Post: #51

(12-12-2017 05:06 PM)Blancpain Wrote:  We will see the real value of bitcoin when reputable banks start accepting it as a deposit. It will take sometime for the regulation laws to pass as we are ruled by 50-60 year old bureaucrats.

Right now everything is a speculation.

But here are some basic metrics,.

Total value of all the gold mined so far = 7 trillion $

Total value of all cryptocurrencies = $300bn.

Total value of physical money = 31 trillion


Total wealth of the world = 250 trillion usd(Credit suisee wealth report)

Imagine cryptocurrency like a stock market, there are hundreds of coins. The ranking might change next year, bitcoin might crash, ether might go up.

Just like the potential supply of paper currencies that be created is infinite, the number of cryptocurrencies that can be created is also infinite, as well as the supply of coins they can each provide altogether. If I had to bet I would say the bulk of the money will ultimately flow into nationalized cryptocoins once they are created. The fallout from the next crash in existing cryptocurrencies will probably lead to them becoming overegulated or banned in some non-western nations which will take away their original appeal. The decentralized coins like bitcoin or others will still exist and be a way of conducting peer to peer business kind of like cash businesses did in the past. But I think the dreams of all the money in the world flowing into them in the near future are ludicrous. This coming from someone who has no stake in cryptos going up or down.

Post: #52

(12-12-2017 01:40 PM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  

(12-12-2017 07:42 AM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  BTW,

Quote:Bitcoin after all is unsustainable, as the energy requirements to mine will just keep growing

This isn't actually true. The difficulty can go up as well as down.

Agreed. Although I do wonder what'll happen long-term with proof-of-work algorithms.

Although it's complex since there's a few variables,

But very simply put: as BTC prices go up, so does mining profitability. As profitability goes up, more mining rigs come up. As long as (block rewards + transaction fees) > (mining expenses), you'd expect people to keep installing more and more rigs until some equilibrium is achieved.

In terms of transaction fees, if the BTC network doesn't keep pace with growth in transaction #s, you might see an increase in transaction fees. So perhaps making it even more lucrative to mine Bitcoin.

At some point, it may impact electricity prices as BTC mining starts causing a noticeable increase in electricity demand. Not to mention I think GPU prices have skyrocketed. I wouldn't be surprised if ASIC prices follow suit (if they haven't already).

All-in-all, I'm not sure how it'll all evolve and especially if we'll see a consolidation of miners - perhaps in China where their scale of economies gives them an advantage.

But at the rate things are going, it is possible that PoW may guzzle up so much of a nation's electricity that perhaps it's not unsustainable for blockchain technologies, but it could negatively impact a country. Possible electricity blackouts, jacked up household electric bills and making other industries less competitive due to the additional electricity cost.

One thing I've been thinking about: imagine the difficulty increases to an even higher hashrate. And now let's say 80% of mining happens in China. Imagine if there's a massive power outage in China that takes hours and it knocks out that 80% right after the generation of a new block and the difficulty is set for the next block. Your hashrate just dropped by a factor of 5, which in theory would mean your block will take 5x longer to mine.

Granted, the next block will have its difficulty adjusted - though even then it can only be adjusted by a maximum factor of 4.

Now imagine BTC goes up in price so much, there's so much mining that it starts causing power outages in multiple nations, if it happens simultaneously and this would probably be a total black swan event, see your hashrate drop to 1-2% midway through a block.

So yes, energy requirements don't have to go up per se. But if they do, might cause a lot of havoc and unintended consequences.

Bitcoin doesn't have block to block difficulty adjustment. It adjusts every 2016 blocks, aiming for a 10 minute blocktime based on how long the previous 2016 blocks took.

So if power or internet went out in China for an extended period, the bitcoin network would be slowed to the point of complete uselessness.

Post: #53

Why would the power go out in China for an an extended period?

Post: #54

(12-13-2017 04:01 AM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  Why would the power go out in China for an an extended period?

Why do you have power outages in general?

Usually either overload, transformer or distributor failure, weather events, etc.

Though I guess one could argue how long power outages can last. In "normal" scenarios, probably not longer than a few hours. In more black swan type of events, say like a coordinated terrorist attack on electric grids, might be weeks or months.

People might not attack China's electric grid systems specifically to undermine BTC, though my understanding is that quite a few governments have been infiltrating each others' networks already. When I talked to cybersecurity experts last year, they said there's a very good chance China and Russia already are have infiltrated and are capable of taking down some of the US' electric grids and vice versa.

Though governments typically don't go around wrecking each others' grids out of mutual understanding that it isn't cool to potentially severely harm civilians as a consequence. Can't say much about rogue actors.

Post: #55

(12-12-2017 09:53 PM)Razor Beast Wrote:  

(12-12-2017 05:06 PM)Blancpain Wrote:  We will see the real value of bitcoin when reputable banks start accepting it as a deposit. It will take sometime for the regulation laws to pass as we are ruled by 50-60 year old bureaucrats.

Right now everything is a speculation.

But here are some basic metrics,.

Total value of all the gold mined so far = 7 trillion $

Total value of all cryptocurrencies = $300bn.

Total value of physical money = 31 trillion


Total wealth of the world = 250 trillion usd(Credit suisee wealth report)

Imagine cryptocurrency like a stock market, there are hundreds of coins. The ranking might change next year, bitcoin might crash, ether might go up.

Just like the potential supply of paper currencies that be created is infinite, the number of cryptocurrencies that can be created is also infinite, as well as the supply of coins they can each provide altogether. If I had to bet I would say the bulk of the money will ultimately flow into nationalized cryptocoins once they are created. The fallout from the next crash in existing cryptocurrencies will probably lead to them becoming overegulated or banned in some non-western nations which will take away their original appeal. The decentralized coins like bitcoin or others will still exist and be a way of conducting peer to peer business kind of like cash businesses did in the past. But I think the dreams of all the money in the world flowing into them in the near future are ludicrous. This coming from someone who has no stake in cryptos going up or down.

You clearly haven't been thinking this stuff through.

1) The word "crypto" is a red herring. There's bitcoin, and then there are scamcoins. All these non-bitcoin cryptos are useless, senseless and long term worthless. Bitcoin, however, is useful, valuable, sensible and valuable.

Non-bitcoin cryptos combined are a worse investment than fiat because they proliferate like rabbits and are indeed hyperinflationary. That has nothing to do with bitcoin.

2) National crypto is a contradiction in terms. Cryptos are designed to be denationalized, global. A national crypto is complete nonsense. It is so ridiculous an idea that it can only come from a government agency.

3) The whole idea behind bitcoin is that it can't be censored. It can't be banned, because you can't ban P2P systems, especially when you use them smart and safe. Just like governments can't ban bittorrent. Also, bitcoin can be send by satellite, radio, USB stick or the internet -- transmission methods are endless. It's unstoppable, unless the internet gets switched off completely. But even then, it's doubtful.

Post: #56

(12-13-2017 06:18 AM)Maciano Wrote:  1) The word "crypto" is a red herring. There's bitcoin, and then there are scamcoins. All these non-bitcoin cryptos are useless, senseless and long term worthless. Bitcoin, however, is useful, valuable, sensible and valuable.

Non-bitcoin cryptos combined are a worse investment than fiat because they proliferate like rabbits and are indeed hyperinflationary. That has nothing to do with bitcoin.

Newb question: Why would something like ETH be useless? I keep reading posts that its actually better than bitcoin in terms of actually using it for transactions.

Quote:
3) The whole idea behind bitcoin is that it can't be censored. It can't be banned, because you can't ban P2P systems, especially when you use them smart and safe. Just like governments can't ban bittorrent. Also, bitcoin can be send by satellite, radio, USB stick or the internet -- transmission methods are endless. It's unstoppable, unless the internet gets switched off completely. But even then, it's doubtful.

Yeah but if governments for example pass a law trying to ban it, then it will b restricted to basically the internet savvy crowd and the mainstream will shy away from it no? Thus decreasing its value?

Post: #57

How come no one ever worries about the electrical power usage that the internet consumes?

Any time someone says that Bitcoin is unsustainable because of energy consumption, they're simply making an argument that future mining will end...which means the supply of Bitcoin will never reach 21 million...which means the supply is smaller...which means that if demand is increasing on a smaller supply...the price will go... someone finish this for me please.

Post: #58

(12-13-2017 07:37 AM)Beirut Wrote:  

(12-13-2017 06:18 AM)Maciano Wrote:  1) The word "crypto" is a red herring. There's bitcoin, and then there are scamcoins. All these non-bitcoin cryptos are useless, senseless and long term worthless. Bitcoin, however, is useful, valuable, sensible and valuable.

Non-bitcoin cryptos combined are a worse investment than fiat because they proliferate like rabbits and are indeed hyperinflationary. That has nothing to do with bitcoin.

Newb question: Why would something like ETH be useless? I keep reading posts that its actually better than bitcoin in terms of actually using it for transactions.

Quote:
3) The whole idea behind bitcoin is that it can't be censored. It can't be banned, because you can't ban P2P systems, especially when you use them smart and safe. Just like governments can't ban bittorrent. Also, bitcoin can be send by satellite, radio, USB stick or the internet -- transmission methods are endless. It's unstoppable, unless the internet gets switched off completely. But even then, it's doubtful.

Yeah but if governments for example pass a law trying to ban it, then it will b restricted to basically the internet savvy crowd and the mainstream will shy away from it no? Thus decreasing its value?

1) Ethereum is a project started by Vitalik Buterin because bitcoin was, at the time, too difficult to start smart contracts on. That's history now that we have Rootstock coming live.

Ethereum is:
- inflationary
- mutable blockchain (hard forked to bail-out users)
- scripted overly complex (leading to bugs & security issues)
- "governed", meaning centralized (therefore easy to influence or outlaw when governments step in)

I don't even know why Ethereum is even on a blockchain because the whole of a blockchain is high security. Immutability is the point of a blockchain. You want transactions to be set in stone -- unalterable, forever, fini.

(Also, I'm not a big fan of leftie genderqueer hippie programmers, which Ethereum attracts like flies, but that's not content related.)

2) That will happen for sure. The whole point of bitcoin is to bring denationalized censorship resistant money into existence. To make saving possible and keep fiat more honest. So governments will absolutely try to ban it, make using it hard and punish users hard. All that is irrelevant if you use bitcoin as a store of value. You can always access your coins anywhere in the world as long as you have your private keys.

Those actions will crash the price, but bitcoin will slowly recover as governments will not act in unison. You just need to go to a country that still hasn't outlawed bitcoins to sell them for local fiat; I'm also sure sites like localbitcoins will proliferate, so you can always go to local bitcoin dealer to convert any time you like.

Post: #59

If you're actually following bitcoin news, there is adoption happening all over the world (although not everywhere). Wall St. wants a slice. Gov't wants their take. Businesses want in. Even ebay is now claiming they want to start accepting BTC as a method of payment (lol nice try). The NYSE has a market cap of over 20 trillion. Crypto just barely crossed 500B. There's a lot of room to grow, with investors moving their money over and the potential application of the "coins" themselves. This is the new gold rush, enjoy... but don't be taken by fools' gold! As many have warned here, just don't pour your entire life savings - be prepared to lose a risky investment.

Post: #60

(12-13-2017 08:10 AM)Maciano Wrote:  Those actions will crash the price, but bitcoin will slowly recover as governments will not act in unison. You just need to go to a country that still hasn't outlawed bitcoins to sell them for local fiat; I'm also sure sites like localbitcoins will proliferate, so you can always go to local bitcoin dealer to convert any time you like.

I wouldn't bet too much on those loopholes staying open forever. The US can and has previously locked out other countries from the US powered global financial system. A concerted global effort to prevent fiat to coin exchanges would be a death blow.

A local illicit BTC dealer isn't going to be giving you $15k or even $1k for your coins if this scenario occurs. It will probably be a lot lot less. And no, unlike illegal drugs which have inherit value because they get you high, crypto coins don't have the same utility.

As Gmac said, it's a gold rush. Get your slice and get out.

Post: #61

(12-13-2017 12:43 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(12-13-2017 08:10 AM)Maciano Wrote:  Those actions will crash the price, but bitcoin will slowly recover as governments will not act in unison. You just need to go to a country that still hasn't outlawed bitcoins to sell them for local fiat; I'm also sure sites like localbitcoins will proliferate, so you can always go to local bitcoin dealer to convert any time you like.

I wouldn't bet too much on those loopholes staying open forever. The US can and has previously locked out other countries from the US powered global financial system. A concerted global effort to prevent fiat to coin exchanges would be a death blow.

A local illicit BTC dealer isn't going to be giving you $15k or even $1k for your coins if this scenario occurs. It will probably be a lot lot less. And no, unlike illegal drugs which have inherit value because they get you high, crypto coins don't have the same utility.

As Gmac said, it's a gold rush. Get your slice and get out.

You might be right. Nothing lasts. Then again, I got in for the money, but I stayed for the revolution. I want bankers, central banks, economists, media financial experts and governments to suffer and look like the fools & scammers they are. We need a better system than we have right now.

On the second, I have a fixed exit price. I had one when I got in, early 2013. It's 40K. We'll reach that this bull-run, or somewhere next year. If not, I won't be a bitch and cry about it.

I already checked out money to start a business and pay off my student loans. I'm fine regardless.

Post: #62

(12-13-2017 01:15 PM)Maciano Wrote:  

(12-13-2017 12:43 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(12-13-2017 08:10 AM)Maciano Wrote:  Those actions will crash the price, but bitcoin will slowly recover as governments will not act in unison. You just need to go to a country that still hasn't outlawed bitcoins to sell them for local fiat; I'm also sure sites like localbitcoins will proliferate, so you can always go to local bitcoin dealer to convert any time you like.

I wouldn't bet too much on those loopholes staying open forever. The US can and has previously locked out other countries from the US powered global financial system. A concerted global effort to prevent fiat to coin exchanges would be a death blow.

A local illicit BTC dealer isn't going to be giving you $15k or even $1k for your coins if this scenario occurs. It will probably be a lot lot less. And no, unlike illegal drugs which have inherit value because they get you high, crypto coins don't have the same utility.

As Gmac said, it's a gold rush. Get your slice and get out.

You might be right. Nothing lasts. Then again, I got in for the money, but I stayed for the revolution. I want bankers, central banks, economists, media financial experts and governments to suffer and look like the fools & scammers they are. We need a better system than we have right now.

On the second, I have a fixed exit price. I had one when I got in, early 2013. It's 40K. We'll reach that this bull-run, or somewhere next year. If not, I won't be a bitch and cry about it.

I already checked out money to start a business and pay off my student loans. I'm fine regardless.

Amen! I already made my cash a long time ago, but missed out the run from 7k to 15k.

But, I follow the old adage, "He who has the guns and gold, makes the rules" and unfortunately the folks you mention above have all of that in spades. They'll definitely be made fools, but that's all they will be made.

Post: #63

I don't the end is near. It has a great future at least for next 10 years.

Post: #64

I don't think the end is near, either. I think we'll go over 20K soon.

2018 will be qua projects & developments the best year for bitcoin ever. By far. Rootstock, Lightning, etc. ETF's. So many things.

I'm not sure if this will translate into the price, though. But legitimacy will increase *a lot*.

Post: #65

Someone on the forum posted this link: https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2017/1...ull-story/

This article really breaks down a lot of the concept of both the blockchain and bitcoin/ethereum/altcoins. It's a long read and sometimes a bit technical but it really opened my eyes to the possibilities. It shows how there can be a long term future for all of them and even how they might completely replace the erroneous financial system we have today. It also details that it will be very difficult for any government to really take down this new evolution.

No one can be certain about what will happen, but saying that a crash is bound to happen soon is also just speculation. We might never go beneath a 1000 or even 10.000 anymore. The fact is we don't know, because it's completely new. The only thing any of us can do is really read into it, understand the logic behind it and then for yourself determine if this is what you yourself would prefer in the future, see the possibility for this system to become dominant in some time from now or believe the opposite and then make bets on whichever of both.

Post: #66

(12-13-2017 06:18 AM)Maciano Wrote:  You clearly haven't been thinking this stuff through.

1) The word "crypto" is a red herring. There's bitcoin, and then there are scamcoins. All these non-bitcoin cryptos are useless, senseless and long term worthless. Bitcoin, however, is useful, valuable, sensible and valuable.

Non-bitcoin cryptos combined are a worse investment than fiat because they proliferate like rabbits and are indeed hyperinflationary. That has nothing to do with bitcoin.

2) National crypto is a contradiction in terms. Cryptos are designed to be denationalized, global. A national crypto is complete nonsense. It is so ridiculous an idea that it can only come from a government agency.

3) The whole idea behind bitcoin is that it can't be censored. It can't be banned, because you can't ban P2P systems, especially when you use them smart and safe. Just like governments can't ban bittorrent. Also, bitcoin can be send by satellite, radio, USB stick or the internet -- transmission methods are endless. It's unstoppable, unless the internet gets switched off completely. But even then, it's doubtful.

How is Bitcoin any better than Monero? Monero actually provides security, Bitcoin is a just a slow overpriced coin that rides on hype. Bitcoin will get taxed and regulated to death, and people will wonder why they ever bought it in the first place.

Post: #67

This video is just 5 minutes long and I urge anyone heavy in bitcoin to watch and learn what you are getting yourself into in the future.

Lightning network is just bringing the banking system to Bitcoin, it will be regulated, it will have KYC so they know who you are, and it won't be decentralised or even be Bitcoin. This is (((BTC))) how it will be soon enough. If I had to speculate over a crash, it would be because people finally realize Bitcoin Cash is in fact, the actual Bitcoin, and a so called flippening happens as a result.

At all else protect yourselves by diversifying because it is highly likely all the money you think you made could be worthless overnight.

Post: #68

(12-14-2017 07:23 PM)NewMeta Wrote:  



This video is just 5 minutes long and I urge anyone heavy in bitcoin to watch and learn what you are getting yourself into in the future.

Lightning network is just bringing the banking system to Bitcoin, it will be regulated, it will have KYC so they know who you are, and it won't be decentralised or even be Bitcoin. This is (((BTC))) how it will be soon enough. If I had to speculate over a crash, it would be because people finally realize Bitcoin Cash is in fact, the actual Bitcoin, and a so called flippening happens as a result.

At all else protect yourselves by diversifying because it is highly likely all the money you think you made could be worthless overnight.

This video is pretty convincing. If this is true, how much time do we have before we need to get out of BTC and into alternatives like BCH, XMR, etc? Isn't LN a few years away?

Post: #69

Could be fear-mongering and shilling for BCH. Modeled the video after others I've seen that talk about the federal reserve and fractional-reserve banking. He also used words and references that he knows will resonate with his viewership (Bilderberg, etc.) Sounds too Illuminati-esque to me.

Always a good idea to be diversified. I'll do more research.

Post: #70

The main guys at Bitcoin Cash are one of the sleaziest cast of characters in the crypto world.

If something causes a flippening, it won't be Bitcoin Cash.

Post: #71

Ah, just touched on this in the Bitcoin thread. Posts in there tend to be quickly buried so I'll repost here:

(12-14-2017 07:54 PM)Valentine Wrote:  I don't normally follow this thread so apologies if this is a rehash of something others have already said.

With that said, offering some info for fellow bitcoin investors:

What You Need To Know About Bitcoin Cash (BCH) vs Bitcoin Core (BTC)

One is the true bitcoin, one is not.

As we all know Bitcoin was forked to make two separate cryptocurrencies. One of the main reasons why was because of block size - BTC is still stuck at 1MB block size which is why transaction speed and cost is ridiculous. This is not the case for BCH which now has a 8MB block size.

So why would BTC stick with 1MB block size when we can see already that transactions are expensive and slow?

It's because Blockstream can make more money this way.

You see, Blockstream employ the majority of Bitcoin Core developers.

Their revenue model is selling an off-chain patented payment channel to exchanges which they charge a monthly fee for called Liquid. This is because doing payments all on the blockchain is too expensive with BTC and it's small block size.

So they are incentivised to keep the BTC network slow so exchanges have to keep paying for Liquid.

Similarly they are pushing the Lightning Network, an off-chain payment channels for consumers to use for cheap, fast transactions.

LN however is open-source, these are payment channels that the exchanges would have with consumers to give them the liquidity needed to make their transactions off-chain. This way both the exchanges and Blockstream now collect fees from the majority of transactions "on Bitcoin".

By forcing the majority of transactions on Bitcoin Core to now take place via these off-chain payment channels, you both lose all possibility of private transactions and there is a possibility of being regulated by the government.

This is no surprise seeing as one of Blockstream’s investors/owners is AXA. AXA’s CEO and Chairman until 2016 was also the Chairman of Bilderberg Group, who are run by the globalist elite.

The globalist elite do not like the fact that most of the miners are in China which is out of their control. And they're circumventing the Chinese by instead moving the majority of blockchain transactions off-chain, so that they are back in the control of their financial institutions.

TL;DR: Bitcoin Core (BTC) will soon be run almost entirely off-chain and regulated by Blockstream, exchanges, governments etc. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is the true Bitcoin in alignment with Satoshi's vision and it's transactions will be able to continue going unmolested on the blockchain.

Post: #72

A brief list of things its been proven that nobody cares about (IE have no effect on price for more than the span of a month):

1.) Whether something is centralized or not.
2.) How much electricity it takes to do proof of work.
3.) Whether a crypto is inflationary or not.
4.) Countries banning bitcoin trading.
5.) Exchange hacks.
6.) Price manipulation.
7.) Hashrate

Things it's been proven people do care about.
1.) A major exchange shutting down due to a hack.

That seems to be about it.

Am open to things I missed.

EDIT: Missed another thing that doesn't affect price. Whether a coin is "better", due to some random technical metric (Privacy, block times, etc.) than Bitcoin.

Post: #73

(12-14-2017 08:44 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  A brief list of things its been proven that nobody cares about (IE have no effect on price for more than the span of a month):

1.) Whether something is centralized or not.
2.) How much electricity it takes to do proof of work.
3.) Whether a crypto is inflationary or not.
4.) Countries banning bitcoin trading.
5.) Exchange hacks.
6.) Price manipulation.
7.) Hashrate

Things it's been proven people do care about.
1.) A major exchange shutting down due to a hack.

That seems to be about it.

Am open to things I missed.

EDIT: Missed another thing that doesn't affect price. Whether a coin is "better", due to some random technical metric (Privacy, block times, etc.) than Bitcoin.

When people are getting taxed up the ass, it will matter.

Post: #74

If you want to commit tax fraud, pray that not one exchange you have used in the past knows your name and is not forced to give out transaction data to authorities. Most coins are not private and wallet movements can be reconstructed.

Post: #75

People care about speed and cost of transactions, which is why BTC is seeing little usage as a currency and is instead being used solely as a store of value e.g. Steam dropping BTC due to high fees.

The more companies which drop BTC and the more who adopt BCH for cheap and fast transactions the more likely it will cause a long-lasting effect on price.