Cryptocurrencies

[Dave86ch]

4 hours ago, KJP said:

Interesting essay on some highly centralized aspects of the current state of Web3:  https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

 

In the context of DeFi, I think the maxim "people don't want to run their own server" can be translated to "people don't want to be their own custodian."  That's not universally true, but I think it's generally true in Western countries and will continue to be unless there are major failures of traditional custodians or people get sufficiently concerned that their government can (and would) lock them out of the financial system, a la what happened to women once the Sons of Jacob took over in The Handmaid's Tale.

Maybe they don't want, but I doubt there are other viable ways.

 

https://dscompounding.wordpress.com/2022/01/09/metaverse/

[Longnose]

41 minutes ago, thepupil said:

I think it in part stems from the fact that every time i've invested in silver and gold, i end up buying to sell other stuff that i like more and it's not a worthwhile activity for me because i never end up owning enough for diversification bennies and don't have the discpline to HODL something in whcih i have no conviction

 

Thats fair, and TBH i had no conviction till I started playing with it. I did this purely from an educational perspective. But I think anyone who pays the little bit to get into the ecosystem and start playing with it from an open minded perspective will gain conviction quickly. 

 

On the other end of the spectrum. I still believe that circle of competence stuff. Stick with what you know and youll make as much or more. My fasciation with crypto is mostly that... Fasciation. Im not YOLOing into anything with crypto. I cant value it other than I am confident that it will shape the future. I still spend most of my time looking at businesses that have real revenues and cash generation for the majority of my investments.

 

[rkbabang]

54 minutes ago, thepupil said:

Smart people tell me I should care about crypto…and I just really struggle to do so. 
 

this along with my hatred of Tesla is mainly because I’m a “small dicked fit wit”....

 

I think it in part stems from the fact that every time i've invested in silver and gold, i end up buying to sell other stuff that i like more and it's not a worthwhile activity for me because i never end up owning enough for diversification bennies and don't have the discpline to HODL something in whcih i have no conviction. 

 

 

Nothing wrong with that.  There are, and always will be, other ways to make money even if crypto eventually becomes what I, and many others, think it will.  I fully understand that not everyone is convinced right now.   I don't think I'm wrong, but of course I could be.  There are people fully convinced that we will all be driving hydrogen powered cars (I think their wrong), but who knows?  There were people who thought the internet was going to be a flop, Paul Krugman famously said "By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s."  Everyone's got their own thoughts about what will happen and that's what makes a market.

 

[KJP]

5 hours ago, KJP said:

Interesting essay on some highly centralized aspects of the current state of Web3:  https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

 

In the context of DeFi, I think the maxim "people don't want to run their own server" can be translated to "people don't want to be their own custodian."  That's not universally true, but I think it's generally true in Western countries and will continue to be unless there are major failures of traditional custodians or people get sufficiently concerned that their government can (and would) lock them out of the financial system, a la what happened to women once the Sons of Jacob took over in The Handmaid's Tale.

 

A response from Buterin: 

 

[KJP]

1 hour ago, Longnose said:

 

I think we will get to a point where people wont realize the difference anymore. Eventually you'll be able to name your wallet like an email address.  Your money will be tied to whatever wallet you make. Potentially hardware wallets could get to the point where you buy the equivalent of a raspberryPI that has a software preloaded. Where you set up the wallets for your household. 

 

I guess there may always be the group that doesn't even want to do that but w/e. I think DeFi will become more and more mainstream over time. 

 

It's not just the technical aspects of self-custody, but the risks as well.  Of course, there are also risks to third-party custodians.

[rkbabang]

9 minutes ago, KJP said:

 

It's not just the technical aspects of self-custody, but the risks as well.  Of course, there are also risks to third-party custodians.

 

 

Exactly.  And before defi you had no option but to use third-party custodians.  Defi increases your options and optionality is always an added value.

 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

Seems like the market is broadly negative sentiment again. My guess is this is where the market turns. Or maybe I'm just blindly hoping after this killed my performance over the last 6 weeks. 

 

I know I'm feeling pretty despondent about some of these exposures (except for LINK - thank god it finally did something!).  But the forums and discords I'm part of all seem fairly despondent. Sentiment was already bad before this last leg down and retail traders never really returned in size after this summer's dip. Seems like all the ones to sell have been washed out and all that is left are slow accumulators putting in a price floor. 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

Loading up on some Chainlink this AM. Seems like a platform agnostic bet on a token that is absolutely dominant in the oracle space. 

 

Hard to place a value on it, but network valuations suggest a significantly higher price from here AND potential for staking to earn yield is upcoming. 

[DRValue]

3 hours ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

Loading up on some Chainlink this AM. Seems like a platform agnostic bet on a token that is absolutely dominant in the oracle space. 

 

Hard to place a value on it, but network valuations suggest a significantly higher price from here AND potential for staking to earn yield is upcoming. 

I made a low effort thread on link way back. Thesis was basically that I don't know which currency wins but smart contracts need data and this project is basically first mover institution coin miles ahead of any competitor. In other words, if chainlink can't do it no one can. Haven't read much of this thread but have you seen Eric schmidt now advising? Link will be easy to value once the yield on the token is known.

[DRValue]

Also, take a look at etherisc (DIP). Decentralised insurance platform. Flight delay insurance live. Hurricane insurance product soon. Again yield on token can give you a valuation in time. 

[backtothebeach]

On 12/22/2020 at 6:43 PM, Gregmal said:

https://fortune.com/2020/12/21/ripple-to-be-sued-by-sec-cryptocurrency-xrp/

 

Probably why you dont want to pay for XRP if you are buying Ripple shares....

Where do I start... So I met this guy yesterday who is utterly convinced that there is a conspiracy hiding the fact that Swift will be replaced by XRP, i.e. the whole International Banking system will run on XRP after an intentional crash of the system. 
 

This will make one XRP worth thousands or tens of thousands of dollars and make everybody ridiculously rich who has even a few hundred XRP coins.

 

Russia being kicked out of Swift is just the first trial balloon, the first countries to adopt ripple/XRP will be Russia, China, India and Brazil. Then they will claim unprecedented cyber attacks, probably by Russia, to shut the whole system down and make the big switch to XRP... and the whole SEC lawsuit is just a distraction. 
 

Guy was deep down the rabbit hole… Claims he has done hours of “video research” of the subject every day for over half a year.

I’ve watched a few videos, but frankly I fall asleep watching them because it’s such gibberish. Still, I don’t want to shit on the guy too much because what the fuck do I know, it’s not like conspiracy theories never come true haha.

 

Crazy thing is, the guy has convinced a lot of his friends and even family to buy into the story. 

Whatever, as long as one Berkshire Hathaway A share buys around 400,000 espressos in Italy, or 4000 nights at a good Airbnb apartment, I think I’ll be fine lol.

Edited March 6, 2022 by backtothebeach

[Xerxes]

If neither or either Russian (state & people) cannot use Bitcoin to its fullest potential for their respective aim, that would be failing the acid test for BTC.

 

Russian oligarch or others should be able to use Bitcoin to "lock away" asset for seizue both in Russia and abraod. I know Ukrainian have been using to capture donations at a blink of an eye.

[jfan]

Interesting article by Lyn Alden

 

https://www.lynalden.com/what-is-money/

 

 

 

 

[rkbabang]

An interesting way to look at the reduction of Bitcoin volatility in each 4 year halving cycle as Bitcoin becomes more widely held.   This cycle should have already saw highs above $125K before dropping below $20K.   Maybe the next cycle will stay in an even tighter range.

 

https://www.blockchaincenter.net/en/bitcoin-rainbow-chart/

 

 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

On 5/16/2022 at 10:18 AM, rkbabang said:

An interesting way to look at the reduction of Bitcoin volatility in each 4 year halving cycle as Bitcoin becomes more widely held.   This cycle should have already saw highs above $125K before dropping below $20K.   Maybe the next cycle will stay in an even tighter range.

 

https://www.blockchaincenter.net/en/bitcoin-rainbow-chart/

 

 

 

Well, there's our drop below 20k despite never having the blow-off top moment

 

In other news, FTX is reportedly in talks to acquire BlockFi for $25 million. BlockFi was valued as high as $5B a year ago.

 

Between Celsius going under and this desperate move to keep BlockFi afloat, it does seem like billions in deposits are in question regardless of crypto performance. It's gonna be some time before people get excited about crypto again

[Longnose]

I continue to add to BTC on the way down. Its not going anywhere and will come back up eventually. 

 

I haven't added anything POS for a long time. I still hold a fair amount of AVAX because I play and develop a little in that chain. But its value has been decimated. 

[randomep]

I haven't had time to read through the thousands of messages in this thread, but I just got a simple question:

 

who here believes crypto is not just all a big ponzi?

 

I don't consider myself a super guru on investing and finance (I consider myself in the same class as Pabrai) but I subscribe to the church of value investing.  And when the top two cardinals of the church told me something to the effect that trading crypto is as ethical as trading fetus brains, I believe it at face value. That's it, no ifs or buts...... but that's just me

[JRM]

0.1% of Bitcoin owners own 30% of all the Bitcoins.  Doesn't sound very decentralized and distributed to me.

 

Still waiting to buy directly from Michael Saylor.

[Spekulatius]

10 hours ago, randomep said:

I haven't had time to read through the thousands of messages in this thread, but I just got a simple question:

 

who here believes crypto is not just all a big ponzi?

 

I don't consider myself a super guru on investing and finance (I consider myself in the same class as Pabrai) but I subscribe to the church of value investing.  And when the top two cardinals of the church told me something to the effect that trading crypto is as ethical as trading fetus brains, I believe it at face value. That's it, no ifs or buts...... but that's just me

There is no question (imo) that crypto is a Ponzi. I think the question is if we are early or late in this Ponzi.

[randomep]

43 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

There is no question (imo) that crypto is a Ponzi. I think the question is if we are early or late in this Ponzi.

 

wow that is really deep, ok that explains everything.......

[SharperDingaan]

2 hours ago, JRM said:

0.1% of Bitcoin owners own 30% of all the Bitcoins.  Doesn't sound very decentralized and distributed to me.

 

Still waiting to buy directly from Michael Saylor.

 

Thing is; that 0.1% are either miners HODLing, or the very unsavory 'hiding' their wealth. Mess with BTC, and they primarily hurt themselves. Sounds like very effective decentralized and distributed incentives to me!

 

SD

 

[no_free_lunch]

15 hours ago, randomep said:

I haven't had time to read through the thousands of messages in this thread, but I just got a simple question:

 

who here believes crypto is not just all a big ponzi?

 

I don't consider myself a super guru on investing and finance (I consider myself in the same class as Pabrai) but I subscribe to the church of value investing.  And when the top two cardinals of the church told me something to the effect that trading crypto is as ethical as trading fetus brains, I believe it at face value. That's it, no ifs or buts...... but that's just me

 

I think there are 2 elements to crypto.  There is the utility side, money transfer and payments if nothing else which is real.  The other side is the ability to safely store your assets without government stealing it, sort of a gold alternative.  The two tie together.  The more it's used, the easier and safer it is to justify as a store of value.  That said, who knows what the real value should be.  Should bitcoin be $100 or $100k, I really have no idea.  I think of the value of a given coin as being: the float (the amount of some crypto readily available) divided by the transfers that happen over some period.  The more transfers relative to the float size the more valuable it should be, right?  I don't know how to get from there to an actual number but I don't think that number is 0 for something like bitcoin or monero.  Crypto has a utility so is not a total scam but the valuations are difficult to justify.

 

Edited July 2, 2022 by no_free_lunch

[Parsad]

5 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

There is no question (imo) that crypto is a Ponzi. I think the question is if we are early or late in this Ponzi.

 

Crypto is worse than the internet bubble in 2000.  I went to my pharmacy on Tuesday to get a prescription filled...the pharmacist asked me what I do, and then started asking about the stock market.  I told her as long as she wasn't into cryptocurrencies it was a good time to buy stocks, and if she had stocks, don't sell...ride through the storm.  She then started listing her holdings from her phone, as she didn't know them all and her brother had put her into these "stocks".  As soon as I heard them, I said those are all cryptocurrencies or related stocks.  "If I was an advisor, your volatility rating would be on the extremely aggressive side...where you could lose all of your money."  She was down 60% so far, and I told her don't put any more money into this stuff.  She said her brother told her to hold on and in few years it will be worth 10-100 times what it is today.  She was confident that she would make a fantastic return on it.  I knew I was talking to someone who had no idea what their brother got them into.

 

So unfortunately, my prescription wasn't ready and I said I would come back Saturday.  I went in right now and picked up my prescription.  The two other people working there started talking to me.  They were also invested in crypto and most of their friends.  Most of them had put in anywhere from $10K to a couple hundred thousand, and we're talking about people here who are struggling to buy their first home in Vancouver, young single or couples, most with kids.  

 

This is far more prevalent than what I remember during the internet bubble...in terms of how many small investors had bought into internet or internet-related stocks.  This is comparable to the stupidity of ARM loans during the housing crisis.  That type of nuclear bomb!  Fortunately, the financial system isn't really correlated to crypto and has little if any exposure. 

 

I can't believe how many people I heard from who wanted to know about crypto in the last 18 months to how many people are now asking about should they hold on to their crypto in the last 2 months!  I can't see how most of these people don't lose most/all of their money.  Crazy!  Cheers!

[Blugolds11]

35 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

Crypto is worse than the internet bubble in 2000.  I went to my pharmacy on Tuesday to get a prescription filled...the pharmacist asked me what I do, and then started asking about the stock market.  I told her as long as she wasn't into cryptocurrencies it was a good time to buy stocks, and if she had stocks, don't sell...ride through the storm.  She then started listing her holdings from her phone, as she didn't know them all and her brother had put her into these "stocks".  As soon as I heard them, I said those are all cryptocurrencies or related stocks.  "If I was an advisor, your volatility rating would be on the extremely aggressive side...where you could lose all of your money."  She was down 60% so far, and I told her don't put any more money into this stuff.  She said her brother told her to hold on and in few years it will be worth 10-100 times what it is today.  She was confident that she would make a fantastic return on it.  I knew I was talking to someone who had no idea what their brother got them into.

 

So unfortunately, my prescription wasn't ready and I said I would come back Saturday.  I went in right now and picked up my prescription.  The two other people working there started talking to me.  They were also invested in crypto and most of their friends.  Most of them had put in anywhere from $10K to a couple hundred thousand, and we're talking about people here who are struggling to buy their first home in Vancouver, young single or couples, most with kids.  

 

This is far more prevalent than what I remember during the internet bubble...in terms of how many small investors had bought into internet or internet-related stocks.  This is comparable to the stupidity of ARM loans during the housing crisis.  That type of nuclear bomb!  Fortunately, the financial system isn't really correlated to crypto and has little if any exposure. 

 

I can't believe how many people I heard from who wanted to know about crypto in the last 18 months to how many people are now asking about should they hold on to their crypto in the last 2 months!  I can't see how most of these people don't lose most/all of their money.  Crazy!  Cheers!

I’ve had nearly the same exact experiences. Everything from overhearing baristas at a coffee shop talking about their fav coins that are gonna take off, to people pitching it to me that didn’t even know I invested at all, “everybody should own crypto, can’t afford not to” to friends who know how I feel about it and then sheepishly mention they bought some of this or that coin at the recommendation of their sons friend! A kid who went to school for kinesiology, works at the local planet fitness and smokes weed all day, but he convinced them to put money in, they didn’t even have a trading account, they set one up just to buy crypto…amazing.

 

If there is one thing I have learned from the meme stocks, crypto, NTF craze it’s to never underestimate ANYBODY’S ability to act irrational when presented with delusions of getting rich quickly and easily. And by anybody that includes your grandma, your priest, the guy cutting your hair, the kid on the sidewalk next to you with a skateboard who has gotta be barely old enough to open an account, surprised we aren’t seeing homeless at the stoplights with a sign accepting crypto. 
 

Human psychology at its finest, and the thing that gets me is if you ask them questions about the “investment” or offer food for thought, it’s quickly met with “them knowing or hearing of someone who made TONS” or the fact that my skepticism is why I’ll never be rich LOL, “gotta play, to win” that type of gamblers mentality. Like once you’re labeled ad a crypto doubter, you’re the idiot and just don’t get it. 
 

ETF, div payers, blue chips, value..all for boomers! Crypto to the moon, and many are buying on the way down, “once in a lifetime opportunity”…..

[rkbabang]

Yup, it’s going to be a bloodbath. I’m loving it.  My prediction is a huge sell off from here and over 50% of the shitcoins go to zero. Buy Bitcoin when everyone you talk to has sold, thinks it’s a scam, and is as pessimistic as everyone on this board is.