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Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc.)


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6 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

Institutional/big money FOMO is coming.  You frontran Wall St for once. Cannot sell now. 

Yep. As of Friday, iShares’ etf owned close to 0.7% of all bitcoin. Wouldn’t shock me if they get close to 1% this week or next. At some point, these etfs will struggle to find sellers if they keep attracting so much money from investors/gamblers.  It’s not impossible that some big whales will sell off some bitcoin to lock in profits but that would just pause the rise.

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2 hours ago, Parliament said:

Seems like a currency that's totally legit and stable.

As I said before, could go to $1 million, could go to $0. I completely see the bear case and the bull case. I've seen enough to think there is something there and want some exposure, but I'm not putting my life savings into it.

I do think that it's getting a little long in the tooth to call it all nonsense. Now buying in at these prices may be nonsense, but the bitcoin idea seems to have some solid points to me and the pool of people that want a piece continues to grow.

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28 minutes ago, bernorange said:

I think there's a chance for outperformance to the upside this cycle due to the big money with access this time.

 

58 minutes ago, Hefeweizen said:

I don’t always buy shitcoins but when I do I like to rely on cumrokets.

Wife in 2025- wow, you see this bitcoin thing has gone crazy? wish we owned some.

Hefe- guess what, we actually do. see there's this guy named cum rocket on surlyhorns and he shitposts...

 

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I have yet to meet a crypto enthusiast who actually understands how it works.  Shitloads of speculators, very few investors.

There are a handful of people (<10) who make decisions regarding code changes to Bitcoin.  No one seems to be able to fully explain who manages them.  At its best, it’s similar to gold.  At worst, it’s tulips.  Blockchain is valuable technology.  But I have seen zero solid argument for why Bitcoin will replace the dollar as the primary means of exchange in the world.

Countries who embrace Bitcoin lose the ability to sanction.  I’m sure the US will let that happen.  Not.

Edited by Snake Diggity
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9 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

I have yet to meet a crypto enthusiast who actually understands how it works.  Shitloads of speculators, very few investors.

There are a handful of people (<10) who make decisions regarding code changes to Bitcoin.  No one seems to be able to fully explain who manages them.  At its best, it’s similar to gold.  At worst, it’s tulips.  Blockchain is valuable technology.  But I have seen zero solid argument for why Bitcoin will replace the dollar as the primary means of exchange in the world.

Countries who embrace Bitcoin lose the ability to sanction.  I’m sure the US will let that happen.  Not.

Lulz. Sounds like you don't understand how it works or how changes are made. Keep preaching though.

 

 

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26 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

Case in point.

 

52 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

There are a handful of people (<10) who make decisions regarding code changes to Bitcoin.

We can go play by play, but your statement here is demonstrably false.

Bitcoin governance is messy by design but the UASF demonstrated that users (full nodes) control consensus for protocol changes to Bitcoin. 

 

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22 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

 

We can go play by play, but your statement here is demonstrably false.

Bitcoin governance is messy by design but the UASF demonstrated that users (full nodes) control consensus for protocol changes to Bitcoin. 

 

Before a BIP can make it to UASF, it has to be approved by an editor.  

But also, even if you’re right, how well would UASF have worked if CVE-2018–17144 hadn’t been responsibly disclosed?  There’s no indication that future bugs in the software could be guaranteed to be fixed via UASF quickly enough to avoid catastrophe, and that’s assuming they're found by good actors.

I’m not going to put myself forth as an expert on Bitcoin.  Maybe you know it all.  That doesn’t change the fact that the VAST majority of people “investing” in Bitcoin have no fucking clue how it works.  The value of Bitcoin is overwhelmingly fueled by speculation.  It’s GME.

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3 hours ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

As I said before, could go to $1 million, could go to $0. I completely see the bear case and the bull case. I've seen enough to think there is something there and want some exposure, but I'm not putting my life savings into it.

I do think that it's getting a little long in the tooth to call it all nonsense. Now buying in at these prices may be nonsense, but the bitcoin idea seems to have some solid points to me and the pool of people that want a piece continues to grow.

Find a brokerage that will let you buy IBIT. Put as much as you want. I wouldn’t try and time it, like anything else.

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They said there would be no math.

For you Casio Databank fans/math wizards….what could happen if ETFs and regular BTC crypto platforms obtain all existing bitcoin? Or will price keep going up as the chase goes on? Always sellers?

My interest was peaked when I was told it was finite (21m).

 

EDIT - Google is your friend

Edited by Tailgate
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5 hours ago, Cum Rocket said:

Wife in 2025- wow, you see this bitcoin thing has gone crazy? wish we owned some.

Hefe- guess what, we actually do. see there's this guy named cum rocket on surlyhorns and he shitposts...

 

 

IMG_0984.jpeg

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7 hours ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

As I said before, could go to $1 million, could go to $0. I completely see the bear case and the bull case. I've seen enough to think there is something there and want some exposure, but I'm not putting my life savings into it.

I do think that it's getting a little long in the tooth to call it all nonsense. Now buying in at these prices may be nonsense, but the bitcoin idea seems to have some solid points to me and the pool of people that want a piece continues to grow.

I 100% agree.  Seems Bitcoin and other cryptos are two things:

1) A legit way to buy/sell/convert money/transfer money without using a government currency.  I don't know the advantage, but I know there is one.  (Not being sarcastic.  There are real advantages.)  One is well-advised to possess crypto only longer than necessary.  Use it for its transaction purpose and get out.  Because:

2) It's a baseball card, Beanie Baby, tulip bulb.  Here you wanna buy and hold for a bit.  Or short it.  Totally nothing wrong with using it for this purpose.  But let's be honest with ourselves and call it what it is.

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6 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

Before a BIP can make it to UASF, it has to be approved by an editor.  

But also, even if you’re right, how well would UASF have worked if CVE-2018–17144 hadn’t been responsibly disclosed?  There’s no indication that future bugs in the software could be guaranteed to be fixed via UASF quickly enough to avoid catastrophe, and that’s assuming they're found by good actors.

I’m not going to put myself forth as an expert on Bitcoin.  Maybe you know it all.  That doesn’t change the fact that the VAST majority of people “investing” in Bitcoin have no fucking clue how it works.  The value of Bitcoin is overwhelmingly fueled by speculation.  It’s GME.

I don't know it all. I know more than most. Despite my shitposting, I try to help educate posters here while I pass the time and cycles continue. I think over time posters have come and gone but are generally more level headed and understanding.  Now, if you bring the same recycled FUD I will not let it go unaddressed. 

On that note 

1 hour ago, Parliament said:

2) It's a baseball card, Beanie Baby, tulip bulb.  Here you wanna buy and hold for a bit.  Or short it.  Totally nothing wrong with using it for this purpose.  But let's be honest with ourselves and call it what it is.

We should be honest with ourselves.

 

Did beanie babies or tulips come back multiple times with even bigger bubbles?

What's the ticker of the SEC approved baseball card Etf? The one that's doing big volume.

 

May be worth thinking more deeply about why your comparisons are ridiculous.

 

Your head remains in the sand. That’s ok. You'll get it at the price you deserve. 

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for what it's worth, I saw the following on crypto youtube today. SIAP.

Fidelity in Canada is packaging their crypto ETFs within their other ETFs.

Quote

Get strategic exposure to crypto (1–3%, depending on the fund) for added diversification. Keeping a small allocation to crypto in your portfolio can give you the potential for higher returns and serve as a hedge against traditional markets.

As these scenarios start to become more and more common, especially with retirement plans, this is when you have an automatic flow of funds popping into the market every payday. I imagine crypto in 401ks is still looking like 2026 or 27.

As an aside, when Canada shows "Global", they mainly mean the US.

fidelity - Copy.JPG

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

for what it's worth, I saw the following on crypto youtube today. SIAP.

Fidelity in Canada is packaging their crypto ETFs within their other ETFs.

As these scenarios start to become more and more common, especially with retirement plans, this is when you have an automatic flow of funds popping into the market every payday. I imagine crypto in 401ks is still looking like 2026 or 27.

As an aside, when Canada shows "Global", they mainly mean the US.

fidelity - Copy.JPG

Damn speculators!

 

What's going to be funny is, as bitcoin pumps, Microstrategy will eventually get added to S&P500, then nocoiners in index funds will become passive investors in Bitcoin.

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Quote

Criteria for Inclusion in the S&P 500

A company must meet the following criteria to be selected by the Index Committee and be included in the S&P 500 index:

    The company should be from the U.S.
    Its market cap must be at least $8.2 billion.
    Its shares must be highly liquid.
    At least 50% of its outstanding shares must be available for public trading.
    It must report positive earnings in the most recent quarter.
    The sum of its earnings in the previous four quarters must be positive.

https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/equities/sp-500-index/

Microstrategy has $11.7B BTC at the moment:

https://saylortracker.com/

I'm not sure about the rest of the criteria.

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Quote

Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley is in the midst of performing due diligence to add spot bitcoin ETF products to its brokerage platform, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

One of the people said Morgan Stanley, which is among the largest U.S. broker-dealer platforms, has been evaluating offering spot bitcoin ETFs to clients since the Securities and Exchange Commission approved their introduction in the U.S. in January.

Although billions of dollars have already been invested in these products, the investment floodgates might not open until the bitcoin ETFs are offered by big registered investment advisor (RIA) networks and broker-dealers platforms such as those attached to firms like Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and others.
...

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/02/28/morgan-stanley-evaluating-spot-bitcoin-etfs-for-its-giant-brokerage-platform-sources/

 

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58 minutes ago, B00M said:

... how much BTC does blackrock now control thanks to their ETF? ...

https://www.ishares.com/us/products/333011/ishares-bitcoin-trust

Scroll down to the "holdings".  141,396.45310 BTC reported as of yesterday.  Over $500M added today as of the last news report I saw, so they will need to add more to the pile.  For context, MicroStrategy reported owning 193,000 BTC as of Feb 26.

 

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4 hours ago, B00M said:

@Cum Rocket how much BTC does blackrock now control thanks to their ETF? Is there a point at which you’ll be concerned about their ability to move the price? 

It was bound to happen that the big players would eventually control most of bitcoin. Unless Satoshi wakes up and uses his wallet.

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16 hours ago, B00M said:

@Cum Rocket how much BTC does blackrock now control thanks to their ETF? Is there a point at which you’ll be concerned about their ability to move the price? 

How will their holding a large amount of BTC allow them to move the price? Their buying and selling of BTC is dependent on etf inflows and outflows, unless I'm mistaken.

I believe in the goldbug world there's long been a suspicion that somehow the GLD etf was used to "sell paper gold" and suppress the price, but I'm not sure of the mechanics of that. The difference here would be there is a known, finite amount of bitcoin. Perhaps the resident gold bug @RDCanecutter could elaborate on the GLD thing.

 

12 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

It was bound to happen that the big players would eventually control most of bitcoin. Unless Satoshi wakes up and uses his wallet.

Holding a large amount of bitcoin doesn't give any one person or entity more control over the bitcoin network than anybody else.

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Interestingly, there is a way for ETFs to verify their holdings with bitcoin. Only one has done it so far. Bitwise (BITB)

Bitwise Become First To Disclose Bitcoin ETF Holdings Address (forbes.com)

They also have pledged 10% of their ETF profits for the first 10 years to bitcoin developers. So if you're looking to buy an ETF, they're probably the best candidate.

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34 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

How will their holding a large amount of BTC allow them to move the price? Their buying and selling of BTC is dependent on etf inflows and outflows, unless I'm mistaken.

I believe in the goldbug world there's long been a suspicion that somehow the GLD etf was used to "sell paper gold" and suppress the price, but I'm not sure of the mechanics of that. The difference here would be there is a known, finite amount of bitcoin. Perhaps the resident gold bug @RDCanecutter could elaborate on the GLD thing.

 

Holding a large amount of bitcoin doesn't give any one person or entity more control over the bitcoin network than anybody else.

Can you elaborate on that last point?  I’m very interested to understand why someone owning a large percentage of a finite asset doesn’t give them control over how it is used.

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40 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

Can you elaborate on that last point?  I’m very interested to understand why someone owning a large percentage of a finite asset doesn’t give them control over how it is used.

There isn't a central group that controls bitcoin. tldr: Blackrock can't control bitcoin.

Let's say that Blackrock wants to change Bitcoin, which means changing the developer code. They would effectively need to convince a majority of miners and users to accept their new code that they want to apply to the bitcoin network. Historically this has not been a group that reaches consensus easily on a change.

Alternatively, Blackrock, or anyone, always has the option of copying bitcoin (& its corresponding owners) to a new, separate version of Bitcoin with whatever change Blackrock wanted. This has occurred in the past with other groups and pretty much fizzled out.

IF Blackrock wanted to control/change bitcoin, buying out the miners might be the best option but there is limited value in that. As they approached control, it would scare off bitcoin owners and the price would plummet. To control bitcoin is to kill it.

Re: Blackrock's current stake. They're reporting another 10K bitcoin owned yesterday, up to 150K. At this growth rate, Blackrock should surpass Microstrategy in the upcoming weeks. Other groups still have more.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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27 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

Can you elaborate on that last point?  I’m very interested to understand why someone owning a large percentage of a finite asset doesn’t give them control over how it is used.

Sure. So this gets a little into how consensus is derived and how changes are made to the network.

Bitcoin governance is messy and has multiple layers, but the biggest test of who actually controls the bitcoin network was the Blocksize Wars that culminated in 2017. It was a fight over whether or not to increase the bitcoin blocksize. The blocksize is the amount of data (or transactions) allowed in a block every 10 minutes. As bitcoin was becoming more popular there was concern about escalating fees and how to scale bitcoin to allow more transactions. "Big blockers" as they were called wanted to double the block size. Included in that group were almost all the big miners and exchanges, including Coinbase quite prominently.

On the other side were "small blockers" that wanted to maintain the same blocksize and pursue other ways to scale bitcoin, including something at the time called SegWit. The concern of small blockers was that increasing the blocksize would substantially increase the hardware requirements to run full nodes on the network which verify transactions and the ledger itself after miners put together blocks. Larger hardware requirements would decrease the amount of nodes run globally and hurt decentralization of the network. There's all kinds of intrigue behind this including meetings of large entities and holders to plot to force through changes they wanted. This all came to a head and that's when the UASF was performed in 2017 where full nodes all signaled the change to add SegWit and all miners and other companies fell in line.

Tl;Dr Nodes (bitcoin users and network participants) are the final gatekeepers to protocol changes.

 

12 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

IF Blackrock wanted to control/change bitcoin buying out the miners might be the best option, but there is limited value in that. As they approached control, it would scare off bitcoin owners and the price would plummet. To control bitcoin is to kill it.

This is incorrect. See above.

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10 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

There isn't a central group that controls bitcoin.

Let's say that Blackrock wants to change Bitcoin, which means changing the developer code. They would effectively need to convince a majority of miners and users to accept their new code that they want to apply to the bitcoin network. Historically this has not been a group that reaches consensus easily on a change.

Alternatively, Blackrock, or anyone, always has the option of copying bitcoin (& its corresponding owners) to a new, separate version of Bitcoin with whatever change Blackrock wanted. This has occurred in the past with other groups and pretty much fizzled out.

IF Blackrock wanted to control/change bitcoin, buying out the miners might be the best option but there is limited value in that. As they approached control, it would scare off bitcoin owners and the price would plummet. To control bitcoin is to kill it.

Re: Blackrock's current stake. They're reporting another 10K bitcoin owned yesterday, up to 150K. At this growth rate, Blackrock should surpass Microstrategy in the upcoming weeks. Other groups still have more.

Seems like “historically” and “pretty much” might be doing a lot of heavy lifting in that explanation.

I can see how it might be hard for Bitcoin owners to dictate code changes (although that seems like it relies on the small number of editors not being for sale).  But someone getting ownership over a large % of coin seems like they sure could control the price.  “To control Bitcoin is to kill it” seems like a good thing, but it assumes no one with enough capital to control it would want to kill it, and I’m not sure I buy that.

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3 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

This is incorrect. See above.

I thought the concept of a 51% attack was that a group representing 51% of the miners could push changes into the network, not secretly, and the other bitcoin users couldn't stop it. Obviously the disagreeing users/miners could create their version of bitcoin.

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3 minutes ago, Cum Rocket said:

Sure. So this gets a little into how consensus is derived and how changes are made to the network.

Bitcoin governance is messy and has multiple layers, but the biggest test of who actually controls the bitcoin network was the Blocksize Wars that culminated in 2017. It was a fight over whether or not to increase the bitcoin blocksize. The blocksize is the amount of data (or transactions) allowed in a block every 10 minutes. As bitcoin was becoming more popular there was concern about escalating fees and how to scale bitcoin to allow more transactions. "Big blockers" as they were called wanted to double the block size. Included in that group were almost all the big miners and exchanges, including Coinbase quite prominently.

On the other side were "small blockers" that wanted to maintain the same blocksize and pursue other ways to scale bitcoin, including something at the time called SegWit. The concern of small blockers was that increasing the blocksize would substantially increase the hardware requirements to run full nodes on the network which verify transactions and the ledger itself after miners put together blocks. Larger hardware requirements would decrease the amount of nodes run globally and hurt decentralization of the network. There's all kinds of intrigue behind this including meetings of large entities and holders to plot to force through changes they wanted. This all came to a head and that's when the UASF was performed in 2017 where full nodes all signaled the change to add SegWit and all miners and other companies fell in line.

Tl;Dr Nodes (bitcoin users and network participants) are the final gatekeepers to protocol changes.

 

This is incorrect. See above.

Thanks for the reply.  Hard to have faith in a currency whose governance is consistently and proudly described as “messy”.  The SegWit change seems like it was an instance of the system passing a test, but I don’t really see why you think that single instance where everything worked out means that the system will pass all future tests.  I also don’t understand how saying the nodes/users act as gatekeepers prevents large scale owners from exerting influence; the owners are the users, right?  

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Just now, Snake Diggity said:

Thanks for the reply.  Hard to have faith in a currency whose governance is consistently and proudly described as “messy”.

The faith in it comes from knowing it's difficult to change. Bitcoin's monetary policy and code is not subject to the whims of politicians, developers etc. 21 million is 21 million.

If you don't see the value in that then perhaps Bitcoin isn't for you, but if you want to take the value of your savings out of the hands of politicians and big banks then maybe it is.

2 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

I also don’t understand how saying the nodes/users act as gatekeepers prevents large scale owners from exerting influence; the owners are the users, right?  

Holding coins does not require running a node. I'd be surprised if blackrock runs a single one. Their coins are held at coinbase that runs nodes, but nodes are distributed all over the globe. Hell, I set one up on a raspberry Pi at home just for shits.

7 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I thought the concept of a 51% attack was that a group representing 51% of the miners could push changes into the network, not secretly, and the other bitcoin users couldn't stop it. Obviously the disagreeing users/miners could create their version of bitcoin.

A 51% attack would allow an entity to change transactions on the ledger which would hurt credibility of the currency, but it doesn't allow changes to the code or system backing it.

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3 hours ago, Cum Rocket said:

I believe in the goldbug world there's long been a suspicion that somehow the GLD etf was used to "sell paper gold" and suppress the price, but I'm not sure of the mechanics of that. The difference here would be there is a known, finite amount of bitcoin. Perhaps the resident gold bug @RDCanecutter could elaborate on the GLD thing.

I am the last guy to ask about GLD, etfs, paper gold, or anything other than actual jewelry, ingots, or coins. (Most of my savings are in stocks for big blue-chip companies that have nothing to do with shiny metal.)

As for supply of actual gold the mineral, don't we get a lot (most?) of it as a by-product of large mining operations for other minerals? I mean sure there are dudes in the jungle dumping cyanide everywhere while they specifically mine gold, and of course there are the almost Oak-Island-ish videos of dudes starting up a gold mine in Alaska or panning in a river, but their profit appears to come from "mining" the attention of viewers plus maybe selling some gear. Me if I want to get cold and wet, I'll just go kayaking.

But if you want to talk about hiking through South America 100 years ago with Sovereigns sewn inside your clothes, those are the things I like to read about.

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This is interesting to me for a couple reasons. 

1) it shows unique ability of lightning to transport value via micropayments quickly. If AI really is to become ubiquitous and Bitcoin via lightning network is integrated then that would be a clear example of a medium of exchange.

2) if adoption and integration of lightning is substantial it will test the viability of current tax code. Currently if you pay for something with Bitcoin it’s supposed to be a taxable event. But if AI models are constantly routing an untold number of payments, that rule is obviously unenforceable and obsolete.

 

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2 hours ago, Cum Rocket said:

This is interesting to me for a couple reasons. 

1) it shows unique ability of lightning to transport value via micropayments quickly. If AI really is to become ubiquitous and Bitcoin via lightning network is integrated then that would be a clear example of a medium of exchange.

2) if adoption and integration of lightning is substantial it will test the viability of current tax code. Currently if you pay for something with Bitcoin it’s supposed to be a taxable event. But if AI models are constantly routing an untold number of payments, that rule is obviously unenforceable and obsolete.

 

I think the value of BTC as a currency is quickly leaving in the rear-view mirror. It's at best a store of value and at worst, a speculative asset. Why would I want to spend BTC to buy pizza when it's gained significantly since inception? That $20 pizza could be worth $2,000 one day (or $0)

The tax situation as well is a huge hindrance. Nobody wants to have to calculate their cost basis for a pizza.

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