Cryptocurrencies

[Libs]

57 minutes ago, Milu said:

A good tell of how close we are to a bottom in a bitcoin downturn is the number of gloating posts show up in close succession so perhaps we're on the way up from here.

 

And time to trim is when the 'have fun staying poor' posts show up on the other end.

 

My conviction in the asset remains unshaken.

 

Ditto, well said. 

[Masterofnone]

1 hour ago, gfp said:

at this point I'm just doing trades to f*ck with you guys

 

 

Hah! My lowball order of $104.11 just missed getting filled yesterday. I'm a chickens**t when it comes to silly trading ideas I'll put in a "stupid low" offer and leave it up to chance. You have more conviction and act, then keep acting. Guessing our rational was the same.

[73 Reds]

59 minutes ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

 

That is absolutely not borne out by the reality we witness every day

Says who?  A more connected World results in much more hype and many more people who fall for it.  Look, I readily acknowledge there are people like Greg who view BTC as a play on human behavior and are able to profit from it.  That's far different than any kind of long term bull thesis.  

[Buckeye]

So if Bitcoin is “digital gold” does that make Gold “analog Bitcoin”?
 

So far, Bitcoin appears to have done really, really well in a ZIRP environment. Not so much with positive interest rates.  Will be interesting to monitor going forward. 

Edited February 6 by Buckeye

[TwoCitiesCapital]

35 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

So if Bitcoin is “digital gold” does that make Gold “analog Bitcoin”?
 

So far, Bitcoin appears to have done really, really well in a ZIRP environment. Not so much with positive interest rates.  Will be interesting to monitor going forward.

 

Were rates not positive and rising from 2016 - 2018 when it went from $1k to $20k? 

 

Or rising/high from 2022 - 2025 when Bitcoin went from $15k to $125k? 

 

 

 

35 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

 

Edited February 6 by TwoCitiesCapital

[Paarslaars]

Well where do we think rates are headed now?

[Buckeye]

Sure maybe you had some positive rates for a year and a half  but then what happened? Back to near zero rates and flood the world with fiat dollars from Covid bailouts? Are we going to ignore that part? 
 

And the blowout from 2022-2025 could probably be attributed to a big orange thumb on the scale, but what do I know. 

Edited February 6 by Buckeye

[Buckeye]

50 minutes ago, Paarslaars said:

Well where do we think rates are headed now?

Not sure if this is directed at me, but I’ll answer to say I have no clue where rates are headed. And the best thing is that I don’t really need to know, as it appears as though most of my investments have done pretty well in both a zero and normal interest rate environment. 

Edited February 6 by Buckeye

[Buckeye]

I love all of the pushback against the BTC naysayers, with the dumb argument of “yes well you were wrong the whole time as BTC went from blah blah blah all the way up to blah blah blah. And now you show up and snicker”

 

If you didn’t sell out at the high blah blah blah, then you have no recognized gain, the last time I checked.  Which still makes you a potential future bag holder.  It’s like pointing at the scoreboard half way through the game. 

And just for the record, I take zero pleasure in anyone experiencing any sort of financial pain.  That’s sick. And I certainly don’t want, or need, to be “proven right.” But I will admit to taking a small bit of pleasure when someone is proven wrong. Especially when that person, or those people, have flooded the landscape for years, with their drivel. 
 

“Backed by the most powerful computer in the world!” JFC

Edited February 6 by Buckeye

[brobro777]

Listen guys my next dental appointment is in June. I'll let you know what my hygienist says then!

 

 

[Paarslaars]

Cob&f has not been flooded by BTC fans for years mate... hell the MSTR thread is more popular with BTC bears like Dalal these days.

[TwoCitiesCapital]

2 hours ago, Buckeye said:

Sure maybe you had some positive rates for a year and a half  but then what happened? Back to near zero rates and flood the world with fiat dollars from Covid bailouts? Are we going to ignore that part? 

 

Zero rates didn't happen until April of 2020. Bitcoin fell over 50% from January of 2018 to February of 2020 - before most of the U.S. had even heard of Covid. During this period of time, Fed funds rates had topped and were heading steadily lower...and BTC was still falling. 

 

Bitcoin fell another 50% before rates were cut to 0% in Covid. Maybe we can exclude February - April of 2020 for covid, but the period of 2016-2018 with BTC rising with rates and from 2018 - 2019 of BTC falling with rates should be more than enough to demonstrate that it doesn't have correlation with rates the way you think it does and that it wasn't ZIRP that floated the price for 15-years. 

 

Hell, we just watched it hit ATHs @ $125k when rates were ~4.5%. 

 

2 hours ago, Buckeye said:

 

And the blowout from 2022-2025 could probably be attributed to a big orange thumb on the scale, but what do I know. 

 

You're telling me Trump was president in 2022? and 2023? and 2024? Or does Biden also have bad spray tan? 

 

 

2 hours ago, brobro777 said:

Listen guys my next dental appointment is in June. I'll let you know what my hygienist says then!

 

Lol. I have a travel nurse friend that got into in 2023 - but that was a good time to enter and he made money. So somehow we have to pick and choose which non-financial professionals we're gonna use as signals. 

Edited February 6 by TwoCitiesCapital

[wachtwoord]

On 2/6/2026 at 2:57 PM, 73 Reds said:

Isn't BTC a "cryptocurrency"?  If its not a currency why is it called a currency?  

 

Misnomers abound in the real messy world. The state calls CPI increases inflation, not the increase of the money supply. Liberalism once being used to point to people valuing individual freedom above all else, now used to those that wish all are stripped of their individual freedoms and coerced to act by the state executed "collectivism". Vaccine, once equivalent with engendered stimulation of immunity developed by the body, now used for shots that at best reduce symptoms. Etc etc etc

 

Bitcoin, nor gold, nor paper, nor seashells are currencies. They can be used as such, with varying degrees of efficiency as anything with value that's at least somewhat fungible. 

 

Btw if you are that married to terms, don't be fooled like eg Ripple calling their chucky cheese coins "cryptocurrency". If it has a centralized ledger it's just an inefficient database.

 

21 hours ago, Buckeye said:

So if Bitcoin is “digital gold” does that make Gold “analog Bitcoin”?

 

Well yes. Bitcoin is gold with superior qualities. 

 

Originally posted in early 2012: https://medium.com/lux-initiative/bitcoin-the-libertarian-introduction-c616edd8496c

 

On 2/6/2026 at 4:08 PM, Luke said:

It mostly attracts people that do not understand enough about economics 

 

It's the people in charge of the economic institutions that "do not understand enough about economics". This is because the Keynesian political ideology was used to push utter falsehoods on generations of economics students. So many believe that nonsense now and few practice the actual science (austrian economics). Eg Inflation of a currency being a good thing is so incredibly stupid. How did they convince people of that nonsense?

 

Btw did you see that central banker laugh about bitcoin at Davos? Did you hear him speak?  he has zero clue but speaks with utter confidence. For example he thinks a single person controls the bitcoin blockchain

Edited February 7 by wachtwoord
Merged 3

[Luke]

2 hours ago, wachtwoord said:

It's the people in charge of the economic institutions that "do not understand enough about economics". This is because the Keynesian political ideology was used to push utter falsehoods on generations of economics students. So many believe that nonsense now and few practice the actual science (austrian economics). Eg Inflation of a currency being a good thing is so incredibly stupid. How did they convince people of that nonsense?

 

Btw did you see that central banker laugh about bitcoin at Davos? Did you hear him speak?  he has zero clue but speaks with utter confidence. For example he thinks a single person controls the bitcoin blockchain

Neither school is "hard science" like physics. But we can see the effects of policies that fall into their specific schools and we can also predict what would happen if you follow one idea or the other. If you would have had bitcoin as a global currency during corona we would probably had civil war and way more damage than the keynesian approach governments took. 

 

Most modern economists argue for low predicatable inflation around 2% to encourage spending and investment rather than hoarding. A strictly deflationary currency like Bitcoin can lead to a "liquidity trap" where nobody spends because their money will be worth more tomorrow, potentially stalling economic growth. 

 

If you fix the money supply but the population and productivity grows each unit of currency must represent a larger slice of the economic pie and with bitcoin has to lead to structural deflation. When an economy hits a recession a central bank needs expansionary monetary policy by lowering interest rates or increasing the money supply for example. With bitcoin there is nothing to pull, if the economy is down you cannot stimulate it. Demand collapses, shops close, factories stop producing, unemployment spikes and you have a spiral that will lead to a complete social breakdown if you cant intervene (great depression was the perfect example what happens when you are on gold standard and couldnt kickstart the engine). 

 

How would you borrow money with bitcoin? you borrow 1 bitcoin and due to persistent scarcity you owe 2 bitcoins over time crushing homeowners and business owners? 

 

The flexibility of fiat money allowed for the industrial and technological expansion of the 20th century. Bitcoin is a terrible operating system for a running modern and complex nation. 

 

Please elaborate how you will run our economy with bitcoin as a currency because reading your reply it seems like you think you understood it all. 

 

 

Edited February 7 by Luke

[Luke]

On 1/28/2026 at 10:22 AM, wachtwoord said:

Yeah and did you see the condescending little fucker smile, laugh and mock while being as wrong a he could possibly be? Mind boggling how such incompetents are in such influential positions in society (central bankers are our system's central planners equivalent, yes a communistic pillar of western society).

Well - since you seem to be promoting crypto and bitcoin as a replacement for currencies like the euro, yuan or USD i dont think you are much smarter than those central bankers but i am curious what your master plan is  

[Luke]

3 hours ago, wachtwoord said:

 

Misnomers abound in the real messy world. The state calls CPI increases inflation, not the increase of the money supply. Liberalism once being used to point to people valuing individual freedom above all else, now used to those that wish all are stripped of their individual freedoms and coerced to act by the state executed "collectivism". Vaccine, once equivalent with engendered stimulation of immunity developed by the body, now used for shots that at best reduce symptoms. Etc etc etc

 

Bitcoin, nor gold, nor paper, nor seashells are currencies. They can be used as such, with varying degrees of efficiency as anything with value that's at least somewhat fungible. 

 

Btw if you are that married to terms, don't be fooled like eg Ripple calling their chucky cheese coins "cryptocurrency". If it has a centralized ledger it's just an inefficient database.

 

 

Well yes. Bitcoin is gold with superior qualities. 

 

Originally posted in early 2012: https://medium.com/lux-initiative/bitcoin-the-libertarian-introduction-c616edd8496c

 

 

It's the people in charge of the economic institutions that "do not understand enough about economics". This is because the Keynesian political ideology was used to push utter falsehoods on generations of economics students. So many believe that nonsense now and few practice the actual science (austrian economics). Eg Inflation of a currency being a good thing is so incredibly stupid. How did they convince people of that nonsense?

 

Btw did you see that central banker laugh about bitcoin at Davos? Did you hear him speak?  he has zero clue but speaks with utter confidence. For example he thinks a single person controls the bitcoin blockchain

IF you think that the market with bitcoin will self-correct then you dont understand the human costs behind the "libertarian" crypto model. If wages fall and you create a deflationary environment because "let the market find the right price" you forget that people have fixed costs or mortgages, electricity, food. If my salary drops by 30% because of a market correction but my debt remains fixed i will default, lose my home and go to the streets. A 10 year correction with 20%+ unemployment isnt an economic phase because it will lead to the rise of extremism and overthrowing of the government. If shocks like 2020 unproductive businesses that fail arent zombie companies but they are our local grocery stores, doctors etc that couldnt survive a capital freeze...

 

The social unrest we see today is NOT because of fiat but because the government did not do the right job in taxation, investment and job creation. They have allowed monopolies in sectors where monopolies are natural (housing) or electricity etc where you are forced to pay these prices. Minimum wage is still at the same level since years in the US for example while its an important tool to drive wage growth and domestic demand...fiat was never a stable value asset - if you want that you need to buy a business. 

 

Can you name a single modern industrialized nation that successfully navigated a major global crisis using a strictly fixed-supply currency without experiencing a total social or political collapse? Do you want to be the man responsible for the consequences and replace the current central banker? 

[wachtwoord]

Luke if you want a reply please rewrite all your messages so they don't assume I consider Bitcoin as a currency. Like this it's pretty pointless to respond.

 

You simply stating the retarded religious belief that a 2% tax inflation is a good thing, just using an argumentem auctoritatem as its legitimization, rather than a political scheme to steal from the productive class and keep them down as part of your response to what I wrote does not give me much hope btw.

[Gregmal]

That’s what happens when folks use AI to try to understand shit 

[Spekulatius]

Most currencies are decent store of value if you put them into treasuries or sovereign bonds, but some are not, due to poltical disfunction. The primary  function of a currency is not to be a longer term store of value , but to be a functional  medium of exchanges for goods services and to keep the economy going in good time and bad. In bad economic  times  the ability of fiat based currencies to create new money out of thin at is a features not a bug. There was a resounding why we went of a gold standard. With a gold standard, the central bank can’t do much if there is a crisis. We had many banking crisis in the 19th century before a central bank was institutionalized and we were running on a strict gold standard (which really was abandoned in the 1930’s mostly and then competed in 1971.

 

Of we were to run our economy on bitcoin , we would go back to the time of frequent crashes where the banking system or parts of it would collapse because some constituents would end up short on liquidity and there would be no way to provide it, because the number of bitcoins is fixed (just like gold is). So be careful what you wish for, but I don’t think a Bitcoin based economy will work, because the financial system won’t work well with bitcoin being the medium of exchange.

[TwoCitiesCapital]

56 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

 There was a resounding why we went of a gold standard. With a gold standard, the central bank can’t do much if there is a crisis. We had many banking crisis in the 19th century before a central bank was institutionalized and we were running on a strict gold standard (which really was abandoned in the 1930’s mostly and then competed in 1971.

 

This is NOT why we left a gold standard. We left a gold standard because, even with it, the US government issued more paper backed by it than gold existed in our reserves...i.e. still a fiat/unbacked currency.

 

People didn't know at the time, because money/gold traveled slowly and so it wasn't quite possible to audit paper claims outstanding against the physical metal. But overtime, the world began to sniff this out and didn't want dollars. Countries began to ask to redeem their USD reserves for gold and U.S. realized it now had a confidence problem. To prevent a "run on the bank" of its own making, the U.S. government refused convertibility and return of other countries' golds and we moved to a new monetary order. 

 

It had absolutely nothing to do with bank crisis and everything to do with governments not being able to stay within a damn budget and still printing money that was unbacked...

 

56 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

 

Of we were to run our economy on bitcoin , we would go back to the time of frequent crashes where the banking system or parts of it would collapse because some constituents would end up short on liquidity and there would be no way to provide it, because the number of bitcoins is fixed (just like gold is). So be careful what you wish for, but I don’t think a Bitcoin based economy will work, because the financial system won’t work well with bitcoin being the medium of exchange.

 

Bank crash due to liquidity mismatches, risk management, and confidence. Not because of monetary supply. Fractional reserve banking greatly contributes to this risk by dramatically increasing the claims against held deposits. So it is precisely the CREATION of money out of thin air that is part of the problem and not the solution. 

Edited February 8 by TwoCitiesCapital

[Spekulatius]

@TwoCitiesCapital I disagree with you. the USA basically left the gold standard in 1933. In 1934 the exchange ratio between us and Gold was changed.  While the gold standard was still technically in place afterwards it was already hollowed out and people knew it too, it wasn’t a secret. Nixon then competed it in 1971.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

Edited February 8 by Spekulatius

[Luke]

12 hours ago, wachtwoord said:

Luke if you want a reply please rewrite all your messages so they don't assume I consider Bitcoin as a currency. Like this it's pretty pointless to respond.

 

You simply stating the retarded religious belief that a 2% tax inflation is a good thing, just using an argumentem auctoritatem as its legitimization, rather than a political scheme to steal from the productive class and keep them down as part of your response to what I wrote does not give me much hope btw.

Well - you clearly dont seem to be interested in a discussion because you would have responded to me with content instead of asking for a rewrite of a comment (lol). I told you the reason for the 2% inflation expectation - its not a political scheme to steal from the productive class and keep them down - this happens by other forms of political engineering. But anyways thought you would respond which you didnt so thats that. 

12 hours ago, Gregmal said:

That’s what happens when folks use AI to try to understand shit 

As learned from Greg the past few years another useless comment and also not related to the argument - sad development. 

[wachtwoord]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Well - you clearly dont seem to be interested in a discussion because you would have responded to me with content instead of asking for a rewrite of a comment (lol). I told you the reason for the 2% inflation expectation - its not a political scheme to steal from the productive class and keep them down - this happens by other forms of political engineering. But anyways thought you would respond which you didnt so thats that. 

As learned from Greg the past few years another useless comment and also not related to the argument - sad development. 

 

Luke, what you wrote was nonsensical and inconsistent to meaningfully respond to. Not worth my effort to comb through.

 

You don't have to rewrite and I will simply not engage. All good.

[wachtwoord]

11 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Most currencies are decent store of value

No they are not as supply is constantly inflated (melting ice cube). Do yourself a favor and look up the maximum and average survival times of currencies historically.

 

11 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

if you put them into treasuries or sovereign bonds,

Lets add counter party risk on top for no gain?

 

11 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

The primary  function of a currency is not to be a longer term store of value , but to be a functional  medium of exchanges 

 

Agreed, and to transfer wealth from the productive class to the parasitic class (politicians and all the professions that only exist or are as large due to politicians eg tax advisors).

 

11 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

There was a resounding why we went of a gold standard. With a gold standard, the central bank can’t do much if there is a crisis. We had many banking crisis in the 19th century before a central bank was institutionalized and we were running on a strict gold standard (which really was abandoned in the 1930’s mostly and then competed in 1971.

 

That's a feature not a bug. Frequent small crises every few years is the natural way of an economy. All central banks do is block the economy from going through these release cycles taking out the poor allocators of capital. Their continued existence, financed through direct and indirect transfer of capital, supports Malinvestment of capital which comes with a huge societal cost (opportunity cost).

 

Central banks are a core tenet of communism. Free societies by definition cannot have central banks as their very existence is coercive and exploitative. The US was much more free until the UK bankers Trojan horsed the Fed into existence in the US (I'm European btw, the oppression and stagnation the founding fathers fled from, unfortunately you were followed there by our crap institutions centuries later).

 

11 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Of we were to run our economy on bitcoin , 

 

What does "run on" mean in your mind? In mine people should be free to use whatever medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account they choose and not be coerced into one or a few. Enforcement that exists now through enforcing acceptance of a specific fiat currency, enforcement of tax settlement in a specific fiat, forcing tax calculation with a specific fiat (eg paying capital gains on a,loss,of purchasing power through inflation) and restriction of what assets can and cannot be owned by a private individual is barbarous.

 

[Luke]

31 minutes ago, wachtwoord said:

No they are not as supply is constantly inflated (melting ice cube). Do yourself a favor and look up the maximum and average survival times of currencies historically.

 

Lets add counter party risk on top for no gain?

 

 

Agreed, and to transfer wealth from the productive class to the parasitic class (politicians and all the professions that only exist or are as large due to politicians eg tax advisors).

 

 

That's a feature not a bug. Frequent small crises every few years is the natural way of an economy. All central banks do is block the economy from going through these release cycles taking out the poor allocators of capital. Their continued existence, financed through direct and indirect transfer of capital, supports Malinvestment of capital which comes with a huge societal cost (opportunity cost).

 

Central banks are a core tenet of communism. Free societies by definition cannot have central banks as their very existence is coercive and exploitative. The US was much more free until the UK bankers Trojan horsed the Fed into existence in the US (I'm European btw, the oppression and stagnation the founding fathers fled from, unfortunately you were followed there by our crap institutions centuries later).

 

 

What does "run on" mean in your mind? In mine people should be free to use whatever medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account they choose and not be coerced into one or a few. Enforcement that exists now through enforcing acceptance of a specific fiat currency, enforcement of tax settlement in a specific fiat, forcing tax calculation with a specific fiat (eg paying capital gains on a,loss,of purchasing power through inflation) and restriction of what assets can and cannot be owned by a private individual is barbarous.

 

If you read about economies before state run central banks there was way less freedom for anyone and for the state because the banks controlled everything (for example Jakob Fuggers financing the election of Karl V).

 

You say you dont consider Bitcoin as a currency but then bash fiat, use the terms parasitic class, - what is it you want? 

 

Do you own bitcoin? Do you want bitcoin to become the main form of exchange in our economy? Can you make an actual plan instead of criticizing but not providing solutions? 

 

I would be really interested to hear your solutions but i fear that you might dodge to answer that.