ICO Gold-rush -- Tokenize the world via Blockchain & Smart Contracts

[steelerfan]

I bought some of this a few weeks back kind of as a lark. Bitcoins was 1500 and Eth was in the 70s. A fraction of a bitcoin and a little bit of eth. I was most interested in the eth because of the corporate interest.The run up is startling. I got one of those off-line wallets and selected as my logo the mtgox logo to keep this grounded. It reminds me how this may be an illusion. I will not be betting the farm on it for sure.

[Hankaroundtheworld]

It reminds me how this may be an illusion. I will not be betting the farm on it for sure.

Like with the Dotcom boom in the 90's, there is also value in the related developments in the 90's, but that only appeared after the bubble bursted in 2000 (see the Internet giants of Uber, Airbnb, Google, etc.. that have been risen after the bubble went away). Also now, there is for sure value in the Blockchain technology and related Business models that are getting created with it (and applied to the real world), but it will take some time before we see the real value getting materialized, for now, it is still speculation.

You're right, do not throw money at it that you cannot afford to lose, but betting a bit is not stupid if you believe in the possibilities of decentralization using blockchain tech.

[frihet]

Just enjoyed this podcast during a long forest walk. Tim Ferris has 2 brilliant guests on Bitcoin and blockchain.

http://tim.blog/2017/06/04/nick-szabo/

"Nick Szabo (@NickSzabo4) is a polymath. The breadth and depth of his interests and knowledge are truly astounding.

He’s a computer scientist, legal scholar, and cryptographer best known for his pioneering research in digital contracts and cryptocurrency.

The phrase and concept of “smart contracts” were developed by Nick with the goal of bringing what he calls the “highly evolved” practices of contract law and practice for the design of electronic commerce protocols between strangers on the Internet. Nick also designed Bit Gold, which many consider the precursor to Bitcoin.

This wide-ranging conversation is co-hosted by Naval Ravikant, a mutual friend and one of the most successful investors in Silicon Valley, who also happens to be one of Nick’s biggest admirers."

[bryan]

Haven't listened to it yet.

Szabo is the leading candidate for being Satoshi Nakamoto, owner of >1M BTC (aka >$2.7B).

He is a smart cookie. I posted his take on "What is money" here: https://forum.earlyretirementextreme.co ... 06#p113806
(looks like his original post is dead, this should be a copy)

Have a look to Mike Hearn talks (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD4L7xDNCmA) for more on smart contracts.

[BRUTE]

so, pretty exciting couple of weeks, huh?

[bryan]

Less exciting than the two run ups in 2013. Psychology is a bitch like that. Then again, if you look at the log price graph of BTC, the two run ups in 2013 were steeper than what we are seeing so far this year.

[BRUTE]

back in the day

[fips]

Has anyone here based in Europe bought ETH or BTC lately and can recommend such a service?

I have been looking into different options to buy cryptocurrency but the prices/fees seem to vary a lot.

EDIT:
I have decided to not pursue cryptocurrencies at the moment for a few reasons:
1) The fee systems of the brokers and exchanges are very different and sometimes intransparent.
2) I would have only allocated a little part of my money to cryptocurrencies and therefore the time and related cost is disproportionate.
3) There still seem to be many cryptocurrencies popping up and I don't want to invest the time to research those new currencies weekly/monthly and re-allocate my cryptoportfolio accordingly due to market sentiment.

[Hankaroundtheworld]

@fips : in the Netherlands via Bitrush.nl, BTCdirect and litebit.nl, etc.. you can pay with IDEAL transaction

In the meantime, ETH has reached 330 USD and overall Market cap for all crypto currencies is close to 110 Billion USD !! Pretty amazing. I lost counting how much gain I made this year, something like 1200 % or so (although it is paper gain, I still keep it invested).

Regardless if this is pure speculation or real value, it is damn fun to ride this wave, even if it bursts in the end!!

[Hankaroundtheworld]

Let me correct, ETH is crossing already 400 USD !

[frihet]

Szabo is the leading candidate for being Satoshi Nakamoto, owner of >1M BTC (aka >$2.7B).

Been scrolling through his blog tonight and found this piece of internet history. Sure sounds like he could be the inventor of bitcoin. The blog is great by the way and goes in depth into a variety of topics.

http://unenumerated.blogspot.se/2005/12/bit-gold.html

My proposal for bit gold is based on computing a string of bits from a string of challenge bits, using functions called variously "client puzzle function," "proof of work function," or "secure benchmark function.". The resulting string of bits is the proof of work. Where a one-way function is prohibitively difficult to compute backwards, a secure benchmark function ideally comes with a specific cost, measured in compute cycles, to compute backwards.

[Seppia]

About three to four years ago I predicted bitcoin would go to zero, because its only value derives from people believing it has a value.
The same could happen to rocks tomorrow.
There is no institution saying "I will only accept rocks as payment for your taxes", which is ultimately what differentiates it from "regular" money.

It appears I was spectacularly wrong, but I would still not invest a single penny in cryptocurrencies.

[Seppia]

Addendum: I am still puzzled by a few things.
Namely: what can one actually use bitcoin for, aside speculation?
From a rapid scan on the net, it seems like nobody is really accepting them as a form of payment.
Sites like Expedia will let you pay, but they're not taking bitcoin, they're taking actual usd that an external service called coinbase will hand them in exchange for the bitcoins and a small cut I imagine.
So if coinbase folds because bitcoin plummets for whatever reason, Expedia no longer will accept bit coins.

I don't know, I'm always extremely wary when the only reason for owning something is "it was cheaper yesterday than it is today"
Didn't work with tulips.

[BRUTE]

Sites like Expedia will let you pay, but they're not taking bitcoin, they're taking actual usd that an external service called coinbase will hand them in exchange for the bitcoins and a small cut I imagine.

same is true for VISA and Mastercard, and really, almost all other media of exchange. brute has bought plenty of things with Bitcoin.

[steelerfan]

Addendum: I am still puzzled by a few things.
Namely: what can one actually use bitcoin for, aside speculation?
From a rapid scan on the net, it seems like nobody is really accepting them as a form of payment.
Sites like Expedia will let you pay, but they're not taking bitcoin, they're taking actual usd that an external service called coinbase will hand them in exchange for the bitcoins and a small cut I imagine.
So if coinbase folds because bitcoin plummets for whatever reason, Expedia no longer will accept bit coins.

I don't know, I'm always extremely wary when the only reason for owning something is "it was cheaper yesterday than it is today"
Didn't work with tulips.

WRT bitcoin, I am still on the speculating side. That said, there are a lot of people that will take bitcoin in person. I also believe it is legal tender in Japan. I could buy things on craiglist in a manner similar to gold - vehicles and "things that go bang" in CL speak. There are also people that will sell MJ (legal in CO) and other contraband which I am not interested in but this creates a market. I am more interested in ETH as I do not think of ETH as a payment medium as much as "fuel" for the smart contract ecosystem. I think BTC currently takes too long to settle to use for everyday purposes. Litecoin LTC and Ripple XRP improves on this. I am not in crypto to make money as much as in the event of an economic SHTF situation where the USD tanks or loses it's status as a reserve currency. I am worried trump can and will crater the economy with his xenophobic and isolationist tendencies. I want something I can convert to some other currency without the need for an actual bank. I am also looking to offshore money in non USD for the same reason. I know that sounds paranoid but I listen to my gut. Follow your gut! I am heavily invested in the US. Crypto is strictly a long term hedge play for someone who already is covered in other things. I would not advise going all in and truthfully, who knows what if any of these coins will be dominant in 5 years. I would bet on LTC/XRP before BTC but that is my belief and subject to my bias!

[Zeran]

I'm very interested in the crypto space and have been reading everything I can on the topic since 2012.

Bitcoin is a bit like email at present, in the early days email was difficult to use and only used by technical users. I say that to help you understand where it is as a technology and as a warning - if you want to invest in it you'll need to put in the time to understand how it works.
It's taking many years, but the software and the bitcoin protocol are being worked into more useful forms for the average person. I think it will be a significant part of how we do internet-stuff in the future and open up the world of finance to billions of un-banked people.
There's no garentuee that the main crypto we will be using in the future will be Bitcoin, but it's definetly the most likely of the bunch.

On other coins: Most other coins don't have features that are significantly different from Bitcoin and try to do the same thing so their future utility will be very low (they'll mostly just disappear). There are a handful that provide specific solutions that are different to Bitcoin, e.g. distributed disk storage space & cpu time. These niche coins will have utility and stick around for the purposes they are built for.
Etheruem is pretty fantastic, but it's really risky to invest in. There are many startups in the Bitcoin and Ether world, but the strange thing with Ether is the value of the start-ups are in the token....so when the usual 9/10 startups fail that value will disappear out of the token. Ether has lots of bubbles within itself. But fundamentally I think Ethereum will be around for a long time and used by lots of banking businesses.

I think Bitcoin (or the "Blockchain") will be something like TCP/IP. It's currently embedded in lots of businesses that don't have anything to do with Bitcoin itself so it acts more like a protocol. Unless another altcoin replaces it within the next year or so, I think we'll be stuck with bitcoin as "the" crypto currency.

TLDR:
- If you don't know / want to learn how to store crypto properly don't invest in it. (Keeping crypto on an exchange is a really really bad idea)
- Most altcoins will die off unless they are doing something fundamentally different to Bitcoin.
- Ethereum is really good, but literally has bubbles within bubbles.

[Zeran]

About three to four years ago I predicted bitcoin would go to zero, because its only value derives from people believing it has a value.

Hopefully this isn't too much nerdy detail, but here we go:
Money's value is derived from it's material properties not "belief". Similar to how brass is good for making instruments because it's durable, sonorous, mouldable etc, gold is useful for currency. Currency needs to be durable, divisible, scarce, fungable etc. Paper money as we know it abstract in respects to currency and are called "fiat currency" because they don't have some of the properties of money (but with careful management they work better than gold). Bitcoin, digitally has all the material properties of gold making it a great candidate for being a currency. Being digital it brings many other features to the table that make it immensely valuable to use.

Namely: what can one actually use bitcoin for, aside speculation?

To list some unique uses of Bitcoin as a currency:
- Cheap, fast, insanely secure business to business money transfer.
- Value transfer without counter party risk
- Programmable value exhcange.

Some non currency uses (Bitcoin as a protocol or "Trustware")
- Land registry
- Forensic Auditability / Digital evidence.
- Escrow services
- Proof-of-reserves (auditing financial bodies)

As for personal use, it's not really "ready" for mainstream use (but Japanese folks are having a good crack at it). Myself I buy all my computer games in Bitcoin and that's about it. There's loads of features that digital assets give us that are world-shapingly amazing, but I don't want to write too much in case it's not welcome.

[BRUTE]

Bitcoin is super convenient when buying digital assets online - not surprisingly, it being a digital online currency. if amounts transferred are small, most vendors don't wait for verification, so it takes about 1 second for the money to arrive. for larger ones, it can take over a day, depending on bounty. but paying, seeing the money arrive instantly, and instantly downloading, is an amazing shopping experience. way faster than credit cards or even logging into Amazon (no need to log into Bitcoin).

[Hankaroundtheworld]

After a break of the "Crypto Market" of 1.5 Months (Mid June till end July) in which a correction of more than 50% happened, the fun continues and we already passed the last record of mid-June (110 Billion overall Market cap), and are now around 125 Billion USD. For a personal portfolio, you have to stay on top of your holdings because in this early market a lot changes depending on innovation and/or hype. For instance, up to June record, it was Ethereum that was the darling, while now it is a mix of Payment services like OmiseGo (OMG) and Tenx (PAY) and upcoming new Smart Contract networks like NEO. So, I changed in time some ETH to PAY from TenX, and some other changes. All in all, this is an exciting market and I made more profit than any other asset with only a small investment. Could it correct again with more than 50%? For sure, this will be a bumpy road and you have to keep on informing yourself about the new developments. It is however much more fun than the Stock market. Regarding stocks, I am still 50% in Cash, waiting for a big correction over there.

[bryan]

May 2013:
BTC: $110
Coinbase Valuation: $25M

Aug 2017 ROI:
Bitcoin: 3100%
Coinbase: 6400%

Of course, had you invested in other "bitcoin companies" you would have lost your entire investment.

So there is some traditional ways of making money with the Bitcoin boom.. however, that often means needing to be an accredited investor and lots of friction (having ins, lots of groundwork and paperwork). If anything ICOs are showing it's insanely possible for startups to raise funds at favorable terms, so long as they can go direct to the public (of course this was already pretty obvious w/ stuff like Kickstarter.. it's just that now the fundraising is more seen as an IPO, even if the token issued may only be as good as a ponzi token)... let's see if the SEC, FBI can keep up or plan to use any teeth.

Definitely an interesting market. I've been to an ethereum meetup where just about everyone was pitching their own company and ICO. Maybe one of them was actually interesting with a PoC/demo and they weren't looking to raise any funds. I'll just quote myself from before:

most seem illegal (and not meeting regulatory standards) or probable scams. Of course that doesn't preclude you from making $$$ from them...