Crypto Currency

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McGrrr

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I have no skin in the game, but watching the mania phase of a bubble play out is absolutely fascinating. The bubble will inevitably pop, but inevitable doesn't mean imminent, so watch this space.

I only heard about Bitcoin in 2014 and didn't do any research into it until a year later. I considered dipping my feet when the price hovered around £150 for several months, but I concluded that the only advantage to BTC was decentralisation, while transacting and holding the damn things appeared to be both inefficient and cumbersome, nevermind the risks involved. The tax implications were also murky at the time so I didn't bother.

I think retail speculators are confusing BTC with block chain technology. The latter definitely has long term value and will be game changing to finance ($$$ is being thrown at fintech now), but it remains to be seen whether BTC itself will survive. My best friend owns a tiny amount of Ethereum, but we're both really just curious spectators.
 

Stallion

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The main component of my portfolio, my Litecoin, has gone up almost 50% of my initial investment in a week and a half. I'll catch you guys on the moon.
 
money.cnn.com/2017/12/07/technology/bitcoin-energy-environment/

I've seen a handful of articles in this vein the past ~2 days and it puts a bit of a different spin on things. The power consumption bitcoin requires is apparently staggering and set to grow in the coming years.
 
The last days of sideway action in BTC has made it a joy to trade again.

money.cnn.com/2017/12/07/technology/bitcoin-energy-environment/

I've seen a handful of articles in this vein the past ~2 days and it puts a bit of a different spin on things. The power consumption bitcoin requires is apparently staggering and set to grow in the coming years.
While it's true that the power consumption for Bitcoin mining is insane, and reasons to hope we move over to greener alternatives than the current proof-of-work model - There are good arguments for keeping the system as it is now. Much of the reason why Bitcoin has the most secure network in the work, is that running a 51 % attack is incredibly demanding and unprofitable, as the energy needed is insane.

Besides: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a...mes-out-environmentally-friendlier-2017-12-06
 

McGrrr

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1. Don't read/link the Sun. It's a lowest-common-denominator UK tabloid.
2. Jordan Belfort isn't wrong, but he has nothing to add to the discussion and, besides, who cares what he thinks.
3. If a lowest-common-denominator UK tabloid is openly discussing BTC, we must be close to the bubble top (how many greater fools can there be?).
4. The bubble will inevitably pop, but inevitable doesn't mean imminent, so watch this space.
 
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5. Belfort is a scammer glorified by Hollywood.

I'm not too worried about a proper crash happening, as long as we still see people saying things like "how do you buy bitcoin?" and "it's too hard to figure out how to buy bitcoin". there's still a long way to go for mass-adoption. A correction, though? Of course. I don't intend to try to time it, though.

Obviously a perfect storm with factors such as big exchanges closing doors and legislation are things to watch out for, but for now, I intend to hodl tight.

Your view on how much of a bubble this is and when it will pop usually depend on the narrative you buy. If you belive that the main and only purpose of Bitcoin and crypto currencies is instant money transfers or speculation, I wouldn't buy into them.
 
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I've discussed Cryptocurrency philosophy before, here are some thoughts, mostly around BTC:

1) BTC was intended to be mainstream. It is ideal for online trade. It never expected to run into other problems though.

2) One such problem is companies reject it. Amazon will probably never allow BTC firstly because of how volatile and fluctuating it is, but also because of its reputation as "blood" money on the dark web.

3) Again, it's too volatile. No one wants to exchange goods for a currency which might drop 25% within a day.

4) Dogecoin is a smart investment now because it is so cheap it almost has to rise at some point, and it has the added bonus of being a meme.

5) Investing in other cryptocurrencies besides BTC is slightly smarter than investing in BTC, but still ultimately stupid. And that's because...

6) Crypto is a novelty at the moment. No one is using it for serious transactions anymore, it's now focused on the currency itself and as such has turned it into a niche purchasing tool, rather than what it intended to be. No one has really asked the question "What can I use this for?"

This is like that episode of It's Always Sunny where they invent Paddy Dollars to be used specifically for their bar. A good rule of thumb is that if you can't use it for ordinary purchases, it's not worth it.

7) Crypto's main selling points are that it is virtually untrackable, and cuts out the middle man, read: banks. I have never purchased anything with crypto yet, so correct me if I'm wrong, but there are no banking fees when you trade with BTC, which is a really important factor in assessing whether this will actually become useful once the novelty dies down.

Those are just random thoughts in a random order. I'm no expert, but honestly I wouldn't believe anyone who tells you they are an expert on Crypto given how long its been available.

The main idea to take home is that the most successful crypto will be the one that convinces large scale companies to trade with it, ultimately leading to government interest. Until then, it's novelty.
 
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Soul Fly

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well, you are essentially talking about some government sanctioned, corporate backed blockchain replacement for fiat. While it would eliminate a lot of economic and monetary corruption, I can't see any government backing a currency which they have no monetary control over. Unless of course something ridiculous happens, like say a USD hyperinflation, forcing a corrective realignment with some blockchain based currency as the new gold standard.

The thing is crypto has just started to enter mainstream consciousness, after its big splash a decade ago as some libertarian wet dream. This time a serious financial instrument, and not just some proof of concept. Non-mainstream sites have taken donations and payments in bitcoin for a long time. If there were another financial crash like 2008 in the near future, then the technology (imo) would have a real allure to it as a currency as opposed to an asset.

I think crypto in some form is inevitable. I'm fairly confident even if people don't (b/c ppl are dumb and controlled in 10000001 diff ways), banks and corporations will start colonising blockchain tech pretty aggressively, just like the did with the internet. The root concept is golden.
 

bludz

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I'm up over a grand with some minor dabbling. Currently investing a bit more and hoping for better returns. Tried to buy Tron when it was 10 cents but Binance was crashing, so I didn't get it until it was much pricier :(

I think there's a bubble in the sense that almost all cryptocurrency is doing well right now, and that's certainly not sustainable especially since a lot of the money going into it is on speculative investments and not based on belief in the technology (= inflated value). For example I would not invest in Dogecoin, even if there are large speculative gains to be made while the bubble is still intact. But I still think there's long-term potential for the currencies / platforms that actually make their use cases a reality in partnering with businesses or banks. At the moment, Ripple, Tron, and Stellar seem likely to make these moves (iirc Tron has established a real deal already and Ripple looks like it's going to work with some banks). AMB (Ambrosus) is another interesting cryptocurrency as it is supposedly backed by the Swiss Government to some extent, and has a unique use case

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/swiss-supply-chain-startup-ambrosus-151300519.html
 
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I'm up over a grand with some minor dabbling. Currently investing a bit more and hoping for better returns. Tried to buy Tron when it was 10 cents but Binance was crashing, so I didn't get it until it was much pricier :(

I think there's a bubble in the sense that almost all cryptocurrency is doing well right now, and that's certainly not sustainable especially since a lot of the money going into it is on speculative investments and not based on belief in the technology (= inflated value). For example I would not invest in Dogecoin, even if there are large speculative gains to be made while the bubble is still intact. But I still think there's long-term potential for the currencies / platforms that actually make their use cases a reality in partnering with businesses or banks. At the moment, Ripple, Tron, and Stellar seem likely to make these moves (iirc Tron has established a real deal already and Ripple looks like it's going to work with some banks). AMB (Ambrosus) is another interesting cryptocurrency as it is supposedly backed by the Swiss Government to some extent, and has a unique use case

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/swiss-supply-chain-startup-ambrosus-151300519.html

I agree with a lot of your points, but I don't get your coin examples. Tron is on the forefront of speculative investments, as it's merely a whitepaper with no other product than an erc20 token. As for Ripple xrp... Not gonna say much here, as you you'll find plenty of flamewars related to it in every crypto corner of the internet. Just gonna say that the banks testing RC technology doesn't mean that they have to use the xrp token, and that it's vastly overvalued based on speculations. At least for having the second biggest markedcap, when the likes ETH already have a lot of products built on it.

Dogecoin should obviously not be a 1 billion markedcap coin, but at least it has somewhat of a usecase in being an almost undumpable tool to move funds from exchange to exchange.

I completly agree with you on the altcoin market being insanely overvalued in general right now.
 

bludz

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I learn more each day and my understanding and perception of this market continues to change. And yeah now I agree Ripple and Tron are bad examples. Interesting that XRP tokens may actually see use now, though
 
Just discovered this thread. I have been keeping an eye on cryptocurrencies for quite a while but never invested in them since I do not believe in its long term success. There are too many regulatory issues, whales that control nearly half the assets collectively and can collude, and cryptocurrencies have not proven they can succeed as anything other than a speculative store of value yet. Blockchain technology can be separated from the currencies and be replicated by financial institutions/services industry. Many smaller market cap coins are tied to the price movement of bitcoin and the competition in this space is ridiculous. Overall it is a mess right now in my opinion.

However, I was willing to gamble on the greater fool in the short term. Last summer after discussing with some friends I decided to make a plunge and put up $10,000 (money I would be ok with parting) to buy the top two cryptocurrencies at the time, Ethereum and Bitcoin. A hefty sum to start off with but if I do not have enough skin in the game I may as well keep it in stocks. Given the meteoric rise in price since then, I am at the point where I am willing to let the coins sit as a store of value for now. Almost like an alternate savings account. I have not touched my account since the initial purchase.

Maybe the concept proves me wrong and I will end up with $100k, $1mil, who knows. One can always dream. Not planning on investing more and I may even withdraw my initial investment at some point to play with just profit. The only pieces of advice I can give are do your due diligence, play with money you are willing to part with, and do not play on margin. Perhaps avoid this topic with friends and family as well since it can become a pain in the butt in various ways lol.
 

McGrrr

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During the crash, the crypto community seemed like a bunch of memers telling each other to hodl, while being unsure of whether they're trying to convince themselves or other people. There's so much noise, widespread belief that past performance guarantees future profits, and general bad logic.

I think the long term value of BTC and 99.9% of alt-coins is close to zero and the recent recovery will probably be a bull trap. That said, I'm sure that block-chain technology itself will have value.
 
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While past performance certainly doesn't guarantee future profits, the fact that this thread on a huge VG forum only has two pages put the whole bubble talk in perspective. Sure, it was the wildest speculative bubble ever thanks to the information era, but the age of the cryptocurrency space, its real penetration and game theory suggest another bull run in the coming months is likely - unless there's a major regulatory turnaround before. I don't know if the speculation in alt-coins can resume on its own without a "killer app" but I don't see the story of Bitcoin and Ethereum ending here and I know some instutional investors are accumulating. For ETH, the smart contracts idea just has too much "revolutionary" potential and for Bitcoin, each day and crash that it survives builds trust, which translates to value especially with this supply, and raise in value brings speculators feeding the loop. There is no middle ground with Bitcoin if it stays with the current fundamentals : either it disrupts gold and Peachy could be the richest smogoner, or it stays among enthousiasts under 3000$.

I am not versed in fintech so maybe I'm missing something, but "Blockchain technology can be separated from the currencies" seems to me like a meme from people who don't understand the space. Smart contracts can help automation but what would be the upside of blockchain over databases and distributed systems since the whole point of blockchain is to be decentralized, immutable and open ?
 
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Yeah. The decentralized, immutable and open part is not really feastible without there being some kind of economic incentive. A big part of the reason why many say that the Bitcoin network is the most secure in the world, is that a 51 % attack on it is neither economically feastible or in the economical interest for the participants
 

Oglemi

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Various news sources are reporting it so not gonna bother linking but apparently bitcoin is crashing hard. Did the bubble finally burst?
 
Various news sources are reporting it so not gonna bother linking but apparently bitcoin is crashing hard. Did the bubble finally burst?
No. It dipped below $8K and quickly rose back up to $8.2K~. I expect it to be back at $10K next week.
 
if anyone is interested in some years ago bitcoin stories i directly worked on the first US government regulated BTC derivatives and am, in part, directly responsible for the US government (along w/ the CME/CFTC and co) classifying BTC as a commodity as opposed to a currency. was cool stuff
 

shade

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if anyone is interested in some years ago bitcoin stories i directly worked on the first US government regulated BTC derivatives and am, in part, directly responsible for the US government (along w/ the CME/CFTC and co) classifying BTC as a commodity as opposed to a currency. was cool stuff
does this have any implication for taxation? i ain't usa but that has always been a grey area for me and my investments in crypto
 
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