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Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2018 3:41 pm
by Jason
I guess this explains why thread has been dormant over past three months?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/20/tech ... Technology
As a compromise, I bought shares in CME which has gone all kinds of sideways during this time.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2018 4:16 pm
by Bankai
Makes sense, it's been a generation since last big bubble (internet) so masses either forgot or never experienced anything similar.
"$90,000...drew on savings, an insurance policy and a $25,000 loan. Her investments are now down about 90 percent
WTF?!?
financial analyst ...invested more than $100,000...still a big believer
Buy and hold in practice?
With all this, I wonder if the trend might actually be starting to reverse? Probably still too early to buy. And all this overhead...
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2018 6:21 pm
by bryan
fwiw, I've noticed more places online (especially small shops) than ever accepting Bitcoin and others. I think
this (Intercontinental Exchange getting in) is the biggest news I've read in recent months.
A few snippets from the article:
The founding imperative for Bakkt will be to make Bitcoin a sound and secure offering for key constituents that now mostly shun it—the world’s big financial institutions. The goal is to clear the way for major money managers to offer Bitcoin mutual funds, pension funds, and ETFs, as highly regulated, mainstream investments.
...
“Coinbase has twice as many customers as Charles Schwab,” says Loeffler. “Many of the people who have opened accounts on Coinbase are millennials who use it to make small investments in crypto-currencies.”
...
So why aren’t the Vanguards and Blackrocks taking a “serve them and they shall come” approach? For Sprecher and Loeffler, the reason is fundamental—and fixable. “Two things are missing,” says Sprecher. “Trading on an official exchange, and safe storage for digital currencies on an institutional scale.”
Put simply, Sprecher says, the big money managers won’t create digital currency funds unless they can first buy the tokens on a federally regulated exchange, and, second, store the tokens for their investors in accounts rendered super-secure by the safeguards provided overseen by federal regulators.
...
Bakkt would provide the first fully-integrated package combining a major federally-regulated exchange, as well as with the clearing and storage overseen by the exchange. ICE owns six clearing houses that are vertically-integrated with ICE Futures U.S. and its other exchanges. By utilizing a CFTC regulated futures exchange for cryptocurrencies, Bakkt would provide two main layers of security that money managers regard as absolutely essential.
So another run at getting "big money" investing into BTC, this time with it directly using Bitcoin instead of some derivative.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2018 6:28 pm
by BlueNote
I think my relative might have gotten taken to the cleaners as well. He ended up trading into a bunch of "alt-coins" which were obliterated at the beginning of 2018. At one point he was amazed that his speculation had gotten so high, he didn't brag but would tell people in amazement how much he made. Haven't heard him talking about it lately so hopefully he sold out before he started losing money. Gotta love the die hard crypto people who are trying to re-rationalize this as yet another crypto winter that will be followed by a crypto spring where all the strong hands will get richer. When I was around 11-13 (1991-1993) there was a huge sport trading card speculative mania not as big as crypto but same idea. It got to the point where people like my Dad were buying entire complete yearly sets of these cards as long term investments. Needless to say our old trading cards were terrible investments at this point because of the massive increase in supply, at the time, of what was and is really an almost worthless piece of cardboard. Crypto is similar, it can be made for almost nothing and during the last mania people were just buying air out of FOMO.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2018 8:13 pm
by prognastat
Crypto won't actually succeed at the goal of being an alternative currency until it has managed to reduce the insane amount of volatility, yet this volatility is the reason many got/are getting into crypto in the first place. Seems almost like a catch-22 for crypto to catch on it needs many people using it, however the way it's getting many people into it is the exact reason it isn't able to succeed at it's goal of being an alternative to our current currencies.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2018 12:09 am
by Mister Imperceptible
The fact that the typical crypto investor is the type of person whose goal in life is to procure the maximum number of likes on Instagram tells you everything you need to know about cryptos.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 5:37 pm
by Bankai
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2018 11:16 pm
by BRUTE
more volume tends to decrease volatility. humans sometimes voluntarily accept new media of exchange. the counter example could be made: the government of Zimbabwe still stood behind their currency, yet their humans stopped accepting it. government backing is just one factor, if an important one. mostly in that governments can really fuck their currencies up, brute is not convinced they can do anything to bolster their currencies.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:00 am
by jacob
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/nyre ... icity.html
Perhaps people could use the servers as space heaters. This would also solve the storage problem. At least for the winter.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:28 am
by jennypenny
What kind of taxes do bitcoin miners pay? How are they taxed? (sorry if it's upthread and I missed it)
I'm surprised more utility companies haven't figured out how to make money by getting in the mining game yet, or more large factories or production facilities that have excess electrical capacity.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:49 am
by prognastat
Augustus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 1:29 pm
I don't see how you can reduce volatility unless there's a guy with a gun (i.e. a government) telling people they have to accept bitcoins in exchange for a certain amount of things in return. The whiskey rebellion is a good example of what happens to alternative currencies without government support.
I don't have any real solution to this problem(if I did I would be ver successful XD). However I do believe the hype and speculators currently interested in crypto are a big part of the problem. Maybe crypto currency just needs time to become boring and mundane and have most/all the speculators tire of it.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:21 pm
by Jason
jennypenny wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:28 am
I'm surprised more utility companies haven't figured out how to make money by getting in the mining game yet, or more large factories or production facilities that have excess electrical capacity.
In my experience, public utilities do not have an entrepreneurial mindset. Its understandable based on their history.
The JLF/NYT article hits the two main points (1) Electrical Power; (2) Culture clash. I was involved in a Bitcoin negotiation on a very small scale in a blue collar town and we purposely used terms like "data" instead of "mining" to avoid issues. The zoning permitted the use so there was no duplicity. It was merely to avoid suspicion that they might be a stealth pederast organization, who's real plan was not employ technology but to bugger the town in its collective asshole.
But in the "Get the coal mines back up" vs. "Let's Speculate on shit most people can't understand" debate, at least the latter has a chance. The economic problem is "start up having no profit history or capital" vs. owners of obsolete/antiquated property having power but not the risk tolerance or sophistication to hammer out a creative deal. You are right though. The answer would be the utility company acting as middleman to negotiate short term community spike vs. possible long term profitability and its ultimate benefit to an area in need of regeneration.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:13 am
by Jason
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:33 am
by suomalainen
Bitcoin
A bunch of computer code that a bunch of criminals, idealists and speculators agree is worth “real” money. Sadly, its real-money value swings widely, making it impractical except for criminals, idealists and speculators.
From
AARP.
The more you know.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:48 am
by jennypenny
ROFL!
Watch out for them young whippersnappers and their new-fangled money.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 10:09 am
by prognastat
They definitely want to make sure we know criminals use it. Unlike cash which criminals have never used...
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 11:18 am
by Jason
NBA and bitcoin. Not surprisingly, Mark Cuban was the first to initially accept it as payment although nobody bit. Looks like he's going to be trying again.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/280 ... al-for-you
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 4:42 pm
by firerufus
In my experience, everything until the top 3 crypto currencies right now are just worthless.
But, the main idea is still:
We went from small organised communities to bigger city states to countries. Every step had its downsides but the main upside was: Larger organized communties (countries) achieved more then smaller communities.
Now we see that people and communities are more devided then ever, and cannot be governed by one party.
But, we can take the technological learnings from the last decades and use it in our smaller communities, govern ourselve again without the need for big countries.
Blockchain can play a huge role in this step:
Easy and clear defined contracts, every community can have their own currency without the need of a bank and via internet and coin exchanges we can still travel quite easily and apply to the local rules.
This being said:
- Bitcoin as the main idea already works
- The other half of projects are idealistic and come to early
- The other half is just to rip people off and looking for ways to get funding for worthless shit.
The technolgoy itself is super complex and I have yet to meet a person who truly understands everything.
So, the hype is clearly there, I am waiting to generate some profits and then go back to study how and when the time finally arrives where we can govern ourselves.
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 10:54 am
by jacob
NVDA just got hit again. I noticed it started falling a few weeks before BTC. How strongly are these two connected? How many GPUs are NOT used for mining? Are mining efforts declining?
Re: Bitcoin on the rise
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 11:46 am
by prognastat
From my understanding at least before the crash a majority of graphics cards sold were going towards mining.