Bitcoin on the rise

[white belt]

@Ego

I agree that there is institutional money involved. However, I think most of these institutional dollars are hopping on a momentum trade expecting to turn large profits, not necessarily investing in “digital gold” to hold as a portfolio hedge. Again there’s no way to no for sure, so only time will tell. But I don’t buy that TSLA threw cash at BTC for any other reason then they thought it was a good momentum trade and could give them profits because nothing else they do is profitable. Elon Musk is the greatest stock promoter in history and buying BTC was another one of his signature moves.

[white belt]

Anyone on here heating their home by mining crypto?

Apparently, it’s a thing: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mining-b ... 29427.html

[theanimal]

@Jean is

[Jean]

I am, but in order to avoid my GPU to die prematurly and increase my ROI, i set up my GPU so that it only consumes 90W (instead of 180W), so the whole computer might be dissipating at max 250W while mining. That's not enough to heat even my small studio.
I wanted to replace my grandma's dying electric heating with mining rig, but there is such a shortage in GPU that I don't think it's an option now.

It's only a good idea if you happen to own a somewhat modern GPU. But if you need to buy one at market price, I'm not sure the ROI is worth it(you'de need about 6 months to pay for a GPU at current rates, that might seem low, but it would still feel wrong to me to buy GPU's just for mining, don't know why).

[MegaRigger]

@Ego But who are those other institutions? Other exchanges and Grayscale?

Btw, regarding Grayscale. They are currently trading at 4% below underlying asset value. This is very strange. Seems like there is very little demand in the "real world" for those bitcoins Saylor bought. Or am I misinterpreting this?

[Ego]

Seems like there is very little demand in the "real world" for those bitcoins Saylor bought. Or am I misinterpreting this?

I don't know. If I were to guess I'd say they are offline in cold storage wallets where they will remain for a long time so it doesn't matter. I could be wrong.

[MegaRigger]

This is up to 7% in the meantime. My source:

https://twitter.com/Tr0llyTr0llFace/sta ... 5311357958

[giskard]

@Ego But who are those other institutions? Other exchanges and Grayscale?

Btw, regarding Grayscale. They are currently trading at 4% below underlying asset value. This is very strange. Seems like there is very little demand in the "real world" for those bitcoins Saylor bought. Or am I misinterpreting this?

I think it's more related to the fact the 10 yr treasury is trading like a meme stock and spooking the whole market with rates. People are selling all the "risk" assets which is GBTC for sure, so if its on the stock market it's getting dumped. If we go back to "risk on" the premium will happen again imo. It's not an ETF so if there is a ton of selling the NAV discount totally makes sense.

[white belt]

My understanding of the GBTC price discount is because it is a closed end fund so it doesn't offer redemption or conversion. GBTC appealed to the early-adopter institutional investors who had no other way to get exposure to BTC, but now we have BTC ETFs in several countries (Canada, a few others in the pipeline). As more BTC ETF's come online in different countries, GBTC will continue to lose market share. I'd expect the eventual approval of a USA BTC ETF will be the final nail in the coffin.

[Ego]

Coinbase goes public tomorrow. Will be interesting.

[white belt]

Coinbase goes public tomorrow. Will be interesting.

Indeed. I have heard some argue that investing in Coinbase to ride the crypto wave eliminates some of the risk of having to sort out the individual coin winners and losers. One analogy I heard compared it to how the pick axe and shovel supply stores made the most money during the gold rush.

[Ego]

Yeah, it provides an opportunity for everyday people to get in without having to deal with seed phrases and whatnot, allowing them to hold something crypto-ish in their IRAs.

I have to admit, I was a bit confused/concerned by HSBC blocking access for their customers to anything crypto related including MicroStrategy Thoughts?

[Mister Imperceptible]

Thoughts:

https://slate.com/technology/2015/02/be ... craze.html

https://vimeo.com/123757690

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kSuL0noaE8I

[white belt]

@MI

To me, a better historical parallel may be the dotcom bubble. Beanie babies were just collectibles, although collectibles are booming now again (maybe NFTs are closer to Beanie Babies). Crypto and associated technologies will transform the world, just like the internet did. However, that doesn’t mean every crypto opportunity is a good one; just like in the dotcom bubble there were many duds.

[Qazwer]

New technologies in the past two hundred years have created booms just like the dot com ones. It goes back to canals and then latter railroad booms of England and then the US. Google came out of the dot com boom. Railroads made their own millionaires of their day. The problem is that no one knows which ones will be the winner in the middle of the boom. If someone could tell me how to invest in crypto so that you could be sure to get the winner, I would.

[Alphaville]

If someone could tell me how to invest in crypto so that you could be sure to get the winner, I would.

if you have some risk capital (some people use 5% or whatever. i tried with $500 for the learning experience) you can get a handpicked assortment, or a crypto etf, and roll the dice on it. you might catch the winner in there, there won't be a ton of money, but who knows. if otoh nothing happens, you won't lose an arm and a leg (provided you don't buy on margin).

i did my thing with crappy gameified tools, made a few hundred bucks profit on the crowd, and then promptly quit because i don't have time for gambling right now and would rather get a proper brokerage account (i don't have one, my "retirement" is in the hands of an institution for now)

i forget what i used the money for--maybe it was bike parts? computer? i'd have to check...

but anyway spend maybe what you'd spend on books, for the learning aspect? if you have time for it. otherwise--priorities, priorities.

[Mister Imperceptible]

What is interesting about crypto is that because it only exists in the ether, it can be anything and everything to any and everybody. Whatever you’re doing or thinking about it, you’re ok. It’s toasted.

The bubbles seem to overlap as the bubble traders take their paper gains and overpay for collectibles with a view to store value, at the same time cheap money has already gotten collectible bubbles blowing. An unopened Super Mario Bros from 1985 just sold for $660k. I am sure money laundering is involved. Bitcoin whales are buying Richard Mille watches as a store of value. I don’t know much about watches but does a $10,000,000 watch have a button that gives you an orgasm? If you told me the watch was cheap I would have believed you. I just bought a Casio Rangeman GW9400 to hedge the upcoming cyber war.

[Qazwer]

What I believe about crypto:
1. Parts of it including distributed ledgers are important. I think it will likely have an impact on money, contracts and record keeping.
2. No one knows which forms will dominate or even be around in a decade plus (history of other technologies)
3. There is massive fraud in parts of it. All new technologies attract scammers. There is always a lot of dumb money in any technology boom. It would be ahistorical to think this boom is different.
4. Financially, I should stay as far away from it as possible. As a human being planning to live for a long time, I should watch the story unfold as it will impact my life in the future.

[Alphaville]

4. Financially, I should stay as far away from it as possible. As a human being planning to live for a long time, I should watch the story unfold as it will impact my life in the future.

that works too. i tinkered with it a bit long enough to find out i didn't want it either

(this of course might change some day)

[Gilberto de Piento]

To make sure I'm not missing something I have some very basic questions:
If you buy cryptocurrency and don't sell it then there is no impact to your taxes, right?
If you buy cryptocurrency and sell for a profit after one year then long term capitol gains tax applies?
If you buy cryptocurrency and sell for a profit before one year then short term capitol gains tax applies?

No need to discuss selling for a loss, that can't happen, right?

Note: I pay taxes in the US.