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rkbabang

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Bitcoin stops creating new token at 21M.

When it gets to 21M there will be a lot less in circulation than the designers intended. Impairment.

 

SD

 

 

The number is arbitrary.  The important part is that there is a limit, it isn't important what the limit is.  No one will ever know how many bitcoin are lost forever, but everyone will always know the max amount possible to exist.  That was the intent and it is not impaired in any way.

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Bitcoin stops creating new token at 21M.

When it gets to 21M there will be a lot less in circulation than the designers intended. Impairment.

 

SD

 

 

The number is arbitrary.  The important part is that there is a limit, it isn't important what the limit is.  No one will ever know how many bitcoin are lost forever, but everyone will always know the max amount possible to exist.  That was the intent and it is not impaired in any way.

 

The important part is that there is a MAXIMUM 21M token, and that it CANNOT increase.

The 21M cap means no inflation, and a minimum price supported by utility - as when no new coin are being issued; to pay the miner you must either already have the coin, or buy it from someone else. With < 21M token available for circulation (less supply), this minimum price will be higher than the designers intended it to be (impairment). Alternatively, if additional token are issued to compensate for those 'lost' ; the change evidences that 21M is not a hard cap, and destroys the no inflation feature. Impairment.

 

Bitcoin was designed as a trustless payment system, and reflects the cyberpunk libertarian ethos of its founders - all good.

The problem is that the ultimate 'practical' libertarians are the criminal element!; hence the historic widespread 'Silk Road' involvement, and the more 'practical' security surrounding Bitcoin. Combine Bitcoin, with Chicago Bitcoin Futures and Options, and you literally get perhaps the 'safest' currency on the planet - provided the 21M cap doesn't change (preventing inflation) ;)

 

There are multiple non-banking payment systems in the world. Most would expect market forces to drive consolidation into Bitcoin. There are also multiple banking payment systems, and most would expect market forces to ultimately drive consolidation into a handful of central bank coin used for global settlement. Bitcoin vs Central Bank, and very Yin/Yang.

 

The payment system (Bitcoin), and its record (Block-Chain), are not the same thing.

Smart-Contracts are just an application, running off the Block-Chain record; that allow us to automate transactions (payments).

Allowing the automation of the factory, to be brought to the services industries. Disruptive change.

 

Limitations in the block-chain record (incomplete history) are impairments that have to be adjusted for.

Opening all kinds of practical solutions.

 

SD

 

 

 

 

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Bitcoin stops creating new token at 21M.

When it gets to 21M there will be a lot less in circulation than the designers intended. Impairment.

 

SD

 

 

The number is arbitrary.  The important part is that there is a limit, it isn't important what the limit is.  No one will ever know how many bitcoin are lost forever, but everyone will always know the max amount possible to exist.  That was the intent and it is not impaired in any way.

 

The important part is that there is a MAXIMUM 21M token, and that it CANNOT increase.

The 21M cap means no inflation, and a minimum price supported by utility - as when no new coin are being issued; to pay the miner you must either already have the coin, or buy it from someone else. With < 21M token available for circulation (less supply), this minimum price will be higher than the designers intended it to be (impairment). Alternatively, if additional token are issued to compensate for those 'lost' ; the change evidences that 21M is not a hard cap, and destroys the no inflation feature. Impairment.

 

Bitcoin was designed as a trustless payment system, and reflects the cyberpunk libertarian ethos of its founders - all good.

The problem is that the ultimate 'practical' libertarians are the criminal element!; hence the historic widespread 'Silk Road' involvement, and the more 'practical' security surrounding Bitcoin. Combine Bitcoin, with Chicago Bitcoin Futures and Options, and you literally get perhaps the 'safest' currency on the planet - provided the 21M cap doesn't change (preventing inflation) ;)

 

There are multiple non-banking payment systems in the world. Most would expect market forces to drive consolidation into Bitcoin. There are also multiple banking payment systems, and most would expect market forces to ultimately drive consolidation into a handful of central bank coin used for global settlement. Bitcoin vs Central Bank, and very Yin/Yang.

 

The payment system (Bitcoin), and its record (Block-Chain), are not the same thing.

Smart-Contracts are just an application, running off the Block-Chain record; that allow us to automate transactions (payments).

Allowing the automation of the factory, to be brought to the services industries. Disruptive change.

 

Limitations in the block-chain record (incomplete history) are impairments that have to be adjusted for.

Opening all kinds of practical solutions.

 

SD

 

 

You keep reiterating that immutable isn't complete.  Immutable doesn't mean complete and no one thinks it does.  You do realize that there is no such thing as complete information (see quantum mechanics).  Immutable simply means whatever information is stored, can't be changed later.

 

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SD you're saying that the price will be higher if the accessible supply is lower. That is true, but how is that an impairment?

 

I wish all my investment were impaired in that fashion! It's like a company buying back shares without the associated cost.

 

Also 21M is not a magical number. It's not even the actual number as the actual number is 2100 trillion units. Arbitrarily 100M of these units is known as a Bitcoin.

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Agreed, ’immutable’ just means unchanging.

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

 

To the coder, coding in Python, this is just an object (stored information) that cannot be changed – it has nothing to do with whether that object is ‘complete’ or not. The widespread view of the ‘tech’ silo.

 

To the business (user), paying the coder; ‘immutable’ means the record is reliable, and holds ‘no surprises’. The widespread view of the ‘business’ silo; is that if a record is ‘incomplete’, it is unreliable, and impaired. Don’t care why.

 

The technology removes the intermediaries, places reliance on the coding, and enables automation via the use of smart contracts. In a business, that’s an annual saving of tens of millions, and removes the bulk of the time-tested and well proven human external/internal control apparatus. It also removes the bulk of the sales staff, and the office space currently housing all these people. Fortunately there are simple, practical solutions, to the incomplete record problem.

 

The mining fee is a transaction cost; hence the more a Bitcoin costs, the more it costs to transact. But like any other business, Bitcoin has to compete against other non-bank payment systems (Hawala, Chiti, Casino's, etc); charge too much, nobody uses Bitcoin (and the higher that fee, the more likely that is to occur.) Some calculate that this transaction cost is extremely high; others claim it is zero - as until we hit the token cap, the 'system' pays, and not the transactors.

 

My own view is that for most users of Bitcoin, transaction cost is irrelevant (not price sensitive).

I also think that it is not cheap, and that ultimately, price will be used to 'throttle' processing speed (higher speed via fewer, high-value transactions, vs many low-value transactions). Friends in low prices would start at a transaction cost of $1000+ transaction, in return for its 'unique' benefits. Inclined to agree with them. 

 

SD

 

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  • 2 months later...

If anyone has followed whats gone down the past week or so, I think its incredibly important to notice what has happened with the major cryptos. This was one of the first times I noticed a VERY direct response via price action, responding to macro events, similar to gold, treasuries, and other safe haven instruments.

 

Often, for things to be effective, they have to be accepted within the context of certain uses. If nothing else, I found this unmistakable correlation to be somewhat landmark.

 

Now of course we can get back to debating the intrinsic value of voodoo currency...

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If anyone has followed whats gone down the past week or so, I think its incredibly important to notice what has happened with the major cryptos. This was one of the first times I noticed a VERY direct response via price action, responding to macro events, similar to gold, treasuries, and other safe haven instruments.

 

Often, for things to be effective, they have to be accepted within the context of certain uses. If nothing else, I found this unmistakable correlation to be somewhat landmark.

 

Now of course we can get back to debating the intrinsic value of voodoo currency...

 

I noticed the same thing.  It shows how people are starting think about it, even though it obviously has no value because it isn't printed on green paper with pictures of good (i.e. dead) politicians on it.

 

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If anyone has followed whats gone down the past week or so, I think its incredibly important to notice what has happened with the major cryptos. This was one of the first times I noticed a VERY direct response via price action, responding to macro events, similar to gold, treasuries, and other safe haven instruments.

 

Often, for things to be effective, they have to be accepted within the context of certain uses. If nothing else, I found this unmistakable correlation to be somewhat landmark.

 

Now of course we can get back to debating the intrinsic value of voodoo currency...

 

I noticed the same thing.  It shows how people are starting think about it, even though it obviously has no value because it isn't printed on green paper with pictures of good (i.e. dead) politicians on it.

 

It’s gold for millennials. It’s also a solution if you need to launder money, live in Country with Capital controls and a crappy currency (which typically go hand in hand) and want to transfer you wealth. It might have its limitations, but if you need to move money under the nose from a government, than its the way to go.

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If anyone has followed whats gone down the past week or so, I think its incredibly important to notice what has happened with the major cryptos. This was one of the first times I noticed a VERY direct response via price action, responding to macro events, similar to gold, treasuries, and other safe haven instruments.

 

Often, for things to be effective, they have to be accepted within the context of certain uses. If nothing else, I found this unmistakable correlation to be somewhat landmark.

 

Now of course we can get back to debating the intrinsic value of voodoo currency...

 

I noticed the same thing.  It shows how people are starting think about it, even though it obviously has no value because it isn't printed on green paper with pictures of good (i.e. dead) politicians on it.

 

It’s gold for millennials. It’s also a solution if you need to launder money, live in Country with Capital controls and a crappy currency (which typically go hand in hand) and want to transfer you wealth. It might have its limitations, but if you need to move money under the nose from a government, than its the way to go.

 

It's just hype. The price change is not unusual, and just happened to coincide with the ME news this time around. Hard to make the case that ME tension was the cause.

 

SD

 

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If anyone has followed whats gone down the past week or so, I think its incredibly important to notice what has happened with the major cryptos. This was one of the first times I noticed a VERY direct response via price action, responding to macro events, similar to gold, treasuries, and other safe haven instruments.

 

Often, for things to be effective, they have to be accepted within the context of certain uses. If nothing else, I found this unmistakable correlation to be somewhat landmark.

 

Now of course we can get back to debating the intrinsic value of voodoo currency...

 

I noticed the same thing.  It shows how people are starting think about it, even though it obviously has no value because it isn't printed on green paper with pictures of good (i.e. dead) politicians on it.

 

It’s gold for millennials. It’s also a solution if you need to launder money, live in Country with Capital controls and a crappy currency (which typically go hand in hand) and want to transfer you wealth. It might have its limitations, but if you need to move money under the nose from a government, than its the way to go.

 

It's just hype. The price change is not unusual, and just happened to coincide with the ME news this time around. Hard to make the case that ME tension was the cause.

 

SD

 

This is kind of what I was wondering.

 

Did it pop on the news of Iran and then drop on the quick resolution?

 

Or did it pop because it was massively oversold and drop because it didn't have the momentum to carry through resistance at 8k.

 

Hard to say it Iran was causal or coincidental.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I still think about the day a friend and myself sold 200+ BTC when they were around $10 a piece....

 

Back in college a buddy recruited me into his half baked plan of turning our school library computer lab desktops into mining machines....Worked so well we decided to pull the plug thinking we were sure to get caught. We thought it hurt bad seeing it hit the 200's until it hit 20k....It's amazing how easy it was to mine coins not too long ago. Needless to say we ate a lot of beer and wings that semester...

 

memories are priceless right?  :P (at least that makes me feel better)

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Again perky and behaving like a safe haven asset.

 

Also positive today while GLD and 10-year treasury are down.

 

Could it simply be that Bitcoin is simply in an uptrend and not have anything to do with Coronavirus or Iranian tensions?

 

On this note, Bitcoin obviously didn't behave much like the other safe Haven's through 2018 either. I think it's a mistake to think of it as akin to holding gold or treasuries. With those you expect NEGATIVE correlation with equities in a downturn.

 

Rather, I'd expect Bitcoin's correlation with equities AND safe haven assets to be fairly close to zero in both healthy and unhealthy economic environments.

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I dont think its worth drawing ANY conclusions at this point simply because the sample sizes for any of them would be unreliable. But with any early phase experiment, paying attention to these things is important. There may be correlations, there may not be. Some, that are not there today, may eventually show up, and vice versa.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Again perky and behaving like a safe haven asset.

 

Also positive today while GLD and 10-year treasury are down.

 

Could it simply be that Bitcoin is simply in an uptrend and not have anything to do with Coronavirus or Iranian tensions?

 

On this note, Bitcoin obviously didn't behave much like the other safe Haven's through 2018 either. I think it's a mistake to think of it as akin to holding gold or treasuries. With those you expect NEGATIVE correlation with equities in a downturn.

 

Rather, I'd expect Bitcoin's correlation with equities AND safe haven assets to be fairly close to zero in both healthy and unhealthy economic environments.

 

BTC and the rest are up for 3 reasons. First it is a safe haven asset now like Treasuries going up during uncertainty. Just look at the track record.

 

Second, it is now possible that coronavirus will end globalization and migration will end even internal migration. Who will use bills if the virus survives on surfaces for 9 days. Who will go into public? Yes the sun will save us this year as it cuts virus survival dramatically. But will we have summer flu considering the outbreaks in tropical places? (Although many Chinese people avoid the sun). EU is already incredibly weak and now this? Sovereign default, bank failures and bail-ins cannot be ruled out. It does not matter if the coronavirus is a real scare. Jon Rappaport makes an interesting argument that it is another false narrative. Who knows? All I see is a madness of crowds. Animal spirits could drive crypto incredibly in this environment.

 

Third, crypto is being accelerated by leverage and the opportunity to earn up to 10% interest yet borrow as low as 3.5%.

 

Consider Tezos, ETH and now Litecoin. On Litecoin you can earn 10% interest. See Cred and Litecoin foundation. You can borrow with crypto security at less than 5% now. See Celsius Network. On Celsius 80% of interest paid back to lenders. Super efficient compared to banks where they pay 1% and charge you 25%. Banks cannot compete with their legacy overhead and debt loads. EU sovereign debt is double doomed now for this reason along with China's economy and migration now being frozen due to the coronavirus. Think how much EU depends on tourism. And what use is the belt and road initiative if you can hardly use it? Bail-ins will impoverish anyone who fails to get into crypto. US will boom due to capital concentration and sanity. This capital concentration in US and Canada is a glorious opportunity to borrow on real estate at low rates then invest in crypto. US and Canadian banks will do fine. So you can borrow Canadian dollars at 3% and buy Tezos, then stake and earn 6% with almost no risk as all you do is stake, for instance, on the Kraken exchange. What happens when Tezos is used to tokenize real estate and you get the liquidity of selling tokens? Mortgage risk and borrowing risk drop significantly as you could sell portions of your property in tokens. If this occurs Tezos tokens will escalate in value with demand as supply is limited and real estate becomes a liquid easily trade-able asset. Come on. Have you ever seen such an asymmetric opportunity?

 

The implication is obvious why would you hold fiat? Dump fiat buy certain crypto, lend at up to 10% buy more. Repeat. Obviously Litecoin price will escalate as more abandon fiat and join in. With BTC you can earn almost 9% on Celsius and then use the interest tokens to pay for a loan which costs 3.5% interest (they keep the risk low by requiring security of double or four times the crypto as security with more security giving a lower rate). Say you buy Litecoin then earn 10%. Litecoin of course will go up dramatically. Finally watch ETH and DEFI. $1B loaned already. To borrow you post ETH as security. So the supply of trade-able ETH is now dropping every day and at an accelerating rate and they plan to reduce the inflation rate to zero. Consider how a whale attack will trigger the automatic sales under the smart contracts which will cause further ETH sales. So ETH price will be on an upward channel with lots of buying opportunities.

 

This bubble is going to be way bigger than the 2017 bubble due to leverage and because it will be double propelled because of the weakening fiat. Fiat will weaken if the collapsing supply chains due to coronavirus caused cost-push inflation. What do you expect central banks to do when they are faced with banks whose interest rate derivatives too often are betting on continued low interest rates? How long before banks have to admit "mark to model" was always a phoney premise? CBs only have one tool. They will print to buy sovereign debt until Hayek's instability hypothesis comes true. Why else are all CBs now working feverishly on crypto? Perhaps when the banks collapse and the governments default they will issue sovereign crypto to restore stability. They have to allow the existing crypto system in the meantime because otherwise the collapse would be too harsh. The discrimination favouring CB crypto to take over the existing crypto infrastructure will take time so in the meantime we have an exceptional opportunity because of this black swan. Just don't forget to move your crypto profits into tangible assets before the "Empire Fights Back".

 

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Again perky and behaving like a safe haven asset.

 

Also positive today while GLD and 10-year treasury are down.

 

Could it simply be that Bitcoin is simply in an uptrend and not have anything to do with Coronavirus or Iranian tensions?

 

On this note, Bitcoin obviously didn't behave much like the other safe Haven's through 2018 either. I think it's a mistake to think of it as akin to holding gold or treasuries. With those you expect NEGATIVE correlation with equities in a downturn.

 

Rather, I'd expect Bitcoin's correlation with equities AND safe haven assets to be fairly close to zero in both healthy and unhealthy economic environments.

 

BTC and the rest are up for 3 reasons. First it is a safe haven asset now like Treasuries going up during uncertainty. Just look at the track record.

 

Second, it is now possible that coronavirus will end globalization and migration will end even internal migration. Who will use bills if the virus survives on surfaces for 9 days. Who will go into public? Yes the sun will save us this year as it cuts virus survival dramatically. But will we have summer flu considering the outbreaks in tropical places? (Although many Chinese people avoid the sun). EU is already incredibly weak and now this? Sovereign default, bank failures and bail-ins cannot be ruled out. It does not matter if the coronavirus is a real scare. Jon Rappaport makes an interesting argument that it is another false narrative. Who knows? All I see is a madness of crowds. Animal spirits could drive crypto incredibly in this environment.

 

Third, crypto is being accelerated by leverage and the opportunity to earn up to 10% interest yet borrow as low as 3.5%.

 

Consider Tezos, ETH and now Litecoin. On Litecoin you can earn 10% interest. See Cred and Litecoin foundation. You can borrow with crypto security at less than 5% now. See Celsius Network. On Celsius 80% of interest paid back to lenders. Super efficient compared to banks where they pay 1% and charge you 25%. Banks cannot compete with their legacy overhead and debt loads. EU sovereign debt is double doomed now for this reason along with China's economy and migration now being frozen due to the coronavirus. Think how much EU depends on tourism. And what use is the belt and road initiative if you can hardly use it? Bail-ins will impoverish anyone who fails to get into crypto. US will boom due to capital concentration and sanity. This capital concentration in US and Canada is a glorious opportunity to borrow on real estate at low rates then invest in crypto. US and Canadian banks will do fine. So you can borrow Canadian dollars at 3% and buy Tezos, then stake and earn 6% with almost no risk as all you do is stake, for instance, on the Kraken exchange. What happens when Tezos is used to tokenize real estate and you get the liquidity of selling tokens? Mortgage risk and borrowing risk drop significantly as you could sell portions of your property in tokens. If this occurs Tezos tokens will escalate in value with demand as supply is limited and real estate becomes a liquid easily trade-able asset. Come on. Have you ever seen such an asymmetric opportunity?

 

The implication is obvious why would you hold fiat? Dump fiat buy certain crypto, lend at up to 10% buy more. Repeat. Obviously Litecoin price will escalate as more abandon fiat and join in. With BTC you can earn almost 9% on Celsius and then use the interest tokens to pay for a loan which costs 3.5% interest (they keep the risk low by requiring security of double or four times the crypto as security with more security giving a lower rate). Say you buy Litecoin then earn 10%. Litecoin of course will go up dramatically. Finally watch ETH and DEFI. $1B loaned already. To borrow you post ETH as security. So the supply of trade-able ETH is now dropping every day and at an accelerating rate and they plan to reduce the inflation rate to zero. Consider how a whale attack will trigger the automatic sales under the smart contracts which will cause further ETH sales. So ETH price will be on an upward channel with lots of buying opportunities.

 

This bubble is going to be way bigger than the 2017 bubble due to leverage and because it will be double propelled because of the weakening fiat. Fiat will weaken if the collapsing supply chains due to coronavirus caused cost-push inflation. What do you expect central banks to do when they are faced with banks whose interest rate derivatives too often are betting on continued low interest rates? How long before banks have to admit "mark to model" was always a phoney premise? CBs only have one tool. They will print to buy sovereign debt until Hayek's instability hypothesis comes true. Why else are all CBs now working feverishly on crypto? Perhaps when the banks collapse and the governments default they will issue sovereign crypto to restore stability. They have to allow the existing crypto system in the meantime because otherwise the collapse would be too harsh. The discrimination favouring CB crypto to take over the existing crypto infrastructure will take time so in the meantime we have an exceptional opportunity because of this black swan. Just don't forget to move your crypto profits into tangible assets before the "Empire Fights Back".

 

Very thoughtful and cogent post! fiat world has no clue what kind of developments are happening in the crypto world. They seemed to assume that whatever happened in the last 50 years, will just continue for the next 50. Permissionless innovation can grow at an exponential pace, not a linear rate. People can build a decentralized bank, with code, while sitting anywhere in the world. how are these banks going to compete with their cost structures?

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I suggest everyone listen carefully to the arguments of the founder of Celsius Network. He has lots of interviews and every one I listened to was interesting. He is the guy that launched VOIP and now he wants to do the same for banking. One point that struck me as being a critical insight was his statement that if you want crypto to rise in value, you have to move your money from JP Morgan to our bank.

 

As he explains, at JP Morgan they are making money on your money so you get the risk and they get the profits. Everyone is doing this so the 0.01% get most of the wealth with all its implications for society.

 

But if the masses go with Celsius Network and unbank themselves, then 80% of the profit earned from them holding your money at your risk goes back to the average guy who deposits his nickels. Consequently his nickels will turn into dollars as crypto by restricted supply has to rise in value to match adoption and the wealth of society becomes far more equal. Civil war or socialist revolution or worse are avoided.

 

He is right of course. If you doubt that the money system is the cause of all wars and all ills in society read the short 46 page booklet by Ezra Pound, one of the best writers in the English language, about Roosevelt and the cause of WW2. The cause he ways is what he calls our Usurocracy. You can find it for free download on archive.org. I downloaded it and sent it to my kindle.

 

This founder is a genius.  To me it seems that the founder created Celsius Network for this purpose. He seems motivated, selfless and sincere. If this rings true for others then soon it will be a movement. As soon as people get this simple argument there are going to be a lot of people acting like all those Tesla owners that want everyone else to buy Teslas to save the world. Celsius Network may prove to be the "killer app" like "Word" and "Excel" were the killer apps which made the personal computer what it is today.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It seems that when the shit _really_ hits the fan preppers still prefer gold over virtual coins .. Gold up ~7% the last month, bitcoin down ~22%. Though I have to admit I didn't look at Ripple. Maybe that's the best coin to store wealth. Heard good things about NEM too. Down 33% the last few weeks so there should be a significant margin of safety now given their Catapult roadmap.

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It seems that when the shit _really_ hits the fan preppers still prefer gold over virtual coins .. Gold up ~7% the last month, bitcoin down ~22%. Though I have to admit I didn't look at Ripple. Maybe that's the best coin to store wealth. Heard good things about NEM too. Down 33% the last few weeks so there should be a significant margin of safety now given their Catapult roadmap.

 

Are you suggesting that digital "coins" whose only real use cases are money laundering, illegal gambling, and buying narcotics are not safe stores of value? That's an outrageous suggestion, and you should apologize to all the hodl-ers with due haste!

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It seems that when the shit _really_ hits the fan preppers still prefer gold over virtual coins .. Gold up ~7% the last month, bitcoin down ~22%. Though I have to admit I didn't look at Ripple. Maybe that's the best coin to store wealth. Heard good things about NEM too. Down 33% the last few weeks so there should be a significant margin of safety now given their Catapult roadmap.

 

Are you suggesting that digital "coins" whose only real use cases are money laundering, illegal gambling, and buying narcotics are not safe stores of value? That's an outrageous suggestion, and you should apologize to all the hodl-ers with due haste!

 

He already did.

 

See his signature.

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