Bitcoin, Altcoin and Cryptocurrency Thread

[EngieDiesel]

Are we still calling buying crypto "investing?"

Mostly unregulated and highly speculative investing, but people buy into things all the time with the belief that they can sell them for a profit later on, and no concrete guarantee that they will actually increase in value. Crypto just happens to be the most accessible and theoretically affordable to the average person right now, compared to rare physical goods or stock markets.

 

[AbsoluteBarstool]

Are we still calling buying crypto "investing?"

Unless it's from the Cryptocurrency region of France, it's just sparkling wealth redistribution.

 

[EngieDiesel]

India may be joining China in the "no crypto but our state-run crypto" camp soon.

 

[VolkswagenX]

 

[MIE1992]

Well, I put $1k into Ethereum lately, especially since they plan to be more ecologically sustainable. It seems like it - and other cryptocurrencies - are on a generally upward trend, not unlike the general stock market, so I feel like it's a good way to diversify my portfolio. Especially since I don't plan on cryptocurrency being more than 1% of my portfolio - I'm not that much of a gambler.

 

[Dave A]

Came across this story today about a cryptocurrency that was short lived, the JRR Token:

Tolkien estate blocks JRR Token crypto-currency

Lawyers representing the estate said the product, launched in August, infringed the author's trademark.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[EngieDiesel]

Sadly, the world's premier cryptocurrency trader has passed away.

 

[Casey]

CoinMarkertCap's site glitched today and I was a billionaire for about 4 minutes.

 

[EngieDiesel]

Seems like creating fakecoins is still the most profitable form of cybercrime. "Rug pulls" cost would-be investors about $8 billion this year.

There's no authoritative list for such a fast moving market though TokenSniffer aspires to keep track of dubious crypto cruft. The website currently has flagged 66,239 crypto tokens as potentially problematic, with the obligatory disclaimer a listing isn't a definitive determination. After all, with names like KingSmudge, ELONSHIBASOK, and Honey Badger, who's to say what possible riches might be yours by sending your money to unknown people on the internet?

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Conning people via appeal to greed has got to be in the top 5 oldest professions.

 

[JohnBM01]

I just realized I posted in the wrong thread! Never mind this post!

 

[EngieDiesel]

So a guy who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin, which would give him the right to 1.1 million BTC mined by said inventor, theoretically worth several billion dollars, is now going to court in the UK on forgery claims as his attempt at proving he owned the private key for said Bitcoins is now in dispute.

He's also in deep for swiping BTC from the company he set up with his former, now deceased business partner, so this should be... interesting.

 

[VolkswagenX]

So a guy who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin, which would give him the right to 1.1 million BTC mined by said inventor, theoretically worth several billion dollars, is now going to court in the UK on forgery claims as his attempt at proving he owned the private key for said Bitcoins is now in dispute.

He's also in deep for swiping BTC from the company he set up with his former, now deceased business partner, so this should be... interesting.

Not sure it works like that? If Craig Wright really is Satoshi, then he would already own the 1.1 million BTC. Even if a court decides that he is the rightfull owner of those 1.1 BTC, he will never get them untill they are given to him.

Isn't it kinda the point of BTC that nobody can just take them from you? They can't freeze you BTC "account" of just take away your BTC when you hold the private key.

Craig Wright is not Satoshi.

 

[EngieDiesel]

Not sure it works like that? If Craig Wright really is Satoshi, then he would already own the 1.1 million BTC. Even if a court decides that he is the rightfull owner of those 1.1 BTC, he will never get them untill they are given to him.

Isn't it kinda the point of BTC that nobody can just take them from you? They can't freeze you BTC "account" of just take away your BTC when you hold the private key.

Craig Wright is not Satoshi.

While the massive pile of BTC is a major point of contention, I think the real issue is that Satoshi Nakamoto, whoever they are, is the rightful holder of the IP rights to the underlying technology that most all cryptocurrency operates on. The group that's bringing up the fraud charges is a coalition of various exchanges and IP holders who have a gentlemen's agreement to not enforce the patents and IP rights they hold so as to not lock anyone out, but if this guy somehow backs up his claim that he's the creator of Bitcoin (and good luck on that), he could flex on all of them for IP violations and sue them for massive amounts of money. Which I think is his real goal here, not claiming the coins that he could never realistically cash out without collapsing the entire scheme before even a tiny fraction of it moved.

 

[EngieDiesel]

Facebook Meta appears to have given up on Libra Diem, it's attempt to roll its own cryptocurrency that nobody really trusted, and is looking to sell the whole operation to some venture capital company for far more than its probably worth.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Not sure why anyone would buy in to a pre-existing currency that has just had its use case removed, especially not for the $200m rumoured.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

This thread sure has slowed down recently...

It's been interesting to watch Bitcoin correlating pretty closely with the stock market over the past few years, particularly following the stock market's downturns. Makes it look a lot like a ZIRP-fueled speculative asset rather than a currency or any sort of gold-like hedge. Cryptocurrency has never existed outside of a ZIRP regime/environment, so the next few years will be a real stress test. Seems like a particularly dangerous move to shift your nation to a Bitcoin standard at the moment, considering it's lost half its value in 6 months. Bitcoin is a really, really terrible form of currency - you basically have no clue what it will be worth the next day. But that's all it is, other than a prodigious waste of electricity and lubricant for the black market. I've said it many times...but how can something be a currency and asset at the same time? It simply can't. I think higher interest rates and a proper recession will kill the speculative/"investment" nature of cryptocurrency for good, or at least I hope it will. What I guess will emerge is a far more boring, US Government backed & regulated, stabilized cryptocurrency highly correlated to the US Dollar that doesn't need 1mw of power per transaction.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

It's only relatively recently in the history of commerce that assets and currencies have been truly disconnected. The Gold Standard ended in 1971. However, the Gold Standard was based around a stated value of gold, which does not align with the crypto market.

Cryptocurrency (in general, as a whole) is a poor currency because its intrinsic value is unknown. Nobody knows how much a BTC is worth, unless they align the BTC value to the value of a fiat currency. But that fluctuates so much, it's not possible to implement a BTC-based commerce system because the value of a currency needs to stay reasonably consistent across the lifetime of the commercial transaction. We've seen repeated examples of what happens when the value of money changes between the money being issued to a citizen and that citizen spending it: usually this is just a few percent in the form of inflation, but we've seen enough examples of the destructive effect of hyperinflation through history to know that rapid value changes are a bad thing.

Also, cryptocurrency isn't really an asset as you can't do anything with it except carry out other financial operations. In this way, most cryptocurrency's similarity to assets is the same as my jar of coins: it's a store of some value to be exchanged later for goods or services. Some cryptocurrencies have been created with the intent of underpinning the management or ownership of assets (e.g. Ravencoin), but these seem to be a "solution looking for a problem" rather than a viable investment opportunity right now.

For me, the biggest failing with crypto right now is that there isn't the right level of credible confidence in it. The discussion around crypto is all amplifying: whenever crypto is up you get all the believers shouting about how great it is; when it is down, you get all the sceptics shouting about how bad it is. The crypto market is all rush, all the time. This makes it bad as a currency market.

In general, I believe that a global decentralised currency is a good thing, but I suspect we may be a decade or more away from something truly usable.

 

[MatskiMonk]

... the #cryptocrash Meme's are pretty good though.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

It's only relatively recently in the history of commerce that assets and currencies have been truly disconnected. The Gold Standard ended in 1971. However, the Gold Standard was based around a stated value of gold, which does not align with the crypto market.

Cryptocurrency (in general, as a whole) is a poor currency because its intrinsic value is unknown. Nobody knows how much a BTC is worth, unless they align the BTC value to the value of a fiat currency. But that fluctuates so much, it's not possible to implement a BTC-based commerce system because the value of a currency needs to stay reasonably consistent across the lifetime of the commercial transaction. We've seen repeated examples of what happens when the value of money changes between the money being issued to a citizen and that citizen spending it: usually this is just a few percent in the form of inflation, but we've seen enough examples of the destructive effect of hyperinflation through history to know that rapid value changes are a bad thing.

Also, cryptocurrency isn't really an asset as you can't do anything with it except carry out other financial operations. In this way, most cryptocurrency's similarity to assets is the same as my jar of coins: it's a store of some value to be exchanged later for goods or services. Some cryptocurrencies have been created with the intent of underpinning the management or ownership of assets (e.g. Ravencoin), but these seem to be a "solution looking for a problem" rather than a viable investment opportunity right now.

For me, the biggest failing with crypto right now is that there isn't the right level of credible confidence in it. The discussion around crypto is all amplifying: whenever crypto is up you get all the believers shouting about how great it is; when it is down, you get all the sceptics shouting about how bad it is. The crypto market is all rush, all the time. This makes it bad as a currency market.

In general, I believe that a global decentralised currency is a good thing, but I suspect we may be a decade or more away from something truly usable.

RE bold section: Just curious - why?

 

[GilesGuthrie]

RE bold section: Just curious - why?

I've spent a decent amount of time travelling around the Eurozone. The idea of being able to move from country to country, using the same currency, is a great one. You know how much things cost, and you don't lose any money exchanging one form of money for another. Of course, for you in the US, this is really obvious. The same money works in Kansas as in Alabama, Ohio or Utah. A massive single-currency zone is your default, but for us Europeans, it's relatively new (Britain's vote to self-harm notwithstanding). Borders impose barriers to trade, which (in my view) don't really help. Perhaps they do help and I just don't understand how, but it seems that moving across currency borders creates friction that does not benefit the people trying to complete the trade.

Plus, the process of currency conversion seems to be a big source of revenue for the organisations carrying out the currency conversion. By definition then, if I move Pounds to Euro, or to Dollars, then I have less actual money at the end of the process than I started with (because the currency converting organisation has taken their commission). This is a bad thing, because someone not involved in the process of me trying to buy goods or services, is taking part of my money. Value is being removed from the trade. If we can get rid of the currency conversion, we reduce the instances where we lose value.

Why should it be decentralised? Well, as I've already (partly) argued, we live in a world where global commerce is riddled with "middle men" taking their cut without adding any value. People controlling the money have the money. They take it from trade markets and hoard it. If I wish to purchase goods, then anybody not involved with producing, marketing and shipping those goods, is subtracting value from the trade. I believe (rightly or wrongly) that a decentralised currency will allow money to move freely between the person buying the goods and the person selling the goods. At present there are a lot of organisations (banks and governments, mainly) who are incentivised to decelerate trade. In a world where the movement of money is decentralised, then efficiency will be paramount.

I have no problem paying for things. I have no problem paying my taxes. I do have a problem with people who are not delivering a valuable service taking a cut.

 

[Touring Mars]

Easy come, easy go...

Since autumn of last year, the major crypto currencies have lost over 50% of their value.

That said, my 'wallet' is still worth double what I paid for, after reaching the dizzy heights or 4.5x higher last year.

 

[Touring Mars]

Instead of watching my crypto wallet disappear into nothingness, I decided to sell a chunk of it to the same value of my original investment, and so now everything I have left in my wallet is pure profit. In fact, I already cashed out a bit, so my balance is a few hundred in profit, but is no longer in crypto but GBP. I still have ca. 0.5 ETH left, worth another few hundred, but now it doesn't matter if it tanks...

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Just a friendly reminder as they crash (hopefully for ****ing good) that Bitcoin & Ethereum alone consume more than a third of worldwide solar production in a given year. All that monumental effort to build out solar infrastructure, and more than a third of it's output is used for basically nothing. Of course this is a rosier picture than is deserved, because a significant amount of crypto is mined with non-sustainable energy sources. But even if every miner used sustainable sources, it would just offset other demands to non-sustainable sources.

Bitcoin: 200+twh
Ethereum: 115twh

Total: 315twh

Worldwide solar energy production in 2021: 856twh

315 / 856 * 100 = 36% for just two cryptos.

Electric cars, all of them, consumed an estimated 30twh of electricity in 2021.

We've got to stop this ****. It's frankly unbelievable to me that this isn't a bigger story.

@GilesGuthrie - Each bitcoin transaction uses 1mw of power (!!!!) and therefore costs about $100 in electricity to complete. I find it difficult to see how that doesn't eventually impact the transaction prices in the 'ideal future' where crypto prices are actually stable.

 

[Touring Mars]

Bitcoin lost 4.5% of its value, and Ethereum dropped 5.3%... in just 5 minutes this morning.

Since their peaks in November 2021, Bitcoin has since lost 69% and Ethereum 76.5% of its value...

 

[TexRex]

Bitcoin has since lost 69%

Nice.

...

 

[NLxAROSA]

I think this is the big one. Retail got cleaned out already, hardly any real liquidity left in the system. Major ponzi's blown up already. The apex predators are starting to eat each other due to lack of new funds flowing in. Lots of fireworks in the upcoming days.

I expect 4-digit BTC within the week and probably even lower soon after.

 

[Touring Mars]

I'm soooooo glad I sold my ETH and walked away in profit.

If/when ETH drops below $100, then I might be tempted to have another flutter. Last time it did that, I nearly bought 10 ETH, which a year or so later would have been worth around £40K at one point. I reckon I might try the same thing, but maybe just 5 ETH and wait for it to hit 10K and walk away with over £9K profit.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I'm soooooo glad I sold my ETH and walked away in profit.

If/when ETH drops below $100, then I might be tempted to have another flutter. Last time it did that, I nearly bought 10 ETH, which a year or so later would have been worth around £40K at one point. I reckon I might try the same thing, but maybe just 5 ETH and wait for it to hit 10K and walk away with over £9K profit.

I don't think speculative things like Bitcoin are going to attract "investment" until interest rates are near zero again or there is massive stimulus or more likely both of those things. What we saw in 2021 was an explosion of bored, locked at home retail investors with a chunk of free money, paused student loans, rent moratoriums, no commute costs, and access to WSB. The conditions that led to crypto going berserk will probably never happen again in quite the same way.

I would love to understand how much of Bitcoin's (in particular) rise was directly funded by stimulus money, and I wonder who ended up with the most gains. It basically became a machine for funneling a ton of stimulus money from a lot of people to a few people.

 

[Touring Mars]

Crayptocurrencies have taken a hammering this week as a large crypto exchange, FTX, has all but collapsed.

Major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum dropped by over 25% in just 72 hours, and Bitcoin has now lost 70% of its value since it peaked almost exactly 1 year ago (£14,362 from £48,005 in exactly 12 months...)

My portfolio is still in a decent profit though (for now...) as I cashed out around the peak before reinvesting some back into Coinbase. By this time last week, it was sitting at a tidy 100% profit (double my original investment), but half of that 'profit' has disappeared since Monday morning.

Some investors on FTX, however, have not been quite so fortunate, including the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan... I mean, seriously?? Imagine gambling a pension pot on a crypto exchange...