why-thats-not-a-problem/
Thank you. That makes sense. Does that mean I need to save my desktop all the time to preserve the downloaded software or it downloads just the bitcoin code in a specific folder so that I can save that folder in an online backup or to a USB?Simple, what you refer to as "Wallet apps" are not wallets.
Run Bitcoin core, control your own keys: https://bitcoin.org/en/download
Emily, if you run bitcoin core, it downloads the whole blockchain..
"Bitcoin Core initial synchronization will take time and download a lot of data. You should make sure that you have enough bandwidth and storage for the full block chain size (over 145GB)"
If you do run bitcoin-core, I think you only need to back up your wallet address and private key to preserve your account. That takes almost no storage space at all. But if you lose that you lose all your bitcoins.
Just a quick FYI for those in the Toronto area, with an interest in crypto-token, block chain, smart contracts, etc.
Look at the 'Finance' and 'Innovation' sections.
https://learn.utoronto.ca/courses-programs/business-professionals/courses/skill-builder-series
SD
I check bitcoin price at least 5-7 times a day even though I have no stake in it. I wonder once I do and if it falls a lot , I would be glued to it as it trades 24 hours. Scary.
I check bitcoin price at least 5-7 times a day even though I have no stake in it. I wonder once I do and if it falls a lot , I would be glued to it as it trades 24 hours. Scary.
Sounds like you have the gambling gene. When you notice that, the proper thing to do is to stay away from gambling.
I check bitcoin price at least 5-7 times a day even though I have no stake in it. I wonder once I do and if it falls a lot , I would be glued to it as it trades 24 hours. Scary. So am trying to see where approx. the bottom may be. One is mining cost that could still go down with lower energy cost and if they end up mining bitcoin more than 21M.
Roubini says bitcoin could drop between $20 and $89 (says bubble to the power of 2 or 3). Is this guy reliable?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-02-02/nouriel-roubini-says-bitcoin-is-much-worse-than-tulipmania-video
I check bitcoin price at least 5-7 times a day even though I have no stake in it. I wonder once I do and if it falls a lot , I would be glued to it as it trades 24 hours. Scary.
Sounds like you have the gambling gene. When you notice that, the proper thing to do is to stay away from gambling.
Agreed; you have to control the money - and not allow the money to control you. There are lots of examples of folks who let the money go to their heads, then discovering that it often destroys lives. Victims range from yesterdays plumber suddenly winning the lottery, to celebrities dying from overdoses. Part of tuition - is learning how to deal with wealth (& lack of).
SD
So, is there a measure of intrinsic value or a floor to bitcoin's value?
Is there any good book on Crypto to read?
Just throwing out a guess here - but somewhere between EURO 1-2.
It will very likely always be more valuable to the criminal element than a EURO 1 coin - simply because it's annonymous and electronic. How much more will depend on how much someone is trying to buy at the time, and why they are buying. On any given day, anyone in the world trying to hide assets in a divorce proceeding, might quite happily pay 'above market' - in the expectation that even if they end up selling at a loss, it's highly unlikely to be 50%. Therefore a maximum of 2 EURO.
SD
Similarly, what could be an intrinsic or floor value to Ethereum?Just throwing out a guess here - but somewhere between EURO 1-2.
It will very likely always be more valuable to the criminal element than a EURO 1 coin - simply because it's annonymous and electronic. How much more will depend on how much someone is trying to buy at the time, and why they are buying. On any given day, anyone in the world trying to hide assets in a divorce proceeding, might quite happily pay 'above market' - in the expectation that even if they end up selling at a loss, it's highly unlikely to be 50%. Therefore a maximum of 2 EURO.
SD
There is unlimited supply of Ethereum as compared to 21M bitcoins? If so, why is Ethereum trading around $1000?
There is unlimited supply of Ethereum as compared to 21M bitcoins? If so, why is Ethereum trading around $1000?
There is unlimited supply of Ethereum as compared to 21M bitcoins? If so, why is Ethereum trading around $1000?
Imagine if the federal reserve said that they would create 10 new dollars per year (no more no less) every year from now on. That would make the supply of USD technically unlimited, but the inflation rate would be almost zero. There is a fixed amount of ETH created every year so the inflation rate will be smaller and smaller as time goes on and will approach zero over time. Like the $10 new dollars example the new Ether will be so tiny as to not matter. It is even expected by many to be deflationary eventually as the amount of new coins created may be less than the number of coins lost. I don't like the fact that it isn't bounded, but it isn't quite as bad as its detractors make it sound.
It is hard to mine gold as it is a physical process besides painful process of discovering where it is. Printing of dollar bills isn't easy either, lots of decision to make at the government level and then have to physically print the bills. Where is the resistance to mining unlimited number of Ethereum when no one is regulating them? Who will make sure only fixed amount of Ethereum is created every year? Greed won't stop them. That is where I am lost. Why Ethereum is even valuable? What problem does Ethereum (or bitcoin) solve?
It is hard to mine gold as it is a physical process besides painful process of discovering where it is. Printing of dollar bills isn't easy either, lots of decision to make at the government level and then have to physically print the bills. Where is the resistance to mining unlimited number of Ethereum when no one is regulating them? Who will make sure only fixed amount of Ethereum is created every year? Greed won't stop them. That is where I am lost. Why Ethereum is even valuable? What problem does Ethereum (or bitcoin) solve?
Other people can only explain to you how it works. As for why it is valuable? It is valuable for the same reason gold, or diamonds, or baseball cards, or stock in companies, or old coins, or stamps, or antique cars, or rectangular pieces of green paper, or anything else might be valuable...because people are willing to trade other things for it. Whether or not you want to trade other things for it is a decision only you can make.
Would you agree that all of the things you mentioned have limited supply? The unlimited supply of these cryptocurrencies is the problem that can be mined while you sleep. I am trying to see if Bitcoin is even more valuable despite it's limited supply as not sure what problem it solves (except store of value). Is there a site that tabulates number of users of each cryptocurrency?It is hard to mine gold as it is a physical process besides painful process of discovering where it is. Printing of dollar bills isn't easy either, lots of decision to make at the government level and then have to physically print the bills. Where is the resistance to mining unlimited number of Ethereum when no one is regulating them? Who will make sure only fixed amount of Ethereum is created every year? Greed won't stop them. That is where I am lost. Why Ethereum is even valuable? What problem does Ethereum (or bitcoin) solve?
Other people can only explain to you how it works. As for why it is valuable? It is valuable for the same reason gold, or diamonds, or baseball cards, or stock in companies, or old coins, or stamps, or antique cars, or rectangular pieces of green paper, or anything else might be valuable...because people are willing to trade other things for it. Whether or not you want to trade other things for it is a decision only you can make.
Would you agree that all of the things you mentioned have limited supply? The unlimited supply of these cryptocurrencies is the problem that can be mined while you sleep. I am trying to see if Bitcoin is even more valuable despite it's limited supply as not sure what problem it solves (except store of value). Is there a site that tabulates number of users of each cryptocurrency?
There isn't anything hilarious about it. I read that Bitcoin is considered as store of value and nothing more. Well, is store of value a problem? May be for drug dealers, tax evaders and so on. Bitcoin isn't safer to store than other means either. But among every other cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is the only one that is in limited supply and may have some value (but not at these astronomical prices). Just my opinion as I educate myself on it.
“We believe that the crucial question underpinning the real value of cryptocurrencies themselves, is what economic problem they actually solve?” said Allison Nathan, a senior strategist of global investment research at Goldman Sachs, in a new video released by the bank. “As a currency, cryptos can often seem like a solution in search of a problem.”
http://fortune.com/2018/02/21/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-buy-goldman-sachs/
Always insightful.
Most of these will crash? You mean ICO’s or Bitcoin/Ethereum? or all?
“As CBDC (e-Krona) enters the picture, most of these will also crash to well < 1$/euro per unit - simply because they aren't backed with the far better 'full faith and credit' of a CB.”
You mean Ethereum becomes less valuable? Why? I tried to look up on Google but didn't quite get it.
“Once Ethereum brings in Casper, Ether will start to price very differently”
Which of the crypto , do you see most widely used in the banking/financial/consumer sector? That is why I was asking for data on number of users .
Re GS article.
At this point you should know enough to recognize that cryptocurrency ISN'T blockchain - it is just ONE of many blockchain applications. Blockchain generally doesn't change output (product or service), it just changes the inputs/process (the pipes) by which to produce it; we don't benefit from new mousetrtaps - it merely costs a lot less to make those that we already have. Very different to most progress where it's always output, better than what was.
All crypto is just a 'unit of account' and a payment system. Bitcoin is unique in that it also has TWO 'stores of value' - value to the criminal element, and it's value as 'digital gold'; how much it's worth - is in the eye of the buying beholder. Keep your Bitcoin only at Mt Gox, and you should be pretty safe. As CBDC (e-Krona) enters the picture, most of these will also crash to well < 1$/euro per unit - simply because they aren't backed with the far better 'full faith and credit' of a CB.
'Supply' here, also isn't what it 'means' everywhere else. The more it comes from ICO rounds (Etherium), versus entirely mining (Bitcoin), the more of it there is - and the less volatile the pricing. Once Etherrium brings in Casper, Ether will start to price very differently ;)
SD
There isn't anything hilarious about it. I read that Bitcoin is considered as store of value and nothing more. Well, is store of value a problem? May be for drug dealers, tax evaders and so on. Bitcoin isn't safer to store than other means either. But among every other cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is the only one that is in limited supply and may have some value (but not at these astronomical prices). Just my opinion as I educate myself on it.
“We believe that the crucial question underpinning the real value of cryptocurrencies themselves, is what economic problem they actually solve?” said Allison Nathan, a senior strategist of global investment research at Goldman Sachs, in a new video released by the bank. “As a currency, cryptos can often seem like a solution in search of a problem.”
http://fortune.com/2018/02/21/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-buy-goldman-sachs/
SD, thank you. I am not as smart as all of you but what I am taking away from this discussion is that Ethereum may be even more valuable than Bitcoin. Is there an ETF on Ethereum that I can use to buy in my retirement portfolio as using Coinbase is not an option. BTCS ETF is only for bitcoins and requires 30% premium as rkbabang pointed out.
SD, thank you. I am not as smart as all of you but what I am taking away from this discussion is that Ethereum may be even more valuable than Bitcoin. Is there an ETF on Ethereum that I can use to buy in my retirement portfolio as using Coinbase is not an option. BTCS ETF is only for bitcoins and requires 30% premium as rkbabang pointed out.
Might want to have a reread if that's your takeaway...
SP, can you please elaborate? What is your takeaway?SD, thank you. I am not as smart as all of you but what I am taking away from this discussion is that Ethereum may be even more valuable than Bitcoin. Is there an ETF on Ethereum that I can use to buy in my retirement portfolio as using Coinbase is not an option. BTCS ETF is only for bitcoins and requires 30% premium as rkbabang pointed out.
Might want to have a reread if that's your takeaway...
If you invested this much time into researching the crypto space and you think ethereum is (or "might be") more valuable than bitcoin then the crypto segment definitely lies lies outside your circle of competence.
Go back some pages to January and read the paper I shared here. I'm sorry but you don't seem to understand any of this.
Try to figure out why gold has value (don't try to value it!) and you might get somewhere.
Sorry for bumping up this thread since it's the first time it's been falling off the page (I wonder what that means), but I thought this news we worth it:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/13/google-bans-crypto-ads.html
Why do you think that's interesting news? Boring as hell and a complete non-event (wrt Bitcoin that is. I'm sure this sucks for scammers out there).
Why do you think that's interesting news? Boring as hell and a complete non-event (wrt Bitcoin that is. I'm sure this sucks for scammers out there).
You are very wrong. Complete non-event on everything legitimate. Rest is not relevant anyway.
You are very wrong. Complete non-event on everything legitimate. Rest is not relevant anyway.
Not relevant to you, which is fine.
You are very wrong. Complete non-event on everything legitimate. Rest is not relevant anyway.
Not relevant to you, which is fine.
How long does someone taken in by a bitcoin scam hold bitcoin? The only thing this might do, if anything, is dampen some of the wild swings as Mr or Mrs gullible fall for bitcoin Genius ads, buy bitcoin after spending $200 on a newsletter that they didn't need, then panic and sell at the first drop in price. It has no effect on whatever long term value bitcoin has or doesn't have.
You are very wrong. Complete non-event on everything legitimate. Rest is not relevant anyway.
Not relevant to you, which is fine.
How long does someone taken in by a bitcoin scam hold bitcoin? The only thing this might do, if anything, is dampen some of the wild swings as Mr or Mrs gullible fall for bitcoin Genius ads, buy bitcoin after spending $200 on a newsletter that they didn't need, then panic and sell at the first drop in price. It has no effect on whatever long term value bitcoin has or doesn't have.
It might or might not have long term impact on the value of cryptocurrencies (I never mentioned Bitcoin specifically, this is a thread about cryptocurrencies in general). ICOs that used ETH certainly had an impact on demand for it, and if fewer ICOs can easily raise money, it certainly changes the dynamic for the number of projects and people working on them. Sure the worse projects will be hit first, as it should be, but it's still an ecosystem that is interconnected. I don't know what the impact will be, but having both FB and GOOG off limits to market ICOs certainly isn't nothing.
But in any case, my interest in the news was mostly related to the societal harm caused by all these scams and frauds. Making it harder for them to reach victims is a good thing, and worth noting. The world wouldn't be a better place if securities were unregulated and sophisticated marketing operations could say anything to convince your grandma to empty out her retirement account.
Precisely Liberty, the thread is about crypto currencies. The vast majority of ICOs are NOT cryptocurrencies. Another example of a large digital asset which is not a cryptocurrency is Ripple.
The major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and Monero are completely unaffected by this.
Etheriums network creates users for Ether; the bigger the network, the more demand for Ether.
A company uses the Etherium network because it wants to use its tools to build and test out its own smart-contract blockchain applications. Once the concept has been proved with a working application, they decide their next steps. Hence Etherium is essentially an agile project management facility that allows participants to test - without having to first risk a fortune on an uncertain IT setup. A very attractive value proposition.
A CBDC is just a 'digital dollar' - a CB creates/runs it; but anyone can use it, the same as anyone can use a 'paper' dollar.
Most altcoin is created to pay for transactions within a specified group of users; 'cause by accepting 'this' altcoin, we can sell a ton of it today and use the proceeds to collectively develop the business (essentially seignorage). But if I can pay with a CBDC the recipient can spend that CBDC anywhere; if I pay with Altcoin the recipient can only use it within the group of users. Hence if the user groups business is fairing poorer than the economy overall (most cases), the last thing a recipient wants is this restrictive altcoin. The altcoin 'devalues' relative to CBDC, and gets their via a 'price' collapse.
SD
Etheriums network creates users for Ether; the bigger the network, the more demand for Ether.
A company uses the Etherium network because it wants to use its tools to build and test out its own smart-contract blockchain applications. Once the concept has been proved with a working application, they decide their next steps. Hence Etherium is essentially an agile project management facility that allows participants to test - without having to first risk a fortune on an uncertain IT setup. A very attractive value proposition.
A CBDC is just a 'digital dollar' - a CB creates/runs it; but anyone can use it, the same as anyone can use a 'paper' dollar.
Most altcoin is created to pay for transactions within a specified group of users; 'cause by accepting 'this' altcoin, we can sell a ton of it today and use the proceeds to collectively develop the business (essentially seignorage). But if I can pay with a CBDC the recipient can spend that CBDC anywhere; if I pay with Altcoin the recipient can only use it within the group of users. Hence if the user groups business is fairing poorer than the economy overall (most cases), the last thing a recipient wants is this restrictive altcoin. The altcoin 'devalues' relative to CBDC, and gets their via a 'price' collapse.
SD
I agree with you from the perspective of Ethereum being a utility for smart contract execution (i.e. a cheap agile UAT interface as you describe it). I have no conviction on Ethereum. Think it's possible the platform itself plays out in a bullish way with the coin itself being worth next to nothing (marginal utility cost for smart contract execution as described in the whitepaper wachtwoord posted a while back).
But can you answer this question from the perspective of a cryptocurrency being valuable as a judgment and censorship resistant store of value? The value proposition is quite literally tied to the fact that it is completely removed from government decision making. Surely this is a strong counterargument against governemnt issued cryptocurrencies?
I'm actually confused that the store of value thesis doesn't click with more people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxWpvgTH9oI Peter Thiel basically articulates the bull thesis as we have at 36min. Just seems incredibly +expected value right now.
McAfee's million dollar prediction goes wrong
https://fnordprefect.de/
I am surprised that anyone even listens to him
Funny now that they are on sale there isn't a lot of people asking which ones to buy now here lately. I bought more Bitcoin yesterday.
Funny now that they are on sale there isn't a lot of people asking which ones to buy now here lately. I bought more Bitcoin yesterday.
Funny now that they are on sale there isn't a lot of people asking which ones to buy now here lately. I bought more Bitcoin yesterday.
Funny now that they are on sale there isn't a lot of people asking which ones to buy now here lately. I bought more Bitcoin yesterday.
Not to argue that merits of technical analysis, but you might want look at a BTC chart.
Alternatively, build your own if you also want RSI and moving averages.
SD
Funny now that they are on sale there isn't a lot of people asking which ones to buy now here lately. I bought more Bitcoin yesterday.
Not to argue that merits of technical analysis, but you might want look at a BTC chart.
Alternatively, build your own if you also want RSI and moving averages.
SD
Technical analysis on a value investing board? Mayorly undervalued is mayorly undervalued.
Funny now that they are on sale there isn't a lot of people asking which ones to buy now here lately. I bought more Bitcoin yesterday.
Not to argue that merits of technical analysis, but you might want look at a BTC chart.
Alternatively, build your own if you also want RSI and moving averages.
SD
Technical analysis on a value investing board? Mayorly undervalued is mayorly undervalued.
Just mindful that the current price is below the last trough low (Feb-05) of USD 6,914. For those who belive in the voodoo science, this supposedly means that at the curent price of USD 6,611 it could drop quick a bit until it 'finds' a new level. And given that there really isn't any agreed fundamental value approach applicable to Bitcoin - tossing bones may well be as good as it gets!
No opinion as to whether it is under or overvalued. ;D
SD
How low could it drop? There must be a floor.Funny now that they are on sale there isn't a lot of people asking which ones to buy now here lately. I bought more Bitcoin yesterday.
Not to argue that merits of technical analysis, but you might want look at a BTC chart.
Alternatively, build your own if you also want RSI and moving averages.
SD
Technical analysis on a value investing board? Mayorly undervalued is mayorly undervalued.
Just mindful that the current price is below the last trough low (Feb-05) of USD 6,914. For those who belive in the voodoo science, this supposedly means that at the curent price of USD 6,611 it could drop quick a bit until it 'finds' a new level. And given that there really isn't any agreed fundamental value approach applicable to Bitcoin - tossing bones may well be as good as it gets!
No opinion as to whether it is under or overvalued. ;D
SD
How low could it drop? There must be a floor.Funny now that they are on sale there isn't a lot of people asking which ones to buy now here lately. I bought more Bitcoin yesterday.
Not to argue that merits of technical analysis, but you might want look at a BTC chart.
Alternatively, build your own if you also want RSI and moving averages.
SD
Technical analysis on a value investing board? Mayorly undervalued is mayorly undervalued.
Just mindful that the current price is below the last trough low (Feb-05) of USD 6,914. For those who belive in the voodoo science, this supposedly means that at the curent price of USD 6,611 it could drop quick a bit until it 'finds' a new level. And given that there really isn't any agreed fundamental value approach applicable to Bitcoin - tossing bones may well be as good as it gets!
No opinion as to whether it is under or overvalued. ;D
SD
What would exactly provide a floor? Technical analysis would suggest much lower, maybe $800-900. Intrinsic is exactly what?
How low could it drop? There must be a floor.Funny now that they are on sale there isn't a lot of people asking which ones to buy now here lately. I bought more Bitcoin yesterday.
Not to argue that merits of technical analysis, but you might want look at a BTC chart.
Alternatively, build your own if you also want RSI and moving averages.
SD
Technical analysis on a value investing board? Mayorly undervalued is mayorly undervalued.
Just mindful that the current price is below the last trough low (Feb-05) of USD 6,914. For those who belive in the voodoo science, this supposedly means that at the curent price of USD 6,611 it could drop quick a bit until it 'finds' a new level. And given that there really isn't any agreed fundamental value approach applicable to Bitcoin - tossing bones may well be as good as it gets!
No opinion as to whether it is under or overvalued. ;D
SD
What would exactly provide a floor? Technical analysis would suggest much lower, maybe $800-900. Intrinsic is exactly what?
Here is an attempt to determine the value based on a regression with the number or users. Makes sense to me and may or may not be better than SD’s chicken bones. The valuation approach in this article indicates a substantial overvaluation , but not by 10x or more.
https://quantpedia.com/Blog/Details/what-is-bitcoins-fair-value (https://quantpedia.com/Blog/Details/what-is-bitcoins-fair-value)
Why is Etherneum doing better than Bitcoin? or means nothing?
The latter. Ethereum is at least 100 times overvalued (and 99% of the alts are worth nothing st all) so it's all 1 giant crapshoot.
Casey Research says bitcoin is headed to zero on July 21st due to a secret meeting between various governments where they will decide to launch their own cryptocurrency. Anyone has an opinion?
Casey Research says bitcoin is headed to zero on July 21st due to a secret meeting between various governments where they will decide to launch their own cryptocurrency. Anyone has an opinion?
Opinion: LOL and I am certainly not bullish on crypto currencies. I wouldn’t even know how to argue why governements starting their own crypto currency/s would be bearish of bitcoin and al, in fact if anything, I would consider it being bullish.
Casey Research says bitcoin is headed to zero on July 21st due to a secret meeting between various governments where they will decide to launch their own cryptocurrency. Anyone has an opinion?
Casey Research says bitcoin is headed to zero on July 21st due to a secret meeting between various governments where they will decide to launch their own cryptocurrency. Anyone has an opinion?
Government crypto (CBDC) is just digital, versus physical, fiat currency.
Where you have an economic trading block, it does make sense to have an internal CBDC for that trading block; but it's not going to take bitcoin to zero.
SD
WSJ this morning says that SEC is considering Etherenium as a security and its issuance may have been illegal. May 7th is the meeting. Any opinion? Wasn't the point of cryptocurrencies was to keep government and banks involvement to none?
rkbabang, you said that GBTC is not worth as it is selling at 30% premium. I am thinking. If I bought GBTC at $130 (BTC worth $100). Assume, BTC rises 5 fold to $500, so does GBTC rises 5 fold to $650.00. I make $520 net by selling GBTC versus $400 selling bitcoin. Is GBTC not better? I must be wrong in my assumptions somewhere?
What other cryptofunds are there besides GBTC for retirement funds?
Which one of you need help?
https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/05/28/scottish-hospital-launches-treatment-for-bitcoin-trading-addicts/
Correct me if I'm wrong, But are people mining on an industrial scale forced sellers?
If I own a warehouse full of rigs mining bitcoin I have to sell a certain amount of BTC every month to cover my overheads. As the price falls I and other miners have to sell more.
Surely this is a significant contribution to the feedback loop?
Correct me if I'm wrong, But are people mining on an industrial scale forced sellers?
If I own a warehouse full of rigs mining bitcoin I have to sell a certain amount of BTC every month to cover my overheads. As the price falls I and other miners have to sell more.
Surely this is a significant contribution to the feedback loop?
Correct me if I'm wrong, But are people mining on an industrial scale forced sellers?
If I own a warehouse full of rigs mining bitcoin I have to sell a certain amount of BTC every month to cover my overheads. As the price falls I and other miners have to sell more.
Surely this is a significant contribution to the feedback loop?
This feature exists in effectively any commodity business.
Is the intrinsic value of Bitcoin around $2?
Some Traders Are Talking Up Cryptocurrencies, Then Dumping Them, Costing Other Millionsthats what they are for.
https://www.wsj.com/graphics/cryptocurrency-schemes-generate-big-coin/
http://fortune.com/longform/nyse-owner-bitcoin-exchange-startup/
http://fortune.com/longform/nyse-owner-bitcoin-exchange-startup/
They haven't thought this through.
Every one of those holding altcoin/token needs to meet KYC enhanced DD requirements, and there is only one investable altcoin (Bitcoin). Then you have to choose to hold your Bitcoin in a hackable account, instead of in your own annonymous 'unhackable' account at Mt Gox Take out those who can't pass the DD, don't need the annonymity, and who don't want the more attractive 'direct' account at Mt Gox - and it's a very small market.
We wish them luck, but it doesn't look promising.
SD
http://fortune.com/longform/nyse-owner-bitcoin-exchange-startup/
They haven't thought this through.
Every one of those holding altcoin/token needs to meet KYC enhanced DD requirements, and there is only one investable altcoin (Bitcoin). Then you have to choose to hold your Bitcoin in a hackable account, instead of in your own annonymous 'unhackable' account at Mt Gox Take out those who can't pass the DD, don't need the annonymity, and who don't want the more attractive 'direct' account at Mt Gox - and it's a very small market.
We wish them luck, but it doesn't look promising.
SD
No. Everyone buying or trading or holding crypto through them needs to meet KYC enhanced DD requirements.
No one "has" to hold their Bitcoin with them. The same could be said for Coinbase yet "Coinbase has twice as many customers as Charles Schwab.”
You can build a trusted network on top of a trustless one, just not vice versa.
http://fortune.com/longform/nyse-owner-bitcoin-exchange-startup/
They haven't thought this through.
Every one of those holding altcoin/token needs to meet KYC enhanced DD requirements, and there is only one investable altcoin (Bitcoin). Then you have to choose to hold your Bitcoin in a hackable account, instead of in your own annonymous 'unhackable' account at Mt Gox Take out those who can't pass the DD, don't need the annonymity, and who don't want the more attractive 'direct' account at Mt Gox - and it's a very small market.
We wish them luck, but it doesn't look promising.
SD
No. Everyone buying or trading or holding crypto through them needs to meet KYC enhanced DD requirements.
No one "has" to hold their Bitcoin with them. The same could be said for Coinbase yet "Coinbase has twice as many customers as Charles Schwab.”
You can build a trusted network on top of a trustless one, just not vice versa.
Not so sure....
Agreed that a NYSE BTC counterpart to Chicago BTC Futures and Options is a desirable thing.
Agreed that buyer/seller enhanced DD isn't their responsibility - IF they are PURELY an exchange.
BUT .. why would you use a regulated channel to buy/sell Bitcoin, in scale?
When the whole value-add of Bitcoin is it's annonymity, and its ability to evade capital and regulatory controls.
It can only be a small but very active market
I would suggest that the only reason for this is so that institutions can trade BTC Futures and Options.
Limit the trades to just Bakkt, evidence that all FI's trading through Bakkt have to have an enhanced DD US account, and institutional BTC hedging becomes much easier. Problem is that any trading done through a fraudulent DD US account, will make Bakkt complicit - as it has just abetted a theft. And a great many people, have a very strong incentive, to do exactly that.
Agreed it's a good idea.
But these are just two of the more obvious things they don't seem to have thought through.
But we wish them luck.
SD
The reality is that to touch Bitcoin is to deal with the criminal element.
We can do our best to avoid legal restrictions by market segmentation, and seperating the legal from the illegal via a closed system, but the criminal element remains a major price determinant in the underlying BTC market. Bakkt account holders will also feel enormous pressure to money-launder via the 'legal' channel, and major banks are routinely caught money-laundering.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/12/11/hsbc-spared-us-money-laundering-sanctions-battles-clean-act/
"Britain’s biggest lender had to pay a $1.9bn (£1.4bn) fine in 2012 for helping drug cartels launder money in Mexico and for contravening sanctions to do business with Iran." Funds were being deposited in the UK, and wired to the US through a process of 'wire-stripping'
Bakkt is a good idea, but they would have been far smarter to create their own token (BKKT)
Open a futures and options market for it on Chicago, & make it exchangeable into BTC. Institutions get to safely buy/sell BKKT as the proxy for BTC, can hedge BKKT directly on Chicago, and can arbitrage BKKT/BTC via derivatives on Chicago. Remove the 21M BTC token limit, remove the institutional need to buy/sell BTC directly, and make all BKKT/BTC FX exchanges so visible - that few can stand the scutiny. Isolate BTC, and the institutional market, from the criminal element.
That this DOES NOT exist yet, suggests they haven't fully thought it through.
SD
The reality is that to touch Bitcoin is to deal with the criminal element.
We can do our best to avoid legal restrictions by market segmentation, and seperating the legal from the illegal via a closed system, but the criminal element remains a major price determinant in the underlying BTC market. Bakkt account holders will also feel enormous pressure to mone