Sorry, but why? Because you think it will go up even thought the fundamentals of the product suck? Are you building castles in the air? Not to be rude, but bitcoin is slow and inefficient. It also has terrible privacy. It's getting replaced by other coins.
I wonder why people think of the Bitcoin blockchain (assuming that's what you mean by "the blockchain") as immortal. We've had computers for less than a century and been doing blockchains for about a decade of that.
The oldest known poem is 4000 years old and carved in clay. It seems to me if you want a poem to last forever, never to be seen, there are much better ways, like carving it in granite and burying it deep underground where it's unlikely to be found.
Even if you insisted that it's "digital", making a commit in the Linux kernel is much more likely to last for as long as computers last because Linux is actually useful, sustainable, and copied to just as many, if not more, computers as any blockchain.
> burying it deep underground where it's unlikely to be found.
Most people who want their works to last forever want people to read and use and enjoy them. Burying and having it forgotten doesn't meet that criteria.
Making millions of copies and burying some, with incentives for future people to make more copies and bury some again seems more likely to succeed.
Write a good poem if you want people to copy it and read it.
What you're essentially doing by putting stuff in the blockchain is tricking people into copying it millions of times. It doesn't mean any of them will read it or appreciate it. I agree with your analogy, but what's the point of it? Some weird desire for your footprint to be larger and imposed on people for all time? I can't think of much more narcissistic than that.
Wars typically are as much about spreading culture as they are about genetics. Religious crusades are a way to spread culture without genetics.
Humans seem to have a desire to increase both their genetic and cultural footprint into other humans. Make sense really - expansionist traits tend to survive.
Oh, come on. If it gains universal adoption, it is fast enough that every human being can make one transaction in their lifetime, maybe even two! What more do you want???
there's other cryptocurrency out there that actually has such extravagant features as "reasonable ability to transact" built in without needing second layers.
Since the report does not really specify what exactly the reserves are we can expect NYAG to not be happy with it, and taking further steps against Tether.
I have no idea why you are downvoted. The stock market and the housing market are at all time highs almost all the time for the last 150 years. This doesn't mean you should almost never buy stocks.
I don't know why you're being downvoted, all-time highs is nothing to be afraid of. Ben Carlson discussed the topic a few times with a lot of interesting data points:
Well the context in my replies there is clearly only talking about Cryptocurrencies here. I did not mention anything else.
> Still i am wary of crypto investments, easy to get burned.
So, since I stayed away from the late Bitcoin mania up to >$60K (and DOGE) and warned others, I am downvoted?
This is why people get burned because they don't understand these 'investments' and join in when it is late, or when Elon Musk and Tesla start a pump and dump scheme and baghodl at all time highs, which is what I am talking about.
I am now congratulating the BTC short-sellers who took advantage of the sea of red in the cryptocurrency markets just 12 days ago. [0]
> You could have said that at the end of 2020, when BTC was ATH at 20K.
> 'I hope you didn't buy BTC at >$20K'.
And I still wouldn't. Because...
...I also hoped you bought it at its all time low since 2017 of <$5000 - $7000 range in March 2020 when it pulled back from >$10,000 at the end of 2019. I was pleased when it dropped at the end of 2019 and bought it at a bargin [0] and bought more when it dropped again in March 2020. I and many others are laughing now. [1]
I love it, other coins (and their speculation) can f off, I'll keep my Monero because I can actually pay for stuff with it, it's fast and has low fees.
I like my cryptocurrencies usable, I couldn't care less about what price they're currently at.
I had been looking for a light wallet (even though I didn't know the term or that they existed back then) since before the bankruptcy. If they'd been more widespread, we'd have lost a lot fewer coins!
I guess that, like me, a lot of us didn't want to store their BTC with MtGOX, it was just that back then the alternative was to use a significant portion of your hard disk to store the blockchain if you wanted to use your BTC.
>I guess that, like me, a lot of us didn't want to store their BTC with MtGOX
Who in their right mind would store Bitcoin anywhere else than a well backed up hard drive?
I was trading the ups and downs, they didn't have any fees for a long time, so you could buy low, sell high, and repeat. Today a limit order could have bought at 31,000 and then turned around and sold at 36,000 or more.
It lost 33% of its price in the last week. If you think the price is gonna go back up good for you, buy now and I hope it goes well for you. But pretending that isn't a plummet for any sort of investment or stock is just denying reality.
33% down is a lot on stock market but it's nothing unusual for bitcoin. People bought it for wrong reasons and now they couldn't handle it and sold their positions.
In this particular case, the no apparent reason is certain person known to speculate with cryptocurrencies suddenly decided he'd go on to publicly bash the thing he pumped in the past "for no apparent reason". I mean, we couldall speculate the price was a bit high for his taste and wanted a discount, or maybe he really believes what he said.
That said, I agree that bitcoin price is kind of a bubble, and something that is pumped and dumped by people with a lot of money to the detriment of those who saw it as a miracle savings investment (usually people with little financial education) or those who truly believed in it (I think those became a small % of the users a long time ago).
My point is nobody has an answer to "Why did people bid up Bitcoin 5x from September 2020 to mid-Feb 2021?"
Maybe Elon is the trigger for the 30% drop over the last few days... but remember he didn't announce his initial holdings until mid-February 2021, which was after the 5x surge. If anything his timing was awful.
Everything in hindsight is pure speculation and rationalization. Nobody has a clue, markets are complex, volatile and full of irrational actors.
They are also full of whales/market makers who dance to their own tune and can manipulate the price. All this Elon Tesla talk is just a side show to entertain the public.
There is no doubt hedge funds are playing in this space with lots of money and skills to extract maximum value from the joe shmoes
In this particular case I don't think the market is all that complex. People were valuing bitcoin on the assumption that other people would keep buying it at higher prices before they sell.
People didn't cut nearly half a trillion dollars from the value of bitcoin on the word of a person known for blurting out impulsive and weird things. He didn't reveal any deep new insights into this thing. What Musk said just spooked the herd, that's all.
The guy has built and is managing multiple multi billion dollar companies at the same time. Tesla buying bitcoin and profiting from it led to Musk meeting one of the requirements for being awarded options worth billions.
How is this different from fiat currencies and stocks? Those go up and down all the time for no reason, or at least for irrational reasons. There's no reason why Bitcoin and other coins couldn't mature into a more stable up/down cycle to mirror those.
> Fiat has central banks to keep them somewhat stable.
That's part of my point. Fiat had decades to stabilise, digital currencies are basically newborns so it's not fair to expect them to pop out already matured and stable.
> Stocks have companies who are producing actual value.
Unless they don't (or their value is decoupled from meme/insider manipulation that artificially controls their prices), like GME or Tesla.
IMO it's quite following the same trends as the stock market. Elon Musk makes statements on Twitter about how Bitcoin is an environmental disaster and rolls back on accepting Bitcoin in payments for Teslas. Bitcoin goes down.
> "Things that go up for no apparent reason can come down for no apparent reason."
Many of the previous sharp increases do have explanations, e.g. the $150 to $1,500 rise was largely due to manipulation by the Willy and Markus bots[0], the $10,000 to $20,000 rise was largely due to manipulation by Tether and Bitfinex[1]. Will probably take a while for the dust to settle to see if any manipulation was responsible for the recent rises.
I don't use the Lightning network because although I am pretty knowledgeable in how Bitcoin works, I've never had enough time to dive deeper into Lightning. Also, I expect it to be more cumbersome for my clients who are generally less technically knowledgeable.
I use direct on-chain transfers. Since it's usually not a major share of revenue, I don't care much about price volatility - prices go up and down all the time. I quote in USD, and clients send amounts at current conversion rates. Over time, it averages out.
The transfer fee is strictly less than international wire transfer. The transfer is fast, no-hassle, and also all clients are able to send the money all the time. If you live beyond the first-world countries, from my experience it is pretty common that some minor banks are not able to send money to some other minor banks in other countries, and you never know beforehand, and lose a lot of time on that.
I sold a website a while back and had a chance to be paid in either BTC or a wire transfer. I opted for a 50-50 split. The wire transfer involved going to the bank and filling out a form to fulfil some regulatory requirements. The transfer itself took 3 business days.
The BTC payment was credited to my account in 10 minutes.
You've just deferred going to the bank and filling in that form to a later date.
...but now you're exposed to massive volatility, regulatory uncertainty, probably capital gains tax on the upside, the risk of having to work through yet another third-party (an exchange), and your tax affairs are likely more complicated
Absolutely not. There are plenty of markets that don't care about energy intensive use. Literally no one gave a shit about it a year ago, they won't start now.
Bitcoin’s future value is in the hope that any kind of government or large institutions support, which is not/never coming now. I think Tesla also dumping their coins very soon.
You’re downvoted, but it’s true. Bitcoin might be a scam, not worth investing and used as a currency, but we will see it above 100k again. Might not be soon, but someone will dig it up and pump it, so that they can dump it again.
I bought Discord Nitro a week ago and learnt it now has a free month for everybody, I can only imagine how awful it feels to be a bitcoin buyer last week.
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[ 78.5 ms ] story [ 3160 ms ] threadThe oldest known poem is 4000 years old and carved in clay. It seems to me if you want a poem to last forever, never to be seen, there are much better ways, like carving it in granite and burying it deep underground where it's unlikely to be found.
Even if you insisted that it's "digital", making a commit in the Linux kernel is much more likely to last for as long as computers last because Linux is actually useful, sustainable, and copied to just as many, if not more, computers as any blockchain.
Most people who want their works to last forever want people to read and use and enjoy them. Burying and having it forgotten doesn't meet that criteria.
Making millions of copies and burying some, with incentives for future people to make more copies and bury some again seems more likely to succeed.
And the blockchain isn't far from that.
What you're essentially doing by putting stuff in the blockchain is tricking people into copying it millions of times. It doesn't mean any of them will read it or appreciate it. I agree with your analogy, but what's the point of it? Some weird desire for your footprint to be larger and imposed on people for all time? I can't think of much more narcissistic than that.
Wars typically are as much about spreading culture as they are about genetics. Religious crusades are a way to spread culture without genetics.
Humans seem to have a desire to increase both their genetic and cultural footprint into other humans. Make sense really - expansionist traits tend to survive.
Oh, come on. If it gains universal adoption, it is fast enough that every human being can make one transaction in their lifetime, maybe even two! What more do you want???
Not much relies on the bitcoin network itself.
https://www.coindesk.com/tether-first-reserve-composition-re...
Since the report does not really specify what exactly the reserves are we can expect NYAG to not be happy with it, and taking further steps against Tether.
If Bitcoin stabilises a bit from here I think we'll see Ethereum continue to grow a bit again.
Do not invest at the all time highs. [1]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26843806
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26937153
The great index funds have more all-time-highs then not, for bitcoin this has also partly been true i guess.
Still i am wary of crypto investments, easy to get burned.
https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2020/12/investing-in-stocks...
https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2017/03/all-time-highs-are-...
https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2016/11/dont-be-afraid-of-a...
> Still i am wary of crypto investments, easy to get burned.
So, since I stayed away from the late Bitcoin mania up to >$60K (and DOGE) and warned others, I am downvoted?
This is why people get burned because they don't understand these 'investments' and join in when it is late, or when Elon Musk and Tesla start a pump and dump scheme and baghodl at all time highs, which is what I am talking about.
I am now congratulating the BTC short-sellers who took advantage of the sea of red in the cryptocurrency markets just 12 days ago. [0]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27075627
'I hope you didn't buy BTC at >$20K'.
If you are so sure about this, you should have shown your short or put positions on BTC. Then people might consider what you wrote.
People that are pro-BTC usually have some money invested in cryptocurrencies.
> 'I hope you didn't buy BTC at >$20K'.
And I still wouldn't. Because...
...I also hoped you bought it at its all time low since 2017 of <$5000 - $7000 range in March 2020 when it pulled back from >$10,000 at the end of 2019. I was pleased when it dropped at the end of 2019 and bought it at a bargin [0] and bought more when it dropped again in March 2020. I and many others are laughing now. [1]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21606212
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27139755
So tell me who is the actual 'late comer'?
Just because I actually like it as a currency.
1: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees...
1: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/monero-transactionfees....
I like my cryptocurrencies usable, I couldn't care less about what price they're currently at.
Luckily it was "just" 1 BTC.
I guess that, like me, a lot of us didn't want to store their BTC with MtGOX, it was just that back then the alternative was to use a significant portion of your hard disk to store the blockchain if you wanted to use your BTC.
Who in their right mind would store Bitcoin anywhere else than a well backed up hard drive?
I was trading the ups and downs, they didn't have any fees for a long time, so you could buy low, sell high, and repeat. Today a limit order could have bought at 31,000 and then turned around and sold at 36,000 or more.
But... never try to catch a falling knife. ;-)
That said, I agree that bitcoin price is kind of a bubble, and something that is pumped and dumped by people with a lot of money to the detriment of those who saw it as a miracle savings investment (usually people with little financial education) or those who truly believed in it (I think those became a small % of the users a long time ago).
Maybe Elon is the trigger for the 30% drop over the last few days... but remember he didn't announce his initial holdings until mid-February 2021, which was after the 5x surge. If anything his timing was awful.
Everything in hindsight is pure speculation and rationalization. Nobody has a clue, markets are complex, volatile and full of irrational actors.
There is no doubt hedge funds are playing in this space with lots of money and skills to extract maximum value from the joe shmoes
People didn't cut nearly half a trillion dollars from the value of bitcoin on the word of a person known for blurting out impulsive and weird things. He didn't reveal any deep new insights into this thing. What Musk said just spooked the herd, that's all.
Shame it can't be calculated.
Stocks have companies who are producing actual value.
That's part of my point. Fiat had decades to stabilise, digital currencies are basically newborns so it's not fair to expect them to pop out already matured and stable.
> Stocks have companies who are producing actual value.
Unless they don't (or their value is decoupled from meme/insider manipulation that artificially controls their prices), like GME or Tesla.
Many of the previous sharp increases do have explanations, e.g. the $150 to $1,500 rise was largely due to manipulation by the Willy and Markus bots[0], the $10,000 to $20,000 rise was largely due to manipulation by Tether and Bitfinex[1]. Will probably take a while for the dust to settle to see if any manipulation was responsible for the recent rises.
[0] https://www.investopedia.com/news/bots-drove-bitcoins-150to1...
[1] https://cointelegraph.com/news/research-tether-bitfinex-mani...
https://www.ft.com/content/c4c29bb3-c8ee-454c-a2dd-eac9f6440...
I use direct on-chain transfers. Since it's usually not a major share of revenue, I don't care much about price volatility - prices go up and down all the time. I quote in USD, and clients send amounts at current conversion rates. Over time, it averages out.
The transfer fee is strictly less than international wire transfer. The transfer is fast, no-hassle, and also all clients are able to send the money all the time. If you live beyond the first-world countries, from my experience it is pretty common that some minor banks are not able to send money to some other minor banks in other countries, and you never know beforehand, and lose a lot of time on that.
The BTC payment was credited to my account in 10 minutes.
...but now you're exposed to massive volatility, regulatory uncertainty, probably capital gains tax on the upside, the risk of having to work through yet another third-party (an exchange), and your tax affairs are likely more complicated
BTC might not be the final solution, but that doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist.
If you were a restaurant owner and made $100 today.
You would now be having $80 instead of $100 — which might be your entire profit margin.
Just like how GPUs are intensive in terms of consuming electricity.
also, i highly recommend this guys channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClgJyzwGs-GyaNxUHcLZrkg
But I think Bitcoin has too many flaws to be used as a digital currency, the very long term value is nil, and I think this is a safe bet.
It will be replaced by something else.