(01-23-2016 09:09 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  

(01-23-2016 07:45 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Even though you and I phrase things in a bit different ways, your thinking seems very similar to mine as to when I was beginning to accumulate BTC.

It does. Please keep posting your updates, as having a like-minded investor sharing his thoughts on something as revolutionary as bitcoin has been incredibly helpful.

The only major difference I see in our strategies is that I'm not so interested in active trading as I am simply buying and holding for the long term. I'm doing so mostly for tax purposes, as from what I understand (at least here in the U.S.), any short-term profits are taxed on top of regular income, whereas anything sold after holding for a year only gets hit with a capital gains tax.

I also imagine it would get rather tedious keeping track of each and every trade for tax reporting purposes. But again, I'm rather new to this so I remain flexible. I may set aside a thousand dollars or so worth of "gambling funds" using the strategy you described, of essentially only "betting" with your winnings, and keeping your principle protected.

You are largely correct about the tax consequences being capital gains rate for holdings over a year and regular income tax for less than a year.

Surely, I am not holding myself out as any tax consultant; however, there can be some ambiguity as to when you have realized a gain for tax purposes. Therefore, when the money is converted on an exchange, such as uphold, those are not short term gains because they have not yet been realized with profits.


Accordingly, you can put money into an exchange and trade it around, and it does not trigger any tax consequences until you cash it out... so you could double or triple your BTC and/or cash holdings before you cash out and bring down your BTC basis... and if you thereafter cash out, then you calculate the basis and your gains based on those cashed out amounts (but not every trade and while you are trading only the amount in and the amount out).

So, let's say initially, you put in $4,000 to buy 10BTC at an average of $400 per BTC, however over the years, you trade them back and forth and hold them in dollars and BTC and in the end, you have 20BTC. You have still only put in the $4,000, so your average per BTC has become $200, and if you cash out, you would count those coins as having a basis of $200 per BTC.


Of course, it would be a bit more complicated than that if over the years you send a multitude of dollars transactions to the exchange, yet in the end, you add up the total dollars that you sent to the exchange, and divide the total of your btc holdings and get the average at the time that you cash out (assuming more than 1 year) and then you would pay capital gains on that amount, to the extent that you are cashing out in a way that needs to be reported.

Even though I trade, and I am planning on reporting certain aspects of my trades, in the end, I am not planning to cash out or to show any gain because of cash outs because I am putting all of the money back in that I cash out within a fairly short time of transferring money around.

Of course, if my circumstances change, and I feel that I need to completely cash out some of my holdings, then I would take the average price per BTC by adding all the value of my amount put into BTC and use that average as the basis at the time that I cash out.

On the other hand, there may be some ways in which you can cash out of your BTC in out-of-jurisdiction locations (such as overseas travel) that could cause your gains on your BTC to not be taxable by the USA govt.

As I mentioned, I was in no way interested in BTC trading at all during my phase of accumulation.. however, after accumulating more than I had anticipated, my interest turned to trading because I recognized it as a likely way to preserve my capital better, with the ongoing BTC price volatility. I understand that in the beginning (while accumulating), you may be less concerned about trading ideas because you are still in the fairly early stages of building up your BTC holdings into a decent sized stash.. which I was there too.. but after a while, I went quite a bit beyond my initial target comfort level in which I felt sufficiently cushioned with an adequate stash of BTC (which I probably reached in about the late 2014 period) in the event that prices were to shoot up I would feel sufficiently invested in BTC to profit from that kind of speculative occurrence.

Even though I have continued to accumulate after late 2014... I have nonetheless felt that my BTC stash was at a pretty decent level, and I was not so bothered about whether or not I would be accumulating more BTC... as long as I keep a foundational level of BTC that I have flexibly set in my own mind and projected over various price levels that I have to make sure that I keep a certain level of my BTC stash at certain price points, even while I sell some of my BTC... which really relates to ideas that I got by reading various ideas in the below-linked thread:



This thread is about having a cashing out plan...... ... preserving a certain level of BTC while cashing out at various points.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345065.0

Milo on bitcoin. Interesting explanation of the Hearn incident.

(01-25-2016 07:42 PM)SunW Wrote:  Milo on bitcoin. Interesting explanation of the Hearn incident.

Yep.. I generally like this article, and it puts some perspective on the various seemingly emergency attempts at pushing for bigger blocks... and that those attempts to make an emergency in pushing for bigger blocks are likely ways to cripple/undermine decentralized aspect of bitcoin in various respects.

Regarding the author's initial classification of bitcoin as a currency, recently, I have been becoming a bit irked with those kinds of comments to classify bitcoin as a currency.

Surely, he is very bullish and positive about the real paradigm changing peer to peer aspects of bitcoin, and so he does not imply anything negative in his assertion that bitcoin is serving as a kind of currency.

I would suggest that even though bitcoin has some currency attributes, it remains way too new in size and familiarity and infrastructure to really compete in any kind of meaningful way like any kind of regular currency..

It remains way too small to really fit the currency definition, so the term is a bit too imprecise in my thinking, yet, it seems that years from now, if bitcoin continues to expand, bitcoin could become a very real contender in various currency circles.. and surely become a paradigm shifting form of currency, and surely that is one of the perceived threats of bitcoin and that is something that seems somewhat unstoppable about bitcoin and worthy for some legacy institutions to consider bitcoin to potentially undermine some of their current ways of generating profits.

In the below-linked YouTube clip (which is 11 minutes), Trace Mayer discusses - Seven bitcoin network effects, which is certainly an ongoing building up of various aspects of bitcoin that are making bitcoin a very strong and ongoing phenomenon that has considerable future potential.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPQP8axBU60

The seven network effects:
1) Speculators (betting on the price)
2) Merchants (selling items for bitcoins)
3) Consumers (buying items with bitcoins)
4) Miners (bitcoin security with an amazing amount of computer power)
5) Developers (specifically software developers)
6) Financialization (seems to be like more sophisticated forms of speculation through wallstreet instruments)
7) Currency (Specifically world reserve settlement currency)

I think that partly, Trace’s discussion of the 7th network effect of “world reserve currency” relates to my earlier points regarding this currency point. So in this regard, the concept of currency seems to have several levels of meaning, and if people attempt to put too much emphasis on the currency aspect of bitcoin, when currency seems to be a further down the road process (especially, if we are talking about world reserve currency).

I don't really want to encourage too much posting about alts, here in this thread; however, sometimes holding BTC can really provide considerable opportunities to trade some of the alts which a large number of BTC enthusiasts have recognized as pump and dumps - relative to BTC - even though sometimes people accuse BTC, also, of being a pump and dump.


and wow, some of the dynamics!!!!

and wow, sometimes BTC's own price performance can relate to some of the alts because frequently people are moving in and out of a large number of the various alts by holding btc.. and if an alt goes up a lot and then down and has quite a bit of volume, you can almost surely bet that some of the getting in and out and transferring of wealth was achieved through some form of BTC (even if kind of behind the scenes).

That was an amazing 24 hour move for Doge (over 100% for the 24 hours and nearly 200% for the week), and if you don't have insider information, there can be quite a bit of luck in timing those kinds of trading attempts as well...

Surely, having an overall sense of the price movement for a few of the alt markets, could really increase a better's odds of getting lucky in making such an alt trade, too.... so, I admit that playing those kinds of grand moves on alts would probably not be 100% luck, but they can have really decent payoffs if you get in and out of the alts with decent timing.

Some of those alts, are crazy too, in terms of figuring out where the fuck to trade them?.... is the exchange safe? what kind of fees are there? and how do you juggle which of the alts to trade?

The Crypsy crash was largely related to a lot of alt tradings, but yeah, we also heard about some of those guys from Crypsy supposedly running off with the ballpark of about 13k BTC.

Interesting moves for Ethereum too in the past week with 100% profits and passing up litecoin and then ripple in terms of market cap and then now coming back down, and maybe ETH going to crash hard, but who the fuck knows with these smaller alt markets with smaller market caps?

Well, considering the past couple of weeks of bitcoin's performance in light of the past couple of months.

About two weeks ago, we experienced a considerable drop in BTC price in light of the piling on of FUD surrounding the Mike Hearn article (and other simultaneous exaggerated FUD) that caused a precipitous drop from the $430's price arena to a peak low of $352.

Thereafter, I had considered that a fairly decent volume pump of BTC passed $410 would bring us into a kind of safe-zone regarding whether we would go below $352 again. The subsequent pump over $420 from a bit over a week ago did not end up being as long-lasting as I had considered it to be, and so, yep, we came back down to the upper $300s, and we experienced some half-assed further attempts to bring BTC prices below $360, or lower if possible, yet it remains unclear if bears were throwing all of their ammunition into the battle or if they may be running out of coins to dump?

In any event, we are not exactly free from another test of $352 because certainly in the past 4 days or so BTC prices have been moving up and down and within striking distance of another test of $352.


Anyhow, I would not put it passed the bears to be able to come up with a sufficient number of more coins for dumping into the challenge of driving down BTC prices; however, it is beginning to appear that we are floating in a BTC price territory (mostly $374 to $379) long enough (a couple of days) in order that we could witness another attempt at a break out in either direction within the next two days (ending the weekend and maybe awaiting some Monday financial news - stocks were up around 2.5% on Friday, but doesn't mean such uptrend in stock prices will continue).

I am fairly certain that we are going to see some BTC price actions within the next couple of days..

To me the first bounce by 5% or so from our current price range could go either direction.. almost a toss (50/50), and I am thinking that the next bounce of at least 10% from our current price territory, is more favorably on the upside...

I will give the 10% bounce to have a 57% chance for upside and 43% chance for the downside... but, like a large number of us who are not whales, I am formulating my best guestimation regarding this short-term BTC price movement matter.

Hey SunW:

I LOL'ed a little bit at your post in the gold / silver membership thread - linked below for ease of reference.



https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-32112...pid1211168


I would have responded to your post over there; however, since the forum is under state of war (state of emergency rules), I did not want to make any posts that are directly requesting any changes of the forum (maybe until after the emergency rules are no longer in effect) - and probably Roosh reads that thread frequently.

The reason for my LOL is a bit of speculation on my behalf.

You realize that initially, Roosh was accepting Bitcoin for gold lifetime memberships, but he did not accept for very long and I am not really sure about when he stopped accepting bitcoin and for what reason. Maybe volatility, maybe the cumbersome nature of his having to interact one on one to confirm payment, or maybe some other reason(s)?

Since Roosh stopped taking bitcoin, and he thereafter did not provide any explanation as to the reason why (at least not to my knowledge), it seems like accepting Dash would be even more problematic for him, for some of the reasons that I stated above.

Yes, there could be some goals for Roosh to allow some degree of anonymity for users; however, in the end maybe some of the burdens on him would be greater than experimenting with Dash, for example.

Maybe if Roosh (or anyone else) does not respond to your above post by Sunday or Monday (when the emergency rules are likely to go out of effect), then I may venture a response in that thread that would be similar in content to this response.. including any subsequent adjustments in my thinking that may take place between now and then. .

Yeah, it's a long shot, I'll admit; it does open the door to being able to contribute to Neomasculine ideas without anyone ever being able to prove anyone is donating.

(02-04-2016 03:38 PM)SunW Wrote:  Yeah, it's a long shot, I'll admit; it does open the door to being able to contribute to Neomasculine ideas without anyone ever being able to prove anyone is donating.

Surely, what you say is an advantage of such; however, administratively, there could be some other issues including ones that i describe in my earlier posts that make it more difficult to administer and maybe stressful, in terms of potential unexpected volatility.

I can imagine guys timing their transactions based on volatility, and then it becomes a bit irritated, because they buy the membership during an upswing in prices that reverses, and by the time Roosh notices the transaction or has time to get to it, the price has dropped 10% or more... It can become a bit more irritating with a bunch of small transactions (as compared with a larger transaction that you may feel inclined to manage more closely).

I certainly would appreciate, at some point, hearing a bit more about Roosh's experiences with bitcoin, and why he decided to discontinue receipt of it.

You know that several guys have also proposed creating an RVF coin (I think even recently in this thread - was that you? ).... anyhow, yes, that would be interested for the technical minded and the innovative type people who want to experiment with these new payment (and asset creation) mechanisms, yet surely Roosh has several other priorities (and also he may feel neither knowledgeable enough, or able to trust someone with such likely experimental innovations - even given potential regulatory risk or other risks that are unknown at this time with various kinds of currency/assets "innovations.")

Yes, all of your points are valid because swings do occur with cryptos in general and people can try to "time" their memberships. I'm thinking more of the privacy angle for those who want to protect theirs, but it's a valid point to say that the swings make it difficult to accept it.

(02-04-2016 04:36 PM)SunW Wrote:  Yes, all of your points are valid because swings do occur with cryptos in general and people can try to "time" their memberships. I'm thinking more of the privacy angle for those who want to protect theirs, but it's a valid point to say that the swings make it difficult to accept it.

Some of us are kind of hobbyists in these new world innovations... Currently, I would put myself into that camp, in regards to bitcoin, and some of us are interested in a variety of other crypto innovations, as well, including the many different developments in the various alt coins space.

Once we kind of begin to feel that we have a handle on it, and we are even inclined to spend some additional time and energy experimenting and trying things out, in order to learn more about it, but really, regular people (even if they may otherwise be innovative) may not want to spend considerable time developing or monitoring these various systems, while they are still in considerable flux.

Probably in about the past year (maybe a bit longer than a year), I have spent a bit more time attempting to convince acquaintances to look into or to become interested in various aspects of bitcoin, and it is really hard, sometimes, to get their attention regarding the subject matter (and they may even falsely believe that I am trying to sell them something).

Really, though, I have found that I have been extending myself out in a variety of ways in the bitcoin space, and those kinds of extensions cause me to want to become more involved in other technical ways (beyond my previous intent regarding some of the technicalities of the bitcoin space).

We will see how these various coins develop, whether bitcoin and other alts, and surely, I am getting back to my earlier talking point regarding market cap being a very important factor in terms of allowing for more stability and confidence.. probably less manipulation of price based on such... and bitcoin has the various alts more than 20x beat in this regard, and probably more than 1000x beat in terms of overall security of the network in terms of computing power.

A couple of days ago, I was quite nervous that BTC prices were going to retest $350.. The downward price movement of about $10 was fairly rapid and on fairly low volume.


Surely, such retest of $350 could still happen within the next few days (because the price is quite closely within striking distance of such a potential retest).

On the other hand, such a retest is not inevitable, so it seems best to prepare your BTC portfolio for price movements in either direction.

I don't really buy into some of the assertions that give any significant attribution to the Chinese exchanges in directly impacting and moving BTC prices; however, there could be some indirect effects with their volume and trading and possibly even some stagnation in BTC price movements in the coming week or so (due to the Chinese new years observation that seems to be taking place this week and the likely decrease in trade volume and decreased ability for the Chinese to move fiat around in the coming week - because they close a lot of the banks during the chinese new years observation period).

It's kind of a guess.

Currently, I am probably a little more inclined to predicting a 5% downward movement rather than a 5% upward movement.

On the other hand, if the price movement is 10% or more, at this time, I am a bit more inclined to believing that 10% adjustment from where we are at would be upward rather than downward.

All of this in spite of the ongoing scaling debate.



Below is my current staggering of my money:

More or less, if BTC prices go below the described price points, I intend to buy, approximately:


$349.00 1.00286533 $350.00
$354.00 0.98870056 $350.00
$359.00 0.97493036 $350.00
$364.00 0.96153846 $350.00
$369.00 0.40650407 $150.00
$371.50 0.40376851 $150.00



More or less, if BTC prices go above the described price points, I intend to sell, approximately:

$379.00 0.395778364 $150.00
$382.00 0.523560209 $200.00
$387.00 0.645994832 $250.00
$392.00 0.637755102 $250.00
$398.00 0.628140704 $250.00
$403.00 0.620347395 $250.00
$408.00 0.980392157 $400.00

Just opened the Circle app on my phone to find that my purchase limits have been upgraded from $300/week to $3k/week. It took 5 weeks from signing up and requesting an increase (I did both on the same day) to actually having the limits raised.

I had purchased ~$25 worth each day for the first few weeks, then switched to Coinbase when the price dropped after the Heard letter was released. I hadn't used Circle much at all the last two weeks, so I'm not sure what lead the algorithm to bump me up.

Regardless, I'd advise anyone in the US who's interested in purchasing bitcoin to go ahead and open an account, request the increase, and make a few purchases, so that should you want to buy larger amounts in the near future you can take advantage of Circle's lack of fees.

(02-10-2016 12:52 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  Just opened the Circle app on my phone to find that my purchase limits have been upgraded from $300/week to $3k/week. It took 5 weeks from signing up and requesting an increase (I did both on the same day) to actually having the limits raised.

I had purchased ~$25 worth each day for the first few weeks, then switched to Coinbase when the price dropped after the Heard letter was released. I hadn't used Circle much at all the last two weeks, so I'm not sure what lead the algorithm to bump me up.

Regardless, I'd advise anyone in the US who's interested in purchasing bitcoin to go ahead and open an account, request the increase, and make a few purchases, so that should you want to buy larger amounts in the near future you can take advantage of Circle's lack of fees.

I agree that both circle and coinbase are fairly inexpensive ways to accumulate coins, especially if you do not mind having your bank info linked to an exchange and to your acquisition of coins (which so far, I have also been o.k. with that).

It's good to hear your recent experiences because from time the procedures and the timelines may change with these various exchanges.

Regarding increasing your Circle limit, I am not sure whether making a request for an increase in your limit had much if any effect - because I think what happens is that Circle increases your limits after 30 days or so (so long as you do all of the identification verifications and the bank and card linkings), probably whether you use the account or not, and the same seems to be true with Coinbase....

They start you at a lower limit and then increase the limit, but the limits are different on each of them, and ways to get instant access is different as well.

Regarding price, frequently, I like to compare prices before I purchase, and you are correct that many of the times Circle is cheaper than Coinbase because you add up the fees in order to determine actual costs per coin. However, sometimes I check specifics, and depending on trade volume, the prices may be cheaper on Coinbase.

For example, yesterday, I had received a payment for nearly $300 on Coinbase from another Coinbase user, and I verified that the exchange rate was about $372.91, yet the Circle rate was a couple of dollars higher. The price was fluctuating a bit at the time with a bit of trending towards $375-ish on Stamp. I then went through the motions of getting the total price on each of them, as if I were going to buy 1 bitcoin, and Coinbase was about $2 cheaper than Circle.

I have found that there are some ways to play these various exchange rate differences when sending and receiving money and also sometimes moving money between exchanges, so long as you continue to keep money on each. So for example, you may lock in a profit by doing a simultaneous buy and sell when there is a considerable difference between two of them (which can happen more when the prices are very volatile), but to safely engage in this practice and exposing yourself to less time-processing risk, it is good to have a cushion of both fiat and dollars in various places.

(02-10-2016 02:31 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(02-10-2016 12:52 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  Just opened the Circle app on my phone to find that my purchase limits have been upgraded from $300/week to $3k/week. It took 5 weeks from signing up and requesting an increase (I did both on the same day) to actually having the limits raised.

I had purchased ~$25 worth each day for the first few weeks, then switched to Coinbase when the price dropped after the Heard letter was released. I hadn't used Circle much at all the last two weeks, so I'm not sure what lead the algorithm to bump me up.

Regardless, I'd advise anyone in the US who's interested in purchasing bitcoin to go ahead and open an account, request the increase, and make a few purchases, so that should you want to buy larger amounts in the near future you can take advantage of Circle's lack of fees.

I agree that both circle and coinbase are fairly inexpensive ways to accumulate coins, especially if you do not mind having your bank info linked to an exchange and to your acquisition of coins (which so far, I have also been o.k. with that).

It's good to hear your recent experiences because from time the procedures and the timelines may change with these various exchanges.

Regarding increasing your Circle limit, I am not sure whether making a request for an increase in your limit had much if any effect - because I think what happens is that Circle increases your limits after 30 days or so (so long as you do all of the identification verifications and the bank and card linkings), probably whether you use the account or not, and the same seems to be true with Coinbase....

They start you at a lower limit and then increase the limit, but the limits are different on each of them, and ways to get instant access is different as well.

Regarding price, frequently, I like to compare prices before I purchase, and you are correct that many of the times Circle is cheaper than Coinbase because you add up the fees in order to determine actual costs per coin. However, sometimes I check specifics, and depending on trade volume, the prices may be cheaper on Coinbase.

For example, yesterday, I had received a payment for nearly $300 on Coinbase from another Coinbase user, and I verified that the exchange rate was about $372.91, yet the Circle rate was a couple of dollars higher. The price was fluctuating a bit at the time with a bit of trending towards $375-ish on Stamp. I then went through the motions of getting the total price on each of them, as if I were going to buy 1 bitcoin, and Coinbase was about $2 cheaper than Circle.

I have found that there are some ways to play these various exchange rate differences when sending and receiving money and also sometimes moving money between exchanges, so long as you continue to keep money on each. So for example, you may lock in a profit by doing a simultaneous buy and sell when there is a considerable difference between two of them (which can happen more when the prices are very volatile), but to safely engage in this practice and exposing yourself to less time-processing risk, it is good to have a cushion of both fiat and dollars in various places.

I am just looking at Coinbase, Circle and Bitstamp again, and certainly, it can be good to bring down your costs by checking the prices at the time of your transaction.

Currently, as I type, buying a bitcoin would be this price:

BitStamp $379.40
Coinbase: $375 + fee = $378.74
Circle: $382.60

Selling is another story, and Circle will give you the best sales price out of the three.. because Coinbase ends up being $371.26 and Circle's sales price is the same as the purchase price ($382.60).

(02-11-2016 01:35 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  I am just looking at Coinbase, Circle and Bitstamp again, and certainly, it can be good to bring down your costs by checking the prices at the time of your transaction.

Currently, as I type, buying a bitcoin would be this price:

BitStamp $379.40
Coinbase: $375 + fee = $378.74
Circle: $382.60

Selling is another story, and Circle will give you the best sales price out of the three.. because Coinbase ends up being $371.26 and Circle's sales price is the same as the purchase price ($382.60).

I had noticed that Circle is usually a bit more expensive compared to Coinbase; hadn't checked out BitStamp yet. I believe it's free to move between the former two, so although I don't plan on selling anytime soon, that's good to know in case I find myself needing to suddenly liquidate some funds.

I thought I read in an article a while back coinbase was rolling out a feature where you could set "limit orders" like with stocks as opposed to having to set alerts on apps and then login to buy at your price. Does anyone know if this feature is out yet and if so how to access it?

My current stance on bitcoin is anything below $370 is a buying opportunity, I'll occasionally sell some off if it peaks at high $390's and then reload again when it comes back down, basically accumulating more coins while making some money swing trading. I really dont see it going below $350 at the lowest.

(02-11-2016 10:59 AM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  

(02-11-2016 01:35 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  I am just looking at Coinbase, Circle and Bitstamp again, and certainly, it can be good to bring down your costs by checking the prices at the time of your transaction.

Currently, as I type, buying a bitcoin would be this price:

BitStamp $379.40
Coinbase: $375 + fee = $378.74
Circle: $382.60

Selling is another story, and Circle will give you the best sales price out of the three.. because Coinbase ends up being $371.26 and Circle's sales price is the same as the purchase price ($382.60).

I had noticed that Circle is usually a bit more expensive compared to Coinbase; hadn't checked out BitStamp yet. I believe it's free to move between the former two, so although I don't plan on selling anytime soon, that's good to know in case I find myself needing to suddenly liquidate some funds.

I mention Bitstamp mostly for a reference of actual overall current bitcoin exchange rate at the time that I was comparing. Many non-exchange based services either use bitcoin or some hybrid formulated algorithm to establish their fluctuating price.

There seems to be some overall industrial pressures to use Bitfinex as the main overall price measurer. See this ranking:

https://data.bitcoinity.org/markets/exchanges/USD/30d

However, I remain disinclined to consider Bitfinex as the leader in price, etc. for a few reasons 1) they allow for leveraged trading of up to 20x and 2) in recent months they suffered from fairly lengthy down periods of several hours and I believe bitstamp took extensive measures to fix the downtime (and loss of funds) that it had suffered more than a year ago.


I recall reading information pertaining to both Circle and Coinbase regarding how they establish their prices, but I could not find that info in a quick search.

About a year ago, I had found that Circle was consistently lower prices than Coinbase (after adding the coinbase fee), but for some reason in recent times, Coinbase is running lower than circle (even adding the fee).

Coinbase is way bigger than Circle, and possibly they are using some of their other bitcoin related, exchange and merchant, services to subsidize their actual price for selling coins?

I understand that alts are a little bit off topic, but we all likely can see Ethereum as a bit of a distraction and the amazing price appreciation of the past couple of weeks.

How long it may last is another question.

These days, mostly, people get in and out of ethereum through bitcoin, so there can be some price correlations with bitcoin when there is so much ethereum volume being generated - currently about 1/3 the trade volume of bitcoin (and currently approaching 1/14 bitcoin's market cap).

(02-11-2016 01:38 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  I understand that alts are a little bit off topic, but we all likely can see Ethereum as a bit of a distraction and the amazing price appreciation of the past couple of weeks.

How long it may last is another question.

These days, mostly, people get in and out of ethereum through bitcoin, so there can be some price correlations with bitcoin when there is so much ethereum volume being generated - currently about 1/3 the trade volume of bitcoin (and currently approaching 1/14 bitcoin's market cap).

I wouldn't want to transform this thread into an alt thread, but Ethereum continues to be on the move, and just past 1/12th bitcoin's market cap, with a continued 24 hour trade volume of a bit more than 1/3 of bitcoin's 24 hour trade volume.

Amazingly, there are only a few avenues to even get Ether, and likely those exchanges are running at near or full capacity - I don't own any Ether, so I am not writing from personal experience, just observing the charts and considering the various ways in which Ethereum's price performance may be affecting bitcoin prices, etc.

Also, Maidsafe has been experiencing fairly high weekly and 24 hour price appreciation with decent increases in volume, and likely maidsafe is even a thinner market in terms of buying and selling opportunities.

If I recall correctly, our own dear RVF member Satoshi had left bitcoin while employing various Ethereum talking points in this thread, and at one point he had invested in Maidsafe and mastercoin, too... though Mastercoin seems to have disappeared from the coinmarketcap thread.

These are very interesting real world dynamics regarding various cryptos, and likely the performance of various other cryptos will have an impact on how bitcoin is viewed, and even the physical reality of bitcoin frequently providing a vehicle in and out of various alt crypto coins.

Another interesting dynamic with bitcoin in the past couple of weeks is hash rate. The difficulty levels have been going through the roof in actuality and in predictions about the next difficulties, continuing to experience some fluctuation but overall 10% to 30% increases off of all time high levels. In other words, even though a couple of years ago, Bitcoin was able to boast hundreds of times the highest processing power of any of the most powerful combination of supercomputers, that claim of ongoing processing power continues to go through the roof for bitcoin.

I've been talking about Ethereum for some time on this thread I believe. Compared to other altcoins, that are just copies/spinoffs of the main Bitcoin code/blueprints, Ethereum is a true innovation. I wouldn't even call it an altcoin. It's a platform to build decentralized style applications. Bitcoin is just one app - the currency. Ethereum, the idea is you can build many apps, in a decentralized environment, i.e., no one single party gets special privilege, or open source, or open blockchain. I'm disappointed that it's probably not practical for Ethereum to combine payments with Bitcoin, as these sit in two vastly different worlds. I was really hoping there was a way to do this, but not apparently so. Maybe some genius will come up with a way soon enough. P.S. Easiest place to get Ether for BTC is on Kraken, imo. It's kinda hard to justify getting into Ether at this point, maybe wait for bubble to pop. I'm waiting to cash some out once it hits my close targets.

(02-11-2016 09:21 PM)yolo Wrote:  I've been talking about Ethereum for some time on this thread I believe. Compared to other altcoins, that are just copies/spinoffs of the main Bitcoin code/blueprints, Ethereum is a true innovation.

You may be correct that Ethereum is the only Alt-coin that builds something quite different from Bitcoin; however, the fact that there are more than 600 alt coins listed on the coinmarketcap webpage, it is not easy to exclusively determine that Ethereum is the ONLY other alt coin that is innovatively adding something to the crypto space (separate and apart from bitcoin), etc. etc.


And, surely this thread would not likely be the place to make such arguments, analysis and supplying of evidence regarding what each and every of the various alts have to offer in comparison or in contrast to bitcoin.

Except to the extent that some of the alt coins are pumped from time to time, there seems to be a bit less attention on them in about the past year and a half, as compared to a couple of years ago when quite a few guys would come into this thread (in an off topic kind of way) and attempt to pump one alt coin or another.

There do seem to be quite a few ways that some discussion of alt coins remains somewhat relevant to the discussion of bitcoin in this thread, especially concerning how how some of the alt coins may be attempting to excel in their credibility based on the somewhat success of bitcoin, and also because frequently bitcoin will be a fairly major on and/or off ramp in getting invested in such alt coins.

(02-11-2016 09:21 PM)yolo Wrote:  I wouldn't even call it an altcoin.

Again, you may be technically correct that ethereum may not officially be an “alt coin” because of its “non currency” attributes; however, since the various alt coins, including ethereum are not a focus of this thread, labeling ethereum as an alt coin seems to serve as an convenient short hand.

(02-11-2016 09:21 PM)yolo Wrote:  It's a platform to build decentralized style applications. Bitcoin is just one app - the currency.

O.k…. so they are foundationally designed to serve different purposes, yet we already know that there is cross over of the purposes that each serves. We know that ether has taken on some currency aspects at least when there is some speculation and value, then people can trade it which also can cause some currency attributes. We also know that bitcoin can be used beyond it’s mere currency aspects, including various public ledger applications and surely potential storage of value, etc etc.

(02-11-2016 09:21 PM)yolo Wrote:  Ethereum, the idea is you can build many apps, in a decentralized environment, i.e., no one single party gets special privilege, or open source, or open blockchain.

Yes, some of this is geeky, and still to be developed and in the process of development.

(02-11-2016 09:21 PM)yolo Wrote:  I'm disappointed that it's probably not practical for Ethereum to combine payments with Bitcoin, as these sit in two vastly different worlds. I was really hoping there was a way to do this, but not apparently so.

I don’t know. I have been hearing various takes on this, and the upcoming implementation of segregated witness in bitcoin, could allow for some of the less secure aspects (such as a kind of ethereum side chain) to be adopted into that aspect of the bitcoin processing of transactions. I have not heard enough, and it seems really early days, but I kind of hypothesize that any of these various open source or quasi open source projects could be absorbed into bitcoin, and there is a bit of an incentive to do so, since bitcoin is evolving a very sophisticated and secure peer to peer computing power, never to have been seen in prior times.

(02-11-2016 09:21 PM)yolo Wrote:  Maybe some genius will come up with a way soon enough.

Well, bitcoin has been in development for more than 7 years, and ethereum around 2 years, so there could be a lot of developments, and the more sophisticated ones (or the ones with potential mass appeal) could take 3-5 years more, or longer, to play out.

(02-11-2016 09:21 PM)yolo Wrote:  P.S. Easiest place to get Ether for BTC is on Kraken, imo. It's kinda hard to justify getting into Ether at this point, maybe wait for bubble to pop. I'm waiting to cash some out once it hits my close targets.

I think that your last couple of sentences above are really fair because buying in the middle of a 4-5x increase seems a bit pie in the sky to continue to expect such levels of price appreciation. Anything is possible, though, but it would seem more reasonable to wait for a bubble bursting, or at least just put only a small amount and expect that the small amount could lose 90% of its value in a short period of time.

I'm not sure if I understand the below linked article in it's entirety because it makes several arguments that are cultural and seemingly in tension with one another regarding cultural tendencies.

Yet, in any event, I think that it shows that any forking away from Core, whether that be XT (which has been pulled) or Classic (2mb block increase), is likely not going to be supported by the chinese, which will likely make any attempts at hard forking more difficult to establish.... and likely a large majority of miners and developers sticking, at least for now, with core.. and the plan forward with Segwit.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/20...b75e9d7f95

I think that the status update of the article is fairly bullish for the short-term price direction of BTC.

Any other reading of this?

Also, possibly, over the weekend we may see people getting out of Ether and back into bitcoin? The weekend is also the end of the chinese new years festivities, so chinese banks will be open again next week - though I hate to give too much credit to the chinese regarding influencing bitcoin's price direction.

(02-12-2016 06:31 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  I'm not sure if I understand the below linked article in it's entirety because it makes several arguments that are cultural and seemingly in tension with one another regarding cultural tendencies.

Yet, in any event, I think that it shows that any forking away from Core, whether that be XT (which has been pulled) or Classic (2mb block increase), is likely not going to be supported by the chinese, which will likely make any attempts at hard forking more difficult to establish.... and likely a large majority of miners and developers sticking, at least for now, with core.. and the plan forward with Segwit.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/20...b75e9d7f95

I think that the status update of the article is fairly bullish for the short-term price direction of BTC.

Any other reading of this?

Also, possibly, over the weekend we may see people getting out of Ether and back into bitcoin? The weekend is also the end of the chinese new years festivities, so chinese banks will be open again next week - though I hate to give too much credit to the chinese regarding influencing bitcoin's price direction.

The only remaining Chinese mining operation supporting the ClassicCoin fork is Bitmain/Antpool. Much of the Classic effort was driven by notable hamplanet Marshall Long who was involved in the GAW/Paycoin scam. Note that like the GAW scams Classic was unveiled with substantial social media noise and unconfirmed third party endorsements that fell apart under scrutiny. The cultural differences in corporate communication did play a role in how the Classic business was strung out for so long.

This is very bullish in the same way the death of the XT fork lead to a rough doubling in price before Classic reintroduced a smaller measure of forking uncertainty and a subsequent price dip. Note that prices have generally been trending back up again today. As the rejection of Classic became more establish there's been larger than typical premium for Bitcoin on Chinese exchanges.

It may seem tedious, but you've gotta work on learning the inside baseball.

(02-13-2016 08:34 AM)BBinger Wrote:  

(02-12-2016 06:31 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  I'm not sure if I understand the below linked article in it's entirety because it makes several arguments that are cultural and seemingly in tension with one another regarding cultural tendencies.

Yet, in any event, I think that it shows that any forking away from Core, whether that be XT (which has been pulled) or Classic (2mb block increase), is likely not going to be supported by the chinese, which will likely make any attempts at hard forking more difficult to establish.... and likely a large majority of miners and developers sticking, at least for now, with core.. and the plan forward with Segwit.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/20...b75e9d7f95

I think that the status update of the article is fairly bullish for the short-term price direction of BTC.

Any other reading of this?

Also, possibly, over the weekend we may see people getting out of Ether and back into bitcoin? The weekend is also the end of the chinese new years festivities, so chinese banks will be open again next week - though I hate to give too much credit to the chinese regarding influencing bitcoin's price direction.

The only remaining Chinese mining operation supporting the ClassicCoin fork is Bitmain/Antpool. Much of the Classic effort was driven by notable hamplanet Marshall Long who was involved in the GAW/Paycoin scam. Note that like the GAW scams Classic was unveiled with substantial social media noise and unconfirmed third party endorsements that fell apart under scrutiny. The cultural differences in corporate communication did play a role in how the Classic business was strung out for so long.

This is very bullish in the same way the death of the XT fork lead to a rough doubling in price before Classic reintroduced a smaller measure of forking uncertainty and a subsequent price dip. Note that prices have generally been trending back up again today. As the rejection of Classic became more establish there's been larger than typical premium for Bitcoin on Chinese exchanges.

It may seem tedious, but you've gotta work on learning the inside baseball.

Thanks for that inside baseball analysis.


In recent times, I had claimed to be neutral regarding XT or classic and even whether a hard fork needed to occur... but as time has evolved and I have continued reading up about these potential pushes that some of the players were making towards a hard fork, I have come to realize that even though the question is being famed as a technical need to increase the block from 1mb to 2mb, it really is not a technical question, but instead an attempt to screw up consensus based governance of bitcoin (which seems to be amongst bitcoin's greatest assets at least some of the peer to peer aspects)

I have therefore come to view those pushes and marketing for hardforks as being overly coercive, unnecessary and bully type behavior.

My mind is not closed on the topic; however, that seems to be my current leanings.

It has been like marketers of XT/classic have been buying into some kind of arguments that bitcoin is in a state of emergency and that there's got to be a hardfork, or else we are screwed.

How could there "have to be" a hardfork in order to achieve a technological limitations issue... That 1mb versus 2mb technological change is likely not a big deal, and there seems to be absolutely no need for a hardfork in order to achieve such "technological" change.

In fact, it appears that the ONLY reason for a hard fork, rather than a soft fork, is because one part is trying to force the issue and therefore to cause some kind of precedent for being able to make emergency changes via non-consensus, and there is no need to force any issue because a large majority already agrees more or less that an increase will be needed at some point.

There seems to be no real and/or meaningful reason or need to rush to create a timeline for such implementation of an blocksize increase.. because seg wit is right around the corner, and seg wit should be incorporated first in order to see how that plays out, and thereafter, after seg wit has been incorporated for a few months, then likely there can be additional and/or lengthy investigation into the impact and possibly even a timeline for causing some kind of block size increase, and again no need to hard fork such a decision, unless you are attempting to take away consensus decision making and to attempt to rule from a smaller group of peeps (or businesses or governments).