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Old 03-22-2018, 10:01 AM   #341
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Crypto's are popular because they exist outside of central control. People don't trust fiat and so pegging a crypto to a commodity or bank might lose its attraction. Venezuela just issued a petro coin so I suppose we will see how that does. One coin is one barrel of oil in the Orinoco basin. Good luck ever collecting your barrel but none the less, it's there.

Russia is also developing a cryptoruble to settle accounts internationally while avoiding US sanctions.
My first thought with Crypto is still it's main usage for illegal ####. Ransoms, drugs, transactions you don't want tracked, etc.
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Old 03-22-2018, 10:07 AM   #342
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If you don't have a currency backed by something, then its only value is what people perceive it to be which leaves it open to massive value fluctuations. That works against the fundamental purpose of a currency, which is stability. The weird thing about bitcoin is you have to invest massive amounts of real money to mine it, so you spend real money to get something with no intrinsic value.
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Old 03-22-2018, 10:16 AM   #343
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I am genuinely trying to remain open on this, so this is not a loaded question:

How are the extremely volatile price changes that all of these cryptocurrencies have experienced in the past few years any different than the bolded above? Sure, I could imagine people in the countries you listed got screwed. How is that any different than them putting their savings in bitcoin 3 months ago only to see the value collapse? What am I missing here?
Prices will eventually stabilize as more and more people adopt it. Today Bitcoin has the largest market cap of any other crypto by far at $145B. It sounds like a lot but that's nothing for a currency.

Here's a great visualization of it for scale: http://money.visualcapitalist.com/wo...lization-2017/

For people getting screwed by their government today, the great thing is they now have a choice of currency. This was never possible before. If you think the Venezuelan fiat currency is better than crypto then you don't need to use crypto. If you think bitcoin or ethereum is more stable right now, you can put some of your money into them.

You might be willing to roll the dice when you're experiencing hyperinflation like this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...40-000-percent


Adoption will be faster than a lot of people expect too. Bitcoin was invented 9 years ago, but the big money has only recently entered the market and unlike most new technology the infrastructure for crypto is already built (the internet).
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Old 03-22-2018, 10:17 AM   #344
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If you don't have a currency backed by something, then its only value is what people perceive it to be which leaves it open to massive value fluctuations. That works against the fundamental purpose of a currency, which is stability. The weird thing about bitcoin is you have to invest massive amounts of real money to mine it, so you spend real money to get something with no intrinsic value.
Is "full faith and credit of the us government" really something? Or is the purchasing value of a dollar what backs it? I think the real value with bitcoin is its acceptance by governments. Will it be allowed to trade in place of all government currency?
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Old 03-22-2018, 10:27 AM   #345
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If you don't have a currency backed by something, then its only value is what people perceive it to be which leaves it open to massive value fluctuations. That works against the fundamental purpose of a currency, which is stability. The weird thing about bitcoin is you have to invest massive amounts of real money to mine it, so you spend real money to get something with no intrinsic value.
"Mining coins" is actually a really poor metaphor for what is actually going on, because it suggests you're just putting in a lot of work to find a new coin.

What these computers/nodes are doing is maintaining the public ledger and verifying new transactions to make sure they are not fraudulant and getting a reward for doing so.

The way bitcoin does it with their proof of work algorithm is really inefficient, but one could argue that what it's doing is still valuable.
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Old 03-22-2018, 10:45 AM   #346
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"Mining coins" is actually a really poor metaphor for what is actually going on, because it suggests you're just putting in a lot of work to find a new coin.

What these computers/nodes are doing is maintaining the public ledger and verifying new transactions to make sure they are not fraudulant and getting a reward for doing so.

The way bitcoin does it with their proof of work algorithm is really inefficient, but one could argue that what it's doing is still valuable.
Yeah I think that's part of the problem. Once things switch to Proof of Stake (or something other than Proof of Work), the work required from computers should drop significantly.

Right now the mining computers are working harder (and consuming a lot of electricity) to solve algorithms to earn currency. If they were only maintaining the ledger the energy usage would drop. To become a useful currency, we need to move away from Proof of Work.
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Old 03-22-2018, 10:46 AM   #347
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ALL new technology creates bubbles. That's just how markets work;
No, it isn't. To make but one example, did the development of smart phones create a smart phone bubble? Were people hoarding iPhones and trading them on the markets hoping that one day they could convert them into villas and Porsches? Were dozens of smartphone startups sucking in investor cash and then spectacularly failing?

Further, 9 years into development can be "new" if you're working on fighter jets or medical pharmaceuticals, but nothing in infotech 9 years after first release can be characterized as new. New is not the same as unproven and useless for its avowed purpose.

As far as the instability of fiat currencies is concerned, crypto "solves" this problem with a deflationary model that is worse than the inflationary model it replaces. With a fixed supply of coins, any increase in economic activity stretches those coins, making each more valuable, and forcing prices, wages, and everything that is measured in coins to be devalued. With inflationary and elastic fiat currency, you can create debt to finance today what you'll pay for tomorrow, but this fundamental capitalist activity is simply impossible in the crypto model because there is no future money to borrow from - all the money that will ever be will already exist.

And that's just one of the many, many problems with deflation. How you deal with your paycheck declining year over year? Real estate prices continually falling? Hoarders who take money out of the economy to grow their wealth, thereby forcing further deflation and making hoarding even more attractive?

It's a high-tech version of taking the world back to using gold and silver as currency, except even more economically primitive, because at least you could dig up more gold and silver, so it was only partly inelastic in supply. Or you could debase the coinage. Or - so that modern economies based on freely moving capital become possible - move to currency which isn't supply limited. The kind we already have.
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Old 03-22-2018, 11:10 AM   #348
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No, it isn't. To make but one example, did the development of smart phones create a smart phone bubble? Were people hoarding iPhones and trading them on the markets hoping that one day they could convert them into villas and Porsches? Were dozens of smartphone startups sucking in investor cash and then spectacularly failing?
Go back and look at stock prices for phone manufacturers and related industries during that time. There most certainly were people pouring money investing in companies developing new tech in hopes of getting rich.

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Further, 9 years into development can be "new" if you're working on fighter jets or medical pharmaceuticals, but nothing in infotech 9 years after first release can be characterized as new. New is not the same as unproven and useless for its avowed purpose.
Let's ignore that big industry money has only recently come into the market. How many years did it take the internet to go from command-line text emails that took a week to send, to a grandma being able to send one instantly with one touch on her iPad?

If you're argument is that 9 years should be enough to completely change the way people use and think about money/value then I suggest you look at how long it took people to go from gold/silver coins to paper bills. Or paper bills to plastic credit/debit cards.

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As far as the instability of fiat currencies is concerned, crypto "solves" this problem with a deflationary model that is worse than the inflationary model it replaces. With a fixed supply of coins, any increase in economic activity stretches those coins, making each more valuable, and forcing prices, wages, and everything that is measured in coins to be devalued. With inflationary and elastic fiat currency, you can create debt to finance today what you'll pay for tomorrow, but this fundamental capitalist activity is simply impossible in the crypto model because there is no future money to borrow from - all the money that will ever be will already exist.

And that's just one of the many, many problems with deflation. How you deal with your paycheck declining year over year? Real estate prices continually falling? Hoarders who take money out of the economy to grow their wealth, thereby forcing further deflation and making hoarding even more attractive?

It's a high-tech version of taking the world back to using gold and silver as currency, except even more economically primitive, because at least you could dig up more gold and silver, so it was only partly inelastic in supply. Or you could debase the coinage. Or - so that modern economies based on freely moving capital become possible - move to currency which isn't supply limited. The kind we already have.
I don’t really know what you’re trying to say but I think it’s deflationary currency = bad.


Guess what? There are literally hundreds of cryptos that adopt an inflationary model. The great thing is that the rate of inflation is controlled by algorithms and not based on whatever some dictator or central government feels like doing to fix whatever problems they are having during their term.
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Old 03-22-2018, 11:10 AM   #349
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Prices will eventually stabilize as more and more people adopt it. Today Bitcoin has the largest market cap of any other crypto by far at $145B. It sounds like a lot but that's nothing for a currency.

Here's a great visualization of it for scale: http://money.visualcapitalist.com/wo...lization-2017/

For people getting screwed by their government today, the great thing is they now have a choice of currency. This was never possible before. If you think the Venezuelan fiat currency is better than crypto then you don't need to use crypto. If you think bitcoin or ethereum is more stable right now, you can put some of your money into them.

You might be willing to roll the dice when you're experiencing hyperinflation like this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...40-000-percent


Adoption will be faster than a lot of people expect too. Bitcoin was invented 9 years ago, but the big money has only recently entered the market and unlike most new technology the infrastructure for crypto is already built (the internet).
So it is a better option than the rare circumstances when a country experiences hyperinflation? That's the business model? "If your entire country goes bonkers economically, bitcoin is marginally less crappy!"

And even though you argue that prices will stabilize in the long run, won't they still be vulnerable to the whims of governments? If the Chinese say "no more bitcoin, only dogecoin" that would have a pretty large impact on both of those currencies. And really, is that any different than the Venezuela problem?
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Old 03-22-2018, 11:20 AM   #350
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It is a really big problem with cryptocurrencies. If a government says "no more bitcoin" and you have a load of money in it, suddenly the value could plunge. You are still at the whim of your government, just in a different way.
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Old 03-22-2018, 02:13 PM   #351
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Just looking for a concrete example:

Has anyone on this site (not friend of a friend or a news report) been able to extract any actual money from a cryptocurrency?

If so, how did you do it? An online exchange to a Canadian or American bank?
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Old 03-22-2018, 02:18 PM   #352
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Just looking for a concrete example:

Has anyone on this site (not friend of a friend or a news report) been able to extract any actual money from a cryptocurrency?

If so, how did you do it? An online exchange to a Canadian or American bank?
Yes. Transfer from an exchange to my bank account.
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Old 03-22-2018, 02:49 PM   #353
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Just looking for a concrete example:

Has anyone on this site (not friend of a friend or a news report) been able to extract any actual money from a cryptocurrency?

If so, how did you do it? An online exchange to a Canadian or American bank?
Yes, transferred Litecoins that I mined to coinsquare.io, sold them for $CDN, transferred the $CDN to my bank account.
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Old 03-22-2018, 04:01 PM   #354
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There are also Bitcoin ATM's everywhere now (Crazy fee mind you)

My no-name corner store has one....
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Old 03-27-2018, 12:27 PM   #355
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https://globalnews.ca/news/4090875/1...a-quadriga-cx/

It seemed like an easy and relatively low-risk way to make a hefty profit. So the couple sent a $100,000 wire transfer to Vancouver-based cryptocurrency exchange Quadriga CX on Jan. 9.

That’s when their money seemingly vanished into thin air.

“I just want my money back,” Yi told Global News via telephone on March 16. Over two months had passed, and the couple still had no idea where the funds had gone.

The issue seems to be only in part due to customer service problems at Quadriga, which is one of Canada’s two established cyrptocurrency exchanges, along with Toronto-based Coinsquare.

Quadriga CEO Cotten said the company decided to do away with phone support because “there were far too many people calling who wanted us to teach them about Bitcoin.”

In general, having customers calling doesn’t work well when dealing with cryptocurrency transactions, he added.

Asadullah Baryar, a criminology student at York University in Toronto, said he tried to transfer $1,064 from his bank account to his Quadriga account via two electronic funds transfers (EFTs) on Jan. 8 but is still waiting for the funds to land.
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Old 03-27-2018, 12:30 PM   #356
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https://globalnews.ca/news/4090875/1...a-quadriga-cx/

It seemed like an easy and relatively low-risk way to make a hefty profit. So the couple sent a $100,000 wire transfer to Vancouver-based cryptocurrency exchange Quadriga CX on Jan. 9.

That’s when their money seemingly vanished into thin air.

“I just want my money back,” Yi told Global News via telephone on March 16. Over two months had passed, and the couple still had no idea where the funds had gone.

The issue seems to be only in part due to customer service problems at Quadriga, which is one of Canada’s two established cyrptocurrency exchanges, along with Toronto-based Coinsquare.

Quadriga CEO Cotten said the company decided to do away with phone support because “there were far too many people calling who wanted us to teach them about Bitcoin.”

In general, having customers calling doesn’t work well when dealing with cryptocurrency transactions, he added.

Asadullah Baryar, a criminology student at York University in Toronto, said he tried to transfer $1,064 from his bank account to his Quadriga account via two electronic funds transfers (EFTs) on Jan. 8 but is still waiting for the funds to land.
This seems like a pretty pertinent part of the article to include:

The wire wasn’t processed because the couple had sent the wire from a Toronto-Dominion (TD) bank account in Kim’s name, which didn’t match the recipient account, which was in Yi’s name, Quadriga CEO Gerald Cotten told Global News.
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Old 03-27-2018, 12:57 PM   #357
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https://globalnews.ca/news/4090875/1...a-quadriga-cx/

It seemed like an easy and relatively low-risk way to make a hefty profit. So the couple sent a $100,000 wire transfer to Vancouver-based cryptocurrency exchange Quadriga CX on Jan. 9.

That’s when their money seemingly vanished into thin air.
45% of the value of bitcoin has "vanished into thin air" since January 9. They should count themselves lucky. If they eventually get all their money back, it'll almost be like getting a double on their investment.
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Old 03-28-2018, 04:13 PM   #358
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Also when a 50% arbitrage opportunity exists it's likely difficult to take advantage of becuase it exists.
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Old 04-11-2018, 12:50 PM   #359
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A closed-down coal plant in Australia's Hunter Valley, about a two-hour drive north of Sydney, is reopening in order to provide inexpensive power for Bitcoin miners. A tech company called IOT Group has partnered with the local power company to revive the power plant and set up cryptocurrency mining operations, called a Blockchain Operations Centre, inside it. This would give the group direct access to energy at wholesale prices.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/11/...rrency-miners/

So now they are reviving a coal plant to mine Bitcoin. Gee, good thing we are shooting ourselves in the face to limit CO2 so this can happen...Where are all the protesters?
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Old 04-11-2018, 07:20 PM   #360
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So my best friend in Iceland is determined to buy some BTC.

So should I tell him to buy at this price, I am weary, or go with ETFs..?

Anyone have any recommendations.
I think your friend could buy GBTC tomorrow if it opens higher. I mean, why not right? We were looking at twenty bucks a month and a half ago. Buy the first good move above $11.50 now.
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