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Bitcoin and other crypto-The CR thread


GRHorn

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14 minutes ago, Captainant said:

It's telling that after pages of technical discussion you fucking waterheads are falling back to empty partisan arguments in favor of it lol. Vibe's article is another sunshine pumper opinion piece that boils down to "well many people are saying BTC is great!"

I'd really love it if yall were capable of engaging in the nuts and bolts discussion while defending your argument of an extremely volatile and purely speculative instrument being a top place for a long term value store.

Like, the NFT watch is a great example - it's nothing more than a really REALLY long CVS receipt that's distributed across the world that you bought that watch. But it's still a fucking physical thing in the meat space. There's absolutely NOTHING that binds it to the blockchain aside from your faith that it does and that someone else will agree with you.

Yeah, I really don't understand what value NFTs bring to transactions for physical objects. The transaction itself isn't made any easier. It doesn't provide any additional physical protection for the object. And in terms of legal protection, possession of the object is far better in terms of establishing ownership. What's the point of it? 

Edited by Dahobbs
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I have a hard time seeing it as a partisan thing, but can't deny that the anti-government right seems to have an affinity for digital currency for a variety of reasons.

I'm not particularly interested in investing in it because its value is irrational.  The same is true of many or most investments, to a degree.  I dislike the irrationality of the stock market.  Sure, its value is tied to supply and demand, buy/sell, but because it is untethered to anything with intrinsic value, even a highly fictive value like a bond or note, or the value of a corporation, that can be rationally analyzed apart from the buy/sell noise of the market, I just can't get into it.

And, as has been noted, once it achieves widespread adoption as a currency, the volatility of its value has to flatten to near zero, making it pretty much a cash equivalent.

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19 minutes ago, Captainant said:

It's telling that after pages of technical discussion you fucking waterheads are falling back to empty partisan arguments in favor of it lol. Vibe's article is another sunshine pumper opinion piece that boils down to "well many people are saying BTC is great!"

I'd really love it if yall were capable of engaging in the nuts and bolts discussion while defending your argument of an extremely volatile and purely speculative instrument being a top place for a long term value store.

Like, the NFT watch is a great example - it's nothing more than a really REALLY long CVS receipt that's distributed across the world that you bought that watch. But it's still a fucking physical thing in the meat space. There's absolutely NOTHING that binds it to the blockchain aside from your faith that it does and that someone else will agree with you.

Cory Doctorow has described NFTs as paying someone money to tell you that a URL exists and the right to make a digital ledger entry that you paid that person money and they told you that URL existed. I've never seen anything to indicate that that isn't an absolutely perfect description. There's a lot of talk from promoters about how it can replace or improve upon existing systems for doing things which have problems because everything has problems, but there's never any explanation for how it can replace or improve upon the thing with the problem. It's all just a bunch of snake oil about how it's the future and people who don't get in now are going to miss out forever.

And NFTs in a sense are more valuable than Bitcoin because there's theoretically some flexibility in what they can be used for. Bitcoin is just a purely digital item that someone made up and said there will only be a limited amount of and that its scarcity makes it valuable. That's like saying "well there's only a limited supply of this pile of cow shit so you better pay me a lot of money for one lump of cow shit from the pile because it will be more valuable later!" Of course, it's actually dumber than that, because cow shit might actually be useful for fertilizer. The only thing to do with Bitcoin is find some fool to sell yours to for more than you bought it for. 

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14 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I have a hard time seeing it as a partisan thing, but can't deny that the anti-government right seems to have an affinity for digital currency for a variety of reasons.

I'm not particularly interested in investing in it because its value is irrational.  The same is true of many or most investments, to a degree.  I dislike the irrationality of the stock market.  Sure, its value is tied to supply and demand, buy/sell, but because it is untethered to anything with intrinsic value, even a highly fictive value like a bond or note, or the value of a corporation, that can be rationally analyzed apart from the buy/sell noise of the market, I just can't get into it.

And, as has been noted, once it achieves widespread adoption as a currency, the volatility of its value has to flatten to near zero, making it pretty much a cash equivalent.

A stock's value is theoretically tied to a corporation's future profits as well as its value as a voting share. Stock ownership also comes with a few other rights vis a vis the corporation, like the right to inspect books and records or to issue shareholder proposals.  I'm not going to pretend that stock prices haven't become pretty untethered from this and are primarily priced based on speculative value, but there's still some underlying value there that isn't purely speculative.  

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31 minutes ago, Captainant said:It's telling that after pages of technical discussion you fucking waterheads are falling back to empty partisan arguments in favor of it lol. Vibe's article is another sunshine pumper opinion piece that boils down to "well many people are saying BTC is great!"

I'd really love it if yall were capable of engaging in the nuts and bolts discussion while defending your argument of an extremely volatile and purely speculative instrument being a top place for a long term value store.

Like, the NFT watch is a great example - it's nothing more than a really REALLY long CVS receipt that's distributed across the world that you bought that watch. But it's still a fucking physical thing in the meat space. There's absolutely NOTHING that binds it to the blockchain aside from your faith that it does and that someone else will agree with you.

I’ve engaged you on technical aspects of Bitcoin.
 

You, and other posters, seem to largely disagree with me on the basis that it “has no value”. What you’re missing is that value of a lot of things is subjective. It has value because people agree that it does, to the tune of 37k per coin. Why does gold have value? Diamonds?
 

48 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

God damn. That is some Grade A Jumbo stupid shit.

Six characteristics of useful money 

Durability-roughly even. Gold doesn’t degrade, Bitcoin is digital

Portability-Bitcoin wins easily. You can move millions of dollars in btc without lifting a finger. 
 

Divisibility-Bitcoin is easily divisible down to almost any amount you want vs gold coinage

 

Uniformity-Bitcoin wins. Gold has to be assayed to determine purity and therefore value of any quantity

Scarcity-Bitcoin wins. Set number. Gold supply grows about 1.5% per year and if a huge spike in price occurs capital will be deployed to increase supply further  

Acceptability- this is where gold currently wins. Has a much longer track record. 

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8 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

A stock's value is theoretically tied to a corporation's future profits as well as its value as a voting share. Stock ownership also comes with a few other rights vis a vis the corporation, like the right to inspect books and records or to issue shareholder proposals.  I'm not going to pretend that stock prices haven't become pretty untethered from this and are primarily priced based on speculative value, but there's still some underlying value there that isn't purely speculative.  

I may not have articulated it well, but yes, that was my point.  There's some intrinsic value there.  You can analyze various aspects of the corporation and predict, over a longer term, that it will maintain or grow value in a fairly objective fashion, see, e.g. Benjamin Graham.

I just can't see how you can do that with digital currency.  I mean, ultimately, it's a currency, that is its intention.  I don't trade currencies.

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7 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

I’ve engaged you on technical aspects of Bitcoin.
 

You, and other posters, seem to largely disagree with me on the basis that it “has no value”. What you’re missing is that value of a lot of things is subjective. It has value because people agree that it does, to the tune of 37k per coin. Why does gold have value? Diamonds?
 

Six characteristics of useful money 

Durability-roughly even. Gold doesn’t degrade, Bitcoin is digital

Portability-Bitcoin wins easily. You can move millions of dollars in btc without lifting a finger. 
 

Divisibility-Bitcoin is easily divisible down to almost any amount you want vs gold coinage

 

Uniformity-Bitcoin wins. Gold has to be assayed to determine purity and therefore value of any quantity

Scarcity-Bitcoin wins. Set number. Gold supply grows about 1.5% per year and if a huge spike in price occurs capital will be deployed to increase supply further  

Acceptability- this is where gold currently wins. Has a much longer track record. 

These are all I suppose cogent arguments that digital currency makes a good currency.  

But currency isn't a great or even good investment for normal people.

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10 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

Why does gold have value? Diamonds?

Gold has value because of scarcity and utility.  It doesn't corrode, it is highly malleable, it is highly conductive, and people think it's beautiful.  Now, the last is fairly subjective, but also pretty uniform over time.  Same is basically true of diamonds, but they have a different set of mechanical properties.

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it's all (stocks, crypto) different versions of the emperor has no clothes fable.  Yes stocks are based on a actual company, but are they worth the implied value, or are they vastly inflated when you look at actual profitability?  But if the consensus says that this one is a winner, then it's a self fulfilling prophecy as long as the gov plays along and does not rock the boat.  people still speculate and still need marks to buy at a higher price to be profitable.  Fomo is rampant and big money influences the trend with buying and selling especially on individual stocks.  

something is worth what another will pay for it whether it's understood by everyone or not.   That's all you really need to know about NFTs in their present form.  More akin to people paying $$ for memorabilia or art if a Christie's auction was going on 24/7 and they could insta buy/sell.  there could be some neat stuff come out of this.  maybe that is worth something, maybe it's not.

For speculating in crypto currency, i see no difference vs the stock market.  you can talk about that it's a digital asset that is not worth the current price.  Well, so is random share in XYZ company where they would need to increase profit by 1000% to justify the value of the share.  Both will have buyers and sellers.

tldr - people can justify whatever bullshit they want to reinforce their beliefs on any subject

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15 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Gold isn't money.

Lol

”Gold is money. Everything else is credit.”

JP Morgan 

12 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

These are all I suppose cogent arguments that digital currency makes a good currency.  

But currency isn't a great or even good investment for normal people.

As it’s adopted it will increase in value until an equilibrium is reached. 

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16 minutes ago, gyroprotagonist said:

it's all (stocks, crypto) different versions of the emperor has no clothes fable.  Yes stocks are based on a actual company, but are they worth the implied value, or are they vastly inflated when you look at actual profitability?  But if the consensus says that this one is a winner, then it's a self fulfilling prophecy as long as the gov plays along and does not rock the boat.  people still speculate and still need marks to buy at a higher price to be profitable.  Fomo is rampant and big money influences the trend with buying and selling especially on individual stocks.  

something is worth what another will pay for it whether it's understood by everyone or not.   That's all you really need to know about NFTs in their present form.  More akin to people paying $$ for memorabilia or art if a Christie's auction was going on 24/7 and they could insta buy/sell.  there could be some neat stuff come out of this.  maybe that is worth something, maybe it's not.

For speculating in crypto currency, i see no difference vs the stock market.  you can talk about that it's a digital asset that is not worth the current price.  Well, so is random share in XYZ company where they would need to increase profit by 1000% to justify the value of the share.  Both will have buyers and sellers.

tldr - people can justify whatever bullshit they want to reinforce their beliefs on any subject

While it is true that individual stock prices (or even the market more broadly) can enter a bubble where values are speculative, you've oversimplified stock ownership. Unlike Bitcoin, stock ownership is tied to asset that people want to own for the qualities of the asset as opposed to speculative hope that someone will pay more money for it in the future. A simple example is when one company purchases another. The goal there isn't merely to own an instrument that can be traded for greater value at a later time, but to actual purchase control of the assets and business interest of the other company. Those sorts of transactions validate and ground the prices paid for smaller portions of ownership. 

8 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

Lol

”Gold is money. Everything else is credit.”

JP Morgan 

As it’s adopted it will increase in value until an equilibrium is reached. 

Adopted to do what? Bitcoin has been around for years, and while its value has increased due to speculators, I've not seen any evidence that is ever going to be adopted to actually do anything. People purchase it because they think the price will go up and they can sell it someone else. Someone is going to get caught holding the bag at some point. 

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1 hour ago, Captainant said:

it's nothing more than a really REALLY long CVS receipt 

That's a shit-load of digital bags of candy. Member that time at CVS you got that receipt where you had a free $5, and so you ducked back into the store and grabbed the free $5 bag of candy? And you had to stand in line, so by the time you got to the register you kinda hoped the receipt wouldn't have more free money on it?

I member.

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1 hour ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

Six characteristics of useful money 

Durability-roughly even. Gold doesn’t degrade, Bitcoin is digital

Portability-Bitcoin wins easily. You can move millions of dollars in btc without lifting a finger. 
 

Divisibility-Bitcoin is easily divisible down to almost any amount you want vs gold coinage

 

Uniformity-Bitcoin wins. Gold has to be assayed to determine purity and therefore value of any quantity

Scarcity-Bitcoin wins. Set number. Gold supply grows about 1.5% per year and if a huge spike in price occurs capital will be deployed to increase supply further  

Acceptability- this is where gold currently wins. Has a much longer track record. 

Bitcoin has nothing on the real numbers between 0 and 1.

Durability - Real numbers exist as a platonic ideal and are therefore indestructible. Long after bitcoin’s servers crash and burn and the Sun melts the Earth’s gold, the real numbers will persist.

Portability - Real numbers are a concept and may be carried entirely within the mind.  No wallet or purse or server needed.

Divisibility - Real numbers are divisible to infinitesimal amounts. There is literally no limit to their divisibility.

Uniformity - Uniformity is measured solely in terms of numbers. There is nothing more uniform than numbers themselves.

Scarcity - There are an infinite amount of real numbers, and the segment between 0 to 1 is an infinitesimal slice of all possible real numbers. 1/infinity is about as scarce as it gets.

Acceptability - What’s more acceptable than numbers? Everyone learns math in school and Arabic numerals are universally adopted.

Ergo, the best money are the real numbers between 0 and 1. I’ll sell you the slice between 0.0000003 and 0.000000300000001 for $200,000.

Edited by BrickHorn
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8 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

While it is true that individual stock prices (or even the market more broadly) can enter a bubble where values are speculative, you've oversimplified stock ownership. Unlike Bitcoin, stock ownership is tied to asset that people want to own for the qualities of the asset as opposed to speculative hope that someone will pay more money for it in the future. A simple example is when one company purchases another. The goal there isn't merely to own an instrument that can be traded for greater value at a later time, but to actual purchase control of the assets and business interest of the other company. Those sorts of transactions validate and ground the prices paid for smaller portions of ownership. 

I'll say it again.  people can justify whatever bullshit they want to reinforce their beliefs on any subject.  does not make them right or wrong because in the great words of Kip Dynamite "Like anyone could even know that" 

again, you say 'qualities of the asset' which is completely subjective.  the consensus will determine how that quality is valued same as anything else bought and sold.  lol at markets getting shut down when shit goes sideways and suddenly the qualities of the assets are plunging that were perfectly fine the day before. Then the powers that be just pull the plug and stop trading for a little while until an appropriate press release can  quell the masses or poppa gov can bail them out.  

Yes, investing in companies *sounds* better than investing in electrons moving around the ether but don't kid yourself that both are not pumped up by smoke and mirrors.  One has just has the government backing it and making rules to incentivize the masses to participate.   i just think both stocks and crypto are speculative and people yammering away on the 'fundamentals' of a certain company or trying to justify a share price are full shit.  But i participate in both because it's stupid not to.

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Just to lighten the mood a little, ran across this article in the New Yorker magazine:

 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/13/half-a-billion-in-bitcoin-lost-in-the-dump

 

tldr: dumbass who got in bitcoin mining very early on, threw away the hard drive that had his key for 8,000 (iirc) bitcoins, now valued at something like half a billion dollars. City where he works won't allow him to dig up the dump to hopefully find the hard drive, (which would cost millions to actually move and sift through years and years of trash).

his obsession with finding that hard drive has cost him his wife, kids, and job.

 

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11 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Just to lighten the mood a little, ran across this article in the New Yorker magazine:

 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/13/half-a-billion-in-bitcoin-lost-in-the-dump

 

tldr: dumbass who got in bitcoin mining very early on, threw away the hard drive that had his key for 8,000 (iirc) bitcoins, now valued at something like half a billion dollars. City where he works won't allow him to dig up the dump to hopefully find the hard drive, (which would cost millions to actually move and sift through years and years of trash).

his obsession with finding that hard drive has cost him his wife, kids, and job.

 

That poor bastard has been in the news forever. Can’t imagine how bad that must feel. 
 

29 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Bitcoin has nothing on the real numbers between 0 and 1.

Durability - Real numbers exist as a platonic ideal and are therefore indestructible. Long after bitcoin’s servers crash and burn and the Sun melts the Earth’s gold, the real numbers will persist.

Portability - Real numbers are a concept and may be carried entirely within the mind.  No wallet or purse or server needed.

Divisibility - Real numbers are divisible to infinitesimal amounts. There is literally no limit to their divisibility.

Uniformity - Uniformity is measured solely in terms of numbers. There is nothing more uniform than numbers themselves.

Scarcity - There are an infinite amount of real numbers, and the segment between 0 to 1 is an infinitesimal slice of all possible real numbers. 1/infinity is about as scarce as it gets.

Acceptability - What’s more acceptable than numbers? Everyone learns math in school and Arabic numerals are universally adopted.

Ergo, the best money are the real numbers between 0 and 1. I’ll sell you the slice between 0.0000003 and 0.000000300000001 for $200,000.

889-FCF57-C9-F7-47-DC-B087-EBCDCED5932-F

 

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34 minutes ago, gyroprotagonist said:

I'll say it again.  people can justify whatever bullshit they want to reinforce their beliefs on any subject.  does not make them right or wrong because in the great words of Kip Dynamite "Like anyone could even know that" 

again, you say 'qualities of the asset' which is completely subjective.  the consensus will determine how that quality is valued same as anything else bought and sold.  lol at markets getting shut down when shit goes sideways and suddenly the qualities of the assets are plunging that were perfectly fine the day before. Then the powers that be just pull the plug and stop trading for a little while until an appropriate press release can  quell the masses or poppa gov can bail them out.  

Yes, investing in companies *sounds* better than investing in electrons moving around the ether but don't kid yourself that both are not pumped up by smoke and mirrors.  One has just has the government backing it and making rules to incentivize the masses to participate.   i just think both stocks and crypto are speculative and people yammering away on the 'fundamentals' of a certain company or trying to justify a share price are full shit.  But i participate in both because it's stupid not to.

You're over generalizing and missing my point. I don't disagree that the stock market, and particular stocks, can get in bubble territory where the value isn't tethered to the performance of the business. But when Company A buys Company B it isn't because of all the bullshit you just said. Rather, the purpose is to actually run the business. That valuation is going to be based on the things like assets that Company B has, the ability of Company B to generate revenue and profit, etc. Those sorts of transactions are completely foreign in bitcoin world and ground the stock market to something beyond the pump and dump bullshit (which is all cryptocurrency has). 

As a thought experiment, let's say you owned a house that live in. If no one is willing to buy your house from you, is it worthless? Would you just abandon the house and be homeless? Or does the fact that you live there provide some intrinsic value even though no market exists for your house? 

Ok, now let's say you owned McDonald's, which generates $23 billion in yearly revenue and 7 billion in profit. If no one was willing to buy your ownership interest in McDonald's, would you say your interest was worthless? Would you just throw it away? Or, just maybe, would that $7.5 billion in yearly profit be something you might want on to hang on to? 

Same question, but this time you own 200,000 bitcoins. If no one was willing to buy them from you, would you still feel you owned something of value? 

Any traded asset can enter a speculative bubble. But businesses and homes and cars and other goods all have some real value not predicated on a market existing. Bitcoin is different. It's only value depends upon having a market where someone will pay you more than you bought for it. It is purely speculative. 

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not sure how this spun into comparing BTC to a company.  BTC and Shares of a company are similar in that you can speculate on them.  people have different theories on their value and it's mostly full of shit and both are over inflated.

If you can trade BTC for fiat and then buy something with that fiat, then both BTC and fiat have value.  But if your McDs generated $7.5 in fiat and suddenly that fiat cannot buy anything of value, then yes it would just as worthless as BTC.  again, BTC, USD whatever is worth what people will trade for it.  I am not trying to argue anything other than that.  people saying BTC is worthless because it doesn't do anything are stupid.  At  least today it has worth.  Does the gold sitting in UTs vault 'do anything'?  is is going to be melted down for circuits, jewelry?  no it's going to sit there and either go up or down in value based on speculation. 

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1 hour ago, Dahobbs said:

 

Adopted to do what? Bitcoin has been around for years, and while its value has increased due to speculators, I've not seen any evidence that is ever going to be adopted to actually do anything. People purchase it because they think the price will go up and they can sell it someone else. Someone is going to get caught holding the bag at some point. 

 

19 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

 

Any traded asset can enter a speculative bubble. But businesses and homes and cars and other goods all have some real value not predicated on a market existing. Bitcoin is different. It's only value depends upon having a market where someone will pay you more than you bought for it. It is purely speculative. 

These.  

Yes, ANYTHING, even a real asset with real value can get caught up in a speculative bubble (I always end up thinking of emus -- I remember the bubble for those, and every ranch you drove by had several large birds that had an inherent value of several hundred dollars (tasty meat, leather), but a bubble value of $20k, because you have to buy a good breeding emu to build your mega-emu herd!).  A shitload of people ended up getting stuck with $100k in emus (purchase price) that had an ultimate market value of a few thousand bucks.  But even in the end of that bubble, there was STILL an inherent market value.  The fact that there was a bubble doesn't mean that emus are shitty livestock to raise.  If they have real value, you can make raising them work, just like any other livestock.  Same with stocks.  Some may have a bubble element, absolutely.  But underneath, there is almost always SOME inherent value. McDonalds is a business that sells a product and yields a net profit every year. 

Crypto, or NFTs, on the other hand, is ENTIRELY dependent on the trading market and yes, you don't want to end up holding it when the music stops.  No matter how much the bros tell us how it's different, how you're an IDIOT not to get into crypto (and hey, like any other similar pump-and-dump, if you can get in, pump, and dump, then yep, it was a good move for you.....but not for the person stuck with it when the music stops.

It seems that all the hope for real value (and really, it's being sold as a "oh, this is gonna happen!  This is why it has real value!  So you'd be an idiot not to buy the crypto I'm selling!") is that it will be adopted as a genuine currency like "fiat money."  But crypto is never going to be identical to the USD, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.  Sure, the United States could completely and utterly fail, and the value of the USD will go poof.  But that is wildly, wildly, unlikely.  Even in the worst of the SHTF secenarios.

I will admit that I haven't spent 100 hours trying to understand this topic.  I'll confess that my observations are mostly "yeah, I've heard this song before."  And I have.  Emus, beanie babies, whatever.  The exact same rhetoric, the exact same "I've researched this for 1,000 hours, and have been trading in them for years, and this is foolproof!" derision of anyone who says "yeah.....that seems like a bubble."  We'll see.  There is probably some sort of future for digital currency of some sort, but not one that's going to pay the holder of a single bitcoin a kajillion dollars.

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23 minutes ago, gyroprotagonist said:

not sure how this spun into comparing BTC to a company.  BTC and Shares of a company are similar in that you can speculate on them.  people have different theories on their value and it's mostly full of shit and both are over inflated.

If you can trade BTC for fiat and then buy something with that fiat, then both BTC and fiat have value.  But if your McDs generated $7.5 in fiat and suddenly that fiat cannot buy anything of value, then yes it would just as worthless as BTC.  again, BTC, USD whatever is worth what people will trade for it.  I am not trying to argue anything other than that.  people saying BTC is worthless because it doesn't do anything are stupid.  At  least today it has worth.  Does the gold sitting in UTs vault 'do anything'?  is is going to be melted down for circuits, jewelry?  no it's going to sit there and either go up or down in value based on speculation. 

The difference is when you think the music is going to stop.

The USD has a 200+ year lifespan and is backed by the most powerful country on earth.

BTC is a few years old, has a finite number that can be created, and is entirely a creature of a speculative market.

If you get out of BTC before the music stops, good for you.  But I don't think anyone here needs to worry about getting out of their USD position before the music stops.

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29 minutes ago, gyroprotagonist said:

not sure how this spun into comparing BTC to a company.  BTC and Shares of a company are similar in that you can speculate on them.  people have different theories on their value and it's mostly full of shit and both are over inflated.

If you can trade BTC for fiat and then buy something with that fiat, then both BTC and fiat have value.  But if your McDs generated $7.5 in fiat and suddenly that fiat cannot buy anything of value, then yes it would just as worthless as BTC.  again, BTC, USD whatever is worth what people will trade for it.  I am not trying to argue anything other than that.  people saying BTC is worthless because it doesn't do anything are stupid.  At  least today it has worth.  Does the gold sitting in UTs vault 'do anything'?  is is going to be melted down for circuits, jewelry?  no it's going to sit there and either go up or down in value based on speculation. 

Again, you're over generalizing. Bitcoin and stock shares have similarities, but they also have significant differences. Your point, at a certain level of generalization, isn't inaccurate, but it also isn't a particularly useful observation. The question before us isn't whether bitcoin can be traded for some value right now, it obviously can be. The question is whether it makes sense as a long term investment vehicle and will continue to have value.  

Edited by Dahobbs
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2 hours ago, gyroprotagonist said:

people still speculate and still need marks to buy at a higher price to be profitable. 

My XOM stock is paying me a nice 11% per year dividend due to some lucky timing on stock purchases at the beginning of the pandemic.  The stock price could have sat right at the price I bought it for eternity and I wouldn’t give a shit.  I’m profitable without even selling it.

Tell me again how BTC can do that?

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Just now, Fudge Nuggets said:

My XOM stock is paying me a nice 11% per year dividend due to some lucky timing on stock purchases at the beginning of the pandemic.  The stock price could have sat right at the price I bought it for eternity and I wouldn’t give a shit.  I’m profitable without even selling it.

Tell me again lw BTC can do that?

i'm earning 4-5% per week on another crypto coin i am in on the eth block chain.  do nothing but collect the coin every day and choose to convert to fiat or speculate on if it will go up in price.  it's ~350% per year return.  will it last a year?  who knows but it's an insane return right now and has been for last 6 months.  Lots of crypto cexs will let you earn various rates of return 5-20% for just staking your coins.  you can earn a % of the fees accrued when people move from one coin to another.  There are tons of ways to earn passive income with crypto coins so this is stupid argument

yes, what i am saying is not particularly insightful or useful information because i don't care if people think BTC is going to stand the test of time or not.  i'm not personally buying and holding BTC even though i think crypto currency will continue to be more and more relevant as time goes on.  people saying it's a fraud or ponzi but take stock valuations as the gospel truth just baffle me is all.

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4 minutes ago, gyroprotagonist said:

i'm earning 4-5% per week on another crypto coin i am in on the eth block chain.  do nothing but collect the coin every day and choose to convert to fiat or speculate on if it will go up in price.  it's ~350% per year return.  will it last a year?  who knows but it's an insane return right now and has been for last 6 months.  Lots of crypto cexs will let you earn various rates of return 5-20% for just staking your coins.  you can earn a % of the fees accrued when people move from one coin to another.  There are tons of ways to earn passive income with crypto coins so this is stupid argument

yes, what i am saying is not particularly insightful or useful information because i don't care if people think BTC is going to stand the test of time or not.  i'm not personally buying and holding BTC even though i think crypto currency will continue to be more and more relevant as time goes on.  people saying it's a fraud or ponzi but take stock valuations as the gospel truth just baffle me is all.

Ah, so you're looking to profit from the pump and dump. As others have said, some will make money. But someone is going to be left holding the bag when the prices inevitably plummet because the asset doesn't have any inherent value or use. Good luck to you I guess, but stop lying to yourself about what you're doing. 

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3 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Ah, so you're looking to profit from the pump and dump. As others have said, some will make money. But someone is going to be left holding the bag when the prices inevitably plummet because the asset doesn't have any inherent value or use. Good luck to you I guess, but stop lying to yourself about what you're doing. 

who said anything about a pump and dump?  i was a day 1 investor for an online game done on the blockchain.  that game has its own tokens and in-game currency and they incentivize people who stake and hold as well as provide the liquidity for people to convert USDC and other coins to their game tokens.  That has been paying an extraordinary amount from conception to now.  I have some that I locked in for a year, so this is far from a pump and dump.  The project has grown from 3 people to now employing 20.  Can i guarantee that they will have the stability of Lockheed Martin?  no, they don't have a DoD contract as far as i know, but i am realistic in knowing that shit happens and it could all disappear tomorrow and have adjusted my risk appropriately.

This is what i am talking about.  people's bias just makes up their mind for them because everything related to crypto has to be scam because it all just electrons.  "prices inevitably plummet because the asset doesn't have any inherent value or use" - That's just a wrong statement as there is use and inherent value due to the game and community that they have built.

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34 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

 

Good article but one point is wrong. There is no worry about if the miners will turn off when there’s high electricity demand. They sell electricity back to the grid so they’re compelled to do it. 

Texas is the El Salvador of Kazakhstans. 

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43 minutes ago, gyroprotagonist said:

who said anything about a pump and dump?  i was a day 1 investor for an online game done on the blockchain.  that game has its own tokens and in-game currency and they incentivize people who stake and hold as well as provide the liquidity for people to convert USDC and other coins to their game tokens.  That has been paying an extraordinary amount from conception to now.  I have some that I locked in for a year, so this is far from a pump and dump.  The project has grown from 3 people to now employing 20.  Can i guarantee that they will have the stability of Lockheed Martin?  no, they don't have a DoD contract as far as i know, but i am realistic in knowing that shit happens and it could all disappear tomorrow and have adjusted my risk appropriately.

This is what i am talking about.  people's bias just makes up their mind for them because everything related to crypto has to be scam because it all just electrons.  "prices inevitably plummet because the asset doesn't have any inherent value or use" - That's just a wrong statement as there is use and inherent value due to the game and community that they have built.

The conversation we were having was specific to Bitcoin and not the concept of the block chain generally (although I think it's uses are exaggerated). You jumped in with some tangents. Ethereum is different from Bitcoin, if that makes you feel better. 

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8 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

The conversation we were having was specific to Bitcoin and not the concept of the block chain generally (although I think it's uses are exaggerated). You jumped in with some tangents. Ethereum is different from Bitcoin, if that makes you feel better. 

this is getting unwieldy.  i was responding to Fudge nugs about passive income i was earning on another coin.  i never said it was BTC and stated it was on the eth chain.  Then you jumped in harping about pump and dump.  Then when I explained it was not a pump and dump, you went back to 'yeah, but i was just talking about BTC only' because that fit your narrative and your pump and dump theory was garbage. 

@longhornmatt no, i am comparing bitcoin speculation to stock price speculation.  people can come up with whatever research/fundamentals/charting to justify any position they choose to take on the price going up or down on either BTC or the value of a share.

33 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

If there theoretically were no market for the stock, but the company does actual business and earns profits, the owners will be distributed the profits.  See, e.g., every profitable privately held company ever.  And a boatload of mature public companies make sizable dividend payments and share buybacks.  It’s not as if the only way to make money in business is through an exit event.  

With crypto, on the other hand, the only way to make money is basically through an exit event.  Which means it is speculation and entirely dependent on finding the next mark.  I should start Snake Oil Coin.

I agree, I own shares in a private company that occasionally returns some dividends.  But some others that don't.  I won't make any money until the company is bought out, an exit event you might say.  

Again, there are TONS of passive ways to make money in crypto that do not require selling your initial investment.  i literally just posted one a few posts up.  The speculation is that BTC or whatever crypto coin will increase in value relative to USD or your fiat of choice.  Same as a share price for stock.  your (non dividend earning) share of common stock is worthless until you sell it to somebody.  

you do know that you have to sell a stock (and a 'mark' has to buy it) to get money right?  I am not saying crypto is super stable and will be around forever so move your 401K to BTC.  i personally don't see too much difference between speculating on crypto and stocks.  If you are investing for the long term (not speculating) then that is different.  as i said earlier I am not buying and holding crypto but will continue to play in the market.  

if you think it's scam - cool.  idgaf and not trying to convince you otherwise.  I just think that 'betting' on the stock market to go up and 'betting' on crypto go up are similar; you need someone willing to pay a higher amount for the price to keep going up.  making weekly/monthly buys in the stock market is a far wiser choice, imo, vs doing the same thing in crypto.  

 

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12 hours ago, gyroprotagonist said:

not sure how this spun into comparing BTC to a company.  BTC and Shares of a company are similar in that you can speculate on them.  people have different theories on their value and it's mostly full of shit and both are over inflated.

If you can trade BTC for fiat and then buy something with that fiat, then both BTC and fiat have value.  But if your McDs generated $7.5 in fiat and suddenly that fiat cannot buy anything of value, then yes it would just as worthless as BTC.  again, BTC, USD whatever is worth what people will trade for it.  I am not trying to argue anything other than that.  people saying BTC is worthless because it doesn't do anything are stupid.  At  least today it has worth.  Does the gold sitting in UTs vault 'do anything'?  is is going to be melted down for circuits, jewelry?  no it's going to sit there and either go up or down in value based on speculation. 

Well, it spun that way because stocks generally have a connection to something with intrinsic value:  the book value of the assets of the company.  They can go up or down based on speculation, sure, even without a speculative bubble.  But, over the longer haul, "good" companies tend to increase in value, bad companies don't and tend to go out of business when their book value approaches zero, or negative, and their stock becomes worthless.

Gold was chosen as a coin material because it didn't tarnish and was easy to mint/stamp, and it had intrinsic value that it lent to the coins as currency.  There are or were fiat aspects to its value, but it also had or has a "book value."

No one is saying BTC has no value, just that it's value is based solely on willing buyer/seller, and nothing else.

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Why is BTC being compared to stocks? BTC is a form of currency. Making money by trading out currencies based on exchange rates has been a thing forever and i don't see anyone holding any bag. And unlike those fiat currencies there will only ever be a set amount of BTC available, you cant simply just make more.

 

Let's think about it logically. There will always be a market for untracable money. So BTC will have value. The others, not so sure about, but there's definitely something to BTC more than it just being a complete scam.

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On 1/27/2022 at 10:42 PM, Bravo said:

I was like WTF did you send me from Denmark from DHL. He just started laughing when I called him after the text. He said this watch is the 1st physical watch attached to an NFT. Crazy ass shit. Likely going to be worth nothing. Watch NFT right now is worth $152. Each watch has a unique number on it attached to the NFT. It's regarded.

20220127_223705.jpg

20220127_223830.jpg

20220127_224009.jpg

Tl; dr

736d9100379e51c18848db354739fde8--quenti

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1 hour ago, Pam Cummings said:

Why is BTC being compared to stocks? BTC is a form of currency. Making money by trading out currencies based on exchange rates has been a thing forever and i don't see anyone holding any bag. And unlike those fiat currencies there will only ever be a set amount of BTC available, you cant simply just make more.

 

Let's think about it logically. There will always be a market for untracable money. So BTC will have value. The others, not so sure about, but there's definitely something to BTC more than it just being a complete scam.

People seem to get caught up on the “currency” part. They think how can you make gains just holding a currency, they don’t just go up. This is nothing hard and fast, but one graphic representation of how it could play out price wise. Disregard the “we’re here” arrow. This chart’s from a few years back. We’re a little further along the x axis although not a ton. 
 

8-DB7-CC14-AC9-F-41-DB-85-D6-0-FB3291699

 

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1 hour ago, Bravo said:

I don't make $ off someone forever if they buy crypto. 

Yet the more people who put their capital into crypto, the more your original investment is worth, so you evangelize and sell others on the concept.  You are trying to create the demand for an alternative to the dollar, when crypto has already gobbled up the market of people looking for that.

I don’t really have a problem with you doing that.  I’ve got some friends who I have drifted apart from who suddenly want to get back in touch, though.  After 10 minutes of reconnecting I get an hour long sales pitch on crypto and it’s those assholes I have a problem with.  I get it, they think they’ve found a new way to get rich... but only if demand keeps rising.  So damn if they aren’t going to try to exploit every relationship they’ve ever had to drum it up.

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Nope, it’s just non-discernible from the preceding MLM schemes that captured their attention as a way to build wealth without effort.

Edit: in short, they are the last people I would be looking to for financial advice about wealth building.  I don’t know you, maybe you are Alan Greenspan posting fantastically sound financial advice anonymously?  Or maybe you are just a guy with a phone and an internet connection and a financial opinion I should be dubious of?

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4 minutes ago, Goredho said:

Yet the more people who put their capital into crypto, the more your original investment is worth, so you evangelize and sell others on the concept.  You are trying to create the demand for an alternative to the dollar, when crypto has already gobbled up the market of people looking for that.

I don’t really have a problem with you doing that.  I’ve got some friends who I have drifted apart from who suddenly want to get back in touch, though.  After 10 minutes of reconnecting I get an hour long sales pitch on crypto and it’s those assholes I have a problem with.  I get it, they think they’ve found a new way to get rich... but only if demand keeps rising.  So damn if they aren’t going to try to exploit every relationship they’ve ever had to drum it up.

I get this sentiment and it’s why I don’t talk to friends about it much at all. If I do it’s friends that I know can afford to invest in it and are looking for places to put money. Like partners at work or friends from school.

I’ve mentioned it to one friend that’s a radiologist for years. He’s always blown it off. Now when he’s planning to move to his hometown he complains about how much home prices are out of control, something isn’t right etc. So I said, see that’s what I’ve been talking about the money’s broken. He still couldn’t get over the hump to buy it that I know of. People will just come to it in their due time. 

 

Of course people want their investment to do well, but I think those that are really into bitcoin specifically have a very ideological basis for it. Besides the endless money printing and its dangers, there’s an ongoing trend toward centralization and control of individual’s finances that is dangerous imo. The big goal for some in govt is a central bank digital currency (CBDC). China is rolling theirs out now. It’s basically the surveillance state’s wet dream. All accounts and transactions traceable and censorable. This is one of the worst things that could happen for personal privacy and freedom. Bitcoin is the best chance we have as Americans to avoid it and everything that could happen if it’s fully utilized/weaponized. I don’t think the average American realizes the high level at which this game is being played and the consequences. This is why I’m passionate about it. To sum up,

 

 

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https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/bill-introduced-to-make-bitcoin-a-legal-tender-in-arizona

The "discussion" in this thread reminds me of the book Flatland.  A fascinating bit of political and social satire that involves the denizens of a society that exists in a two dimensional plane.  Citizens were two dimensional geometric shapes.  When a three dimensional sphere contacts their plane of existence, it is visible to the denizens as a circle in their plane, but they can't conceive of the visitor as a three dimensional sphere.  

People have difficulty thinking beyond their own personal experiences.

Gold was used as money for thousands of years because of its unique properties.  We don't use it as money today so most folks never learned much about it.  The lesson on why gold is valuable has largely been lost to the masses, but central banks still understand it.

Cryptos were designed to be a digital commodity with similar characteristics to gold.  A couple of differences (some better, some worse).  I see cryptos continuing to broaden acceptance and adoption.  I think we are past the critical mass flux point.

You folks can argue about intrinsic value and such but I don't think you are considering the issue with an open mind.

El Salvador made it's move to facilitate repatriation of wealth from its expats living in the USA.  That's a pretty big use case. 

Crypto is borderless and not subject to financial shenanigans with the SWIFT network.

DeFi is still in its infancy, but I can see all kinds of financial services maturing in the space over time.

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18 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

I get this sentiment and it’s why I don’t talk to friends about it much at all. If I do it’s friends that I know can afford to invest in it and are looking for places to put money. Like partners at work or friends from school.

I’ve mentioned it to one friend that’s a radiologist for years. He’s always blown it off. Now when he’s planning to move to his hometown he complains about how much home prices are out of control, something isn’t right etc. So I said, see that’s what I’ve been talking about the money’s broken. He still couldn’t get over the hump to buy it that I know of. People will just come to it in their due time. 

 

Of course people want their investment to do well, but I think those that are really into bitcoin specifically have a very ideological basis for it. Besides the endless money printing and its dangers, there’s an ongoing trend toward centralization and control of individual’s finances that is dangerous imo. The big goal for some in govt is a central bank digital currency (CBDC). China is rolling theirs out now. It’s basically the surveillance state’s wet dream. All accounts and transactions traceable and censorable. This is one of the worst things that could happen for personal privacy and freedom. Bitcoin is the best chance we have as Americans to avoid it and everything that could happen if it’s fully utilized/weaponized. I don’t think the average American realizes the high level at which this game is being played and the consequences. This is why I’m passionate about it. To sum up,

 

 

“All in, no regrets.”

Sounds like that is shorting the US dollar and praying for it to collapse.  That is not in my or most people’s best interest.

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4 hours ago, Pam Cummings said:

Why is BTC being compared to stocks? BTC is a form of currency. Making money by trading out currencies based on exchange rates has been a thing forever and i don't see anyone holding any bag. And unlike those fiat currencies there will only ever be a set amount of BTC available, you cant simply just make more.

 

Let's think about it logically. There will always be a market for untracable money. So BTC will have value. The others, not so sure about, but there's definitely something to BTC more than it just being a complete scam.

Bitcoin isn't actually a currency though. 99% of Bitcoin transactions are just people buying and selling Bitcoin, not purchasing goods or services. And, as far as currency goes, Bitcoin isn't well matched to that task due to it's finite supply. And transactions are the opposite of private given the Blockchain ledger. A cash transaction is a lot more untraceable.

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18 minutes ago, Goredho said:

“All in, no regrets.”

Sounds like that is shorting the US dollar and praying for it to collapse.  That is not in my or most people’s best interest.

Lol at thinking the average person has an effect on the future of the dollar.
 

It’s about building a lifeboat that protects freedom and personal privacy in case things continue the direction in which they’re already going with regards to monetary policy and the surveillance state. You may think that shouldn’t be an option. Agree to disagree. 

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