Bitcoin on the rise

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Jean
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by Jean »

I just started running nicehash when i'm not using the PC. I see it has a free lottery ticket, because i'de be buying the electric heat anyway.

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Ego
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by Ego »

https://www.coindesk.com/visa-anchorage ... -for-banks

Visa is piloting a suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) that will allow banks to offer bitcoin services, the payments giant announced Wednesday.

The Visa Crypto APIs pilot program will let clients “easily connect into the infrastructure provided by Visa’s partner, Anchorage, a federally chartered digital asset bank, to allow their customers to buy and sell digital assets such as Bitcoin as an investment within their existing consumer experiences,” Visa said in a press statement.

Lucky C
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by Lucky C »

Lucky C wrote:
Wed Jan 06, 2021 6:41 am

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History continues to rhyme. Update below (switched to log scale). Replace silver's historic Hunt brothers squeeze with Bitcoin's Winklevoss brothers (et al.) promotion, followed by a late breaking Musk promo. Looks like a great opportunity to sell as BTC inches toward its previous high without rapidly shooting through it, looking like it's hitting some resistance around $38-39k. Of course if it shoots up to a new rally beyond $41k you can always get back in to try and ride higher - sure you'd be missing out on a 10% rise, but without that break to new highs I think most BTC would start losing their patience pretty soon.

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ertyu
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by ertyu »

ha now this is amusing

approx 6 mo from take-off to through

this thread offers another argument why this might hold

Bear case for btc: https://twitter.com/krugermacro/status/ ... 3113764865

Am not into btc myself but find the entire thing amusing.

white belt
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by white belt »

I’m a bit confused why so many BTC holders think it can’t or won’t be regulated. All it takes is for the US government to rule that BTC is not a currency/money because it isn’t issued by a recognized government or central bank, and then tax it appropriately. Additionally, I could see the US instituting more information requirements for holders of BTC because we know that the anonymous characteristics of BTC make it popular among criminals. The real world we live in is not some libertarian utopia.

I get the idealism behind BTC being the anti-government form of money, but do they really think the US government is just going to roll over and give up it’s monopoly on currency? I also get that the decentralized nature of BTC means it can never be fully stamped out, but more regulation will make it less popular, especially among institutional investors. Outright banning could be possible too and would tank the price because of all the people who own in exchanges like Coinbase, etc. How useful is BTC as a store of value if businesses can’t legally accept it as payment and individuals can’t legally possess it?

Edit: I don’t expect BTC to survive the arrival of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) because it is in direct competition with them.

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giskard
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by giskard »

white belt wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:44 am
I’m a bit confused why so many BTC holders think it can’t or won’t be regulated. All it takes is for the US government to rule that BTC is not a currency/money because it isn’t issued by a recognized government or central bank, and then tax it appropriately. Additionally, I could see the US instituting more information requirements for holders of BTC because we know that the anonymous characteristics of BTC make it popular among criminals. The real world we live in is not some libertarian utopia.

I get the idealism behind BTC being the anti-government form of money, but do they really think the US government is just going to roll over and give up it’s monopoly on currency? I also get that the decentralized nature of BTC means it can never be fully stamped out, but more regulation will make it less popular, especially among institutional investors. Outright banning could be possible too and would tank the price because of all the people who own in exchanges like Coinbase, etc. How useful is BTC as a store of value if businesses can’t legally accept it as payment and individuals can’t legally possess it?

Edit: I don’t expect BTC to survive the arrival of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) because it is in direct competition with them.
I don't agree with this take and I don't think this is the primary narrative behind the institutional buying now. This is like a 2014 era understanding/narrative and I don't believe it is accurate.

It will be regulated more heavily IMO, and there will need to be more stringent KYC (as there should be). This will be good overall. More regulation will NOT make it less popular. Institutions want more clear regulation around the space. People will still like it because the primary reason people buy it is not because of anonymity, it's because they want a deflationary asset that is easier to handle and not as manipulated as gold is and money printing is rampant.

I think you guys have no idea how deeply large institutions are starting to get entrenched in these markets. Ethereum is going to be trading on COMEX very soon. Coinbase will IPO. Several members of congress and senate own crypto in large quantities. Large numbers of hedge funds are involved in these markets doing arbitrage at the very least.

I know I'm talking my book here but I think things have changed a lot over even just the past 6 months.

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Ego
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by Ego »

white belt wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:44 am
I’m a bit confused why so many BTC holders think it can’t or won’t be regulated. All it takes is for the US government to rule that BTC is not a currency/money because it isn’t issued by a recognized government or central bank, and then tax it appropriately.
The IRS already has deemed crypto as property and taxes it as such with taxable events and capital gains.
white belt wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:44 am
Additionally, I could see the US instituting more information requirements for holders of BTC because we know that the anonymous characteristics of BTC make it popular among criminals.
In 2019 the crypto question was on Schedule 1. In 2020 it is front and center on the 1040 form.

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white belt
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by white belt »

giskard wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 3:48 pm
People will still like it because the primary reason people buy it is not because of anonymity, it's because they want a deflationary asset that is easier to handle and not as manipulated as gold is and money printing is rampant.

I think you guys have no idea how deeply large institutions are starting to get entrenched in these markets. Ethereum is going to be trading on COMEX very soon. Coinbase will IPO. Several members of congress and senate own crypto in large quantities. Large numbers of hedge funds are involved in these markets doing arbitrage at the very least.
So this brings up the question, what is Bitcoin? Well that depends who you ask because it is simultaneously seen as a currency, deflationary asset, speculative commodity, and anonymous decentralized payment method.

You are contending that institutional and retail investors are moving money into BTC because it is a hedge against fiat currency debasement. A digital gold if you will. I've heard that BTC as a store of value argument from countless BTC bulls, but I don't buy it. Most people are in BTC as a speculation; they are expecting for the price to go up and for them to make a profit in the future. Look at the people in this thread, nearly all of whom are talking about an interest in BTC because they think they can make money on it (get in early before the price shoots up!). Institutional investors aren't allocating significant percentages of their portfolio to BTC as a hedge, but rather making small allocations as speculations to follow a momentum trade (you can listen to the below interview which makes the same case).

But I'm just an amateur retail investor so what do I know? Let's check out a few highlights from a Macrovoices interview with Mike Green from a couple weeks ago (source: https://www.macrovoices.com/937-macrovo ... l-currency):
Mike Green wrote: I would describe Bitcoin as a speculative commodity that has a unique feature to it; it is the only commodity that can be produced from electricity alone. That is its defining feature. It's exactly the same as making aluminum you just skip the bauxite; you dump a ton of electricity in and you get Bitcoin out. That Bitcoin can be stored or it can be sold for fiat. Those are your two choices. In the framework of storing it we refer to it as a store of wealth, we call it 'digital gold', and that is predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of gold in the financial systems. It is based on this Austrian framework that money has some inherent value associated with it. That's very far removed from reality. Money as we think about it in terms of coinage is merely an accounting system.
Mike Green wrote: When you talk about investment as distinct from speculation, that's where I think we actually have to draw the line. There is an awful lot of people in bitcoin who are speculating that like other Silicon Valley type inventions [...] When we look at something like bitcoin, there is a very excited group who adopts the Bitcoin maximalists view that 'if we make it large enough, then they have to accept it. It can't be shut down' And they have some evidence for that, the models that have functionally broken the laws and grown to a certain size have been allowed to flourish. We can point to Netflix, Twitter, and Facebook becoming communications companies without seeking communications licenses. Growing to a scale that it would be unthinkable to shut them down. [...] There's evidence to support that, but I do think that money is a very different construct. While a local government can benefit from the dynamics associated with the sale of taxi medallions and can benefit from the revenues associated with that, it's really only once you get to the state level that you start to deal with the consequences of attempting to dis-intermediate the state from money. I don't think it's the same calculus.
This is getting into macroeconomic theory territory about the function of money, but the fact is I just don't see how countries around the world are going to let some digital currency not endorsed by any government serve as the world's currency, especially once they start introducing their own CBDC that is in direct competition with Bitcoin. If you want to hedge against fiat currency debasement in your portfolio, just buy some physical gold which has proven effective since the beginning of time. I mean I could be wrong about BTC and it could take over the world, but if you really care about the longevity of your portfolio then I don't think the risk is worth it.

I have no doubt that precious metals markets can be manipulated, but I don't see how the same thing can't happen with BTC. I mean at least with physical gold you have an idea of who holds a lot of it and the market is much larger ($600 billion vs $11 trillion). With BTC we have no idea who holds the largest wallets, or if an individual or entity controls more than one wallet.


@Ego

I was mistaken. The tax risk isn't that BTC gets classified as a security, but rather that it gets classified as a currency:
Mike Green wrote:The general theory that bitcoin is going to evade the response from the US government for long enough for it to be fully established is misplaced. I would suggest that in the process for the enthusiasm for Bitcoin as a mechanism for protecting wealth from the US government or other major sovereigns, you're opening a very clear avenue of attack. Which is simply to declare that "fine you want it to be a currency, bitcoin is a currency." Therefore, taxes are no longer against a realized gain as you would have in a security. Your taxes have to be marked to market on an annual basis; so if bitcoin goes from 20k to 40k, even if you didn't sell, you owe taxes on that difference. That at minimum is coming. And ironically it's the worse nightmare for Bitcoin because it would create an enormous supply of bitcoin in the United States.

Edit: I agree that blockchain/distributed ledger technology is revolutionary and will change the way our economy functions. I just don't think BTC has a monopoly on it.

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Ego
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by Ego »

white belt wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 10:29 pm
I agree that blockchain/distributed ledger technology is revolutionary and will change the way our economy functions. I just don't think BTC has a monopoly on it.
We can agree on that.

I believe crypto will change the way everything functions.

Today Balaji Srinivasan released a proposal suggesting India drop their second attempt at banning bitcoin and instead adopt it full throttle. In it he outlines some of the ways it is going to change everything. Well worth the time for those who are interested.

https://balajis.com/why-india-should-buy-bitcoin/

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Ego
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by Ego »

Bitcoin at new high because Tesla bought a billion and a half dollars worth. Meh.

I know this thread is primarily about bitcoin but crypto or blockchain or web3.... whatever.... is very exciting.

A few projects to look at.

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Sia for instance is encrypted distributed storage. If you have a good internet connection and some extra storage you can rent it out via Sia and make money providing cloud backup for people. The Sia project may be a bit chaotic right now but it will eventually get it together, or someone else will, and you will no longer use dropbox or onedrive....

theanimal
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by theanimal »

Ego- Intriguing! Thanks for sharing. Is there an article/essay to accompany that chart?

SavingWithBabies
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by SavingWithBabies »

It's worth considering the risk vs reward when looking at storing data for others. I personally worry I'll end up storing something highly illegal and that while our legal system would get to the right result on something like that (if I can't see what I'm storing due to encryption, did I do something wrong?), the cost of getting to the right result is likely prohibitively expensive and I worry born by me. I hesitate to reply as perhaps I'm spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) but I do worry about that kind of thing and would opt out on storing data for others even if it is encrypted.

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Ego
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by Ego »

@theanimal, Messari has a lot of data behind a paywall. I got that from a subscriber who posted it on twitter. Here is their most recent and free crypto thesis annual report, chock full of good stuff.

PDF https://messari.io/pdf/crypto-theses-for-2020.pdf
Their main page is like a crypto bloomberg terminal https://messari.io/

@SWB, yes, that is a problem with all of the peer-to-peer solutions. I don't think it is fud. But you can always run it through a vpn.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

This company made some breakthroughs in compression that they applied to peer to peer data transfer and storage using a cryptocurrency. Sounds a lot like one of these web3 companies. Might be something to look at: http://www.piedpiper.com/internet-heritage/

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Alphaville
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by Alphaville »

Gilberto de Piento wrote:
Tue Feb 09, 2021 4:04 pm
This company made some breakthroughs in compression that they applied to peer to peer data transfer and storage using a cryptocurrency. Sounds a lot like one of these web3 companies. Might be something to look at: http://www.piedpiper.com/internet-heritage/
:lol:

nice ;)

spiritess
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by spiritess »

Ego wrote:
Tue Feb 09, 2021 12:49 pm
Image
I used to think this is the way it would work back in 2017. Now I am of the belief that all these services will be built on top of 2-5 "platform protocols".

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Ego
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by Ego »

Two podcasts today on economic collapse and how crypto can help to avoid loss of funds and circumnavigate restrictions.

Defiance: The Bitcoin Dealers of Beirut
https://www.stitcher.com/show/defiance/ ... t-81558525

For 28 years, Lebanon's Lira has been pegged to the US Dollar. But 18 months ago, following widespread protests, the government collapsed. Loan defaults and central bank mismanagement saw the Lira devalue and the people of Lebanon could only watch as the value of their savings dropped by the day.

Currency controls have meant that getting access to US dollar savings is heavily restricted in Lebanon and converting them into local currency at the bank rate is almost worthless.

But a small group of entrepreneurs in Beirut have created an underground Bitcoin market. These Bitcoin dealers meet clients in quiet corners of supermarkets to convert their hoarded dollars into Bitcoin in a bid to preserve their value from the banks 80% devaluation. And to convert overseas dollar remittances into dollars at a real market rate to enable residents to pay for essential services.

As Lebanon is on the brink of collapse, we look at how the Beirut locals are increasingly looking to Bitcoin as an alternative to their broken banking system.


The Pomp Podcast with Simon Chamorro
https://www.stitcher.com/show/off-the-c ... d-81556666
Simon Chamorro on growing up in Venezuela, living through the devaluations and creating a solution that works for most people. When we were in Medellín we met a guy using https://localbitcoins.com/ and another peer-to-peer exchange to accomplish the transfers. He is now working on creating a system where people can simply buy and sell using stablecoins.

Freedom_2018
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by Freedom_2018 »

Admittedly I don't understand a whole lot about cryptocurrency and bitcoin.

However the part I struggle with is considering potential implications of a cryptocurrency like bitcoin on the Monetary and indirectly the Fiscal policy powers of the Central Bank and Governments respectively.

I mean governments love to print money and politicians like to dole out handouts. So if society is based on bitcoin which from my limited understanding can't just be printed at will by some 'central' authority but is slowly and painfully 'mined' by the computers working as miners and are completely run by the overall cryptography software and there is an upper limit on how many bitcoins can be ever in existence (21 million or something like that). So how does a government then manage the money in its jurisdiction...and if the idea is to make money untouchable by government, which government would sign up for that?

Also I can understand the advantage of bitcoin to say someone who wants to get paid (payee) for illegal activity. After all being paid in bitcoin means that no government etc can freeze their account. However since every transaction is added to the blockchain and stored forever, there will always be a record of the payer who wants some illegal activity done. I guess they can rely on the anonymity of a crypto address (what happens if FBI subpoenas the blockchain transactions?) but wouldn't they prefer to pay in something that is non traceable mostly..like a suitcase of cash?

Cryptocurrency would also mean that money is completely immune to human intervention and our finances will live under the ecosystem provided by the crypto software. Won't we need human intervention occasionally via Fiscal and Monetary policy at least to provide the needs of society (loosening or tightening credit etc as the case may be, or providing handouts to homeowners, jobless, child bearers and rearers etc?

Also what if someone hacks (supposedly virtually unhackable due to crypotology on huge numbers) and then spreads through the network like Mr Smith in the Matrix movie and rewrites the blockchain. Couldn't that bring down the integrity of the entire network with Global consequences versus perhaps in the current system where damage might be more local/country level ?

These are some of the things that make me a bit hesitant to hand over money management to cryptography software.

ertyu
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by ertyu »

Freedom_2018 wrote:
Thu Feb 11, 2021 2:28 pm
So how does a government then manage the money in its jurisdiction...
it doesn't, and you get the great depression. like it or not, money needs elasticity - the ability to loosen and to tighten the money supply as needed. Money supply that is too tight results in deflationary spirals which end in mass unemployment and bankruptcies. If you don't want money supply to be "the stress valve," the real economy will be.

Freedom_2018
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Re: Bitcoin on the rise

Post by Freedom_2018 »

ertyu wrote:
Thu Feb 11, 2021 3:56 pm
If you don't want money supply to be "the stress valve," the real economy will be.
Indeed, hence my concern about Bitcoin etc performing the role of money in society.

It seems to me more like how an engineer would design something with some excellent technical properties but the customer usability aspect is not well thought out (so I say while typing on my Android phone 🙂)

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