The Bubbly Bitcoin Thread -- Merged Threads

[jiltedjen]

bitcoin will win out longer term, for now bitcoin is over-bought and people are seeing some of the froth come off the bitcoin price, just trying to find some price pump+dumps in the alts.

alts will all just become victims of alts. Meanwhile bitcoin has very hard-core serious supporters who will never leave or sell when the next alt comes along (but the stable rock solid bed-rock price will be way lower than this). Bitcoin has its place in the market as the one true coin. The alts are only attractive for making a quick buck, and therefore there will always be a faster buck to be made. There is plenty of money to be made in the alts sure, but for long term holders only madness that way lies. 

when etherium becomes too hard to mine will people care? or the next glossy GPU mined coin suddenly gets lots of support? the alts are going to have a very long history of changing places and being replaced. Alts are just pure greed, fast money, more volatility, they dont have the die-hard supporters which protects bitcoin from going to zero.

when the next alt comes along people will happily sell up their current alt and move to the next coin, follow the quick money. The recent convocations i have had with very dim-witted first time investors always seems to go 'bitcoin is good yeah, but i think i can make a load with the new shitcoin, i think they are going to announce something soon', its not about the way its going to change the world, or even if they care about the idea, its just a quick buck. very flighty money.

There will always be an expensive second or third place coin always in the shadow of bitcoins price,  just simply because like me, when your big into diversification in the wider investment world you may for instance buy some silver along with your gold. But thats second place for second places sake, you dont care why its second place, its just second place. Why did i buy silver? well its the next common best thing from gold. 

in crypto you buy the next biggest. but the next biggest is whatever the next biggest is at the time. which could be any shitcoin. People are telling themselves that for whatever x reason their shitcoin is better than bitcoin and they 'believe in it', but really? is it that ground-breaking a change to think that it ever really stands a chance? in a world when bitcoin can just consume the very best ideas its madness.

cryto is a small world, a little wild-west. It has a lot further to grow, and it wont be that fast (slower growth with insane bubbles now and then). A few serious people care about bitcoin, but money attracts morons, big money attracts waves of them. Feed them some shitcoin, make your monies, when people hand you money for worthless stuff i guess you take it. 

there is great money to be made in alts, but with any pump and dump, are you sure your going to be the one ripping others off? or left holding the crap worthless tokens.  

[tomandlu]

58 minutes ago, Traktion said:

What has been shown today? That people wanted free fork coins, so bought some Bitcoin with their alts, but then switched back when fork was cancelled?

Also, the Ether cokc-pu.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/cryptocurrency-300m-dollars-stolen-bug-ether

[dugsbody]

3 hours ago, Eddie_George said:

Imagine if you could transfer gold over the internet at little cost, and then store it securely at each end, at zero cost.

I'd agree that ICOs, private blockchains, and the vast majority of the altcoins are in a bubble, but the technology (with the most likely winner being Bitcoin) is here to stay. The bursting of the ICO bubble will no doubt have a knock-on effect on legitimate projects to their detriment, but there'll be a vacuum to fill with institutional money.

BTW, I do remember that you're an accountant. 

Bolded the key bit. It's the reason I bought in. I maintain my previous stance that bitcoin isn't and almost certainly never will be a currency. It doesn't fulfil its primary purpose. Perhaps it has surprised the original developers in that it is being used for a different purpose. Mostly speculative store of wealth and a way to make money for early investors but there is a chance it maintains its status as digital gold. There are enough bitcoin bugs around to keep the price up. Unlike shares, which can go to zero because a company declares bankruptcy and delists, bitcoin price depends entirely and only on pure speculation and sentiment. So there may very well always be enough anarchists / anti-mainstreamers around to keep the price above zero. If it's above zero, then there is no reason it can't be $70000 or $7000 or $7. One price makes as much sense as the other. 

[tomandlu]

3 minutes ago, jiltedjen said:

bitcoin will win out longer term, for now bitcoin is over-bought and people are seeing some of the froth come off the bitcoin price, just trying to find some price pump+dumps in the alts. 

Apart from sentiment, you've given no reason why bitcoin is distinctive from the other alts (unless you're being really sarcastic, in which case I apologise).

[dugsbody]

4 hours ago, Inoperational Bumblebee said:

Remember all that fuss about 'the internet'? Whatever happened to that, eh?

Were you around for bulletin boards? I was, they were awesome and served a purpose in that you could chat, msg, interact, download, read news, read "blogs", etc. My first experience with the internet was my first year at uni when we arrived at the computer lab and found things like irc, telnet, muds, etc. We were hooked immediately and it was extremely obvious how much this could change our lives. 

With bitcoin, it is what, eight years on, I own bitcoin, but I find it serves literally no purpose except possibly to make me money. Whereas it was immediately obvious the benefit of the internet I haven't found a problem in my life that bitcoin solves. I'm content to sit there hoping future people will pay more for my BTC.

I really don't think bitcoin itself is comparable. Blockchain as a concept might be, but that is still to be seen.

[tomandlu]

8 minutes ago, dugsbody said:

Were you around for bulletin boards? I was, they were awesome and served a purpose in that you could chat, msg, interact, download, read news, read "blogs", etc. My first experience with the internet was my first year at uni when we arrived at the computer lab and found things like irc, telnet, muds, etc. We were hooked immediately and it was extremely obvious how much this could change our lives. 

With bitcoin, it is what, eight years on, I own bitcoin, but I find it serves literally no purpose except possibly to make me money. Whereas it was immediately obvious the benefit of the internet I haven't found a problem in my life that bitcoin solves. I'm content to sit there hoping future people will pay more for my BTC.

I really don't think bitcoin itself is comparable. Blockchain as a concept might be, but that is still to be seen.

Strongly agree (particularly with the last para). Right now, it seems like people are more impressed by a torch than a battery.

[jiltedjen]

I can agree that at the moment the price is beyond reasonable usability. It's got a long way to grow yet. Price is too bubbly. 

But the killer ap for bitcoin is store of wealth. In a world where even gold is surpressed and you cant access assets (houses) without signing away your life to 'the powers that be' (bankers and boomers). Having an accessible store of wealth is the killer ap. 

Bitcoin will grow and develop with the milenial generation. Has years and years to go yet before the technology and support systems grow. I suspect bitcoin will probably hard fork at some point, and that fork will be followed (to allow use as micropayments etc). But 'store of wealth' is the important thing for now, and gaining legitimacy in the wilder world.

The only way it can gain legitimacy is surviving, usage as a new asset class, and a lot of time.

The developments into micro-payments, industry 3.0 and 'the internet of things' will come much later down the line. 

Bitcoin is a rejection of the current currency systems, the debt other generations have left us. Its rejecting that. It's going to build a whole new system while letting the old collapse. This wont happen overnight, its going to take 30-50 years. 

The milenials know they have been served a shit sandwich, they know they have been screwed over, even the morons i speak to know this. Bitcoin is a force of change, and that change, much like the conservative party being unelectable for 20 years, is inevitable unless the current system changes drastically to stop ******ing us over. Which it 100% wont.

yeah they get rid of BTL but the damage is done now. years lost to the shite economic system. Its created its own demise. Banks, house prices and boomer wealth will all be transferred, or rendered worthless. Bitcoin is the vehicle for that.

those relying just on pensions and house prices, and hoping that they can surppres the young to pay for it all by raising the young's retirement age, will find themselves eating dog-food for their arrogance. You reap what you sow. 

to not hold at least some fractions of bitcoin with such an uncertain future is silly.

Look at it another way, if bitcoin does not solve the issues facing the milenials then a new hitler is pretty much a dead cert, bitcoin legitimacy and wider adoption or history repeats. Either that of they allow a massive massive HPC and wiping out of pension funds.  

[Eddie_George]

2 hours ago, tomandlu said:

More to the point, imagine most people have no interest in transferring gold at all. They just want to earn a living and be treated fairly, and I'm not sure bitcoin has anything to do with that.

Bitcoin has given them a chance to put their savings into an asset that cannot be seized by governments by force or by inflation. That's a big win for anyone in Venezuela, or anyone that lives in country that prints money via house price inflation.

Bitcoin is something that the young can understand and adopt, while most of the boomers can't get their tiny minds around it.

[zugzwang]

27 minutes ago, Eddie_George said:

Bitcoin has given them a chance to put their savings into an asset that cannot be seized by governments by force or by inflation. That's a big win for anyone in Venezuela, or anyone that lives in country that prints money via house price inflation.

Bitcoin is something that the young can understand and adopt, while most of the boomers can't get their tiny minds around it.

Govts don't control the internets? I think you'll find they do!

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/29/investigatory_powers_act_2016/

They also control what can and cannot be used as legal currency.

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

They don't, however, control inflation.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/Publications/Regional-Economist/October-2011/Is-Shadow-Banking-Really-Banking

[Eddie_George]

5 minutes ago, zugzwang said:

Govts don't control the internets? I think you'll find they do!

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/29/investigatory_powers_act_2016/

They couldn't stop filesharing through Bittorrent, so they won't stop people exchanging cryptocurrencies as it's similar technology.

Quote

They also control what can and cannot be used as legal currency.

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

Again, they can't stop people exchanging cryptocurrencies.

Quote

They don't, however, control inflation.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/Publications/Regional-Economist/October-2011/Is-Shadow-Banking-Really-Banking

They don't control it, but they encourage it in order to get elected.

[Eddie_George]

1 hour ago, tomandlu said:

Apart from sentiment, you've given no reason why bitcoin is distinctive from the other alts (unless you're being really sarcastic, in which case I apologise).

• It has been tested for nearly nine years with very little downtime, whilst proviing a massive bug bounty for anyone that can hack it.
• Another coin would have to poach bitcoin holders in order to eat into its "market" share. None yet offer anything significantly better than Bitcoin to persuade them. Most are just get rich schemes bought into by those that missed the chance of buying bitcoin cheaply (it may still be cheap).
• The network effect, with many services accepting it as payment.
• It's the best known cryptocurrency by far.
• It has the best developers.

[Traktion]

29 minutes ago, Eddie_George said:

Most are just get rich schemes bought into by those that missed the chance of buying bitcoin cheaply (it may still be cheap).

I've heard this said a lot on this forum, but I've not seen much evidence presented.

Edited November 9, 2017 by Traktion

[evetsm]

I will stick my neck out and suggest that this is the best lecture on crypto, scaling, society, and surveillance you may ever hear

 

 

[evetsm]

14 hours ago, tomandlu said:

More to the point, imagine most people have no interest in transferring gold at all. They just want to earn a living and be treated fairly, and I'm not sure bitcoin has anything to do with that.

See the video above for your answer

[evetsm]

17 hours ago, jiltedjen said:

So it now hit the £6,000 mark.

bubbles are bubbles, it’s never different this time. 

im making money which is nice, but I’m not kidding myself, it’s clearly a bubble. 

so there it is. I think it’s going to crash. It would be much better for me if it doesn’t. 

i actually think those horrible senior bankers were right, the people I see getting involved will probably put much more in than they can afford to loose. and perhaps we are reaching a whole new mania phase. 

but I can tell people to be careful. that it’s risky. they can’t hate me for being right, both originally with bitcoin, and the crash. 

 

It's either a bubble or a s-curve adoption. If it's the latter, we have some ways to go and it will never permanently crash , only unless a new tech replaces it.

I have voted for s-curve adoption

[GeordieAndy]

1 hour ago, evetsm said:

I will stick my neck out and suggest that this is the best lecture on crypto, scaling, society, and surveillance you may ever hear

 

 

I would have to agree it's one of the best videos I have EVER seen and I'm now working my way through his other videos as he links it all up in an accessible way.

Thank you so much for posting it @evetsm and making me aware of him / his work 

[evetsm]

48 minutes ago, GeordieAndy said:

I would have to agree it's one of the best videos I have EVER seen and I'm now working my way through his other videos as he links it all up in an accessible way.

Thank you so much for posting it @evetsm and making me aware of him / his work 

Great andie. There is so much fud around, so easy to get lost in crypto.  He is a clear thinking techie with a gift for communication.

[guest_northshore]

2 hours ago, evetsm said:

I will stick my neck out and suggest that this is the best lecture on crypto, scaling, society, and surveillance you may ever hear...

He notes the centralisation of side chains (focusing on less independent validation, storage, independence, intermediaries, banks). Then argues for decentralised anti bankism. Then proposes side chains justified by a secure but more expensive & less accessible base layer.

I don't get how that's a logically consistent perspective on trust, or how that meets his own initial challenge (scale vs decentralisation/independence/universality).

[doomed]

It doesn’t. It will all be done on chain with bitcoin cash as originally planned. Please quote me on this next year when everything will be much clearer.

Edited November 9, 2017 by doomed

[evetsm]

1 hour ago, guest_northshore said:

He notes the centralisation of side chains (focusing on less independent validation, storage, independence, intermediaries, banks). Then argues for decentralised anti bankism. Then proposes side chains justified by a secure but more expensive & less accessible base layer.

I don't get how that's a logically consistent perspective on trust, or how that meets his own initial challenge (scale vs decentralisation/independence/universality).

He compared it to the internet. The base layer is insecure, so all layers on top are built on this insecurity.

 

Now we have a chance to start again with our money using the new blockchain tech and we want the base layer to be secure ie. trustless and decentralized. Once you have that and a secure place to store your savings , make large payments and settle aggregates then you can build faster less secure smaller payment layers on top.

By its nature under the current technology, the blockchain cannot be both secure and massively throughput. So, you must build layers.

The implication is that coins trying to be both, like bcash are fatally flawed. Bitcoin fulfills the purpose of the base layer , with maybe litecoin, and many others can fill out the higher fast  payment layers, eg. Iota, dash, lightning network, paypal, western union(with serious reform) etc. Even reformulated banks.

I reckon you can then mix in the specialist layers like smart contracts like ethereum, rootstock, drivechain, and those offering strong privacy like monero. Etc.

The universe of layers can offer an entire new financial system.

 

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by evetsm
add

[doomed]

1 hour ago, evetsm said:

He compared it to the internet. The base layer is insecure, so all layers on top are built on this insecurity.

 

Now we have a chance to start again with our money using the new blockchain tech and we want the base layer to be secure ie. trustless and decentralized. Once you have that and a secure place to store your savings , make large payments and settle aggregates then you can build faster less secure smaller payment layers on top.

By its nature under the current technology, the blockchain cannot be both secure and massively throughput. So, you must build layers.

The implication is that coins trying to be both, like bcash are fatally flawed. Bitcoin fulfills the purpose of the base layer , with maybe litecoin, and many others can fill out the higher fast  payment layers, eg. Iota, dash, lightning network, paypal, western union(with serious reform) etc. Even reformulated banks.

I reckon you can then mix in the specialist layers like smart contracts like ethereum, rootstock, drivechain, and those offering strong privacy like monero. Etc.

The universe of layers can offer an entire new financial system.

 

 

So infinite inflation? You are just parroting nonsense fed to you by companies that see themselves as the new middlemen. Luckily there are people in the space beginning to pay attention now to move decentralised payments forward with BitcoinCash.

[guest_northshore]

36 minutes ago, evetsm said:

He compared it to the internet. The base layer is insecure, so all layers on top are built on this insecurity.

Now we have a chance to start again with our money using the new blockchain tech and we want the base layer to be secure ie. trustless and decentralized. Once you have that and a secure place to store your savings , make large payments and settle aggregates then you can build faster less secure smaller payment layers on top.

By its nature under the current technology, the blockchain cannot be both secure and massively throughput. So, you must build layers.

The implication is that coins trying to be both, like bcash are fatally flawed. Bitcoin fulfills the purpose of the base layer , with maybe litecoin, and many others can fill out the higher fast  payment layers, eg. Iota, dash, lightning network, paypal, western union(with serious reform) etc. Even reformulated banks.

I reckon you can then mix in the specialist layers like smart contracts like ethereum, rootstock, drivechain, and those offering strong privacy like monero. Etc.

The universe of layers can offer an entire new financial system.

I think you're agreeing that he doesn't explain how the proposal overcomes all the downsides he previously outlines? That there are implied trade-offs when it comes to scaling - security, trustlessness, speed, d(e)centralisation, universalilty etc?

To be clear I don't take a particular side in the debate and he makes some valid points on scaling. I'm not saying either main approach is right or wrong, and it's still just a price bet for me and e.g. trustless seems quite moot while still having to trust exchanges.

But I'm still interested in how these experiments achieve change beyond price (assuming concurrent scaling + decentralisation + privacy + security + liberty + autonomy are even possible).

I get your point on 'trying to be both', but in order to determine any future utility perhaps Bitcoin first has to decide what it is. I don't follow how his approach would either:

1) Require Bitcoin for those transacting through side chain channels (why not just use litecoin, iota, future coin etc); 2) Trump existing transfer/processing mechanisms when it comes to the interests of the mass transactional masses, rather than saving (why not just use paypal, western union or ripple, open transactions etc if crypto minded); 3) Offer relative value for those motivated by specifics (why not just use ethereum, monero etc).

 

[Eddie_George]

41 minutes ago, doomed said:

So infinite inflation? You are just parroting nonsense fed to you by companies that see themselves as the new middlemen. Luckily there are people in the space beginning to pay attention now to move decentralised payments forward with BitcoinCash.

Are you mentally ill?

[Bear Hug]

Is it true that that bitcoin transaction fee is $6?  If it is, it's certainly no good as a currency.  If it's no currency, then wtf is its value if it cannot perform a single job it was designed to perform?  For a 1000th time in this thread, it's a bubble!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/08/bitcoin_drops_segwit2x_hard_fork_pierces_price_ceiling/ 

Bitcoin's popularity has led to network congestion and higher transaction fees. The average transaction fee is presently above $6... 

[Eddie_George]

29 minutes ago, Bear Hug said:

Is it true that that bitcoin transaction fee is $6?  If it is, it's certainly no good as a currency.  If it's no currency, then wtf is its value if it cannot perform a single job it was designed to perform?  For a 1000th time in this thread, it's a bubble!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/08/bitcoin_drops_segwit2x_hard_fork_pierces_price_ceiling/ 

Bitcoin's popularity has led to network congestion and higher transaction fees. The average transaction fee is presently above $6... 

Fees are dependent on many conditions. There are spam attacks, the complexity of the transaction, and many wallets poorly estimate fees and do not allow manual entry of fees. Also, fees are usually lowest on the weekends. With a little know-how and the best wallets, fees aren't a problem.

Second layer solutions such as the Lightning Network will reduce congestion markedly when it is rolled out. Research and development progresses at a rapid rate.

Bitcoin is working well as a store of value. Even if a fee is $6, you can transfer $100 million or more for that fee securely without a middle-man. That's much more convenient than gold don't you think? Not only that, you can store that $100 million securely about your person without anyone else knowing about it.

Edited November 9, 2017 by Eddie_George