Crypto Currency Thread

[Behemoth]

dimots said:

Has anyone got any thoughts on the Bakkt thing that's coming up in November? Like to what extent they are partnered with Starbucks and Microsoft? Sounds like a bad mix to me, but possibly good for adoption?

I am registered for updates but haven't heard much. At first I thought it was like Bitpay but it seems they will hold btc themselves...maybe reducing exposure to fee volatility?

Those partnerships are a second stage & I don't know much about what they are planning. But the initial Bakkt launch in November is daily physically settled Bitcoin futures. Each contract is 1 BTC & is vs $,€ or £ (maybe more). It may have impact if these get some momentum, since it offers a formal BTC investment avenue for the first time. We'll see.

[anonymous-user]

XRP just took second place in market cap.

[bongtom]

tumble dryer said:

rockin said:

Behemoth said:

Of course any new concept on this scale has its fair share of extremists and charlatans....

....said the great white prophet of Crypto.

Brilliant.

Contribution of the year.

Lol!

Very true.

[bongtom]

Behemoth said:

James_B said:

Not ad hominems. You insulted his intelligence while whining that others did the same.

You have to understand, you are dealing with intelligent people, you don’t get to redefine terms and expect that you’ll not be pulled up on it.

I think that your ramping of cryptos is idiotic.

I suspect that you are a conspiracy theorist.

I a, not using the second point to justify the first.

Who's intelligence did I insult? How, exactly? I did absolutely no such thing and you cannot possibly defend a repeated false accusation like that.

The only idiocy here is your behaviour and the only conspiracy theory evident is the one you hold against me. Stop being a tt, please.

Now you’re insulting him. Really?

[James_B]

bongtom said:

Now you’re insulting him. Really?

You need to remember, when behemoth insults people it doesn’t count, but when people ask him a direct question it’s an insult to be dodged.

I suspect his family pretend to be out when he calls.

[Behemoth]

James_B said:

You need to remember, when behemoth insults people it doesn’t count, but when people ask him a direct question it’s an insult to be dodged.

I suspect his family pretend to be out when he calls.

You seem unaware that I answered your irrelevant question and yet you continue to throw insults in an attempt to discredit my character. Pure ad hominem. Please talk about bitcoin & cryptocurrencies or move on, James. I am happy to debate, but I see no sense in debating unrelated subjects.

I really wonder what holds your interest in crypto, given you don't seem to have skin in the game.

[James_B]

Behemoth said:

You seem unaware that I answered your irrelevant question and yet you continue to throw insults in an attempt to discredit my character. Pure ad hominem. Please talk about bitcoin & cryptocurrencies or move on, James. I am happy to debate, but I see no sense in debating unrelated subjects.

I really wonder what holds your interest in crypto, given you don't seem to have skin in the game.

I can’t see an answer about which conspiracy theories you subscribe to (if any), if you posted it I’m missing it,

My “skin in the game” is nearly a quarter of a century of trading currencies and interest rates. I know that you are not keen to have input from people who understand the markets, but it’s a public forum, and I’m interested in countering some of the disinformation that you post. Real people might take you at your word and lose money.

[anonymous-user]

James_B said:

....it’s a public forum, and I’m interested in countering some of the disinformation that you post.

I'm glad that you do. As you said, real people can lose real money in this kind of speculative bubble.

[bongtom]

Behemoth said:

James_B said:

You need to remember, when behemoth insults people it doesn’t count, but when people ask him a direct question it’s an insult to be dodged.

I suspect his family pretend to be out when he calls.

You seem unaware that I answered your irrelevant question and yet you continue to throw insults in an attempt to discredit my character. Pure ad hominem. Please talk about bitcoin & cryptocurrencies or move on, James. I am happy to debate, but I see no sense in debating unrelated subjects.

I really wonder what holds your interest in crypto, given you don't seem to have skin in the game.

You’re the only one throwing insults.

[anonymous-user]

rockin said:

James_B said:

....it’s a public forum, and I’m interested in countering some of the disinformation that you post.

I'm glad that you do. As you said, real people can lose real money in this kind of speculative bubble.

I think the majority of people who "invested" in crypto will have actually lost money. You only had to witness the crazy FOMO at the end of last year to realise that lots of people lost a lot of money. Everybody who invested at this time rationalised it by saying "it's money I can afford to lose", but lets be honest nobody likes to lose money.

It's not even just the value of crypto falling, it is the whole wild west feeling about the whole thing. Look at Bitconnect, a lot of people lost a lot of money in this Ponzi scheme. Look at the amout of exchanges that have been hacked and the amount of people that had coins stolen. Nobody really cares, at the end of the day it is just a load of nerds being scammed in an unregulated market so nothing will happen to the people involved.

I sometimes watch a live youtube channel called Whalepool and in December there were 1200 people viewing this channel at any one time. This was peak FOMO, when the episode of Big Bang theory came out where they were trying to find the Bitcoins they mined years ago. People on this very thread were in a panic as the exchanges were not accepting any more accounts and if they had an account their limits were too low.

I had a look at Whalepool yesterday and there were 30 people on the channel. The people on the channel who were talking and basically bragging about how smart they were, not heard a word from any of them for weeks.

I am sure a lot of people on this thread have wallets containing XRP, TRX, XLM, FUN, ADA, DASH etc. that are now worth 10% of what they were in December but are keeping them "just in case".

I am actually still waiting for someone to explain to me what blockchain is and why it is actually useful for anything. I am also still waiting for a single one of these coins to have any practical use in day to day life.

[Guvernator]

I have investments in half a dozen coins, yes 99% of coins are probably going nowhere but that's still a lot of development teams working on real use cases for crypto currencies. Just because you can't work out what those use cases are, doesn't mean they aren't there. IBM's CEO once famously said that he couldn't ever foresee a need for everyone to have a personal computer at home, now we carry them around in our pockets.

Yes a lot of people who bought at the height of the bubble did so from FOMO and where ill informed investors but you will get that in any bubble.

If I'd sold at the height of the bubble I would have made a tidy profit, as it is my "investment" is worth about the same as when I bought it. I see it as a lottery ticket but with better odds. I work in the technology space and have often kicked myself for missing out on technological breakthroughs that I knew about in advance but that I couldn't see the future potential for. If the detractors are right about crypto then it will all die away and I'll have lost a bit of money, If I am right, I could have potentially invested early doors in a technology that could have a big impact on society and potentially make me a quite a bit of money to boot, I think that's worth the calculated risk.

Nerds don't usually get things wrong, if a whole bunch of them are working on a technology and it's sufficiently visible for the mainstream public to become aware then I'd say it's a pretty good bet so I suspect crypto currencies aren't going away anytime soon.

[dimots]

Joey Deacon said:

I think the majority of people who "invested" in crypto will have actually lost money. You only had to witness the crazy FOMO at the end of last year to realise that lots of people lost a lot of money. Everybody who invested at this time rationalised it by saying "it's money I can afford to lose", but lets be honest nobody likes to lose money.

Baseless assumptions and conclusions.

Joey Deacon said:

It's not even just the value of crypto falling, it is the whole wild west feeling about the whole thing. Look at Bitconnect, a lot of people lost a lot of money in this Ponzi scheme. Look at the amout of exchanges that have been hacked and the amount of people that had coins stolen. Nobody really cares, at the end of the day it is just a load of nerds being scammed in an unregulated market so nothing will happen to the people involved.

Contradictory nonsense.

Joey Deacon said:

I sometimes watch a live youtube channel called Whalepool and in December there were 1200 people viewing this channel at any one time. This was peak FOMO, when the episode of Big Bang theory came out where they were trying to find the Bitcoins they mined years ago. People on this very thread were in a panic as the exchanges were not accepting any more accounts and if they had an account their limits were too low.


I had a look at Whalepool yesterday and there were 30 people on the channel. The people on the channel who were talking and basically bragging about how smart they were, not heard a word from any of them for weeks.

This is your benchmark for bitcoin adoption?

Joey Deacon said:

I am sure a lot of people on this thread have wallets containing XRP, TRX, XLM, FUN, ADA, DASH etc. that are now worth 10% of what they were in December but are keeping them "just in case".

You mean you do?

Joey Deacon said:

I am actually still waiting for someone to explain to me what blockchain is and why it is actually useful for anything. I am also still waiting for a single one of these coins to have any practical use in day to day life.

Nobody should need to explain it to you, you can easily find out if you want to. It's not difficult, you have an internet connection.

Oh and guess what, I don't believe in conspiracy theories and I use bitcoin all the time. I have never been hacked or lost any bitcoins. I regularly get paid in bitcoins and it's fast and fee-free. Bitcoin is still there doing its thing and it's still the most secure way to make a payment from one computer to another.

James B doesn't have any relevant experience so just tries to make everything work with his world view...he's like an unwelcome latecomer at a party, butting into a conversation that started without him and talking loudly about himself. James, here's a tip...try using bitcoin. Sign up for a wallet, buy some bitcoin, and send it to a friend. Get some experience of it. Compare the experience to buying dollars or pounds. Realise that you don't need a bank account with bitcoin. Consider the potential impact and benefits of that. Then by all means come back and rejoin the conversation.

[DonkeyApple]

Isn’t it easier and cheaper to just hand your friend some GBP?

[anonymous-user]

DonkeyApple said:

Isn’t it easier and cheaper to just hand your friend some GBP?

Yes, but think of the tech when you first have to buy some BTC on coinbase using your credit card. Obviously you will have to pay more than the current spot price for BTC, but coinbase want their cut.

Next you can transfer it to your friends wallet, obviously you again pay a fee for this and you can then wait around nervously hitting refresh until you get the six blockchain confirmations. On a good day it can take 10 minutes per confirmation, but hey think of the tech.

So your friend finally gets his bitcoin (or at least a percentage of the original bitcoin after fees). Lets assume he wants to convert this to fiat he has one of two options.

1)Open an account on localbitcoin, transfer the bitcoin to his wallet there (again paying a fee and waiting for the six blockchain confirmations) and sell them to some complete stranger he has never met.

2)Sell them back to coinbase at less than the current spot price for BTC. Then all he has to do is send this money to a bank account that accepts SEPA payments (not all do), and pay the yes you guessed it SEPA transfer fee (£25 if you are with Santander). Before he can do this he first has to send some money via SEPA to his Coinbase account (again paying the SEPA fee) to confirm the account is valid. oh, and wait 1-3 business days each way.

Simples, I am amazed everyone isn't doing it.

Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 2nd October 12:24

[anonymous-user]

dimots said:

Joey Deacon said:

I am sure a lot of people on this thread have wallets containing XRP, TRX, XLM, FUN, ADA, DASH etc. that are now worth 10% of what they were in December but are keeping them "just in case".

You mean you do?

No I don't have hold any crypto, I sold up in January.

Joey Deacon said:

I am actually still waiting for someone to explain to me what blockchain is and why it is actually useful for anything. I am also still waiting for a single one of these coins to have any practical use in day to day life.

dimots said:

Nobody should need to explain it to you, you can easily find out if you want to. It's not difficult, you have an internet connection.

Oh and guess what, I don't believe in conspiracy theories and I use bitcoin all the time. I have never been hacked or lost any bitcoins. I regularly get paid in bitcoins and it's fast and fee-free. Bitcoin is still there doing its thing and it's still the most secure way to make a payment from one computer to another.

So lets assume you got paid 1 BTC in December when it was worth $19,500 and held it, it's currently worth $6,500 which you are OK with?

What do you actually do with the BTC when you have been paid with it? If you want to use it in your everyday life to pay for things you unfortunately still need to convert it to worthless fiat.

[Guvernator]

Joey Deacon said:

Yes, but think of the tech when you first have to buy some BTC on coinbase using your credit card. Obviously you will have to pay more than the current spot price for BTC, but coinbase want their cut.

Next you can transfer it to your friends wallet, obviously you again pay a fee for this and you can then wait around nervously hitting refresh until you get the six blockchain confirmations. On a good day it can take 10 minutes per confirmation, but hey think of the tech.

So your friend finally gets his bitcoin (or at least a percentage of the original bitcoin after fees). Lets assume he wants to convert this to fiat he has one of two options.

1)Open an account on localbitcoin, transfer the bitcoin to his wallet there (again paying a fee and waiting for the six blockchain confirmations) and sell them to some complete stranger he has never met.

2)Sell them back to coinbase at less than the current spot price for BTC. Then all he has to do is send this money to a bank account that accepts SEPA payments (not all do), and pay the yes you guessed it SEPA transfer fee (£25 if you are with Santander). Before he can do this he first has to send some money via SEPA to his Coinbase account (again paying the SEPA fee) to confirm the account is valid.

Simples, I am amazed everyone isn't doing it.

You seem to have trouble separating what the technology can do now to how it might develop in the future. Did you ever try to use the internet back in the good old days? In a word it was st. Slow, costly, prone to failure, early adopters used it despite it's flaws but most everyone else pretty much ignored it as it was that thing that nerds used and didn't have any relevance to real life. Now it is all over the place, fast, cheap, reliable and most people in developed countries wouldn't want to be without it.

Crypto currency has been in serious development for barely 5 years, I suspect it's various final forms will be very different to what we are seeing now.

[CryptoSuperDave]

Joey Deacon said:

I think the majority of people who "invested" in crypto will have actually lost money. You only had to witness the crazy FOMO at the end of last year to realise that lots of people lost a lot of money. Everybody who invested at this time rationalised it by saying "it's money I can afford to lose", but lets be honest nobody likes to lose money.

nobody likes to lose money, but some people are happy to speculate £ rather than blow it down the boozer or at the bookies or on coke and hookers, who cares what people do with their own money

Joey Deacon said:

It's not even just the value of crypto falling, it is the whole wild west feeling about the whole thing. Look at Bitconnect, a lot of people lost a lot of money in this Ponzi scheme. Look at the amout of exchanges that have been hacked and the amount of people that had coins stolen. Nobody really cares, at the end of the day it is just a load of nerds being scammed in an unregulated market so nothing will happen to the people involved.

bitconnect was a blatant ponzi and it was widely and openly discussed for donkeys before it went tits up - you can probably attribute a lot of lost money in that from youtube allowing its shillers (trevon james and co) to spam advert every video played! - hopefully those guys see some time behind bars

Joey Deacon said:

I sometimes watch a live youtube channel called Whalepool and in December there were 1200 people viewing this channel at any one time. This was peak FOMO, when the episode of Big Bang theory came out where they were trying to find the Bitcoins they mined years ago. People on this very thread were in a panic as the exchanges were not accepting any more accounts and if they had an account their limits were too low.

many centralised exchanges struggled under the increase in load for sure, same issues occurred early on with ecommerce, look at when black friday/online sales boom started, many web firms wernt prepared for the surge in usage, many lost £m when their sites stopped working
just like the eCommerce firms had to scale up their web platform the same applied to exchanges (such as binance) that have this year undergone a series of upgrades to scale up to improve performance and capacity.
even just a few years ago i recall best buy fking up because they'd rolled out some lovely upgrades for their system in time for black friday. only to realise too late that although theyd scaled up for x concurrent users what they'd done is modelled each user as a PC user (hgih bandwidth/low latency) when in actual fact the real world usage would show a high % of traffic was actually from mobile phones, lower throughput and higher latency, which fkd up the servers as they couldnt cope with session retention etc - how long have these companies been around and still issues occur, there will be bumps along the road in crypto sphere too, it's to be expected, but its nothing to moan about.

and anyway if you really wanted to buy or sell crypto and couldnt sign up to an exchange at the time there were (and still are) are plenty of other ways - localbitcoins, decentralised exchanges, OTC etc.

Joey Deacon said:

I had a look at Whalepool yesterday and there were 30 people on the channel. The people on the channel who were talking and basically bragging about how smart they were, not heard a word from any of them for weeks.

Bitcoin is relatively stable, there's not alot of chatter when things move sideways, same as any forum for any time of investment, if things are slow the user interaction drops.

Joey Deacon said:

I am sure a lot of people on this thread have wallets containing XRP, TRX, XLM, FUN, ADA, DASH etc. that are now worth 10% of what they were in December but are keeping them "just in case".

if you have a XRP wallet then you have no option but to be holding - you need 20XRP for a wallet, cant be withdrawn, ripple didnt want people generating many accounts!!..
but seriously anyone that couldnt afford to lose should have used a stop loss so they weren't left bag holding - no different from putting money in stocks/shares, they also go down, they also go up, if you dont want to lose it use a stop loss at a percentage you're comfortable with leaving the market at.
the only thing im bag holding that's significantly down from ATH is some sumokoin (privacy coin) i mined it from my PC for a month many moons ago, was worth £250 at one stage, now about a tenner, but it didnt cost me any fiat and i just cant be bothered to exchange it.

Joey Deacon said:

I am actually still waiting for someone to explain to me what blockchain is and why it is actually useful for anything. I am also still waiting for a single one of these coins to have any practical use in day to day life.

youve been taking an interest in crypto and listening to whalepool since at least december as you said above, yet you dont know what a blockchain is or how it may be of use? i think you're taking the piss!

[anonymous-user]

Guvernator said:

You seem to have trouble separating what the technology can do now to how it might develop in the future. Did you ever try to use the internet back in the good old days? In a word it was st. Slow, costly, prone to failure, early adopters used it despite it's flaws but most everyone else pretty much ignored it as it was that thing that nerds used and didn't have any relevance to real life. Now it is all over the place, fast, cheap, reliable and most people in developed countries wouldn't want to be without it.

Crypto currency has been in serious development for barely 5 years, I suspect it's various final forms will be very different to what we are seeing now.

But there was no alternative to the internet, you had to send a letter or read a newspaper/magazine/watch TV.

If I currently want to pay for something I can use my mastercard to pay for goods and services anywhere in the world instantly. If I want to sent money to a friend I can use the banking app on my phone and the money will be in their account seconds later with zero fees.

I fail to see the problem that crypto is looking to solve? Yes it might be useful to buy drugs on silk road or send dodgy money around but that is about it.

Oh and BTC has been around for 10 years and still shows no signs of being widely adopted. The large companies that initially adopted it (Microsoft and Steam) have both abandoned it due to the fees and price volativity.

Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 2nd October 12:50

[Behemoth]

DonkeyApple said:

Isn’t it easier and cheaper to just hand your friend some GBP?

Yes, it absolutely is and will continue to be for a long time yet.

However, if your friend isn't in this country and both of you are comfortable with Bitcoin, handing your friend some BTC is already way easier than handing your friend some GBP.

In the mid 90s it was far easier to buy a newspaper at the corner shop than to bother firing up a 14.4k modem, launch an unstable web browser that was still in alpha and wait for an aeon for some text to download from a newspaper in San Francisco (there were few others) in Times Roman on a grey background, no images.

[DonkeyApple]

Behemoth said:

However, if your friend isn't in this country and both of you are comfortable with Bitcoin, handing your friend some BTC is already way easier than handing your friend some GBP.

No it isn’t. I can send money to anyone I want and across almost any border. It’s secure, fast and universal.