Bitcoin / Cryptocurrency Discussion (And Predictions)

[csalvato]

Maybe there should be no such thing as drug lords, drug dealers, and shaming drug users? Maybe it's time to end this prohibition and stop ostracising users who should be getting help rather than thrown in jail?

So if Monero is highly used for something that is currently considered iligal but will eventually no longer be considered as such, is it really still such a black sheep?

Why does the government get to say that it is fine to inject yourself with God-knows-what to change your physical gender, but you can't use mood and mind altering substances of your own free will? How can anyone who is pro crypto be pro government indoctrination? Government is bad, but somehow government propaganda and control are good? Hmmm....

Well "criminal activity" is more than just drugs, though that's a bulk of it.

Transactions for human trafficking and child pornography, for example, are likely routinely done on Monero, if I had to guess.

Cash (USD) is still king in those industries, though.

 

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[Frinys]

I think this will really depend on how much the general public values privacy in the future.

The pendulum on caring about privacy is swinging back in some ways. In other ways, a lot of people are happy to give up their privacy in exchange for security (even if it's only an illusion of security).

If the general public cares a lot about their privacy, I could see Monero as a huge leader. If not, then it will just be a mediocre investment.

Yep, this is the big if. Unfortunately, it seems like most people don't really care about privacy.

Maybe there should be no such thing as drug lords, drug dealers, and shaming drug users? Maybe it's time to end this prohibition and stop ostracising users who should be getting help rather than thrown in jail?

I agree. I did absolutely not try to shame or judge drug users, I'm sorry if it appeared so. It was only used as an example.

So if Monero is highly used for something that is currently considered iligal but will eventually no longer be considered as such, is it really still such a black sheep?

It will still be illegal to avoid tax and launder money even after drug legalization has happened. I don't think many institutions will be accused of using the Monero to buy drugs, but rather money laundering and tax evasion.

Why does the government get to say that it is fine to inject yourself with God-knows-what to change your physical gender, but you can't use mood and mind altering substances of your own free will? How can anyone who is pro crypto be pro government indoctrination? Government is bad, but somehow government propaganda and control are good? Hmmm....

I'm sorry if I offended anyone. I was barely stating the facts, that XMR is a great tool to buy and sell drugs online (common people), and to evade tax and launder money (institutions).

 

[Kevin88660]

I think this will really depend on how much the general public values privacy in the future.

The pendulum on caring about privacy is swinging back in some ways. In other ways, a lot of people are happy to give up their privacy in exchange for security (even if it's only an illusion of security).

If the general public cares a lot about their privacy, I could see Monero as a huge leader. If not, then it will just be a mediocre investment.

I do think bitcoin founder cares a lot about it. Since until today we don’t know who the founder/founding team is.

The open ledger provides transparency and fair playing field. The downside is perhaps privacy. I remember hearing whales complaining that they have been watched and it is harder for them to execute a good price compared to traditional finance.

There are forensic method to trace the accounts’ origin. Not an idea that everyone likes.

 

[Deleted78083]

I do think bitcoin founder cares a lot about it. Since until today we don’t know who the founder/founding team is.

The open ledger provides transparency and fair playing field. The downside is perhaps privacy. I remember hearing whales complaining that they have been watched and it is harder for them to execute a good price compared to traditional finance.

There are forensic method to trace the accounts’ origin. Not an idea that everyone likes.

BTC came out in the context of the 2008 financial crisis, where centralization in the context of the financial system clearly failed.

As such, privacy may have been on Satoshi's mind, but not as much as propriety. The idea was to give people back power and ownership over their money and stop big banks from playing with it. The main idea was decentralization.

BTC's slogan might as well be "take back control and ownership of your money".

Maybe privacy is just a feature, not a cause?

 

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[ChrisV]

A poll of 50 of the world's top economists:

https://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/cryptocurrencies/

 

[Deleted78083]

A poll of 50 of the world's top economists:

View attachment 37116

https://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/cryptocurrencies/

Duh. The purpose of a currency is to get used, so the statement appears irrelevant because you could replace "decentralized private crypto" with "US dollar".

It wouldn't change anything.

Pablo Escobar didn't get paid in pesos. Had he found another more convenient way to get paid, he'd have adopted it.

Wait a minute.

If criminals use crypto...does it mean that crypto...is convenient to get paid?

Mhhh....

 

[csalvato]

A poll of 50 of the world's top economists:

View attachment 37116

https://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/cryptocurrencies/

Lol just because a majority agrees with something doesn’t make it true.

come on man

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Lol just because a majority agrees with something doesn’t make it true.

No, but it holds a lot of political weight.

Tthe kind of weight that empowers politicians to make ridiculous laws and regulations.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

So for the first time ever, I met someone in real life who got rich from crypto.

Dude bought some ETH and doge, plus some BTC, about 10 or more years ago and "forgot about it."

Said he later checked and had $650,000 worth. He sold some, paid cash for a middle class home (houses are cheap here - this one was probably $200k) and he quit his job at the chemical company. He said he's mostly been "chilling" this past year.

Of course, the house was proven, but he could be lying about it being paid off and the story about his crypto purchases.

 

[csalvato]

No, but it holds a lot of political weight.

Tthe kind of weight that empowers politicians to make ridiculous laws and regulations.

Definitely...though his previous post was all about how BTC was only used for illegal activities, so I (perhaps incorrectly), assumed this was posted as proof.

 

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[nitrousflame]

Dude bought some ETH and doge, plus some BTC, about 10 or more years ago and "forgot about it."

Hmm, I'd have a hard time believing someone who claims to have bought ETH and DOGE before they were created, but that's just me.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

Hmm, I'd have a hard time believing someone who claims to have bought ETH and DOGE before they were created, but that's just me.

Ahhh now that is something I did not know! LOL

Maybe he said BTC only, then ETH and doge later. We were all quite inebriated - out drinking!

 

[MJ DeMarco]

LOL, any "crypto policy" coming from Gubbermint is destined not to be a good policy.

Here come the meathooks...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1369346589018488837

View: https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1369346589018488837

 

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[Kak]

LOL, any "crypto policy" coming from Gubbermint is destined not to be a good policy.

Here come the meathooks...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1369346589018488837

View: https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1369346589018488837

No no! This is bullish! No one is actually afraid of government! Jail? What’s that? When Bitcoin is outlawed, we have a thread full of outlaws!

 

[csalvato]

LOL, any "crypto policy" coming from Gubbermint is destined not to be a good policy.

Here come the meathooks...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1369346589018488837

View: https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1369346589018488837

It probably won't be a good thing - though there has been talk in the house about making the rules around transacting in crypto much more lenient, so it might not be totally bad.

Of course, generally, gov't getting involved in anything usually means they make more of a mess than they intended.

No no! This is bullish! No one is actually afraid of government! Jail? What’s that? When Bitcoin is outlawed, we have a thread full of outlaws!

View attachment 37120

Let's see how well they enforce

 

[Xeon]

We are here: The United States had 18 billion visits to torrent websites in 2020. That is the opposite of control.

If the government of the United States can't stop torrenting, which is an illegal activity, how in the world are they going to stop crypto?

Governments (whether US or not) have no vested interests in torrents for obvious reasons (why would they be interested in what software or porn you downloaded?), so it's only logical that they don't invest the time and effort to crack down on this.

Crypto bypasses govs and banks who want control. If man is smart enough to invent an arcane technology like blockchain, then it makes sense that he is also smart enough to come up with technology that can detect crypto transactions made at the hardware level.

Some theoretical thoughts....

Governments mandating via international law, that network card/devices manufacturers install chips onto their products before shipping. These chips would detect and log down the IP address and you know the rest. Perhaps crypto transactions (even faint signs) can be detected at the ISP level and blocked?


Cryptocurrency transactions are not entirely anonymous, so I believe blocking them can be done to prevent transactions from being made. Just because we don't have the tech to do it now doesn't mean we won't have in future.

And a kinda crazy idea : discourage the trading of crypto by placing the founders of Coindesk, Binance on house arrest.

 

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[Timmy C]

No no! This is bullish! No one is actually afraid of government! Jail? What’s that? When Bitcoin is outlawed, we have a thread full of outlaws!

View attachment 37120

Up only?

 

[Frinys]

Governments (whether US or not) have no vested interests in torrents for obvious reasons (why would they be interested in what software or porn you downloaded?), so it's only logical that they don't invest the time and effort to crack down on this.

Don't forget music and movies. Billions of dollars in lost tax money. Every year.

If Bob communicates directly with Alice over a P2P protocol, how do you know that the encrypted traffic is legal or illegal? It's not possible. If it was, it would have been stopped a long time ago.

Crypto bypasses govs and banks who want control. If man is smart enough to invent an arcane technology like blockchain, then it makes sense that he is also smart enough to come up with technology that can detect crypto transactions made at the hardware level.

What are you talking about? In which hardware component do you put such a thing? Is every data chip on earth going to monitor the bitstream passing through it? That is not possible. You would have to store the stream, read it, analyze it, detect unwanted data, and block it. It would make the hardware unusable.

Some theoretical thoughts....

Governments mandating via international law, that network card/devices manufacturers install chips onto their products before shipping. These chips would detect and log down the IP address and you know the rest. Perhaps crypto transactions (even faint signs) can be detected at the ISP level and blocked?

Once again, how do you know what traffic to ban? What if someone uses TOR? You would have to ban everything on the internet.

But let's assume it was possible.

What would happen if China said: "Hey, we want to make an agreement. We want everyone to monitor all traffic being sent to and from any device on earth. And please, block traffic we don't like."? The rest of the world would say "NO THANKS! Please stop with your totalitarianism!".

What would happen if the US did it? Just the same.

Cryptocurrency transactions are not entirely anonymous, so I believe blocking them can be done to prevent transactions from being made. Just because we don't have the tech to do it now doesn't mean we won't have in future.

It's as easy as blocking every single bird from crossing country borders. Yes, it is theoretically possible, they are, after all, visible, but how do you plan to do that?

And a kinda crazy idea : discourage the trading of crypto by placing the founders of Coindesk, Binance on house arrest.

Yes, a country can do that. But another country may very easily respond by encouraging blockchain technology. We'll see what happens after 30 years when one country has discouraged innovation and another encouraged it.

 

[Timmy C]

Fixed it!

FREEEEDDOOOOMMMMMM!!!!

 

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[maverick]

@Raja I totally see where you are getting at with the mining thing, but your argument has a bit of a flaw... It is profitable to mine. As long as it is profitable to mine, people will. Just like manufacturing anything or mining real gold. It takes resources, and it will only take those resources if it makes sense to do so.

A collapse in price would be what drives the miners away, not the other way around. The only way I could see this not being the case is if there was a metroic rise in an alternative coin that drove miners to more profitable waters elsewhere. That would require people holding Bitcoin and also investing in the new meteor coin simultaneously.

Guess what else that does? It drives down the mining competition for Bitcoin and makes it more profitable than it was. So it is just not going to happen. The miners aren‘t steering the ship. Demand is.

@Sethamus I saw your post a few pages back and I will give you my input.

Crypto is an alternative asset class. Period. It isn’t God. It isn’t infallible. It isn’t proven, but it has done very well relative to gold over the last 6 months. Hindsight 20/20, of course I would have rather had Bitcoin than gold over the last 6 months. I would have rather a portfolio full of Tesla stock too. Why? I like money. That said... because I don’t have a crystal ball or time machine, I chose gold to a larger extent, for a reason.

Where I see the two now... Bitcoin has had a ridiculously great run and honestly good job to those of you that captured it. The other one, gold, has shockingly retreated. So what, I’m still up and I don’t need the money.

The fact that they are BOTH a way to keep your money out of the USD are where the similarities start and end. They are radically different.

I will absolutely 100% concede, subjective value theory, which is correct economics, means something is worth what someone will pay for it, and the market is always right. That means a Bitcoin is worth $53,799 USD. It absolutely is. Just like tulips were absolutely worth a year of a Dutch salary at one point in time. Someone sold a Bitcoin today for $53k and someone sold a tulip for a year’s salary at one point in history. It was worth what someone paid.

With a stock, you look at a company relative to its competitors, weigh the headwinds, tailwinds, and expected management decisions. You determine if you subjectively value a stock more than someone else based on actual data and your expectations of the company’s objective performance. If you do, you buy or hold. If you don’t, you sell or you just don’t buy it.

With a commodity, you look at the expected forces on demand, expected forces on supply, and its usefulness to an economy. You buy if you subjectively expect it to become more objectively valuable.

When people start talking about valuations of coins, that is absolute nonsense. There is no relativity. Saying one coin is overvalued or undervalued is finger in the wind, bullshit speculation. The entire concept of valuing a crypto is uncharted territory with no foundational basis other than “I think this will be the future” or “I think that will be the future.”

At its core, gold is a commodity. They use it in shit. It is not unlike oil, copper, grains, water, lumber, whatever. There is objective value to humans in it. But there has also been additional subjective value in its rarity relative to that objective value. That made it an intelligent currency. Exchange is subjective. Use is objective. Subjective value of ANYTHING is inherently speculative.

Every investment lies somewhere on a spectrum. A old stable dividend stock might be more toward the objective side of the spectrum with minimal subjectivity. A growth stock trading at 50x the value of that old stable dividend stock with the same earnings has a lot of subjectivity. Gold skews HARD objective and Bitcoin skews HARD subjective.

Today, the subjective value of gold has coiled, in favor of the hot card table. Make no mistake, the objective value still lies ever closer beneath the surface. There is legitimate valuation data for gold and silver based on supply and demand that considers its commodity uses. Add to that a long history of subjective use as an alternative means of exchange, and you have valuation data to consider.

There is little if any objective value in Bitcoin. It is a creature of only subjective value. Just like the USD. That doesn’t make it shit. That just makes it significantly different.

Now I preface all of these posts with a huge disclaimer. I’m not a crypto bear. I’m a realist. I have more net worth than I feel comfortable slamming into one investment after I licked a finger and told myself that I’m smart. I think decentralized currency is brilliant and an invention that will certainly change the world for the better. With that always, historically, comes growing pains. Whether it be better alternatives, whether it be savage gangster governments. Whatever... Portnoyesque permabull mindset does not make someone smart money. Being able to sleep at night does.

I like crypto. I hate the speculation packaged as sound investment sentiment in the crypto community. If you are comfortable buying stocks at hundreds of times earnings, that is the type of asset you are getting into with crypto. Something heavy subjective and light or absent objective value.

What would I choose today as someone with an actual net worth? I would choose gold with even more conviction than I did years ago. Why? Investing 101, buy low sell high. Gold is frickin cheap right now... and God forbid if bitcoin actually is a house of cards, a lot of anti-dollar liquidity will be searching for a new home.

This is a good story. But you're buying gold because you're assuming/guesstimating that the price of gold will go up. This only happens when more people buy gold. How is this different from Bitcoin?

You're calling gold 'frickin cheap'.. based on what exactly? And how is this forecast any different than Bitcoin?

 

[maverick]

And for the love of god. Please stop using the Tulips metaphor. It is inaccurate, wrong and fed to you by mass media.

Blockchain is a fundamentally new technology. A paradigm shift from centralisation to decentralisation. Not exactly comparable to a flower bulb.

 

[csalvato]

What are you basing that on?

I believe It's based on the fact that gold is a store of value that most people haven't remembered yet, but once they see how terrible fiat and BTC are, they will be buying in droves.

Of course, I don't agree with that narrative.

I think the notion that gold is a store of value is similar to saying seashells are a store of value.

Once they were, but those days are over.

Now seashells are priced as a material, not a store of value. I believe gold has already faced the same fate.

 

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[Hai]

And for the love of god. Please stop using the Tulips metaphor. It is inaccurate, wrong and fed to you by mass media.

Blockchain is a fundamentally new technology. A paradigm shift from centralisation to decentralisation. Not exactly comparable to a flower bulb.

I disagree. While the technology is sound, it doesn't mean that it can't be overvalued.

Having said that, I believe BTC is approaching fair value(and will probably extend that. A "Bubble burst" in BTC would equal to roughly 70-85% drawdown. That's okay. However the real issue is altcoins being the actual tulips and losing 99%+ sometime again, because the tech simply can't hold up with the actual real life value yet.

 

[csalvato]

I disagree. While the technology is sound, it doesn't mean that it can't be overvalued.

Tulip mania was a bubble that lasted 6 months and never recovered.

Bitcoin has been around 10.5 years, and has gone through a cyclical, volatile uptrend.

From a chart fundamentals perspective, there's no comparison.

 

[maverick]

I disagree. While the technology is sound, it doesn't mean that it can't be overvalued.

Having said that, I believe BTC is approaching fair value(and will probably extend that. A "Bubble burst" in BTC would equal to roughly 70-85% drawdown. That's okay. However the real issue is altcoins being the actual tulips and losing 99%+ sometime again, because the tech simply can't hold up with the actual real life value yet.

Tulip != technology

 

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[James Fake]

I disagree. While the technology is sound, it doesn't mean that it can't be overvalued.

Having said that, I believe BTC is approaching fair value(and will probably extend that. A "Bubble burst" in BTC would equal to roughly 70-85% drawdown. That's okay. However the real issue is altcoins being the actual tulips and losing 99%+ sometime again, because the tech simply can't hold up with the actual real life value yet.

Tulip != technology

You idiots are both right.. jk jk.

Long term = Not tulips.
Short-mid term = Smells like tulips.

Ride this bish to $100-$120k then gtfo for a few months. asdfjgkklkjwewpiojdsalvmqpqkldkadgfgaasdfasdffaf

 

[jsk29]

To all the tulip mania analogy lovers, NFTs are a more relevant target.

This digital collectible character sold for over ~$7.5M (4.2K ETH) today:
CryptoPunks: Details for Punk #7804

 

[GPM]

To all the tulip mania analogy lovers, NFTs are a more relevant target.

This digital collectible character sold for over ~$7.5M (4.2K ETH) today:
CryptoPunks: Details for Punk #7804

Wow, what on earth am I seeing? These ugly a$$ 1990's video game graphics avatars are selling for tens of thousands???

Average sale price over the last 12 month: $22,214
Number of sales over the last 12 months: 6,937
Total value of sales over the last 12 months: $150,549,448

This is insane

 

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[JamesQB8]

Wow, what on earth am I seeing? These ugly a$$ 1990's video game graphics avatars are selling for tens of thousands???

Average sale price over the last 12 month: $22,214
Number of sales over the last 12 months: 6,937
Total value of sales over the last 12 months: $150,549,448

This is insane

Bear in mind that a ton of people involved in that space bid up the price to give it artifical value

 

[Fox]

To all the tulip mania analogy lovers, NFTs are a more relevant target.

This digital collectible character sold for over ~$7.5M (4.2K ETH) today:
CryptoPunks: Details for Punk #7804

What is stopping anyone making these with Microsoft paint?

8m is more than a lot of art by very established/famous artists.

Not quite getting why these are worth more than $100.