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Cryptocurrency as the next significant stage for computing technology, not just an investment


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First off I want to reiterate that this thread is not about "making money via cryptocurrencies" but instead the social and economic implications of them as technologies.  Now that that is out of the way...

 

All altcoin prices are highly tied to Bitcoin's price.  When BItcoin crashes everything crashes basically, and there is generally a correlation between Bitcoin pumps and altcoin pumps, though random altcoins routinely make much higher percent gains than Bitcoin.  It is speculative, but it's a sound speculation -it's not just some shot in the dark or a dart throw.  

 

First off, there is a limited supply of Bitcoin.  There are only 21m of them.  And the population of the world is growing along with the user base of cryptocurrencies.  Therefore the amount of Bitcoins one person can reasonably be certain of acquiring lowers every day.  People have been calling it a bubble since before it was $1, and they were always just as confident as they are now in its uselessness, it not being a "real" currency, it being a failure, etc.

 

https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/

 

Don't invest in anything based on some random autist's advice on the internet - do your research.  But if your investment portfolio does not involve some cryptocurrency, you are missing out on the most important financial invention since written language, this is no exaggeration.  If you're poor and can't afford to lose money then don't do it or only invest a little.  But if you have some money in the stock market already, I suggest you say "fuck it" and put a few thousand into cryptocurrencies, mainly Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Monero (XMR).

 

You may think such grandiose language is too good to be true, but it's not - we're merely experiencing what insider investors have been experiencing for decades - being able to invest in a sound asset before the general public and financial institutions become heavily entrenched in it, because they are involved in the centralized institutions associated with making such investments.  The internet removes that reliance upon centralized authorities.  Make no mistake Wall Street is highly involved, that's for sure.  But there are no cryptocurrency commodity ETFs yet.  That is when the boomer 401k money comes in and that is when we see 100x gains overnight

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i don't think i've ever had such a poor understanding of a contemporary, hot and important topic than of this whole e-shekels biz. i'm totally full republican on this thing. is there a youtubed explanation of this thing with cool graphics that lasts less than 5 minutes?

 

Half an hour, no point half assing it.  Andreas Antonopoulus has great noob videos

 

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As for the investment point - if you live in a first world country with a decent government you probably don't "need" cryptocurrency and that's why you don't understand it.  But if you live in Venezuela or Zimbabwe where the government printed "trillions" of dollars worth of worthless paper money, inflated it so much that you literally have to carry duffel bags of fiat currency around to buy anything with, then you will realize how important access to a global financial system is for humanity as a whole.  The video above mentions this exact point and goes into further detail regarding the fact that the majority of people in the world, people who aren't privileged like us sitting here capable of shitposting online, literally have no access to bank accounts - and cryptocurrencies will give them access with a smart phone app, requiring no permission from central authorities authorizing them to have a bank account

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Don't really care for it in its current state, my money's in a savings account that's how much of a daredevil investor I am.

 

Sometimes I wish I at least understood what's going on, in case one or more of these coins ever see wider use as actual currency; then again I'm probably equally clueless on how current state-issued money actually works.

State issued currency - central control, they issue as much as they want. In places like the US they have a decent currency, the USD which only loses 3% in value yearly. In other places like Venezuela they have 100000% yearly inflation meaning their currency is absolute garbage compared to even the biggest shittiest cryptocurrency, quite literally

 

Fiat = printed by government

Banks = fractional reserve lending = multiplication of money supply which forms a feedback loop since some lent funds result in deposits into the bank AGAIN which they can then lend out fractionally. Fractional reserve banking is a massive bubble - deflationary cryptocurrencies eliminate the possibility of this happening since you can't create currency out of thin air to lend to people

Lol how many bitcoin forks have there been and how many more are planned?

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As for the investment point - if you live in a first world country with a decent government you probably don't "need" cryptocurrency and that's why you don't understand it. But if you live in Venezuela or Zimbabwe where the government printed "trillions" of dollars worth of worthless paper money, inflated it so much that you literally have to carry duffel bags of fiat currency around to buy anything with, then you will realize how important access to a global financial system is for humanity as a whole. The video above mentions this exact point and goes into further detail regarding the fact that the majority of people in the world, people who aren't privileged like us sitting here capable of shitposting online, literally have no access to bank accounts - and cryptocurrencies will give them access with a smart phone app, requiring no permission from central authorities authorizing them to have a bank account

If their money is worthless, how are they buying bitcoin?

And if there are no central authorities authorizing anyone, why do you have to do KYC to get in on ICOs and exchanges? (Ignoring the DEXs for now, those that currently exist suck donkey balls, and liquidity issues are always going to be a problem)

 

What will happen Is governments will create their own digital currencies, banks will use permissioned block chains, and even more oversight over personal finances will be exerted by regulators.

 

I’m good though, I made a bunch of cash off my “investments”.

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I’ve been heavily invested since last January. I’ve made a lot of money catching alt coins in their infancy. The most I made was on antshares/neo. Right now I’ve pulled almost everything out except for a small amount diversified into Req and eth and xrp. From an investment standpoint, it’s incredibly risky but the ROI is often a lifetimes worth of stock returns. Anyone who tells you this is not mostly gambling has no experience trading real stocks. But if we’re going to talk about crypto currency for its supposed use case as a world currency and replacement for fiat, there are a lot of issues.

You’re deluding yourself if you think bitcoin is ever going to function as a replacement for cash. The transaction times, fees, energy usage from mining, complexity (my latte cost .00000004 satoshi and I have to file for capital gains tax for the sale of property??)... these are all things that limit bitcoin and other cryptos use in the real world. But if you look at blockchain as a technology, you can see where the possible world changing implications are. Research projects like golem to see a use case that exists outside the world of finance.

I don’t think everything will be good though. The government will develop its own digital currency which will allow an audit of every financial transaction using block chain scanners. Crypto is a massive windfall for the IRS. The amount of tax evasion and under reporting going on right now is kind of stunning. And reporting is a nightmare. I’ve spent weeks preparing my return and it’s really shown me how utterly useless this tech is as a practical currency. Not to mention the issues I’ve had with converting coins back into real money. If the idea is to stay in crypto, then there needs to be an ecosystem to support that. And right now, it’s just not feasible. No one is really buying major life purchases with crypto. If they are, and they live in the US, the tax implications are a complete mess. 2018 is going to see privacy coins take off, and it’s also going to see banks developing their own block chains. Someday we might use digital currency, but all of the coins in the top ten market cap right now, including btc, will be gone.

Sometimes, other people say exactly what I want to say.

 

Also there are tax solutions out there for crypto that will take all of your transactions etc etc and automagically prep a tax return for you.

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Don't really care for it in its current state, my money's in a savings account that's how much of a daredevil investor I am.

 

Sometimes I wish I at least understood what's going on, in case one or more of these coins ever see wider use as actual currency; then again I'm probably equally clueless on how current state-issued money actually works.

State issued currency - central control, they issue as much as they want. In places like the US they have a decent currency, the USD which only loses 3% in value yearly. In other places like Venezuela they have 100000% yearly inflation meaning their currency is absolute garbage compared to even the biggest shittiest cryptocurrency, quite literally

 

Fiat = printed by government

Banks = fractional reserve lending = multiplication of money supply which forms a feedback loop since some lent funds result in deposits into the bank AGAIN which they can then lend out fractionally. Fractional reserve banking is a massive bubble - deflationary cryptocurrencies eliminate the possibility of this happening since you can't create currency out of thin air to lend to people

Lol how many bitcoin forks have there been and how many more are planned?

 

 

Bitcoin forks are not the same thing as fiat inflation.  There is only one Bitcoin by definition - the longest Proof of Work chain following consensus rules - as explicitly stated by Satoshi in the whitepaper.  Those other copies are irrelevant and do not affect the supply of Bitcoin because they are not Bitcoin.

 

Bitcoin forks are necessary to make updates to Bitcoin.  It's not an issue it's the entire point, that's how open source software works

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As for the investment point - if you live in a first world country with a decent government you probably don't "need" cryptocurrency and that's why you don't understand it. But if you live in Venezuela or Zimbabwe where the government printed "trillions" of dollars worth of worthless paper money, inflated it so much that you literally have to carry duffel bags of fiat currency around to buy anything with, then you will realize how important access to a global financial system is for humanity as a whole. The video above mentions this exact point and goes into further detail regarding the fact that the majority of people in the world, people who aren't privileged like us sitting here capable of shitposting online, literally have no access to bank accounts - and cryptocurrencies will give them access with a smart phone app, requiring no permission from central authorities authorizing them to have a bank account

If their money is worthless, how are they buying bitcoin?

And if there are no central authorities authorizing anyone, why do you have to do KYC to get in on ICOs and exchanges? (Ignoring the DEXs for now, those that currently exist suck donkey balls, and liquidity issues are always going to be a problem)

 

What will happen Is governments will create their own digital currencies, banks will use permissioned block chains, and even more oversight over personal finances will be exerted by regulators.

 

I’m good though, I made a bunch of cash off my “investments”.

 

 

It's not "worthless" it's just worthless in comparison to the fiat denominations used - trillions of dollars to buy loaves of bread.  And they cannot hold it for extended periods of time because it is continually being devalued.

 

The situation right now with centralized exchanges is simply a growing pain we are moving through.  Things like localbitcoins help sidestep that, and the situation will get better as time moves on.

 

Governments will indeed create their own digital currencies (Putin is planning to), banks will indeed create permissions block chains (Ripple), but nobody who understands will choose to use it.  If people want to they will, if they don't want to they won't.  Privacy coins like monero sidestep all regulation

 

And it's nice to see that you view this technology as an "investment" instead of a technology and social revolution

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I’ve been heavily invested since last January. I’ve made a lot of money catching alt coins in their infancy. The most I made was on antshares/neo. Right now I’ve pulled almost everything out except for a small amount diversified into Req and eth and xrp. From an investment standpoint, it’s incredibly risky but the ROI is often a lifetimes worth of stock returns. Anyone who tells you this is not mostly gambling has no experience trading real stocks. But if we’re going to talk about crypto currency for its supposed use case as a world currency and replacement for fiat, there are a lot of issues.

You’re deluding yourself if you think bitcoin is ever going to function as a replacement for cash. The transaction times, fees, energy usage from mining, complexity (my latte cost .00000004 satoshi and I have to file for capital gains tax for the sale of property??)... these are all things that limit bitcoin and other cryptos use in the real world. But if you look at blockchain as a technology, you can see where the possible world changing implications are. Research projects like golem to see a use case that exists outside the world of finance.

I don’t think everything will be good though. The government will develop its own digital currency which will allow an audit of every financial transaction using block chain scanners. Crypto is a massive windfall for the IRS. The amount of tax evasion and under reporting going on right now is kind of stunning. And reporting is a nightmare. I’ve spent weeks preparing my return and it’s really shown me how utterly useless this tech is as a practical currency. Not to mention the issues I’ve had with converting coins back into real money. If the idea is to stay in crypto, then there needs to be an ecosystem to support that. And right now, it’s just not feasible. No one is really buying major life purchases with crypto. If they are, and they live in the US, the tax implications are a complete mess. 2018 is going to see privacy coins take off, and it’s also going to see banks developing their own block chains. Someday we might use digital currency, but all of the coins in the top ten market cap right now, including btc, will be gone.

Sometimes, other people say exactly what I want to say.

 

Also there are tax solutions out there for crypto that will take all of your transactions etc etc and automagically prep a tax return for you.

 

 

None of the arguments are against cryptocurrencies but are instead against the current regulatory and merchant adoption environment surrounding them.  The tax code is written retardedly, that's not Satoshi's fault.  

 

 

There's nothing in the source code regarding tax law.  You can blame regulators for that entirely.  If they wanted to tax fiat or anything else as pedantically as cryptocurrencies then they could do so.  Do you pay capital gains tax on all fiat purchases based on foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations since the time you received the fiat?  See how retarded that is?  That's identical to the cryptocurrency situation and it has nothing to do with cryptocurrency itself, and everything to do with the fact that this is the early stage still where there are gains to be made on the technological adoption curve so it's being treated like an asset by tax code when it should be a currency

Edited by Zeffolia
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As for mempool bloat and transaction time - I just cashed out some ESPP stock on (well known brokerage firm) and it's literally taking 4 days to get my fiat into my bank and ready to use.  This is a fucking joke and if you don't think the financial services industry needs a shakeup with some competition you're out of your mind

 

EDIT:  HAHA never fucking mind, it's going to take SEVEN fucking days to get my fiat.  SEVEN DAYS.

 

Blockchain secured shares and dividend distribution N O W.  Every company should have its own cryptocurrency where the protocol itself allows dividend distribution, built on top of a stable platform like ETH.  This would be centralized at the dividend distribution linkage point to reality but that's inherent to companies.

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zeff, what really gets me is how quickly something so virtual became a thing that people value irl. like when, how  and why did this confidence to trade meth, child porn and now legal stuff as well for bitcoins became real.

also regarding the 21m bitcoins, why does it matter that it's limited to 21m when you can have and use ultimately small fractions of bitcoins?

 

i haven't seen your vid yet.

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zeff, what really gets me is how quickly something so virtual became a thing that people value irl. like when, how  and why did this confidence to trade meth, child porn and now legal stuff as well for bitcoins became real.

also regarding the 21m bitcoins, why does it matter that it's limited to 21m when you can have and use ultimately small fractions of bitcoins?

 

i haven't seen your vid yet.

 

When you look at other things from the same perspective it makes sense.

  • How do pieces of paper generate value?  I mean they're just pieces of paper with a serial number and a dead President's face on them
  • How do online in-game items generate value?  I mean they're just in-game items, yet some video games have items worth thousands of dollars
  • How do useless precious gems generate value?  They do nothing and are mainly used for aesthetic purposes

BItcoin has value BECAUSE it's online, not in spite of it.  That's its purpose, its value

 

And yes, you can divide them up arbitrarily, that's an important point.  But the max cap of 21m of them means that if you buy 1 Bitcoin, you own 1/21m of the entire worldwide Bitcoin supply, forever, from now on.  That means it's deflationary

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i understand it has a lot of important implications for how the future of society will function. and i think you raise a good point about how there is an aspect of access for people in countries with hyper inflated currencies. 

 

i'm asking how can it generate value from an investment standpoint, and you sorta dismissed it saying this thread isn't about making money from cryptos / bitcoin. well most people are interested in making 'real' money from it so i think that's an important consideration...

 

It's not supposed to "generate" money.  It only does right now because it's a new technology (9 years old now though) and people are still adopting it, so if you buy in early you will get a larger share than a person who buys in late, when it comes to fixed-supply currencies like Bitcoin.  

 

There are other coins that will enable Proof of Stake (PoS) meaning you basically get dividend payouts for "staking" your currency, kind of like interest.  Ethereum is going to do this.  

 

The value it holds is in your ability to take part in the global, uncensorable, pseudonymous, payment transfer network

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Alt coin prices are not tied to btc. They’ve decoupled from it in the last month. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

It also isn’t sound speculation. You are investing (gambling on) vaporware. The most you can do is read white papers and hope the speculative bubble continues to favor your picks, but the entire market is driven by hype, not working product. This is coming from someone with some significant money in the space.

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zeff, what really gets me is how quickly something so virtual became a thing that people value irl. like when, how  and why did this confidence to trade meth, child porn and now legal stuff as well for bitcoins became real.

also regarding the 21m bitcoins, why does it matter that it's limited to 21m when you can have and use ultimately small fractions of bitcoins?

 

i haven't seen your vid yet.

 

When you look at other things from the same perspective it makes sense.

  • How do pieces of paper generate value?  I mean they're just pieces of paper with a serial number and a dead President's face on them

on this point i'd say that papers have value because you can buy services using those papers from the same (more or less) body that issued them. the ground is much more shakier with e-coins in this regard.

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As for the investment point - if you live in a first world country with a decent government you probably don't "need" cryptocurrency and that's why you don't understand it. But if you live in Venezuela or Zimbabwe where the government printed "trillions" of dollars worth of worthless paper money, inflated it so much that you literally have to carry duffel bags of fiat currency around to buy anything with, then you will realize how important access to a global financial system is for humanity as a whole. The video above mentions this exact point and goes into further detail regarding the fact that the majority of people in the world, people who aren't privileged like us sitting here capable of shitposting online, literally have no access to bank accounts - and cryptocurrencies will give them access with a smart phone app, requiring no permission from central authorities authorizing them to have a bank account

If their money is worthless, how are they buying bitcoin?

And if there are no central authorities authorizing anyone, why do you have to do KYC to get in on ICOs and exchanges? (Ignoring the DEXs for now, those that currently exist suck donkey balls, and liquidity issues are always going to be a problem)

 

What will happen Is governments will create their own digital currencies, banks will use permissioned block chains, and even more oversight over personal finances will be exerted by regulators.

 

I’m good though, I made a bunch of cash off my “investments”.

It's not "worthless" it's just worthless in comparison to the fiat denominations used - trillions of dollars to buy loaves of bread. And they cannot hold it for extended periods of time because it is continually being devalued.

 

The situation right now with centralized exchanges is simply a growing pain we are moving through. Things like localbitcoins help sidestep that, and the situation will get better as time moves on.

 

Governments will indeed create their own digital currencies (Putin is planning to), banks will indeed create permissions block chains (Ripple), but nobody who understands will choose to use it. If people want to they will, if they don't want to they won't. Privacy coins like monero sidestep all regulation

 

And it's nice to see that you view this technology as an "investment" instead of a technology and social revolution

Monetize is a giant pain in the ass to use.

 

I like Ethereum and smart contracts, I believe that’s where the real value in all of this lies. Transparent, trustless contracts will enable a new realm of business opportunities.

 

All this whining about “muh taxes” is ridiculous nonsense. You live in a first world country because your taxes provide infrastructure, governance, regulation, and stability.

Since the entryway to BTC is through fiat, and the Venezuelan fiat is worthless, how are they buying BTC?

 

And again, BTC forks literally created free money (if you hold BTC, you get the forked coin).

And speaking of Tx times/fees, what’s the average BTC Tx time and fee?

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Altcoins have been going bonkers in the last few weeks - long may it last into 2018! 

If anyone fancies a dabble in the dark arts, my Coinbase referral code is https://www.coinbase.com/join/5a29934a9c2a9b02a7d01613 - if you sign up, it gives us both a bit of free cyber £ to play with

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Alt coin prices are not tied to btc. They’ve decoupled from it in the last month. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

It also isn’t sound speculation. You are investing (gambling on) vaporware. The most you can do is read white papers and hope the speculative bubble continues to favor your picks, but the entire market is driven by hype, not working product. This is coming from someone with some significant money in the space.

 

Yeah, they decoupled last month, okay.  You can definitely extrapolate that from the many years of crypto market activity and conclude this with certainty.  They're decoupled and we can now know that this market trend will continue into the future, despite the fact that according to you it's all a gamble /s

 

And I never once suggested investing anything significant in vaporware cryptos which only have whitepapers.  I have significant money in the space too.  It doesn't make you a wise authority, it means nothing, all it means is well, that you've put significant money into the space.  I specifically have stated many times this thread is not about investing or price speculation.

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As for the investment point - if you live in a first world country with a decent government you probably don't "need" cryptocurrency and that's why you don't understand it. But if you live in Venezuela or Zimbabwe where the government printed "trillions" of dollars worth of worthless paper money, inflated it so much that you literally have to carry duffel bags of fiat currency around to buy anything with, then you will realize how important access to a global financial system is for humanity as a whole. The video above mentions this exact point and goes into further detail regarding the fact that the majority of people in the world, people who aren't privileged like us sitting here capable of shitposting online, literally have no access to bank accounts - and cryptocurrencies will give them access with a smart phone app, requiring no permission from central authorities authorizing them to have a bank account

If their money is worthless, how are they buying bitcoin?

And if there are no central authorities authorizing anyone, why do you have to do KYC to get in on ICOs and exchanges? (Ignoring the DEXs for now, those that currently exist suck donkey balls, and liquidity issues are always going to be a problem)

 

What will happen Is governments will create their own digital currencies, banks will use permissioned block chains, and even more oversight over personal finances will be exerted by regulators.

 

I’m good though, I made a bunch of cash off my “investments”.

It's not "worthless" it's just worthless in comparison to the fiat denominations used - trillions of dollars to buy loaves of bread. And they cannot hold it for extended periods of time because it is continually being devalued.

 

The situation right now with centralized exchanges is simply a growing pain we are moving through. Things like localbitcoins help sidestep that, and the situation will get better as time moves on.

 

Governments will indeed create their own digital currencies (Putin is planning to), banks will indeed create permissions block chains (Ripple), but nobody who understands will choose to use it. If people want to they will, if they don't want to they won't. Privacy coins like monero sidestep all regulation

 

And it's nice to see that you view this technology as an "investment" instead of a technology and social revolution

Monetize is a giant pain in the ass to use.

 

I like Ethereum and smart contracts, I believe that’s where the real value in all of this lies. Transparent, trustless contracts will enable a new realm of business opportunities.

 

All this whining about “muh taxes” is ridiculous nonsense. You live in a first world country because your taxes provide infrastructure, governance, regulation, and stability.

Since the entryway to BTC is through fiat, and the Venezuelan fiat is worthless, how are they buying BTC?

 

And again, BTC forks literally created free money (if you hold BTC, you get the forked coin).

And speaking of Tx times/fees, what’s the average BTC Tx time and fee?

 

 

I'm not wining about muh taxes, I am a liberal who votes for higher taxes against myself.  I'm simply pointing out a fact which you've conveniently ignored - the tax situation has nothing to do with crypto and everything to do with the, well, only the tax situation

 

Did you not understand what I said about Venezuelan fiat?  It's not worthless, you just need large quantities of it to buy anything because the denominations are off, and it's experiencing hyper inflation

 

I have no fucking idea where they're buying it, but once again that's irrelevant because I'm not even talking about the situation as it stands right now, I'm talking about how things will be once the technologies mature.

 

BTC forks do not create free money unless someone values the altcoin enough to buy it.  Look at the countless BTC forks that are worthless.  I can make a BTC fork right now and it would be worthless because nobody would buy it.  People can create altcoins - that doesn't mean BTC itself is being inflated because there is only one BTC

 

And if you're getting free money valued in inflationary fiat in the form of extra altcoins after a fork, that's literally the opposite of creating a larger quantity of fiat and devaluing existing fiat because fiat holders do not get a boost in their fiat stashes like crypto holders during crypto forks do.  It's the exact opposite thing.  I think you're confusing denomination, supply, and value.

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