ThePrufeshanul Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 I think it's OK for private whales to do that but for institutions and governments it is much harder to do quietly. The price will really take off if there is mass market adoption and we are still some way off that at the moment but, if they can find a way to stop it, they will try. Look at what happened with e-Gold https://www.wired.com/2009/06/e-gold/ But, who knows, anything and everything is possible in digital currency - I'm happy with the position that I have currently and just wanted to make the point that there are other ways of slowing or stopping the progress of cryptos other than hobbling servers or mining rigs. With that information we can all make our individual choices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lombardo Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 2 hours ago, goldbug9999 said: When I look more broadly at crypto risk factors, the one I see are: Right idea - wrong time syndrome. Radical new idea that makes cryptos in their current form obsolete. The people that have hitherto been putting money into it suddenly decide en-mass that its a crap idea after all. Goverments and central banks get their act together and move to sound currencies thus obviating much of the need for cryptos. Conversely I dont spend even a second worrying about any of the following: Attempts by the incumbent governments and institutions to stop it by force, coercion or punitive measures. Attempts by the above to suborn the technology ("private" blockchains, government cryptos etc). Hacking There is no time better than the present. Bitcoin was invented right at the financial crisis. A massive stroke of luck or even design. I can't see governments making sound currencies because they are all in debt right now. Also they try to control the economy via controlling the money supply. Asking them not to do that is like asking a comedian to continue their work without making people laugh. For me the biggest risk factors are: Obsolete tech. However in this case we will just exchange our tokens to whatever that new tech will be (e.g. Tangle) and some of us will make lots of money in the process. A lack of scalability. However I think this will be solved via sharding or something. The big one: A flaw in the technology: People found bugs in systems years after they were invented. E.g. The Heartbleed Bug. If they find a flaw in crypto then we will need a fork to fix it and this would cause serious doubt in the software and a major bear market. But after a while people will start buying again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie_George Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 (edited) 2 hours ago, ThePrufeshanul said: The price will really take off if there is mass market adoption and we are still some way off that at the moment but, if they can find a way to stop it, they will try. Look at what happened with e-Gold https://www.wired.com/2009/06/e-gold/ e-Gold was centralised and was trivial to shut down. Bitcoin is distributed and decentralised - that is key. The authorities easily shut down Napster for file-sharing, they couldn't do so with BitTorrent, and it's still here. Cryptocurrencies are impossible to shut down. If they clamp-down on Bitcoin, another will take its place. I think the authorities know this, and the fact we're 8 years into the experiment without a serious clamp-down backs this up. Edited August 30, 2017 by Eddie_George Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePrufeshanul Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 Sure - my point was that there was a reason WHY those things were shut down quickly and that those same forces will try to shut down, or at least slow down or co-opt, Crypto and that we should be aware of the routes they will take (legislation, enforcement though HMRC etc) as this has an important bearing on our future investments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darby Ram Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 5 hours ago, NJT123 said: and as soon as pr0n sites start charging 0.000'000'01 BTC per video, it will go to the moon. and they will be the richest people on the planet. why they dont do this already is beyond me. so simple. £10 could see you watching a years worth of videos. and the sites make money on every click. Because it's an open ledger and everyone can see what you're doing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oracle Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 5 hours ago, Eddie_George said: e-Gold was centralised and was trivial to shut down. Bitcoin is distributed and decentralised - that is key. The authorities easily shut down Napster for file-sharing, they couldn't do so with BitTorrent, and it's still here. Cryptocurrencies are impossible to shut down. If they clamp-down on Bitcoin, another will take its place. I think the authorities know this, and the fact we're 8 years into the experiment without a serious clamp-down backs this up. and what operating system do you run on your PC? what do the servers and nodes run on theirs? no real need to shut down if there are other avenues in the chain that are hopelessly centralised(I'm talking about user PC's ISP's and telecom networks primarily)...it would cause mayhem if these backdoors were exploited and people found they either had more BTC than they were expecting, or quite a bit less...... just think what it would do to an ATM,with a real bank, and "normal" money,if someone goes richard prior and syphons off every 0.5 p from the wages of every worker in the country...I doubt at that level too many would really notice, but if it was a bug that was able to "swap" accounts,it would be utter chaos! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldbug9999 Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 46 minutes ago, oracle said: and what operating system do you run on your PC? what do the servers and nodes run on theirs? no real need to shut down if there are other avenues in the chain that are hopelessly centralised(I'm talking about user PC's ISP's and telecom networks primarily)...it would cause mayhem if these backdoors were exploited and people found they either had more BTC than they were expecting, or quite a bit less...... Comedy gold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie_George Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 3 hours ago, oracle said: and what operating system do you run on your PC? what do the servers and nodes run on theirs? no real need to shut down if there are other avenues in the chain that are hopelessly centralised(I'm talking about user PC's ISP's and telecom networks primarily)...it would cause mayhem if these backdoors were exploited and people found they either had more BTC than they were expecting, or quite a bit less...... just think what it would do to an ATM,with a real bank, and "normal" money,if someone goes richard prior and syphons off every 0.5 p from the wages of every worker in the country...I doubt at that level too many would really notice, but if it was a bug that was able to "swap" accounts,it would be utter chaos! Yeah, I think you need to read up on Bitcoin. Everyone who runs a Bitcoin node has a copy of the ledger on their PC and transactions have to be accepted by a majority to become confirmed. The code that everyone runs ensures that only 21 million coins will ever exist. You can check how well the network has been running since its inception here: http://bitcoinuptime.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darby Ram Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 13 hours ago, oracle said: just think what it would do to an ATM,with a real bank, and "normal" money,if someone goes richard prior and syphons off every 0.5 p from the wages of every worker in the country...I doubt at that level too many would really notice, but if it was a bug that was able to "swap" accounts,it would be utter chaos! There have been numerous hacks on SWIFT, the banking protocol, that have led to large-scale digital bank heists. Somehow, the traditional system plodded on. I suspect that, if some technical flaw did emerge in one of the big blockchain protocols, we'd see a rollback to the last known safe state and things would carry on as before. There's too much money at stake now; a political solution (or several) would have to emerge. It's already happened with Ethereum for a non-protocol flaw that threatened the whole ecosystem and it strengthened, rather than weakened, the system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJT123 Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 17 hours ago, Darby Ram said: Because it's an open ledger and everyone can see what you're doing? it's pretty impossible to track. open a new wallet (probably on pr0n site)... transfer £10 into it... Get 10,000 clicks... whose going to track that? whose interested? like i say, pr0n site owners could be the richest people on the planet in 12 months if they switched their sites to BTC only. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kudukid Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 A very real problem for bitcoin. https://youtu.be/ICbs5Vs2-Vg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markyh Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 21 hours ago, oracle said: and what operating system do you run on your PC? what do the servers and nodes run on theirs? no real need to shut down if there are other avenues in the chain that are hopelessly centralised(I'm talking about user PC's ISP's and telecom networks primarily)...it would cause mayhem if these backdoors were exploited and people found they either had more BTC than they were expecting, or quite a bit less...... just think what it would do to an ATM,with a real bank, and "normal" money,if someone goes richard prior and syphons off every 0.5 p from the wages of every worker in the country...I doubt at that level too many would really notice, but if it was a bug that was able to "swap" accounts,it would be utter chaos! You can run a bitcoin mining asic on a Raspberry PI under lunix without needing to touch Windows, Intel or AMD. Any many do from their spare rooms, bedrooms and garages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldbug9999 Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 3 hours ago, kudukid said: A very real problem for bitcoin. https://youtu.be/ICbs5Vs2-Vg Not hearing anything new here, it is traceable but you can create non-public addresses to transfer to at which point noone can prove you still control the funds (just claim you were hacked or something). Yeah there are issues with US exchanges but again thats old news, cant believe anyone is still dumb enough to hold for any length of time in a US exchange, and yes monero is useful to wash funds as well can do BTC -> monero -> BTC to break the chain of evidence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inoperational Bumblebee Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 Thought this was an interesting analysis of the effects of the recent fork: https://medium.com/@brucekleinman/a-bitcoin-hard-fork-is-helicopter-money-5f9e75643132 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Errol Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 (edited) Article on Crypto currencies from the Saker site: Crypto Currencies: The Internet of Money http://thesaker.is/crypto-currencies-the-internet-of-money/ Edited September 1, 2017 by Errol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acid In The Punch Bowl Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 I wonder when the first feature film will be made about Bitcoin and which element it will cover. My guess would be the mtgox story, or maybe Silk Road. I know there's been documentaries, but I mean a full on Hollywood movie, similar to the Steve jobs and Julian assange movies Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamLancs Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 Litecoin setting records on the LN news. Bitcoin gonna bounce hard off 5k? I know some here don't believe in psychological barriers but damn, that's a big one. Was always mindful of the possibility that Bitcoin could shine a light on just how much ponzi fiat is swimming around. The price rise this year alone is near to 3% of UK GDP. Bitcoin alone. When do we start taking this seriously? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamLancs Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-wall-street-investor-who-sank-valeant-thinks-a-bitcoin-fund-is-the-most-dangerous-2017-08-31 Quote Moreover, the problem is that Bitcoin Investment Trust maintains a market value of $1.8 billion. In other words, Grayscale’s bitcoin fund is more than twice the value of bitcoin — an asset that is itself the subject of a litany of bubble calls. “That alone is completely ridiculous, but on top of that they don’t even have insurance for the bitcoin that they are custodians of,” Left told CNBC on Thursday during an interview on “Fast Money,” referring to its valuation. So companies are asking the SEC to do something about this runaway investment fund, yet it is the SEC's stonewalling on Bitcoin ETFs that prevented a free market from working in the first place. Well shi.t, it looks like they will have a bigger problem if we go 10k+, and we are up already 5x multiples from just New Year 2017. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darby Ram Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 5 hours ago, adamLancs said: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-wall-street-investor-who-sank-valeant-thinks-a-bitcoin-fund-is-the-most-dangerous-2017-08-31 So companies are asking the SEC to do something about this runaway investment fund, yet it is the SEC's stonewalling on Bitcoin ETFs that prevented a free market from working in the first place. Well shi.t, it looks like they will have a bigger problem if we go 10k+, and we are up already 5x multiples from just New Year 2017. I think being short the Bitcoin Investment Trust is the right decision, regardless of your opinion of BTC, simply because of the huge premium. There are two possible outcomes for Bitcoin: Bitcoin becomes an established asset class and legitimised by the existing financial infrastructure. In that case, even if an ETF gets delayed or denied, you will see competitors adopting the same structure as Grayscale. The premium, and the fees, will have to come down as legitimate money (meaning, 'can be invested by a fiduciary') has more options to enter the space. Bitcoin doesn't become an established asset class and, regardless of its technical success or failure, it stays a niche product. In that case, the demand for legit money to enter the space evaporates with the hype. Neither option 1 nor option 2 are good news for an investment trust operating on a premium of 130% to NAV. Basically, investing at a premium to NAV is almost never a good idea. And investing in a glorified index tracker at a premium to NAV is downright nuts. As an investor, I would absolutely take the short side of this trade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markyh Posted September 2, 2017 Share Posted September 2, 2017 9 hours ago, adamLancs said: Litecoin setting records on the LN news. LTC now @ $90 / £70 LTC. More than slightly narked I traded 50% of my 109 LTC holdings in ETH a few weeks ago! In Fiat as of today this has cost me £1291.40 in lost LTC price gains. But still not bothered, watching the show as my £2k 2013 investment into crypto as of today is just over £29k, having risen from £25.5k a week ago. This is so fun to watch I went to Richer Sounds today and spent £1500 on a 55" LG OLED TV. Paid in GBP Fiat of course, as its depreciating in value so fast!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acid In The Punch Bowl Posted September 2, 2017 Share Posted September 2, 2017 10 hours ago, adamLancs said: Bitcoin gonna bounce hard off 5k? I know some here don't believe in psychological barriers but damn, that's a big one. Just sailed straight through 5k. I suspect a lot of the trading was taking place in Asia. What at a year Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamLancs Posted September 2, 2017 Share Posted September 2, 2017 Nope, that was a beautiful trade. These numbers are like big heavy weights on the price, it's never exact but you can taper in a nice trade on them with a very high success rate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dugsbody Posted September 2, 2017 Share Posted September 2, 2017 6 hours ago, markyh said: LTC now @ $90 / £70 LTC. More than slightly narked I traded 50% of my 109 LTC holdings in ETH a few weeks ago! In Fiat as of today this has cost me £1291.40 in lost LTC price gains. But still not bothered, watching the show as my £2k 2013 investment into crypto as of today is just over £29k, having risen from £25.5k a week ago. This is so fun to watch I went to Richer Sounds today and spent £1500 on a 55" LG OLED TV. Paid in GBP Fiat of course, as its depreciating in value so fast!! Of course you did, and that's why bitcoin will never be a proper currency. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie_George Posted September 2, 2017 Share Posted September 2, 2017 44 minutes ago, dugsbody said: Of course you did, and that's why bitcoin will never be a proper currency. If you had US Dollars and Venezuelan bolívars, and had the opportunity to pay with either, you'd be extremely stupid to spend the USD would you not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dugsbody Posted September 2, 2017 Share Posted September 2, 2017 Just now, Eddie_George said: If you had US Dollars and Venezuelan bolívars, and had the opportunity to pay with either, you'd be extremely stupid to spend the USD would you not? Yes. What's your point? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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