(08-18-2015 11:13 PM)yolo Wrote:  @JJG

I honestly think this was just a mess up at Bitfinex, coupled with some uncertain events, a deadly potion. I don't see the dumping continuing, but again these are just predictions, nobody truly knows. I see the damages recovering, and Bitfinex risking losing its strong competitive position. That's not to say that Bitcoin at-large may be at a down trend, but I at least anticipate some recovery from yesterday's significant price drop.

On random thought, I gotta wait a month for my check to clear for this year's Roth 401k contribution. Will have a few extra grand set aside as retirement funds towards my crypto portfolio. If crypto exists by my age of 59, I'll be able to cash out those crypto holdings completely tax free. Might not be a bad time to get into more BTC, or I'm also eyeing some Ether, too.

What will crypto look like in 2050? Will it exist as Bitcoin, as something else completely, or the whole crypto movement will die altogether due to technical infeasibility? Deep stuff.

That's truly some long term thinking, and nothing wrong with that. Even if you feel like you are frontloading in crypto at the moment, you certainly are NOT locked in because a lot of tax deferred investments allow for reallocation of portfolio , in the event that you judge any such reallocation to be a prudent course of action.

I hope to be as bullish as anyone in the bitcoin scene; however, when I see downward price movements, such as the ones that we have seen in the past few weeks, including todays downward price pressures, I get the sense that the downward movement is NOT over... accordingly, there a quite a few holders of bitcoin that want to purposefully push down the price, and accordingly, at this time, there seems to be an atmosphere of "blood in the water," and they are NOT going to be able to resist putting additional and extensive pressures attempting to push the price further downward.

I have NO real idea regarding how successful they are going to be or whether there is enough fiat holders on the various exchanges in order to be able to buy up the dumped coins and to keep the price up (or prevent the price from going too far down).

I get the sense that this extended downward pressure potentially continued downward movement, is NOT really good for bitcoin, because really prices should be floating in the $500 or $600s, and really $1000+ would be more meaningful in order to sustain a $14 bilion-ish marketcap (rather than the measly $3billion of the current BTC marketcap).

O.k...

Even though I am saying all of these bearish things, I am engaged in my ongoing practice of NOT selling, and I am HOLDING and looking for opportunities to buy more.. to the extent that I have enough fiat to make such purchases.

In other words, at the moment, I am suffering through a form of grinning and bearing it.. and hoping that downward price movement is NOT to significant and NOT too sustained... another way of saying that I am so uncertain, that I am too scared to sell, in the event that the price does NOT go further down.... and trends back upward... though could be a week or two in these price arenas before we know whether the forking issue is sufficiently resolved....

Got an email from an exchange linking to XTnodes.com, showing 827 out of 6572 (about 12%) nodes supporting XT. Is 6572 nodes really the maximum? Also, if two exchanges decide to go with XT and two others decide to go with Core, does that mean that the person will have both bitcoin XT and bitcoin core when they separate?

This is going to get interesting.

(08-19-2015 11:39 AM)SunW Wrote:  Got an email from an exchange linking to XTnodes.com, showing 827 out of 6572 (about 12%) nodes supporting XT. Is 6572 nodes really the maximum? Also, if two exchanges decide to go with XT and two others decide to go with Core, does that mean that the person will have both bitcoin XT and bitcoin core when they separate?

This is going to get interesting.

SunW:

It seems as if you are phrasing this matter in a way that is much more convoluted and mysterious than necessary.

Yes, a big danger of two forks is possibilities of double spends taking place, yet regular people are NOT going to get two coins for their one coin out of the deal, except for possibly for some flukes on the margin and any transition from a minority fork to a majority fork.

In that regard, if their are two forks, one majority and one minority, then the minority fork, in order to maintain legitimacy during any potential transfer, is forced to recognize all and every transaction of the majority fork, until (and if) it becomes the majority fork, then at that point, if it becomes a majority for, then it no longer needs to recognize transactions on the other fork (the ex majority fork).

So, yes, there remains some ongoing uncertainties in the forking matter, and some of the questions regarding whether there involves any governmental conspiracies in the proposition and implementation of any new fork.

Uncertainties in any market causes downward price pressures, including the coming out of the woodworks of those people who want to further manipulate downward during such uncertain times in order to potentially cause additional profits for themselves, in the event that they are successfully able to employ measures to successfully cause additional downward and predictable downward price movements.

I shouldn't leave out the ones that really want bitcoin to fail, who are also involved in such employment of downward pressures. So, there exist both market manipulators who want to profit, and market manipulators who would like to cause bitcoin to fail.

In any event, the double spend problem is NOT really as big of a potential problem as it seems to be made out to be by you, SunW, or in other discussions of dual forking perplexities.

That's actually not what I was asking, and I was not implying anything.

The question is if a person has, let's say 10 bitcoins on both the itBit and btc-e exchanges and the itBit exchange goes with the XT version, while the btc-e exchange goes with the Core version, then the person has 10 XT bitcoins on itBit and 10 core bitcoins on btc-e?

The email I received was saying "we support XT" which indicates that they are going to be going with the XT version, unless they decide later to not go with it (due to lack of support).

Somewhat related to XT, ZH thinks that gold and silver are the current winners at this point in China, based on what's happening there with their currency. I had wondered why bitcoin didn't rise after the devaluation.

(08-19-2015 02:59 PM)SunW Wrote:  That's actually not what I was asking, and I was not implying anything.

The question is if a person has, let's say 10 bitcoins on both the itBit and btc-e exchanges and the itBit exchange goes with the XT version, while the btc-e exchange goes with the Core version, then the person has 10 XT bitcoins on itBit and 10 core bitcoins on btc-e?

The email I received was saying "we support XT" which indicates that they are going to be going with the XT version, unless they decide later to not go with it (due to lack of support).

Somewhat related to XT, ZH thinks that gold and silver are the current winners at this point in China, based on what's happening there with their currency. I had wondered why bitcoin didn't rise after the devaluation.

I believe that my earlier post addressed the issue that you raised, without asserting that you were saying anything more or anything less than what you had said.

In that respect, you can speak for yourself, without me attempting to attribute anything to your words...... Your words are what they are.



Back to the point. Maybe I am repeating myself, and I think that the point of my earlier post stands.

You cannot just opt for which blockchain that you are going to recognize and to ignore the other blockchain.... that is part of the whole point about decentralization and a peer to peer trustless system... it is majority rules the system... Accordingly, like I said, even if various people are asserting that they are going with or they are supporting some kind of minority chain (XT in this case), they remain forced into the situation in which they have to recognize the majority chain (bitcoin core), until they become the majority (that is if they ever become the majority).

In your example, your 10 BTC on ITbit and your 10BTC on BTCe are being recognized by both chains (but at this point in time, they only one that really matters for value preservation and transmission purposes is the majority chain, which is bitcoin core).. and the minority chain (XT) has to recognize the majority's recognition of those 10 BTC...

Who gives a flying fuck whether ITbit is saying that they are supporting XT BTC - because the 10 BTC that you have on ITbit are only legitimate so long as they are being recognized on the bitcoin core (the majority chain, while bitcoin core remains THE majority chain... and I would assert that 88%-ish remains at this point in time THE one and only majority chain, no?)

In other words, at any given point in time, there is only one majority chain, and the main questions regarding which one is majority only begins to take place during a transition.. at points in time in which it could be unclear which one is the majority. At this point in time, it is pretty fricken clear that 88% is a majority, but when (or if) we start to see 50%-ish, then it could become a bit more unclear, unless the transition is cleared and agreed to..... .. much easier to hand it over from minority to majority if there is momentum and agreement rather than potential or ongoing hostilities between the minority and the majority.

In recent days, I have been reconsidering my overall finances in the short and medium terms, which certainly relates to considerations about my bitcoin investment exposures.

In essence, for about the past year, I have known that I had some cashflow issues coming due in this period, mid-to-late 2015, and by now, I had considered that I would have been able to cash out some of my BTC in order to meet some of my upcoming financial obligations. In that regard, I believed that there was a pretty good chance that prices would be much higher than they currently are ($400s or greater.. maybe even $500s or more).

In any event, currently, I am unwilling to cash out any of my BTC at these prices in order to meet some of my pressing cash flow obligations.... call me stubborn. I have to do some juggling and reconsidering of other financial areas in which I can extract cash.

Accordingly, at this point, I have tentatively mapped out quite a bit of my anticipated cash flow, more or less, for the next 16 months, and my tentative plan continues to be to keep dollar cost averaging into BTC, without selling any coins, in the short term, at least NOT the next several months absent some kind of unsustainable upward BTC price spike ....

Actually, last night, I had a dream about such a upward BTC price spike, and the price went up to $3,000 during such dream. I kept trying to sell part of my holdings through Circle, but I kept receiving return messages that the transaction was NOT going through. Such dream taught me that if such an upward price spike were to occur, I would be better off using Coinbase because their sell limits are much higher than Circle. In this regard, we gotta be prepared for anything in Bitcoinlandia.

NO, I do NOT have any tax deferred plans regarding BTC, at this time, like what Yolo mentioned, because that would require considerable additional efforts from me to figure out such a plan and preparations.

I certainly thought that BTC prices would be at a different (higher) place by now, and we will see what happens in the next year and a half or so...

I continue to have considerable confidence in BTC in the long term, yet the reality of the matter is that each of us has got to simultaneously plan for the short, medium and long terms, if we are truly attempting to be responsible concerning our own financial futures.... and there remains a need to maintain some diversification for a variety of possibilities....

(08-19-2015 04:27 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  You cannot just opt for which blockchain that you are going to recognize and to ignore the other blockchain.... that is part of the whole point about decentralization and a peer to peer trustless system... it is majority rules the system... Accordingly, like I said, even if various people are asserting that they are going with or they are supporting some kind of minority chain (XT in this case), they remain forced into the situation in which they have to recognize the majority chain (bitcoin core), until they become the majority (that is if they ever become the majority).

Bitcoin is a "hard consensus" system. In the event XTCoin seems like it might fork off from Bitcoin what you want to do is not have any coins at all on an exchange. You want them at an address you have sole possesion of the keys to. For some time arbitrage between the chains could be a very profitable opportunity for the adventurous. For miners keeping the minority chain alive could also be very profitably if they believe in the minority chains chances of long term success.

I actually kinda hope XTCoin forks away from Bitcoin so I can take part in burying it for great profit and socialist tears.

(08-19-2015 02:59 PM)SunW Wrote:  That's actually not what I was asking, and I was not implying anything.

The question is if a person has, let's say 10 bitcoins on both the itBit and btc-e exchanges and the itBit exchange goes with the XT version, while the btc-e exchange goes with the Core version, then the person has 10 XT bitcoins on itBit and 10 core bitcoins on btc-e?

The email I received was saying "we support XT" which indicates that they are going to be going with the XT version, unless they decide later to not go with it (due to lack of support).

Somewhat related to XT, ZH thinks that gold and silver are the current winners at this point in China, based on what's happening there with their currency. I had wondered why bitcoin didn't rise after the devaluation.

You absolutely don't want you coins in the hands of a third party during a fork event like this should it actually come to pass. At the point they declare they are considering only one chain legitimate they could taint coins they hold with coinbase outputs from the chain they consider illegitimate and dump them on the other chain in a sort of economic attack. If you don't agree with an exchange's position of a fork, fear they could change their mind, or they aren't talking about plans what you want is your balance stored on a wallet you have sole control over.

(08-20-2015 08:19 PM)BBinger Wrote:  

(08-19-2015 04:27 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  You cannot just opt for which blockchain that you are going to recognize and to ignore the other blockchain.... that is part of the whole point about decentralization and a peer to peer trustless system... it is majority rules the system... Accordingly, like I said, even if various people are asserting that they are going with or they are supporting some kind of minority chain (XT in this case), they remain forced into the situation in which they have to recognize the majority chain (bitcoin core), until they become the majority (that is if they ever become the majority).

Bitcoin is a "hard consensus" system. In the event XTCoin seems like it might fork off from Bitcoin what you want to do is not have any coins at all on an exchange. You want them at an address you have sole possesion of the keys to. For some time arbitrage between the chains could be a very profitable opportunity for the adventurous. For miners keeping the minority chain alive could also be very profitably if they believe in the minority chains chances of long term success.

I actually kinda hope XTCoin forks away from Bitcoin so I can take part in burying it for great profit and socialist tears.

I believe that I mostly understand your point about keeping control over your private keys and control over your bitcoin, rather than leaving such control to various third parties.

However, I am struggling to consider the level of my disagreement.

Let me see whether I can adequately express my thoughts, here.

We both agree about this concept of a forced consensus; however, I believe that you are giving too much mal-integrity and malicious intentions to those who would be becoming losers in the fork battle.

In fact, I believe that neither side would employ such tactics as strong as what you are suggesting in order to attempt economic sabotage on the other side. Surely, I could see bad players attempting to take advantage of situations in order to rob others; however, in the end, there are a lot of big players who want to maintain and retain credibility, NO MATTER WHICH of the forks is the winner.... surely, there could be questions about whether there is sufficient momentum to become majority and also questions about whether a minority player has enough momentum or solid technicals in order to keep the majority status, once and if majority status is gained.

In other words, I doubt that there is as much risk as you are making it out to be regarding the location of your coins, especially, if you are dealing with some of the more established players, such as Coinbase or Circle or Stamp or BTC-e - surely there would be opportunity for any one of them to engage in shenanigans, but I place the risk at a lower level than you do, BBinger.

Regarding your point about arbitrage and/or finding profit opportunities, you are likely much more knowledgable, skilled and/or adventurous in those regards... Surely, for those individuals able to identify price differentials and with skills and or systems set up to take advantage, there will be arbitrage opportunities during times of volatility (and risks concerning whether a guy is betting in the correct price movement direction).

(08-20-2015 08:23 PM)BBinger Wrote:  

(08-19-2015 02:59 PM)SunW Wrote:  That's actually not what I was asking, and I was not implying anything.

The question is if a person has, let's say 10 bitcoins on both the itBit and btc-e exchanges and the itBit exchange goes with the XT version, while the btc-e exchange goes with the Core version, then the person has 10 XT bitcoins on itBit and 10 core bitcoins on btc-e?

The email I received was saying "we support XT" which indicates that they are going to be going with the XT version, unless they decide later to not go with it (due to lack of support).

Somewhat related to XT, ZH thinks that gold and silver are the current winners at this point in China, based on what's happening there with their currency. I had wondered why bitcoin didn't rise after the devaluation.

You absolutely don't want you coins in the hands of a third party during a fork event like this should it actually come to pass. At the point they declare they are considering only one chain legitimate they could taint coins they hold with coinbase outputs from the chain they consider illegitimate and dump them on the other chain in a sort of economic attack. If you don't agree with an exchange's position of a fork, fear they could change their mind, or they aren't talking about plans what you want is your balance stored on a wallet you have sole control over.

Actually, it seems that one of the bigger risks would be to be engaging in trading actions during the periods in which it is not very clear regarding which fork is the majority.... .because during such a transition, as you suggest there may be some transaction recognition issues... and for good reasons.

Another question comes to my thinking, and the question goes to the BTC doubters, who used to be bulls (such as Satoshi).

NOT that I am going to agree with Satoshi or attempt to enable him in his current bearish outlook, but it seems as if some guys like this are beginning to have a fairly high level of confidence (in their thinking and in their outlook that is somewhat reflected in their actions), and that is that they seem to be coming of the viewpoint that BTC is NO longer capable of another bubble. Look they seem to be thinking that we had our various bubbles, and that is it. Currently, there are beginning to be too many institutional and/or governmental actors that are going to prevent future bubbles and that these institutional players and/or governmental actors have the means and abilities to prevent such future bubbles from occurring and that they have the means, abilities and motivations to continue to drive bitcoin into the ground.

That kind of thinking seems to be what contributes to (ex-bulls) and evolving bears to be disinvesting from BTC... because they have lost hope regarding the ability of BTC to have another meaningful bubble..and that there are more hopes in other cryptos because those other cryptos do NOT have as much governmental and/or institutional scrutiny.

Regarding these thoughts of ex-bulls, I get the sense that they are being convinced (and possibly even brainwashed) by some of the alt-coin propagandists who are wanting them to come over to their coins (the likes of ethereum, monero, safemaid, etc). You know that part of the propaganda of some of these major alts is that they are a better investment because they are the BTC 2.0 or 3.0 and bitcoin is too much in the limelight to have another bubble... and no major player is going to allow such another bubble.

I continue ponder over this kind of thinking, but really, I remain unconvinced regarding either the technical or the financial abilities of mainstream financial / governmental institutions to be able to prevent the momentum of bitcoin... once it returns to the bull price direction....

Probably one of the most effective ways would be able to engage in a sort of fractional reserve imitations of bitcoin.. in order to attempt to reflect larger holdings of BTC than actually exist... .. yet in the end, I think that there are going to be some difficulties in tricking the peer to peer systems into such fractional reserves.. .and in that regard, real bitcoins are going to prevail to cause unstoppable upward price pressures.. and in that regard, there has got to be at least one or two more bubbles in the next 5 years or so.... ..

(08-20-2015 08:50 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  We both agree about this concept of a forced consensus; however, I believe that you are giving too much mal-integrity and malicious intentions to those who would be becoming losers in the fork battle.

In fact, I believe that neither side would employ such tactics as strong as what you are suggesting in order to attempt economic sabotage on the other side. Surely, I could see bad players attempting to take advantage of situations in order to rob others; however, in the end, there are a lot of big players who want to maintain and retain credibility, NO MATTER WHICH of the forks is the winner.... surely, there could be questions about whether there is sufficient momentum to become majority and also questions about whether a minority player has enough momentum or solid technicals in order to keep the majority status, once and if majority status is gained.

In other words, I doubt that there is as much risk as you are making it out to be regarding the location of your coins, especially, if you are dealing with some of the more established players, such as Coinbase or Circle or Stamp or BTC-e - surely there would be opportunity for any one of them to engage in shenanigans, but I place the risk at a lower level than you do, BBinger.

On a technical level I can not stress enough how far XT diverges from what bitcoin is, especially once blocks get larger than 8 MB. If governments wash money into certain exchanges to prop up XTCoin long enough to make it to the second blocksize increase we get to blocksizes that most commercially available home computers won't be able to verify at a rate that keeps up with the blockchain. At 32 MB blocks there is serious node centralization. From there it is game over for the XT fork resembling the value proposition Bitcoin presented. Keeping the thing alive would be expensive, but given that this leads to a slow boil for the people who buy into this ending up with a shittier version of PayPal there is an incentive for fiat interests to burn what they have on making this happen.

On the economic side this is a very contentious issue and this being a fight for the soul of Bitcoin means it is not at all unlikely ventures supporting the XT exponential blocksize growth like Coinbase and Circle try to dump user funds from the chain they don't support in an effort to economically suppress it. On the otherside Mircea Popescu and MPEx are going to use six figure amounts of coins in sustained economic attacks against XT or any other hardfork that does not have actual consensus. You truly don't want you coins in the hands of a combatant in this battle unless you are comfortable that you are on the winning side. Otherwise paper wallet are a thing.

(08-20-2015 08:53 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Actually, it seems that one of the bigger risks would be to be engaging in trading actions during the periods in which it is not very clear regarding which fork is the majority.... .because during such a transition, as you suggest there may be some transaction recognition issues... and for good reasons.

This is why you need to start planning now and making a decision. Are you going to take time to understand nuances necessary to make trades that maximize your holding on the chain you want or believe will win? If so get to reading, planning, and looking for people who might operate services that would give access to these markets. Otherwise plan on sitting out or transacting very carefully.

If this fork happens winning could be decided in hours or it could be decided in years.

(08-20-2015 09:12 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Another question comes to my thinking, and the question goes to the BTC doubters, who used to be bulls (such as Satoshi).

NOT that I am going to agree with Satoshi or attempt to enable him in his current bearish outlook, but it seems as if some guys like this are beginning to have a fairly high level of confidence (in their thinking and in their outlook that is somewhat reflected in their actions), and that is that they seem to be coming of the viewpoint that BTC is NO longer capable of another bubble. Look they seem to be thinking that we had our various bubbles, and that is it. Currently, there are beginning to be too many institutional and/or governmental actors that are going to prevent future bubbles and that these institutional players and/or governmental actors have the means and abilities to prevent such future bubbles from occurring and that they have the means, abilities and motivations to continue to drive bitcoin into the ground.

That kind of thinking seems to be what contributes to (ex-bulls) and evolving bears to be disinvesting from BTC... because they have lost hope regarding the ability of BTC to have another meaningful bubble..and that there are more hopes in other cryptos because those other cryptos do NOT have as much governmental and/or institutional scrutiny.

Regarding these thoughts of ex-bulls, I get the sense that they are being convinced (and possibly even brainwashed) by some of the alt-coin propagandists who are wanting them to come over to their coins (the likes of ethereum, monero, safemaid, etc). You know that part of the propaganda of some of these major alts is that they are a better investment because they are the BTC 2.0 or 3.0 and bitcoin is too much in the limelight to have another bubble... and no major player is going to allow such another bubble.

I continue ponder over this kind of thinking, but really, I remain unconvinced regarding either the technical or the financial abilities of mainstream financial / governmental institutions to be able to prevent the momentum of bitcoin... once it returns to the bull price direction....

Probably one of the most effective ways would be able to engage in a sort of fractional reserve imitations of bitcoin.. in order to attempt to reflect larger holdings of BTC than actually exist... .. yet in the end, I think that there are going to be some difficulties in tricking the peer to peer systems into such fractional reserves.. .and in that regard, real bitcoins are going to prevail to cause unstoppable upward price pressures.. and in that regard, there has got to be at least one or two more bubbles in the next 5 years or so.... ..

Monero is as close as anything in the altcoin crop seems to being promising. Ethereum is probably the worst in that it goes from being merely a stupid fundraising waste to outright dangerous to users. Bitcoin not having a turing complete scripting language in its transactions is a positive. If Etherium were to actually get economic traction I'd expect various malware to be permanently embedded in its blockchain as transactions. Also the 10 second mean blockchain means Ethereum mining is essentially centralized forever.

I honestly don't know if I've been this excited about Bitcoin since November 2013. If Hearn's XTCoin fork gets triggered, actual Bitcoin persisting after that would be the biggest win. I will happily take a couple more years of cheap coins and eat my popcorn salted with the tears of socialism.

Bitcoin wasn't as mainstream as it is now during a financial crisis (since bitcoin started in January 2009, it was on the tail end of a financial crisis, yet wasn't used as much). Many emerging markets have entered bear markets (good), commodities are falling off a cliff, and the next six to twelve months will tell us a lot about bitcoin and how the market sees it.

We'll also have some great opportunities to buy quite a few different things in the next few years.

(08-22-2015 06:48 AM)SunW Wrote:  Bitcoin wasn't as mainstream as it is now during a financial crisis (since bitcoin started in January 2009, it was on the tail end of a financial crisis, yet wasn't used as much).

Overall your comment seems to be amorphous and nonspecific.

Hardly anyone knew about Bitcoin in 2009 - and even if they knew about it between 2009 and 2012... really there were hardly any reasonable means to obtain it without jumping through a zillion hoops.

in 2012 and 2013, bitcoin became much better known, and there began to develop more means for regular people to invest in it - yet still NOT too easy for regular people.

2014 and 2015 - increased mainstream adoption, more means to easily and inexpensively get into it, with increased means for liquidity... .. but still a remains a bit of a mystery for a lot of people.. and maybe only about 1% of the world knows about it - with higher percentages of people knowing in parts where the internet is more established.

(08-22-2015 06:48 AM)SunW Wrote:  Many emerging markets have entered bear markets (good), commodities are falling off a cliff, and the next six to twelve months will tell us a lot about bitcoin and how the market sees it.

We'll also have some great opportunities to buy quite a few different things in the next few years.

Maybe you can describe some of this more specifically, about which investments you are considering? Surely, you have some in mind, but would be interesting for you to at least specify, even though this is supposed to be a thread about bitcoin - and really, in the end our discussion should be more connected to things related to bitcoin, instead of getting into some tangential discussion about the goods and bads of other investments that could be explored in other threads (including possibly a new thread of your own making, since you seem to be enthralled by such a topic of such potential "other" investment opportunities).

I write about financial topics in this thread since bitcoin is a financial instrument; if people don't like other instruments, there's an ignore button they can use.

Articles like this provide examples of why some people don't understand bitcoin, or are being misled about bitcoin ("Bitcoin CEO's arrest leaves trail of unanswered questions"). Bitcoin doesn't have a CEO; "MtGox's CEO, founder of one bitcoin exchange, arrest leaves trial of unanswered questions" would be a more accurate title.

This comment nails it:

Quote:Um. Bitcoin doesn't have a CEO. This exchange was a known problem for bitcoin and it was shady as hell. People who lost their money should have known better when one exchange fluctuates wildly compared to the others, something is not right. Putting "Bitcoins CEO" in the headline is like having "the Internets CEO" in a headline. Hey everybody! If you see either of those headlines you should laugh at the moron who wrote it and just close the page. MT Gox going down was good for Bitcoin IMO and this article is trash.

(08-20-2015 09:12 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Another question comes to my thinking, and the question goes to the BTC doubters, who used to be bulls (such as Satoshi).
....

I don't consider myself brainwashed that something else will do better than bitcoin. A lot of things have happen since I bought my first bitcoin and it's not what it once was. Before it was the only thing in of it's kind. Now there is several other platforms already developed or in the developing stage with major advantages. This do makes the flaws of bitcoin look even bigger. How much electricity is wasted each day for the purpose of keeping the bitcoin network running? I don't know, but it's a lot and it could be used for more useful things. As for all the rambling about governments and financial institutions trying to destroy bitcoin, I don't think so.

(08-23-2015 05:15 PM)SunW Wrote:  I write about financial topics in this thread since bitcoin is a financial instrument; if people don't like other instruments, there's an ignore button they can use.

Falling off topic can also be labelled as trolling, depending on the extent to which a poster deviates from the topic of the thread.

This thread happens to be about matters bitcoin related, NOT matters financial instruments related, so my earlier point stands.

Other crypto currencies are more closely related to bitcoin than discussions about a variety of financial instruments that may or may not be exactly related to bitcoin, which in part brings me back to my earlier question requesting that you, SunW, specify some of your earlier points related to other upcoming investments, that you so vaguely referred to, as if we are meant to understand about what you are referring, when you are potentially more informed about to what it is that you are referring, exactly.

(08-23-2015 05:15 PM)SunW Wrote:  Articles like this provide examples of why some people don't understand bitcoin, or are being misled about bitcoin ("Bitcoin CEO's arrest leaves trail of unanswered questions"). Bitcoin doesn't have a CEO; "MtGox's CEO, founder of one bitcoin exchange, arrest leaves trial of unanswered questions" would be a more accurate title.

This comment nails it:

Quote:Um. Bitcoin doesn't have a CEO. This exchange was a known problem for bitcoin and it was shady as hell. People who lost their money should have known better when one exchange fluctuates wildly compared to the others, something is not right. Putting "Bitcoins CEO" in the headline is like having "the Internets CEO" in a headline. Hey everybody! If you see either of those headlines you should laugh at the moron who wrote it and just close the page. MT Gox going down was good for Bitcoin IMO and this article is trash.

It seems that an underlying theme of a lot of the discussion within this thread has referred to mainstream media's various ongoing misrepresentations - of the world of bitcoin. So, in that regard, SunW, you do NOT really seem to be making any new point... even though the point is certainly valid, that the mainstream media gets a lot of facts really wrong regarding bitcoin, and sometimes it may even seem to be the case that some of the misrepresentations may be purposeful in order to actually cause people to be filled with fear, uncertainty and doubt in connection with bitcoin related matters.

(08-23-2015 07:46 PM)Satoshi Wrote:  

(08-20-2015 09:12 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Another question comes to my thinking, and the question goes to the BTC doubters, who used to be bulls (such as Satoshi).
....

I don't consider myself brainwashed that something else will do better than bitcoin. A lot of things have happen since I bought my first bitcoin and it's not what it once was. Before it was the only thing in of it's kind. Now there is several other platforms already developed or in the developing stage with major advantages. This do makes the flaws of bitcoin look even bigger. How much electricity is wasted each day for the purpose of keeping the bitcoin network running? I don't know, but it's a lot and it could be used for more useful things. As for all the rambling about governments and financial institutions trying to destroy bitcoin, I don't think so.

I appreciate your further elaborations regarding your current thinking.

In my earlier post, referred to above in your post, surely, I was referring to people like you and in situations like you and attempting to provide some explanation for some of the thinking, potential motivations and influencing factors for some members of the group.

At the same time, I did NOT intend to attempt to specifically put any words into your mouth or to specifically generalize concerning your specific thought process at the moment, even though I was also attempting to refer to certain kinds of people who are becoming disenchanted with bitcoin. Anyhow, thanks for providing some of your additional thoughts.

Regarding bitcoin's price pressures at this moment of my posting, we are seeing quite a bit downward price pressure with prices mostly floating in the upper 220's all day, but within the past 2 hours or so, a lot of coins dumped on several exchanges that has brought prices hovering in the $222 arena for the past 90 minutes or so.

It will be curious to see whether prices are pushed below $220, and if so for how long. It has always been the case that it is much easier to move bitcoins around as compared with fiat, and in that regard, people can quickly send a whole hell of a lot of bitcoins to an exchange in order to attempt to drive down the price (kind of hit and run). It is much more difficult to engage in such conduct with Fiat because of difficulties in moving fiat.. and also, quite a few people become nervous to leave too much fiat on any exchanges for too long of a period of time.

Anyone buying or selling in the past couple of days?

(08-25-2015 01:02 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Anyone buying or selling in the past couple of days?

When it hits a certain low number, yes.

'baller

(08-25-2015 08:04 PM)lowbudgetballer Wrote:  

(08-25-2015 01:02 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Anyone buying or selling in the past couple of days?

When it hits a certain low number, yes.

'baller

I doubt that very many people are reading this thread, at least sufficient to care about what your "certain low number" is. hahahahaha

However, I am kind of in agreement that I do NOT exactly describe what I am going to do before I do it, except to the extent that I am nearly always buying... and that's NO real secret.


I do get the sense that there is going to be at least one more test of $200, but you can never know for sure when it comes to bitcoin prices. Yesterday, btc prices seemed to have been crashing along with fiat systems; however, I would have thought that BTC prices would have been somewhat opposite.. ... even though maybe in the short-term they will sometimes correlate rather than be opposing indicators.

In the past few days there have been several uncertainties contributing to volatility in BTC prices. 1) fork issue, 2) ongoing uncertainties with fiat systems, 3) bitfinex going down several times for extended periods with crazy ass messages from Bitfinex administrators, 4) FUD spreading that occurs when BTC price momentum seems to be overall down and 5) other unaccounted for unknowns (at least unknown by me at the moment)....

By the way, increased volatility leads to many short term trading opportunities to be able to turn some profits in a short period of time, which also seems to take some patience, some predicting in the right direction some ability to set stop losses when the market goes in the other direction... I tend to NOT be too great at these kinds of shortterm trades, because frequently when the price begins to go up, I get nervous that it is Never going to come back down, and I put all my extra money back into BTC... rather than attempting to wait for the downturn to come back....

In any event, I am NOT 100% certain that $200 will be tested again, even though it seems pretty likely that there will be such a test before the price turns upwards....

Also, most of the 4 or 5 volatility issues that I mentioned in my earlier post remain ongoing issues that have NOT yet been resolved in order to allow for certain upward price movement.... but what da fuck do I know?

(08-25-2015 09:16 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  ...

I do get the sense that there is going to be at least one more test of $200, but you can never know for sure when it comes to bitcoin prices. Yesterday, btc prices seemed to have been crashing along with fiat systems; however, I would have thought that BTC prices would have been somewhat opposite.. ... even though maybe in the short-term they will sometimes correlate rather than be opposing indicators.

In the past few days there have been several uncertainties contributing to volatility in BTC prices. 1) fork issue, 2) ongoing uncertainties with fiat systems, 3) bitfinex going down several times for extended periods with crazy ass messages from Bitfinex administrators, 4) FUD spreading that occurs when BTC price momentum seems to be overall down and 5) other unaccounted for unknowns (at least unknown by me at the moment)....

One thing you have to understand is that when a fiat market crashes, often it actually mean the literal destruction of an amount of the fiat currency. The money supply contracts. This means General Motors is worth less, the dollar is worth less, and there's less dollars to top it all off.

On the other big topic, I do not see Bitfinex continuing to present itself as an ongoing concern as anything less than likely MtGox style fraud. Maybe they end next month, or maybe in two years after slow boiling their customers with degraded service and withdrawal times as they diverge further from a reasonable definition of solvency.

In the short term it is very likely more bleeding happens on the big fiat/BTC exchanges, and its hard to tell which ones may or may not be running fractional reserve in the MtGox tradition. It would be a very good time for people looking at the long run while desiring to trade regularly to remove at least some small BTC balance to a local wallet.

(08-25-2015 11:45 PM)BBinger Wrote:  

(08-25-2015 09:16 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  ...

I do get the sense that there is going to be at least one more test of $200, but you can never know for sure when it comes to bitcoin prices. Yesterday, btc prices seemed to have been crashing along with fiat systems; however, I would have thought that BTC prices would have been somewhat opposite.. ... even though maybe in the short-term they will sometimes correlate rather than be opposing indicators.

In the past few days there have been several uncertainties contributing to volatility in BTC prices. 1) fork issue, 2) ongoing uncertainties with fiat systems, 3) bitfinex going down several times for extended periods with crazy ass messages from Bitfinex administrators, 4) FUD spreading that occurs when BTC price momentum seems to be overall down and 5) other unaccounted for unknowns (at least unknown by me at the moment)....

One thing you have to understand is that when a fiat market crashes, often it actually mean the literal destruction of an amount of the fiat currency. The money supply contracts. This means General Motors is worth less, the dollar is worth less, and there's less dollars to top it all off.

Actually, that is a decent point regarding the devaluation of everything; however, some assets are more tangible than others and will have greater intrinsic value based on their fundamentals - even though I agree with your overall point about total value going down and even perceptions of total value going down based on the variety of financial underpinnings of various assets (tied to debt, money availability and value of their investments, such as stocks that are simultaneously going down in value).

(08-25-2015 11:45 PM)BBinger Wrote:  On the other big topic, I do not see Bitfinex continuing to present itself as an ongoing concern as anything less than likely MtGox style fraud. Maybe they end next month, or maybe in two years after slow boiling their customers with degraded service and withdrawal times as they diverge further from a reasonable definition of solvency.

In the short term it is very likely more bleeding happens on the big fiat/BTC exchanges, and its hard to tell which ones may or may not be running fractional reserve in the MtGox tradition. It would be a very good time for people looking at the long run while desiring to trade regularly to remove at least some small BTC balance to a local wallet.

One of the great fears regarding any exchange and/or centralized exchange or other centralized system handling bitcoin is when they may be engaging in fraud or fractional reserve type activities (as you indicated).

History has changed somewhat since MTGOX... because you can never step into the same river; however, there are similar opportunities for centralized entities, such as exchanges to engage in some variation of MTGOX type fraud.

To me it seems that to date, so far, there is little to no evidence that the appearance of possible Bitfinex shenanigans is approaching MTGOX levels... but I agree that your implication remains correct, and that is that there are opportunities for fraud, and from time to time, there is the appearance of some fishy behaviors.. and also, we may NOT really know or be able to know for sure about whether or if we are being GOXed until it is too late.