Cryptocurrencies

[james22]

12 hours ago, Gregmal said:

I’m watching this bc that’s when you’ll want to buy BTC. It’s not something you can destroy, literally…so you wanna wait til the selling is all forced, fear, panic…all hope is lost. Then wait a few weeks or months and 3-4 bag it. But all hope has to be lost first. Need to see a few more big guys go under for the setup to occur.

 

I like to believe that if regulated, the crypto-anarchist/cyberanarchist types will loudly proclaim the death of BTC and drive its value down.

 

It'd be an opportunity.

[Spekulatius]

26 minutes ago, Castanza said:

 

"FTX Employees submitted payment requests through a chat platform, which were approved with personalized emojis."

 

There is no official employee roster so Ray cannot find who actually worked for the company. There is also no records of major business decisions as SBA used auto deleting messages.

 

It feel's just like a couple of frat brothers started up a company in a dorm, which just happened to be worth $32B. In a way, that's not SBF's fault, at the very least there are many more enablers.

[Gregmal]

Philosophically at least, the value of anything, to me, is derived from my ability(a calculation of probability) of making money from it. Most often, the easiest way to do that is through investments. Real, tangible, often cash generating ones. But nothing in life or investing is absolute. Many things work most of the time but nothing works all the time. I recall a thread here talking about the opportunity to wager on I think it was the Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor fight. The odds for the fight were heavily favoring Mayweather but not nearly to the extent they should have. It was a sure thing. Easy money. If that same return on your capital came from a dividend or a tender offer but took 6-12 months...why is that favorable? Just cuz it checks the box of a "real investment"? The only thing that matters absolutely is increasing your own personal bottom line. 

[Gregmal]

1 minute ago, Spekulatius said:

It feel's just like a couple of frat brothers started up a company in a dorm, which just happened to be worth $32B. In a way, that's not SBF's fault, at the very least there are many more enablers.

Seems like that was a prevailing theme the past decade. 

[Cigarbutt]

On 11/16/2022 at 12:11 PM, rkbabang said:

 

I disagree with that part in the way that I think he meant it.  There is a certain viewpoint that thinks money needs to be valuable for uses other than as money.  I think having the properties which make something useful to use as money is a value in and of itself.  Being good money is valuable without any other uses necessary.  Money is the use.  Bitcoin has been designed to have every quality a good money should have and it is extremely difficult to counterfeit .  It's valuable because of the properties which would make it useful as money.  It's funny that people think money should also do other things.  No one looks at a car and says "Sure it can take you from point A to point B, but what else can it do? Can you wear it like jewelry"? 

 

Thank you for elaborating but this is not what i meant.

"The lesson, in all of this, is that money needs to be based on something of real value"

How do 'we' decide what is something of real value?

-----

i meant, like a derivative product which 'value' is based on the underlying, what is the underlying for the 'value' of a dollar (choose the denomination) that explains the gap between the value of the paper, ink and printing process etc and the value 'printed' on the paper.

The Spain reference is interesting on many levels (investing climate now, money printing and equivalent etc) but it's not the amount of new 'money' that was the problem, it's what 'they' did with it. You have to wonder why England shined in comparison as they took a different (alternative) path related to a different set of social conventions.

[Gregmal]

Heres another example.

 

Whats the # of people in the universe who want to own BTC at todays price? 

 

Whats the # of people in the universe who would sign up for a contract that paid you 10% premium to take BTC delivery, but only if it fell 50% in the next 2 days, and at the price 50% lower cost basis? Selling a highly OTM put for a huge premium, pretty much....

 

Is the later a better risk adjusted return than buying BRK today, at market?

 

 

Numbers, odds, value...they all overlap way more than all you Graham Buffett folks like to admit. 

[SharperDingaan]

SBF has had some very interesting interviews recently .. in one of them he gives a 'black box' example.

To paraphrase the mechanics, with BTC held at a constant value.

 

Put 100 BTC into a box (At 30K/BTC, value is 3,000,000). The box issues 3,000,000 'Box Coin' ... valued at $1 each. 20% of the coin are air-dropped to create buzz/trading incentive,  40% are sold for cash at an average $1.25, and 40% are retained by the box founders. The 1,200,000 (40%) 'Box Coin' are sold for $1,500,000 in cash, and the cash paid out to the BTC contributors. 

 

The box has a 'value' of $3,750,000 (3M 'box coin' @ 1.25) supported by 100 BTC valued at 30K ($3,000,000) and 750K of capitalized 'buzz' (3.75-3.00M) - or thin air. The BTC contributors are out the 100 BTC worth 3M, up 1.5M in cash, and up 1,200,000 (40% retention) 'Box Coin' worth 1.5M. Same 3M asset on the contributors books, but now it's a bar-bell of 1.5M cash + 1.5M shitecoin.

 

Repeat BTC contributions and air-drops dilute the holding 300%, raise the original founders holding to 3,600,000 'Box Coin' (3x1.2M) and raise the price of 'box coin' to $3.00. Higher, because early buyers of 'box coin' at $1.25 are selling for > a double, and telling their friends via social media that it's free money!; network effect driving Ponzi characteristics.  

 

The original BTC contributors are now out the 100 BTC worth 3M, up 1.5M in cash, and up 3,600,000 (40% retention) 'Box Coin' worth 10.8M. Now the asset on the contributors books, is 1.5M cash + 10.8M shitecoin. The higher 'Box Coin' goes the wealthier they seem to be - BUT the more of it is just capitalized 'buzz'. That 10.8M of shitecoin is only supported by 40 BTC (40% of the original 100 contributed), and actually worth 1.2M.

 

However, repeat a few times and it becomes hard to distinguish between the real and funny money; particularly if the founders/'box coin' holders are not overly financially literate. Mania.

 

Every time a new product is sold via a 'skimming' market penetration policy, the seller is doing the same thing; capitalizing the buzz around a cool and new product - that you too can have!; for a price well above what the product will sell at once we start selling it in volume. Normal course business.

 

The rest of it is just greed and delusion. Ride of a lifetime while it lasts, but eventually the punch bowl runs dry, there are margin calls that we cannot meet, and we go bankrupt. Cleans the slate, and allows the gamblers to go around a 2nd, 3rd, 4th time, etc., etc.

 

Different PoV.

 

SD

 

 

 

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by SharperDingaan

[Gregmal]

10 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

Who is Mia Khalifa?  Cheers!

I would almost certainly need assurances I won’t get yelled at before answering that. 
 

The safe answer, is that not long ago she was a crypto promoter.

Edited November 18, 2022 by Gregmal

[Longnose]

1 hour ago, SharperDingaan said:

SBF has had some very interesting interviews recently .. in one of them he gives a 'black box' example.

To paraphrase the mechanics

 

Put 100 BTC into a box (At 30K/BTC, value is 3,000,000). The box issues 3,000,000 'Box Coin' ... valued at $1 each. 20% of the coin are air-dropped to create buzz/trading incentive,  40% are sold for cash at an average $1.25, and 40% are retained by the box founders. The 1,200,000 (40%) 'Box Coin' are sold for $1,500,000 in cash, and the cash paid out to the BTC contributors. 

 

The box has a 'value' of $3,750,000 (3M 'box coin' @ 1.25) supported by 100 BTC valued at 30K ($3,000,000) and 750K of capitalized 'buzz' (3.75-3.00M) - or thin air. The BTC contributors are out the 100 BTC worth 3M, up 1.5M in cash, and up 1,200,000 (40% retention) 'Box Coin' worth 1.5M. Same 3M asset on the contributors books, but now it's a bar-bell of 1.5M cash + 1.5M shitecoin.

 

Repeat BTC contributions and air-drops dilute the holding 300%, raise the original founders holding to 3,600,000 'Box Coin' (3x1.2M) and raise the price of 'box coin' to $3.00. Higher, because early buyers of 'box coin' at $1.25 are selling for > a double, and telling their friends via social media that it's free money!; network effect driving Ponzi characteristics.  

 

The original BTC contributors are now out the 100 BTC worth 3M, up 1.5M in cash, and up 3,600,000 (40% retention) 'Box Coin' worth 10.8M. Now the asset on the contributors books, is 1.5M cash + 10.8M shitecoin. The higher 'Box Coin' goes the wealthier they seem to be - BUT the more of it is just capitalized 'buzz'. That 10.8M of shitecoin is only supported by 40 BTC (40% of the original 100 contributed), and actually worth 1.2M.

 

However, repeat a few times and it becomes hard to distinguish between the real and funny money; particularly if the founders/'box coin' holders are not overly financially literate. Mania.

 

Every time a new product is sold via a 'skimming' market penetration policy, the seller is doing the same thing; capitalizing the buzz around a cool and new product - that you too can have!; for a price well above what the product will sell at once we start selling it in volume. Normal course business.

 

The rest of it is just greed and delusion. Ride of a lifetime while it lasts, but eventually the punch bowl runs dry, there are margin calls that we cannot meet, and we go bankrupt. Cleans the slate, and allows the gamblers to go around a 2nd, 3rd, 4th time, etc., etc.

 

Different PoV.

 

SD

 

 

 

 

 

like the big short...

 

Its dog shit wrapped in cat shit. 

[Castanza]

24 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

I would almost certainly need assurances I won’t get yelled at before answering that. 
 

The safe answer, is that not long ago she was a crypto promoter.

Lmfao  

 

3 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

It feel's just like a couple of frat brothers started up a company in a dorm, which just happened to be worth $32B. In a way, that's not SBF's fault, at the very least there are many more enablers.

 

There is probably some kid out there running a lemonade stand that has more corporate governance than this 30B monstrosity. 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

1 hour ago, Gregmal said:

I would almost certainly need assurances I won’t get yelled at before answering that. 
 

The safe answer, is that not long ago she was a crypto promoter.

 

I'm dead

[rkbabang]

1 hour ago, Gregmal said:

I would almost certainly need assurances I won’t get yelled at before answering that. 
 

The safe answer, is that not long ago she was a crypto promoter.

 

LOL. I'm glad you didn't engage in hate speech against the religion of peace which wants her head.  Literally.

 

[Gregmal]

10 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

 

LOL. I'm glad you didn't engage in hate speech against the religion of peace which wants her head.  Literally.

 

[bathtime]

Magazine cover indicator?

[Castanza]

Just now, bathtime said:

Magazine cover indicator?

 

I think this is going to take some time to shake out. Look at the proof of reserve shenanigans going on with some of these other exchanges. 

 

CEO of Binance "If an exchange have to move large amounts of crypto before or after they demonstrate their wallet addresses, it is a clear sign of problems. Stay away." This planed FUD against his competitors and especially crypto.com"

 

11/16/2022 Same CEO does exactly that ^ 

[rkbabang]

2 minutes ago, Castanza said:

 

I think this is going to take some time to shake out. Look at the proof of reserve shenanigans going on with some of these other exchanges. 

 

CEO of Binance "If an exchange have to move large amounts of crypto before or after they demonstrate their wallet addresses, it is a clear sign of problems. Stay away." This planed FUD against his competitors and especially crypto.com"

 

11/16/2022 Same CEO does exactly that ^ 

 

It is definitely is going to take some time to shake out and there are probably more shoes left to drop.  When the magazine covers go from "Is this the end of crypto?" to "The death of crypto!", we know we're close.   I don't expect Bitcoin to go up much from here (if any) until well after the next halving.  And it could easily drop another 40-50%.

 

As far as shitcoins go, there aren't many coins that I wouldn't be surprised to see drop another 90+% and many will never recover.

 

[Sweet]

24 minutes ago, Castanza said:

 

I think this is going to take some time to shake out. Look at the proof of reserve shenanigans going on with some of these other exchanges. 

 

CEO of Binance "If an exchange have to move large amounts of crypto before or after they demonstrate their wallet addresses, it is a clear sign of problems. Stay away." This planed FUD against his competitors and especially crypto.com"

 

11/16/2022 Same CEO does exactly that ^ 

 

crazy that happened, has he provided an answer as to why?

[Castanza]

15 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

 

It is definitely is going to take some time to shake out and there are probably more shoes left to drop.  When the magazine covers go from "Is this the end of crypto?" to "The death of crypto!", we know we're close.   I don't expect Bitcoin to go up much from here (if any) until well after the next halving.  And it could easily drop another 40-50%.

 

As far as shitcoins go, there aren't many coins that I wouldn't be surprised to see drop another 90+% and many will never recover.

 

 

What are your thoughts on exchanges moving forward? It seems without oversight the centralized ones are a no go. Will people deal with the decentralized exchanges? They are more involved to use and I see that as a barrier to TAM in terms of adopters. Also could pose liquidity problems. Lastly I wonder how the price of BTC would look if we were able to walk back what these exchanges were doing. It's definitely possible they were manipulating the price heavily no? 

[rkbabang]

17 minutes ago, Castanza said:

 

What are your thoughts on exchanges moving forward? It seems without oversight the centralized ones are a no go. Will people deal with the decentralized exchanges? They are more involved to use and I see that as a barrier to TAM in terms of adopters. Also could pose liquidity problems. Lastly I wonder how the price of BTC would look if we were able to walk back what these exchanges were doing. It's definitely possible they were manipulating the price heavily no? 

 

 

I think long term the centralized exchanges will get more regulated, better capitalized, more professionally run, less scammy. And the decentralized exchange methods will become easier to use and more people will use them.   In the short term there is going to be more instability and uncertainty, you will see more people calling it rat poison and more promoters as well, all of which will create opportunities for the patient. 

[james22]

Anyone want to guess a BTC bottom?

 

Or when you'd buy?

 

$10k?

[james22]

 

 

[Gregmal]

If Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC)'s parent company Digital Currency Group is unable to raise $1 billion in emergency funding for its Genesis subsidiary and files for bankruptcy, the SEC could require Grayscale to liquidate all of its trustsincluding GBTC which closed today at a new record discount below NAV.

GBTC owns 633,567 Bitcoin or more than 4X the Bitcoin that Mt Gox victims still haven't received back (the Japanese Mt Gox trustee is milking this for as long as possible).

Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy (MSTR) hasn't even been liquidated yet.

Silvergate Capital (SI) is still in business.

Tether (USDT)'s financial statements (proof of reserves) are fake and it's only a matter of time until it becomes insolvent (when Bitcoin falls below $10,000).

[rkbabang]

My average cost basis in the BTC I still own is about $5K.  I’ve been buying small amounts every time the price drops since dropped under $25K and will continue to do so. If it goes under $10K I might significantly increase my holdings.

[Castanza]

2 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

My average cost basis in the BTC I still own is about $5K.  I’ve been buying small amounts every time the price drops since dropped under $25K and will continue to do so. If it goes under $10K I might significantly increase my holdings.

What exchange are you using from here on out? 

[rkbabang]

3 minutes ago, Castanza said:

What exchange are you using from here on out? 

I’ve only ever used Coinbase, I buy and withdraw the BTC. I never leave it in there.  I haven’t looked into any of the others.  
 

Edit: I just looked, I have about $800 worth in there now. That wouldn’t be life altering if I lost that. When it gets to a few $K I withdraw it.

Edited November 18, 2022 by rkbabang