Bitcoins

Anything you made on Bitcoin was not a successful investment, it was a winning bet. Gambling in Las Vegas. All the talk as though Bitcoin was some business decision has been so ridiculous.
 
I saw that and had to chuckle.
There were so many scams in late 2017 that cryptocurrency kinda became synonymous with being a scam, and it's very sad that nobody had designed any brakes on the train. ICOs and coins became very tasty to scammers.

Recently i just lost a side gig as a crypto mine systems administrator. The owner was tired of losing money. It was rather sad to see the thing decommissioned. The crazy thing is that he still believes in crypto. I don't get it. If you evaluate crypto as an investment just as you would any other kind of investment, it looks juicy in one way, but a complete failure in most other ways.

Well, people also had a thing for beanie babies.

iu
 
Oh, just remember the things people so knowingly said. So many high horses, so many mantles to lean against dragging on their pipe they'll empty into the fireplace. And always the little boy who doesn't see the emperor's new clothes.
 
Dauntless said:
Anything you made on Bitcoin was not a successful investment, it was a winning bet. Gambling in Las Vegas. All the talk as though Bitcoin was some business decision has been so ridiculous.

How do you compare this to the stock market or trading any currency for that mater?
 
neptronix said:
I saw that and had to chuckle.
There were so many scams in late 2017 that cryptocurrency kinda became synonymous with being a scam, and it's very sad that nobody had designed any brakes on the train. ICOs and coins became very tasty to scammers.

Recently i just lost a side gig as a crypto mine systems administrator. The owner was tired of losing money. It was rather sad to see the thing decommissioned. The crazy thing is that he still believes in crypto. I don't get it. If you evaluate crypto as an investment just as you would any other kind of investment, it looks juicy in one way, but a complete failure in most other ways.

This thing is still very young.

For Crypto to work it will take a lot of time. Like 100s of years to smooth out. Its Very likely people with large amounts of money were playing games to move the price and they still are. Just like they do with the stock market.
 
Arlo1 said:
Dauntless said:
Anything you made on Bitcoin was not a successful investment, it was a winning bet. Gambling in Las Vegas. All the talk as though Bitcoin was some business decision has been so ridiculous.

How do you compare this to the stock market or trading any currency for that mater?

Ah, which not to say that all people invest wisely when they turn to Wall Street. But nonetheless the opportunity is there to use sound concepts on known instruments. Any crypto currency is an unknown, there are no sound concepts. Going crypto is going to Atlantic City and betting against the mob.

My own thought is for a crypto currency to "Work," the value cannot fluctuate. Bitcoin taking a random walk thru cyberspace has to end.

So let's set up an exchange to sell biofuels grown in Africa to European countries. Lumber/charcoal, ethanol, there's land in Africa, as well as unemployed people. In order to standardize the 44 chaotic currencies of the dark continent, we create---Africoin. Or let's just call it Covfefe.

All African companies then know what everyone else is selling their biofuels for in Covfefe. And the Europeans know what it costs. Europe has all the out of work computer people, they run the miners. Meaning they run the exchanges. Mining is not for created Covfefe, but for service charges that are paid by the Africans in Covfefe.

Meanwhile the Africans are building a surplus of Covfefe until the Europeans find exports to sell, even then there will probably never be a true balance of payments. But the U.S. in the late 1700's bought a bunch of newly mined silver from Mexico and sent it to China to establish an exchange for traders where they moved the silver around in the denomination of 'Taels' I believe was the word. It became so efficient that the government began to demand taxes not in any currency but in Taels. When the trade inbalance saw the Taels leaving the country, the Chinese panicked and instituted a reign of terror that provoked the first of the Opium Wars. Which was NOT about opium, though opium was the visible target most talked about.

I don't think the shifting about of the Covfefe/Africoin would get anyone in a tizzy.

There would be a reason for a crypto currency to exist, because it had a serious use. And no random walk through cyberspace. It is ridiculous to buy a car with or sell one for Bitcoin, you don't know that the price won't shift to where you lose $5.000 on the deal. You are then not transacting business, you're just gambling.
 
Well, we're talking about a ~11 year old technology that has repeatedly failed to address it's weaknesses and lack of usability. The main people behind it have just scaled back what is possible to do with the technology, as the failures have stacked up over time.

It doesn't scale and it doesn't perform... and scaling and performing are not on the agenda of the bitcoin core developers.

And we have crypto currencies that are more centralized but do the scaling and performing thing very well, yet nobody is making use of them. A few of those even have stable prices. So there are properly functional cryptocurrencies out there, but nobody seems to want to use them. What does that tell you about this class of technology?

Who is actually going to use this technology, other than investors?
Hell, when i worked at a crypto mine, i got paid in fiat because i didn't want to pay the crypto fees, nor did the owner of the mine :lol:

Once i started investing in crypto, i realized it was useless and was only hanging on because A LOT of people believed it would become something, and i thought i was missing some aspect of the picture and enjoying the gains and then the kool aid took hold.

It was a good lesson in investing for me. Once the market began to crash last year, i decided to hit the books and learn more about how to properly value an investment. Once learning that, i realized that cryptocurrency didn't meet any classic, time tested criteria. Only then, did the fog clear for me.
 
neptronix said:
And we have crypto currencies that are more centralized but do the scaling and performing thing very well, yet nobody is making use of them. A few of those even have stable prices. So there are properly functional cryptocurrencies out there, but nobody seems to want to use them. What does that tell you about this class of technology?

Centralized banking is what is failing Man Kind right now.

Centralized banking is the biggest reason crypto exists.

Right now there is not enough use of any crypto for it to be stable.

My attitude is we need to drop the system we are using.

Crypto at this moment is still the best option. But it might not be in time. Being an early adopter to ANY tech has HUGE risks and some times low rewards but more likely means losses for those who take the risk.

I am still 99% SURE a crypto will win out. But its anyones guess which one that will be.

As for the wild swings with bitcoin and the market in general that's nothing new. Just each time its to a higher number.

As for investing... Well ALL investments into something to grow you money that are not into your own well being or your own business are a gamble. If you don't believe me watch the entire series "dirty money" on netflix. One of the episodes shows how the corrupt pharmaceutical companies just simply jacked the prices of their drugs to make the books look good for their investors.

Its not just big pharma who does that. You might think as the little investor they are doing good but they are doing anything they can to make it LOOK that way to drive the share prices higher. Its all more or less a ponzi scheme and it will crumble in time.

Also look at how investors will play pump and dump moves to drive a price in the direction they need to make a quick profit! Its nothing to do with what a company is worth anymore. Its all about playing as many tricks as you can to make more money.
 
This video shows how much of a scam the regular markets are these days!

[youtube]dsd8S5nys3g[/youtube]
 
neptronix said:
It doesn't scale and it doesn't perform... and scaling and performing are not on the agenda of the bitcoin core developers.

You are the only one who I have herd say this.

Do you really know who all of the developers are? Do you speak with all of them on a regular basis?

Or is there a chance this is just propaganda?
 
Well, i transacted during the peak time of traffic when the fees got up to $24 minimum or what not, and kept an eye on what the dev team was doing ( also reviewing code on github ) and noticed that they were arguing about how to fix the scaling issue because transactions were taking 3 days on average. A lot of them decided to not do anything about it and key figureheads started talking about how it was a 'digital gold', not a currency etc.. it was a frocking joke.

Watched what the dev team was doing for 6 months while i was holding mine and saw them basically stalling and letting 1 company get a majority of mining by not switching the algos, etc. They have stalled lightning network as a scaling solution until roughly now.

Ethereum also had the same problem and also dropped the ball in a few ways. Stupid cryptokitties ( an extremely light application ) brought it to it's knees in 2017. Just google that.

And every POW algorithm based crypto has this same scaling issue.. as most of them are ultimately just forks of bitcoin.. or forks of forks of bitcoin.. very little unique code in that space.

Afterwards, i was still holding and watching what the devs were doing and was super unimpressed with it.

If you didn't experience this, then clearly you weren't transacting in bitcoin. It's not something you would have forgotten otherwise. Which kind of gets back to my point.. people want to invest in it, but not really use it..
 
Arlo1 said:
Or is there a chance this is just propaganda?

Oh darn, finally the truth comes out. Neppy the shill.

Actually, i'm sure he's just a big fan of all the publicity around the developers. https://bitcoincore.org/en/team/

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-core-developers-move-to-fix-denial-of-service-software-bug?amp

I've seen pictures of these guys. They look like just the kind of nerds and geeks they're supposed to be. If it was propaganda they'd be the beautiful people, like, you know, Hollywood.

neptronix said:
. . . . key figureheads started talking about how it was a 'digital gold', not a currency etc.. it was a frocking joke. . .If you didn't experience this, then clearly you weren't transacting in bitcoin. It's not something you would have forgotten otherwise. Which kind of gets back to my point.. people want to invest in it, but not really use it..

But it's not crypto comodity, it's crypto currency. They may call it Bitcoin, but they act like it is Bit Futures.

The moment the government can convince itself that it really IS the investment youse guys and others say it is, they ALREADY have the authority to clamp down as they please. That includes prosecuting developers, miners, etc. So your transactions can be unwound back a decade or more. And your REAL education in investing will be under way. I suppose I should bring up Blue Sky laws and securities fraud at this point.

The reason I suspect they'd go to all that trouble is because of the way you guys talk about all this anti-government and Viva la revelcion stuff, they respond 'Not while we have our cushy, phony baloney jobs to protect.' Look what they did to Jello Biafra. . . .
 
I think crypto-currency will eventually work very well but it presently has issues.

First, is the cryptography used quantum resistant? I'm not well versed on quantum computing but I've heard that once quantum computers get more than around 1024 qbits, breaking a lot of the encryption that is considered very secure today will be a quick quantum computing attack. To me that looks like a ticking time bomb.

Second, I bet a few banana republics are going to outlaw crypto-currency after inflation pushes too much fiat currency in to crypto. I don't know how that will shake out but I bet it will be ugly and will probably shape what the eventual dominant crypto-currency looks like.

Third, there needs to be a widely accepted top to bottom electronics payment infrastructure. I think this is what people mean by scaling. Transactions should be instant.

Fourth, the allure of crypto is privacy but the more details kept in the dark, the harder it is for people to trust it. This is the Catch 22 that leads to fake crypto and outright scams. I'm not sure if this can be overcome or if governments will let this be overcome.

A few years back off shore bank accounts were outlawed or taxed by the US government. It's obvious they wanted all the money accountable so they can tax all of it. Every government will eventually want the same thing (if they haven't done it already).

Putting all of my money in to something that the government can't track or tax sounds great until it gets seized or nationalized.

We all live at the mercy of our individual governments and we all have to remember that. As much as it sucks, we are never going to get out from under their thumb. Money is a part of that and as soon as you have something worth protecting there will be people wanting to redistribute it.
 
Maybe take a look at France...

Or Iceland just a few years back....

You are only under their thumb if you let you self be.
 
Dauntless said:
Oh darn, finally the truth comes out. Neppy the shill.

2017: i'm a shill for cryptocurrency.
2018: i'm a shill against cryptocurrency.

Okay, whatever y'all wanna think :lol:

Dauntless said:
The moment the government can convince itself that it really IS the investment youse guys and others say it is, they ALREADY have the authority to clamp down as they please. That includes prosecuting developers, miners, etc. So your transactions can be unwound back a decade or more. And your REAL education in investing will be under way. I suppose I should bring up Blue Sky laws and securities fraud at this point.

That's kinda sorta what happened to crypto in late 2017. A bunch of governments decided to capitalize on crypto currency's success and declare cryptocurrencies to be securities or investments rather than currencies. They regulated the outpoints where you convert crypto to fiat currency; therefore a service like coinbase, in the future, will send you a tax form.. just like your other investment accounts.

These new policy changes started in Asia and made it's way to America over the course of just a few months. Each time a new law was made, the whole market lost value. I remember a lot of people in the cryptocurrency community pretending to not be phased, and claiming they'd never declare crypto on their taxes, and other hilarities..

..then the market crashed..

What.... you thought you were gonna get out of fiat currency and an international banker cartel that easy?
 
Smoke said:
First, is the cryptography used quantum resistant? I'm not well versed on quantum computing but I've heard that once quantum computers get more than around 1024 qbits, breaking a lot of the encryption that is considered very secure today will be a quick quantum computing attack. To me that looks like a ticking time bomb.

That's a big problem, indeed. The solution will be to rewrite everything to work on quantum computers... but now you need an expensive experimental quantum computer to mine and probably even just transact. This gets us further away from cryptocurrency being decentralized.

Smoke said:
Second, I bet a few banana republics are going to outlaw crypto-currency after inflation pushes too much fiat currency in to crypto. I don't know how that will shake out but I bet it will be ugly and will probably shape what the eventual dominant crypto-currency looks like.

I think Venezuela banned it, but it's the only way to actually transact out there because their financial system is in the kind of mess that Germany was in before world war 2 started.. yes, that bad..

It is the only really successful use case scenario for cryptocurrency that i can think of. It works in an apocalyptic financial scenario.. but not a normal one.

Smoke said:
Third, there needs to be a widely accepted top to bottom electronics payment infrastructure. I think this is what people mean by scaling. Transactions should be instant.

A lot of that payment infrastructure stuff is built. But that's not what is meant by scaling. The scaling problem is that the amount of computing power you need to even handle just peak trading is extremely high. We're talking about tens or hundreds of terawatts globally. And that's before people start using it like they'd use visa cards or whatnot.

Smoke said:
Fourth, the allure of crypto is privacy but the more details kept in the dark, the harder it is for people to trust it. This is the Catch 22 that leads to fake crypto and outright scams. I'm not sure if this can be overcome or if governments will let this be overcome.

Well actually, the more details are obscurified or 'dark', the more it becomes like cash - untraceable.
But governments have figured out ways to decrypt all this. IMHO the current top 'privacy' tech is the cryptonite fork which runs monero and it's derivatives. Essentially this branch of cryptocurrency is playing a game of cat and mouse with the dev team figuring out interesting ways to increase privacy, and then government figuring out how to put the puzzle together, then more innovations, then more govt, etc.

I have this feeling that the nerds lose at this. Just look at the amazing $$$$$ software packages being cracked. The world's best DRM gets blown apart in 1-2 days by a very skilled hacker. There is no such thing as a secure computer.

Smoke said:
A few years back off shore bank accounts were outlawed or taxed by the US government. It's obvious they wanted all the money accountable so they can tax all of it. Every government will eventually want the same thing (if they haven't done it already).

Putting all of my money in to something that the government can't track or tax sounds great until it gets seized or nationalized.

Right. A lot of crypto fans like crypto because they think it can get around government controls.
I got news for them. You can consider every electronic communication line to be tapped. The second crypto starts actually getting used is the second that government mandates all the ISPs keep logs of activity and forward that to government.

Smoke said:
We all live at the mercy of our individual governments and we all have to remember that. As much as it sucks, we are never going to get out from under their thumb. Money is a part of that and as soon as you have something worth protecting there will be people wanting to redistribute it.

The best you can do is choose the government you live under. A lot of people have kind of a slave mentality and think they're stuck in one place. That's not true today because we have so many means to work remotely now. It's in government's interest to make this as difficult as possible for you, because they want to preserve their income and control, in the same way that a lot of companies want a monopoly on the market.

Historically it is very hard to get out from under a shitty government. I don't think even the most clever computer software in the world would get us any closer.
 
neptronix said:
Dauntless said:
Arlo1 said:
Or is there a chance this is just propaganda?
Oh darn, finally the truth comes out. Neppy the shill.

2017: i'm a shill for cryptocurrency.
2018: i'm a shill against cryptocurrency.

Okay, whatever y'all wanna think :lol:

Amberwolf got the good one when I dubbed him Buckaroo Bonzai. Tags like that are hard to come by.

So, what do you think of the name Coin America?

Does 'Air America' mean anything to you? The guy who started the Flying Tigers at the beginning of WWIi went back to Asia after the war and started Civil Air Transport. Also known as Flying Tigers Airline. Eventually the CIA took over and changed the name to Air America. You can read up on that if you like.

What do you suppose the U.S. government will call their secret crypto?
 
Punx0r said:
The price of Bitcoin is currently below the cost to mine it

It's been like that for a long time, as well as other cryptos.
This is a good source of real time data.
https://whattomine.com/

This may change with the next generation die shrink of video cards for currencies that are ASIC resistant.

When/if that happens i am putting money in graphics card companies again, but not crypto!
 
It should self-correct somewhat as miners drop out and so the mining becomes easier/more profitable again.

NVidia got stung with a glut of graphics cards they rushed out to try and meet demand from mining rigs, which suddenly collapsed. As with all bubbles the only people who win are those who get in early and cash out before the crash, which is usually the point where something is sold to the mainstream as being a dead-cert!

I do wonder if it will make a steady comeback like the internet did in the decade after the dotcom boom & bust, or whether a lack of utility and inherent value will prevent widespread use.
 
Arlo1 said:
This video shows how much of a scam the regular markets are these days!

[youtube]dsd8S5nys3g[/youtube]
This video is all silly/bad information garbage. If a stock can be shorted then its overvalued, otherwise folks like Warren Buffett would buy all the stock up because of its good value.
The only thing I wonder about is if these guys make such videos for clickbait or are genuinely stupid. But I do like how they were attacking traditional mainstream media.

Dauntless said:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-04/crypto-exchange-founder-dies-leaves-behind-200-million-problem

Oops, ANOTHER security issue.
This is a pretty hilarious situation. Shows crypto-coin have a long way to go. I bought a tiny bit of bitcoin to play with, I tried transferring to a few online services like those crypto online trading sites.
Overall I couldn't believe how absolutely shit bitcoin is, takes a long time to do a transaction, if I "Visa Mobile payWave" at the 7-11 store its literally a 1-second wait, if it was bitcoin I could possibly be waiting into the hours.
People already stand behind you and get impatient waiting for you to buy a can of Coca-Cola only taking 2 seconds to wave your paywave device/card. Cyptocoin needs to beat this to be able to replace this type of money usage, and most people only have enough patience for 1 type of money technology.

That being said, I live in the 1st world and do not see the madness with unstable traditional currency like those in Zimbabwe etc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zimbabwe_$100_trillion_2009_Obverse.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar#Second_re-denomination_(ZWR)
I have heard the "racist" version of why such things happen, basically, they argue that countries that tend to have high percentage/ratio of low IQ people take over (of course IQ is not fixed to any race) and their understanding of money is so poor they believe they can just print money literally forever and the rest of the world will somehow respect their money value, and when things get rocky and they see they have a big problem they do Homer Simpson level stupid and just print MORE of the money to solve their problems until the whole thing collapses.
In hindsight this may seem or kind of straightforward/simple but it catches a lot of countries in its complexity, ultimately I think trying to power states via wind/solar energy is similar but on the next level of complexity, the upside a of free voting public democracy is that the entire population feels its destructive effects slowly and is able to receive some level of fair warning that its dumb ideas are taking them in the wrong direction. The only thing that continues to cause free voting democratic public to go into the wrong direction is being brainwashed by broadcast spectrum-privileged media, the next level will be "algo-privileged media", where an unbalanced algorithm ends up telling people what to think.
There are many variants of corrupted systems that cause more pain to the public, like fake democracies in Africa where the "democratic election" is essentially rigged, this allows those in power to continue with their dumb ideas indefinitely, some claim countries like Russia don't really have true democratic elections.

The thing I don't get about crypto-coins is every cash to crypto-coin I know of at least in Australia is strictly "Cash to Bitcoin only" to start off with, you can't take cash and convert it into *any* other crypto-coin first, I think bitcoin is garbage technology and would much prefer to strictly only convert cash into an alternative coin, if at all.

I can only assume this strict "cash to bitcoin only, in or out" is deliberate to help push up the value of Bitcoin, because you Have to buy it.. Another example of economic supply & demand law.
DzHhLYNUYAAYx9Z.jpg
 
TheBeastie said:
Arlo1 said:
This video shows how much of a scam the regular markets are these days!

[youtube]dsd8S5nys3g[/youtube]
This video is all silly/bad information garbage. If a stock can be shorted then its overvalued, otherwise folks like Warren Buffett would buy all the stock up because of its good value.
The only thing I wonder about is if these guys make such videos for clickbait or are genuinely stupid. But I do like how they were attacking traditional mainstream media.

Wow even when you are presented with solid evidence you still argue reality is not real based on your own pre-deposition

Just because you can short a stock doesn't mean squat shit. If you can use fake media and false news combine with massive sell offs at a low price to make a pump and dump type scheme then the market is not any more of a investment then it is a ponzie scheme at that point.
 
$190M gone into thin air.
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/cryptocurrency-exchange-chief-dies-with-passwords-needed-to-unlock-customers-190m-reports-say

Customers of a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange are reportedly unable to access $190 million of funds after the company’s founder died with the passwords needed to access the money.

Gerald Cotten, the 30-year-old founder of QuadrigaCX, died due to complications with Crohn’s disease, according to Sky News, citing Cotten’s wife, Jennifer Robertson. The executive reportedly passed away in December while traveling in India to open an orphanage.

Citing a sworn affidavit by Robertson as she filed for credit protection, Sky News reports that Cotten held “sole responsibility for handling the funds and coins.”

About $190 million in cryptocurrency and traditional money is said to be in “cold storage,” with the digital key held by Cotten. While Robertson has Cotten’s laptop, she does not know its password and even a security expert has been unable to get past the device’s encryption.

Some QuadrigaCX customers have taken to social media to voice their frustration over the deadlock.

In a statement posted on its website on Jan. 31, QuadrigaCX said that it applied for creditor protection in the Nova Scotia Supreme Court “to allow us the opportunity to address the significant financial issues that have affected our ability to serve our customers.”

“For the past weeks, we have worked extensively to address our liquidity issues, which include attempting to locate and secure our very significant cryptocurrency reserves held in cold wallets, and that are required to satisfy customer cryptocurrency balances on deposit, as well as sourcing a financial institution to accept the bank drafts that are to be transferred to us,” the company added, in its statement. “Unfortunately, these efforts have not been successful.”

Fox News has reached out to QuadrigaCX with a request for comment on this story.

I bet the man is chillaxing on some beach in India with $190M
 
Back
Top