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rkbabang

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Dalio seems to be an individual with an open mind. Of course, that does not mean he would come to invest in bitcoin eventually, but sill.

In november, he was asking people to help him figure it out.

 

I might be missing something about Bitcoin so I’d love to be corrected.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

Now that it is 'mainstream' for a manufacturer to be holding &/or accepting payment in BTC, there will be a lot more of this, and by the bigger players. Simply because if your factory is operating behind a exchange control 'wall', this is one of the few things that you can do to keep your export sales going. Ability to pay foreign suppliers, and accept foreign revenue independent of the local authority is a valuable thing. It also reduces the need to smuggle.

 

BTC at USD 43K this am.

Have to think it will not be long before it crosses 50K  ;)

 

SD

 

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Now that it is 'mainstream' for a manufacturer to be holding &/or accepting payment in BTC, there will be a lot more of this, and by the bigger players. Simply because if your factory is operating behind a exchange control 'wall', this is one of the few things that you can do to keep your export sales going. Ability to pay foreign suppliers, and accept foreign revenue independent of the local authority is a valuable thing. It also reduces the need to smuggle.

 

BTC at USD 43K this am.

Have to think it will not be long before it crosses 50K  ;)

 

SD

 

Let's see what Andy Fastow...I mean Zach Kirkhorn is able to do with this new tool!

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Now that it is 'mainstream' for a manufacturer to be holding &/or accepting payment in BTC, there will be a lot more of this, and by the bigger players. Simply because if your factory is operating behind a exchange control 'wall', this is one of the few things that you can do to keep your export sales going. Ability to pay foreign suppliers, and accept foreign revenue independent of the local authority is a valuable thing. It also reduces the need to smuggle.

 

BTC at USD 43K this am.

Have to think it will not be long before it crosses 50K  ;)

 

SD

 

 

I don't see how simply changing the method of payment would circumvent any regulatory oversight from "local authority" ?

 

Also there used to be bigger retailers accepting bitcoin. At one point Starbucks did I believe, and they all seemed to back out after experimenting with brief roll outs a few years ago.

 

 

 

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Also there used to be bigger retailers accepting bitcoin. At one point Starbucks did I believe, and they all seemed to back out after experimenting with brief roll outs a few years ago.

 

There are plans to fix this (i.e. lightning network, off chain transactions, etc), but right now with the speed of the network, and fees, and the fact that every transaction is a taxable event (at least in the US) it doesn't make much sense to buy a latte every morning with BTC.  But buying a new car makes a lot of sense.

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Now that it is 'mainstream' for a manufacturer to be holding &/or accepting payment in BTC, there will be a lot more of this, and by the bigger players. Simply because if your factory is operating behind a exchange control 'wall', this is one of the few things that you can do to keep your export sales going. Ability to pay foreign suppliers, and accept foreign revenue independent of the local authority is a valuable thing. It also reduces the need to smuggle.

 

BTC at USD 43K this am.

Have to think it will not be long before it crosses 50K  ;)

 

SD

 

 

I don't see how simply changing the method of payment would circumvent any regulatory oversight from "local authority" ?

 

Also there used to be bigger retailers accepting bitcoin. At one point Starbucks did I believe, and they all seemed to back out after experimenting with brief roll outs a few years ago.

 

Under exchange control all your foreign revenues and foreign costs have to pass through your central bank. Typically, the central bank will discount your foreign revenue to get a quicker receipt, and not give you enough FX 'quota' to pay your suppliers. You can either come up with local substitutes or go without. You can object, but do so at the risk of being 'disappeared'; you, your family, all your living relatives, and even your dead - erased.

 

BTC can't be traced, those collecting the bribes are also using it, and it is in everyone's interests NOT to do anything stupid - exactly the 'zero trust' conditions that BTC was designed for. Better still, the local currency is devaluing, your BTC hoard is appreciating, and even if the wallet is seized - the BTC can't be accessed without the key. Smart risk management.

 

SD

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I had some old BTC laying around in a wallet so yesterday with the recent news I played around a bit.

 

I tried to top up a cloud storage account with 10$ USD of BTC. By the time the intermediary processor (bitpay) and network transaction fees were added, the total charge was $19 USD !

 

So the transaction fees basically doubled the cost of my $10 transaction...

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I had some old BTC laying around in a wallet so yesterday with the recent news I played around a bit.

 

I tried to top up a cloud storage account with 10$ USD of BTC. By the time the intermediary processor (bitpay) and network transaction fees were added, the total charge was $19 USD !

 

So the transaction fees basically doubled the cost of my $10 transaction...

 

Not sure about the BTC online transactions, but BTC ATMs have a huge buy/sell spread. Something like 20% or so.  ::)

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I had some old BTC laying around in a wallet so yesterday with the recent news I played around a bit.

 

I tried to top up a cloud storage account with 10$ USD of BTC. By the time the intermediary processor (bitpay) and network transaction fees were added, the total charge was $19 USD !

 

So the transaction fees basically doubled the cost of my $10 transaction...

 

Yea - at this point, it's probably not worthwhile to send small amounts like $10 anywhere.

 

I've made a handful of BTC transactions over the last 18 months - sending to BlockFi, hardware wallet, and to Coinbase. Typically pay $5-$10 each time.

 

That being said, the amounts I'm moving are regularly 5-15k so the $5 fee is hardly noticable compared to what a traditional wire fee would be. And it's near instantaneous which has spoiled me.

 

Moving cash from my AmEx high yield savings account back to my checking account takes 3-5 business days. I'm so spoiled with BTC.

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I had some old BTC laying around in a wallet so yesterday with the recent news I played around a bit.

 

I tried to top up a cloud storage account with 10$ USD of BTC. By the time the intermediary processor (bitpay) and network transaction fees were added, the total charge was $19 USD !

 

So the transaction fees basically doubled the cost of my $10 transaction...

 

Yea - at this point, it's probably not worthwhile to send small amounts like $10 anywhere.

 

I've made a handful of BTC transactions over the last 18 months - sending to BlockFi, hardware wallet, and to Coinbase. Typically pay $5-$10 each time.

 

That being said, the amounts I'm moving are regularly 5-15k so the $5 fee is hardly noticable compared to what a traditional wire fee would be. And it's near instantaneous which has spoiled me.

 

Moving cash from my AmEx high yield savings account back to my checking account takes 3-5 business days. I'm so spoiled with BTC.

 

Back in 2014 I arbed the cost of AWS GPUs and the price of DOGE when the price first spiked. Traded majority of it for (sans AWS costs) for BTC (which I still hold), but stashed a decent chunk of DOGE for kicks. Got about 10k for it this week! I had to scramble to figure out where the DOGE was and where I could sell before the hype wore off. All of the crypto exchanges I have used except for Coinbase are a PITA to get USD out of. I ended up trading it for BTC and sending it to Coinbase because I didn't want money tied in one of the other exchanges. Point being, moving BTC around between accounts and having land in minutes it is very nice.

 

Schwab doesn't charge me for wire fees and they have most of my assets so I don't worry about the fees. But I always hate how wires are basically sending money into the ether and hoping it arrives on the other end with no transparency. Being able to the see the transaction hit the blockchain and see consensus happen in near real time is quite nice. I recently tried to wire money out of an old etrade account into IB. I spent the 5-10 minutes filling out the wire form and double checking it. They debited my account, the money never landed. Eventually (days later) they rejected the transaction and gave me my money back. Decided to just by the stock I wanted in my etrade account and leave it there.

 

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I had some old BTC laying around in a wallet so yesterday with the recent news I played around a bit.

 

I tried to top up a cloud storage account with 10$ USD of BTC. By the time the intermediary processor (bitpay) and network transaction fees were added, the total charge was $19 USD !

 

So the transaction fees basically doubled the cost of my $10 transaction...

 

Yea - at this point, it's probably not worthwhile to send small amounts like $10 anywhere.

 

I've made a handful of BTC transactions over the last 18 months - sending to BlockFi, hardware wallet, and to Coinbase. Typically pay $5-$10 each time.

 

That being said, the amounts I'm moving are regularly 5-15k so the $5 fee is hardly noticable compared to what a traditional wire fee would be. And it's near instantaneous which has spoiled me.

 

Moving cash from my AmEx high yield savings account back to my checking account takes 3-5 business days. I'm so spoiled with BTC.

 

Back in 2014 I arbed the cost of AWS GPUs and the price of DOGE when the price first spiked. Traded majority of it for (sans AWS costs) for BTC (which I still hold), but stashed a decent chunk of DOGE for kicks. Got about 10k for it this week! I had to scramble to figure out where the DOGE was and where I could sell before the hype wore off. All of the crypto exchanges I have used except for Coinbase are a PITA to get USD out of. I ended up trading it for BTC and sending it to Coinbase because I didn't want money tied in one of the other exchanges. Point being, moving BTC around between accounts and having land in minutes it is very nice.

 

Schwab doesn't charge me for wire fees and they have most of my assets so I don't worry about the fees. But I always hate how wires are basically sending money into the ether and hoping it arrives on the other end with no transparency. Being able to the see the transaction hit the blockchain and see consensus happen in near real time is quite nice. I recently tried to wire money out of an old etrade account into IB. I spent the 5-10 minutes filling out the wire form and double checking it. They debited my account, the money never landed. Eventually (days later) they rejected the transaction and gave me my money back. Decided to just by the stock I wanted in my etrade account and leave it there.

 

Yea. I started buying BTC speculatively about 18-20 months ago. Was a long term skeptic having watched it since 2012. I finally appreciated it had staying power and use cases and was glad to buying it after everyone lost interest in the 2018 bust.

 

It's pretty incredible to see what is going on in the DeFi space now and how quickly my expectations for how money should move have changed given my limited involvement. I can't tell you that these tokens are going to "moon" or "rocket", but this innovation will be the future of finance for mang IMO.

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I had some old BTC laying around in a wallet so yesterday with the recent news I played around a bit.

 

I tried to top up a cloud storage account with 10$ USD of BTC. By the time the intermediary processor (bitpay) and network transaction fees were added, the total charge was $19 USD !

 

So the transaction fees basically doubled the cost of my $10 transaction...

 

Yea - at this point, it's probably not worthwhile to send small amounts like $10 anywhere.

 

I've made a handful of BTC transactions over the last 18 months - sending to BlockFi, hardware wallet, and to Coinbase. Typically pay $5-$10 each time.

 

That being said, the amounts I'm moving are regularly 5-15k so the $5 fee is hardly noticable compared to what a traditional wire fee would be. And it's near instantaneous which has spoiled me.

 

Moving cash from my AmEx high yield savings account back to my checking account takes 3-5 business days. I'm so spoiled with BTC.

 

Back in 2014 I arbed the cost of AWS GPUs and the price of DOGE when the price first spiked. Traded majority of it for (sans AWS costs) for BTC (which I still hold), but stashed a decent chunk of DOGE for kicks. Got about 10k for it this week! I had to scramble to figure out where the DOGE was and where I could sell before the hype wore off. All of the crypto exchanges I have used except for Coinbase are a PITA to get USD out of. I ended up trading it for BTC and sending it to Coinbase because I didn't want money tied in one of the other exchanges. Point being, moving BTC around between accounts and having land in minutes it is very nice.

 

Schwab doesn't charge me for wire fees and they have most of my assets so I don't worry about the fees. But I always hate how wires are basically sending money into the ether and hoping it arrives on the other end with no transparency. Being able to the see the transaction hit the blockchain and see consensus happen in near real time is quite nice. I recently tried to wire money out of an old etrade account into IB. I spent the 5-10 minutes filling out the wire form and double checking it. They debited my account, the money never landed. Eventually (days later) they rejected the transaction and gave me my money back. Decided to just by the stock I wanted in my etrade account and leave it there.

 

Yea. I started buying BTC speculatively about 18-20 months ago. Was a long term skeptic having watched it since 2012. I finally appreciated it had staying power and use cases and was glad to buying it after everyone lost interest in the 2018 bust.

 

It's pretty incredible to see what is going on in the DeFi space now and how quickly my expectations for how money should move have changed given my limited involvement. I can't tell you that these tokens are going to "moon" or "rocket", but this innovation will be the future of finance for mang IMO.

 

Yes the advancement in the DeFi space is amazing. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I can see reasons to be skeptical about a decentralized and open payment network, but I can also see how it can be live changing for parts of the world. Lending seems to be the big deal right now. I am not attracted to loan BTC at the current rates. At a cursory glance I don't think it compensates for the risk that the counterparty is unable to meet collateral requirements in a market meltdown. Borrows are required to stake a much larger amount vs their loan but still seems sketchy to me.

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I posted this in the MSTR section. Appreciate any comment/feedback from the crypto-to-the-moon crowd:

 

"While all the pro-Bitcoin argument are valid, being deflationary and good hedge etc. etc. The reality is that today as it stands, Bitcoin represents the apogee of liquidity excesses. The real test is when the economy open and tens of billions move from financial assets into the real economy. If Bitcoin can hold itself and go up in that re-opening economy environment with the 10-year bond yield marching higher, I would say it past the ultimate test.

 

The argument that the M2-expanding-money bulls are making is neglecting that key event. Right now, i think it acts as sponge for excess liquidity and in fact maybe the very manifestation of those excesses. That is not to say the bull case is wrong. I just think it is about to get tested. Somehow I tripled that investment over a month and half and in my non-tax account I don't have unlimited capacity. So need dry powder by selling inflated assets. I still hold some exposure outside my non-tax account on BTC, so there is that.

 

Lastly, while the BTC payment adoption is getting traction, I may be wrong, but I don't see another major corporation to convert its treasury to Bitcoin, unless captained by a maverick like Musk or Saylor. Both UBER and Paypal are happy to have BTC as an interface but have no interest to have balance sheet exposure to it. The one company that I think will do it is Oracle. It has a lost of free cash flow, and the CEO is maverick and a going against the trend like Musk and Saylor.

 

If anyone has feedback on these thoughts would be appreciated"

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On the ORCL front, I doubt it. Hard to imagine Safra being on board with a substantial purchase of BTC.  Company culture is very focused on managing the stock price and earnings.

 

On the macro front I do wonder how many BTC holders truly believe the macro thesis for BTC in their heart of hearts vs just findingexcuses to jump on the gainz train.

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I posted this in the MSTR section. Appreciate any comment/feedback from the crypto-to-the-moon crowd:

 

"While all the pro-Bitcoin argument are valid, being deflationary and good hedge etc. etc. The reality is that today as it stands, Bitcoin represents the apogee of liquidity excesses. The real test is when the economy open and tens of billions move from financial assets into the real economy. If Bitcoin can hold itself and go up in that re-opening economy environment with the 10-year bond yield marching higher, I would say it past the ultimate test.

 

The argument that the M2-expanding-money bulls are making is neglecting that key event. Right now, i think it acts as sponge for excess liquidity and in fact maybe the very manifestation of those excesses. That is not to say the bull case is wrong. I just think it is about to get tested. Somehow I tripled that investment over a month and half and in my non-tax account I don't have unlimited capacity. So need dry powder by selling inflated assets. I still hold some exposure outside my non-tax account on BTC, so there is that.

 

Lastly, while the BTC payment adoption is getting traction, I may be wrong, but I don't see another major corporation to convert its treasury to Bitcoin, unless captained by a maverick like Musk or Saylor. Both UBER and Paypal are happy to have BTC as an interface but have no interest to have balance sheet exposure to it. The one company that I think will do it is Oracle. It has a lost of free cash flow, and the CEO is maverick and a going against the trend like Musk and Saylor.

 

If anyone has feedback on these thoughts would be appreciated"

 

I think you're probably wrong about corporate adoption. I certainly think it'll take time for it to become "mainstream", but Saylor just hosted an event where apparently hundreds of corporate executives were in attendance with the sole topic of the event being "how to adopt Bitcoin in your business". Whether as a means of payment, a treasury asset, or as a business plan.

 

I don't think that the adoption rate will be 0% from that event given that it was self selecting audience with executives already interested being in attendance. You probably won't see $500 million or $1B purchases from most of them, but a handful of $100-200 million purchases would still be meaningful.

 

And the thing about these companies adding it for their balance sheet means that generally it's removed from supply in the intermediate term - this further squeezes a market that is defined by it's scarcity.

 

My thesis for the last several months was that prices had to go higher to satisfy even a small amount of corporate adoption - we're now up 400+% since PayPal announced it's adoption 4 months ago. Do I think it goes higher? Yes. Will we see 400% over the next 4 months? Doubtful.

 

The other consideration is asset management. Asset managers can afford to take a flyer on a 1% position on something that his this level of beta. 1% of AUM at several asset managers would still be representative of billions in demand.

 

Hard to be as excited today as I was when it was 10k, but historical booms have all been more than 10x events from where they started accelerating. We're only at ~4x from where this one started taking off so I think there's more juice over the next 12-18 months.

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