Anyone else here into Bitcoin?

Discussion in 'Random Thoughts' started by Bloom, Sep 14, 2019.

  1. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,506
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Toronto, ON, Canada
    If you look at what historically was considered currency, and still is, bitcoin has all the attributes, and it is the most advanced cryptographic platform ever. I think that opinion on BTC can be the best expressed using the immortal words of Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, who when asked in 1970 what in his view was the impact or French revolution, said: " is too early to tell".

    US Treasuries, currently the base of all currencies in the world, is considered the only "risk free" debt. And I am not sarcastic, that how it is called in banking. To insure 10 million $ in US Treasuries cost you just $10,000 on CDS market. Everybody's else sovereign debt is higher risk. That means if $ CDS goes to $40,000 (Canada or Poland), everybody else is already presumed dead.
    And I do not know why Russians, China, India would be so attached to using $US as a final settlement currency, US dollar, if, according to the Modern Monetary Theory, this currency can be created at will by US Congress. That would dispense even with the current smoke screen of US Treasuries being "debt", the debt that no one is planning to repay ever, except for printing new money.

    In the meantime, bitcoin and blockchain are one of the most interesting stories of recent times in computer science, comparable only to AI. My last two projects in IT was deployment of blockchain based accounting systems for large banks.

    Elon Musk will be the recipient of huge Green Deal subsidies from that ^ trillions and he has to show something for it. BTC is not essential to him in any way.
     
    • Like Like x 1
    • Epic Epic x 1
    • List
  2. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

    Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,923
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Grand Rapids, MI
    Do you intend to hold bacon and beer as a long term asset?

    I don't think understanding BTC as a commodity is very helpful. Every other item that people categorize as commodity is generally some sort of industrial input in a production process. Corn, iron, petroleum, etc. Contrast that with gold. While it still does have some industrial/commercial uses, it is predominantly held as an investment asset or reserve asset. BTC is the next step in hard money, and should be understood as a form of money (electronic cash).
     
  3. Syzygy

    Syzygy Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2018
    Likes Received:
    2,144
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    DFW, Texas
    To qualify as a currency, something has to have stable value. It can't cost me 1.49 frozzbots to buy a loaf of bread today, and 571.49 frozzbots to buy that loaf of bread next week.
     
  4. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,506
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Toronto, ON, Canada
    That's really good, ;) Like German mark in 1923 or Argentinian peso in 70s 80s? My grandfather was paid twice a day so he could buy something.
    But seriously, in terms of time, BTC as a settlement instrument is years and years away. One of the reasons is that BTC stability is years away.
     
  5. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

    Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,923
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Grand Rapids, MI
    Price stability is a desirable quality for a currency to have, but is not a necessary feature that defines something as a currency. Does the fact that there are third world monies that have wildly fluctuating values make them less "currency-y" in your mind? Do these stable prices need to be in relation to the USD (or other reserve assets)? Or does a money just need to have price stability against everyday purchases? Or are you saying it needs to have stability against commodities?

    Maybe the USD should be seen as the unstable currency since it's value against BTC, gasoline, and raw goods has been prone to fluctuation in the last few years.
     
  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

    Staff Member Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2015
    Likes Received:
    89,778
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Padre Island CC TX
    Musk likely dumped all his Bitcoin and is now ROFL.
     
  7. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

    Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,923
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Grand Rapids, MI
    elon_pump.png

    Take it FWIW.

    Market manipulation is a good thing. Makes fairweather investors and high time-preference holders dump, while true believers will take the opportunity to load up.
     
  8. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

    Staff Member Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2015
    Likes Received:
    89,778
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Padre Island CC TX
    Hahaha. Musk is a sociopath with no regards to right or wrong, but I love it.
     
  9. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,506
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Toronto, ON, Canada
  10. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,506
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Toronto, ON, Canada
    I would not be surprised if the Tesla BTC buying program that is calibrated to buy little by little, without affecting the price, from many exchanges, was activated right after after he pushed the price down.
     
  11. cameng318

    cameng318 Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Jun 14, 2020
    Likes Received:
    327
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Location:
    Wyoming
    I found the evidence that Illuminati is controlling Ethereum! :eek:
    binance_eth_usdt-sun_30_may_23_41_45.jpg

    Jokes aside, I just entered this game two weeks ago (I wanted to earn $2000 for a planar headphone. The Timsok TS-1024 has 290 ohms, which is really insane for a planar diaphragm. It's one of the weird ChiFi gears that's you can't buy in China), and I had to speed learn what was going on. It's the first time market manipulation happens at such large scale and long period in cryptocurrency.

    The institutions who lost heavily on GME entered Bitcoin market at the beginning of February at $32k. They tried to dump bitcoin on April 12 at $64k. However, then they found out Ethereum was still going up, so they shifted their attention to Ethereum to expand their profit. Thus the institutions came in Ethereum on April 21 at $2200, and started dumping their coins when Ethereum reached $4400 at May 12. On the same day, they made Musk twitted that image about Tesla not using Bitcoin, so newbies would panic sell what they owned. Meanwhile, they had Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum, donate one billion to COVID in India, so newbies would panic buy Ethereum to compensate the late entry of the institutions in the Ethereum market. They skipped the distribution phase of the Wyckoff method of market manipulation.

    Musk was probably held hostage by the institutions. The institutions are probably going to get their hands on more and more cryptocurrencies. It's a sign of recognition by the institutions. I think we are witnessing a heavy mark in history.
     
  12. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2018
    Likes Received:
    3,451
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    SouthernCA
    ^ I suspect there is going to be a little more market manipulation for a while until people realize that it was a ride on the hype train. Not saying it will go to zero or that it can't hit $60k+ organically (despite the fact that I won't agree with the valuation when it happens), just that it was hyped at the time at $60k+.

    I wonder if most people in developed nations have had relatively "regulated markets" for so long that we're now more susceptible to such things whereas 100 years ago with largely unregulated markets most people wouldn't have given similar parallels as much thought.
     
  13. cameng318

    cameng318 Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Jun 14, 2020
    Likes Received:
    327
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Location:
    Wyoming
    $60k+ could certainly be a bubble to burst for now, but in the future years it will be justified, if everything stays on the track. It's like an investment to the future. The historical average is around $27k for now.

    Pssst, I think the data looks like bitcoin is going on a ride back to $60k starting June 5th. This is not a financial advice. You have four days to speed learn technical analysis for you to use your own judgement. The only benefit of market manipulation is that the pattern may look so apparent at the early stages even to newbies like me.

    Market manipulation has happened in many places for countless times. I helped my dad looks at his stocks in China, and oh boy it was manipulated like a puppet dancing on the strings.

    In fact, market manipulation was a lot worse 100 years ago. Wyckoff spotted the pattern and came up with his theory almost exactly 100 years ago, because the stock market was so manipulated that really pissed him off. Furthermore, monopoly was a huge issue, and they went unnoticed for decades. For example, the source of diamond was monopolized, and the light bulb companies came up planned obsolescence. Free market isn't really free.

    The possibility of monopolization drives me nuts in the cryptomarket. I'm trying to stay away from ETH 2.0 and any other proof of stake coins as far as possible, cuz I don't think there's a chance of going back once institutions acquire 51% of the stake. I personally think they shouldn't do the proof of stake update until their market cap is much larger than the stocks of the institutions.
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2021
  14. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

    Staff Member Pyrate MZR
    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    12,285
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Colorado
    Home Page:
    I’ll bet you one fast food, dollar menu item of your choice that any such activity won’t begin in earnest until 2023.
     
  15. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2018
    Likes Received:
    3,451
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    SouthernCA
    ^ Wendy's nuggets plz.
     
  16. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,506
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Toronto, ON, Canada
    Interesting piece about BTC energy consumption in the context of renewable energy, and BTC security.
    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/c...ner-than-many-think-11622641883?mod=home-page
    Taking into account the Blockchain sophisticated mechanism for the malicious node detection as described here,
    https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8668748, the number of malicious nodes required to attack the blockchain integrity may be prohibitive in terms of energy cost.
    And here is the mine it in Nadvoitsy, Russia. It is pretty cold there, inside and outside.

    [​IMG]
     
  17. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,506
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Toronto, ON, Canada
    This is very much BTC related but it also the post to say "mea culpa" I was wrong about Jack Dorsey. I had before some mind opening moments when he was testifying before Congress, but I always disliked him. After this interview in Miami on the BTC conference I have to keep open mind about the guy. It is an important text and video, it touches on many aspects of BTC: energy, Lighting network, central banks, Dorsey talking about censorship etc...
     
  18. Pancakes

    Pancakes Friend

    Pyrate Contributor
    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2020
    Likes Received:
    1,418
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Atl
    While the goal is noble, I always greet such goals with sceptisism when they're coming from someone who stands to make billions/trillions from the realization of said goal. Either way, crypto is the future regardless of what anyone thinks or who makes it happen. The genie is out of the bottle now. Govts will eventually have to recognize these currencies or they'll be left behind. The one issue I have is, if I go out and spend $20 cash, no one knows what I bought or where. If I were to make the purchase with crypto, it's easy for anyone to track me. So I'd like to see cash stick around.
     
  19. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,506
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Toronto, ON, Canada


    It is easy to track the wallet address for a given transaction, not you. There are no accounts in Blockchain. I read in details the the FBI warrant application to recover the pipeline ransom BTC. Tracking addresses was a child play, you download a blockchain explorer, that's it. Identity could be only traced by associating transactions with some non-blockchain data.
    And obscuring links between transactions is very easy. It is not build into blockchain but look at this link:
    https://bitcoin.org/en/protect-your-privacy . But if you go through exchange, then you have to identify yourself.

    In any case blockchain is not capable of processing large volume of transactions. It was not build for that. Lighting Networks are filling this gap.
    Even after wide adoption of BTC as an asset class, there is no need to replace local currencies or Visa for everyday transactions.

    El Salvador did not adopt BTC as a tender to enable $20 purchases, but to establish the settlement currency.
     
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2021
  20. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

    Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,923
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Grand Rapids, MI
    Governments around the world will be happy to "recognize" BTC in the sense that they will want to tax it domestically. That's just the first step. The real use for BTC is as a settlement currency as @wormcycle mentioned. Expect it to start by necessity when nations are cut out of SWIFT for geopolitical reasons. If you are Iran, settling your account with Russia might be cheaper/easier to do by authorizing a BTC transaction rather than sending a tanker loaded with crude oil across the Caspian, in exchange for the manufactured goods that they are floating over to you. I expect to see the same pattern of transition from barter to money trade that wins out everywhere else. It was just difficult to facilitate before without the technology built into cryptocurrency.

    And just like everyday people, once govts are comfortable with BTC as a means to trading, expect them to hold it as a reserve currency. They'll still want the peasants to hold/use the shit-paper for their purposes, but there may be a sense in which they are restrained in their inflationary actions when a hard-money competitor is easily accessible for those peasants.
     

Share This Page