Author Topic: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion  (Read 402394 times)

sherr

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #700 on: January 06, 2018, 11:41:49 AM »
My understanding is that the same reasoning is one of the reasons corporations used to do stock splits. People were more likely to consider buying shares in corp A a good deal if the shares where $20 (with 5 million shares outstanding) than $100 (with 1 million shares outstanding).

It's not. Stocks split because if you're actually directly buying stocks (as opposed to buying in to a mutual fund worth billions of dollars) you have to buy them in whole-share increments. So if you "only" have $500 to invest this month you couldn't buy a stock that cost $1000. So there's an entirely rational reason for keeping the price of an individual share of stock at a reasonable price.

Unlike the crypto market, which has nothing at all rational about it at the moment.

lifeanon269

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #701 on: January 06, 2018, 11:49:19 AM »
I suspect lifeanon is right that many of the new people who have been drawn in by all the stories about how fast the price of bitcoin has increase are looking at the "unit price" and thinking ones with lower unit prices are better deals than ones with higher prices.

My understanding is that the same reasoning is one of the reasons corporations used to do stock splits. People were more likely to consider buying shares in corp A a good deal if the shares where $20 (with 5 million shares outstanding) than $100 (with 1 million shares outstanding).

It would be interesting (from a behavioral economics standpoint anyway) to see how current buyers of a currency like litecoin could get away with announcing a 1:100 "currency split" where they moved the decimal point over two positions and 1 unit of litecoin was now worth ~$3 instead of ~$300, but everyone who already had the currency now had 100x as much litecoin.

In practice this would be hard to do, and the people who actually understand cryptocurrencies would certainly point and laugh, but my guess is that it might actually get more of the sort of people who are still putting money into the market to buy in.

There has already been talks with Bitcoin about utilizing different denominations to help make it easier for people to transact with a currency who's whole price is in the tens of thousands. Moving to a unit of "bits" will also help drive the idea that bitcoin isn't "expensive" from a price perspective because price isn't really relevant with an infinitely divisible currency. A "currency split" isn't really a systemic or programmatic change but merely a behavioral change to get people to start displaying the units of account differently. Here is the link to BIP176 that was proposed for Bitcoin:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0176.mediawiki

sherr

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #702 on: January 06, 2018, 11:55:19 AM »
I suspect lifeanon is right that many of the new people who have been drawn in by all the stories about how fast the price of bitcoin has increase are looking at the "unit price" and thinking ones with lower unit prices are better deals than ones with higher prices.

My understanding is that the same reasoning is one of the reasons corporations used to do stock splits. People were more likely to consider buying shares in corp A a good deal if the shares where $20 (with 5 million shares outstanding) than $100 (with 1 million shares outstanding).

It would be interesting (from a behavioral economics standpoint anyway) to see how current buyers of a currency like litecoin could get away with announcing a 1:100 "currency split" where they moved the decimal point over two positions and 1 unit of litecoin was now worth ~$3 instead of ~$300, but everyone who already had the currency now had 100x as much litecoin.

In practice this would be hard to do, and the people who actually understand cryptocurrencies would certainly point and laugh, but my guess is that it might actually get more of the sort of people who are still putting money into the market to buy in.

There has already been talks with Bitcoin about utilizing different denominations to help make it easier for people to transact with a currency who's whole price is in the tens of thousands. Moving to a unit of "bits" will also help drive the idea that bitcoin isn't "expensive" from a price perspective because price isn't really relevant with an infinitely divisible currency. A "currency split" isn't really a systemic or programmatic change but merely a behavioral change to get people to start displaying the units of account differently. Here is the link to BIP176 that was proposed for Bitcoin:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0176.mediawiki

"Hey we should get everyone on the internet to change their behavior for 'reasons' we ourselves admit are completely irrational." Yup, totally sounds like something that would be floated by the bitcoin community right about now.

maizefolk

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #703 on: January 06, 2018, 12:42:43 PM »
My understanding is that the same reasoning is one of the reasons corporations used to do stock splits. People were more likely to consider buying shares in corp A a good deal if the shares where $20 (with 5 million shares outstanding) than $100 (with 1 million shares outstanding).

It's not. Stocks split because if you're actually directly buying stocks (as opposed to buying in to a mutual fund worth billions of dollars) you have to buy them in whole-share increments. So if you "only" have $500 to invest this month you couldn't buy a stock that cost $1000. So there's an entirely rational reason for keeping the price of an individual share of stock at a reasonable price.

Unlike the crypto market, which has nothing at all rational about it at the moment.

There are basically three (maybe more) economic models for why companies do stock splits.

1) It's a signaling mechanism which shows the confidence of management in their ability to continue to grow the company.
2) Investor psychology (low information investors are more likely to buy stocks with cheap unit prices than large unit prices).
3) Greater liquidity when the size of traded units of ownership are smaller.

I'd be happy to debate the evidence for the relative significance of these three factors in when and whether or not companies decide to split their stock, but if that would be of interest would you be up for creating a new thread, since this doesn't seem particularly relevant to blockchain/cryptocurrency issues?

seattlecyclone

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #704 on: January 06, 2018, 02:08:05 PM »
I suspect lifeanon is right that many of the new people who have been drawn in by all the stories about how fast the price of bitcoin has increase are looking at the "unit price" and thinking ones with lower unit prices are better deals than ones with higher prices.

My understanding is that the same reasoning is one of the reasons corporations used to do stock splits. People were more likely to consider buying shares in corp A a good deal if the shares where $20 (with 5 million shares outstanding) than $100 (with 1 million shares outstanding).

It would be interesting (from a behavioral economics standpoint anyway) to see how current buyers of a currency like litecoin could get away with announcing a 1:100 "currency split" where they moved the decimal point over two positions and 1 unit of litecoin was now worth ~$3 instead of ~$300, but everyone who already had the currency now had 100x as much litecoin.

In practice this would be hard to do, and the people who actually understand cryptocurrencies would certainly point and laugh, but my guess is that it might actually get more of the sort of people who are still putting money into the market to buy in.

There has already been talks with Bitcoin about utilizing different denominations to help make it easier for people to transact with a currency who's whole price is in the tens of thousands. Moving to a unit of "bits" will also help drive the idea that bitcoin isn't "expensive" from a price perspective because price isn't really relevant with an infinitely divisible currency. A "currency split" isn't really a systemic or programmatic change but merely a behavioral change to get people to start displaying the units of account differently. Here is the link to BIP176 that was proposed for Bitcoin:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0176.mediawiki

"Hey we should get everyone on the internet to change their behavior for 'reasons' we ourselves admit are completely irrational." Yup, totally sounds like something that would be floated by the bitcoin community right about now.

If you're using it as an actual currency, spending a few ten-thousandths of a base currency unit for a small purchase is going to throw people off. Better to have the base unit be something in the same general order of magnitude as many of the other major world currencies, rather than ten thousand times higher.

If you're treating it as a stock, the actual price is irrelevant.

gp_

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #705 on: January 06, 2018, 02:59:42 PM »
1) Most banks are currently using the xCurrent platform which does not utilized XRP at all. Only one company has publicly claimed they were using XRP (Cuallix).

2) The answer is no. It does not need XRP to function. It can be utilized, but the only benefit for banks using it would arise if there were enough liquidity in the XRP market to make it worth while, which there isn't. Otherwise it just makes sense for financial institutions to take on the counter-party risk and use trusted gateways to send value across the network.

3) Ripple is not a decentralized network. Ripple uses a unique node list (UNL) that currently only contains 5 core validators all run by Ripple. To get on this node list Ripple must make sure that you're a trusted entity in order to maintain consensus (since there is no other consensus mechanism on the network). Therefore anyone who's sane should just be utilizing Ripple's own core validators (s1.ripple.com, s2.ripple.com, s3.ripple.com, etc). Anyone can set up and run their own validator, but doing so does not provide any consensus control or decentralization to the network unless someone actively choses to use them. Since they're not on the UNL, no one using XRP should use them since at any time they could suddenly find themselves following a non-consensus fork of XRP which could jeopardize your transactions. So no, the network is not decentralized.

I understand the Ripple needs to operate this way and that is perfectly fine. It is perfectly fine to position a company with an offering to financial institutions that has benefits over current platforms like SWIFT. In fact, that's exactly what banks are looking for. But to market Ripple as an open decentralized blockchain crypto-currency is extremely misleading to the general public when it is far from being that.

https://www.coindesk.com/100-billion-controversy-xrps-surge-raises-hard-questions-ripple/

1. sbi has already confirmed that it's going live with xrp this spring. ripple has also stated that 3 of the 5 top global money transfer companies will use xrp in payment flows this year too.

2. as i said, it depends on the services. xrp is needed as an anti-spam measure for transaction purposes otherwise it's further use in transactions can be completely optional.

3. as i said, to a degree it is (and it's a priority to create further decentralization in 2018). ripple will replace their nodes with attested third-party validating nodes. for every two attested third-party validating nodes which meet consensus agreement rate, uptime, and verification of identity and public attestation, ripple will remove one of their validating nodes until no entity operates a majority of trusted nodes on the XRP Ledger. they're extremely transparent.

« Last Edit: January 06, 2018, 06:06:55 PM by gp_ »

maizefolk

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #706 on: January 06, 2018, 05:55:39 PM »
There has already been talks with Bitcoin about utilizing different denominations to help make it easier for people to transact with a currency who's whole price is in the tens of thousands. Moving to a unit of "bits" will also help drive the idea that bitcoin isn't "expensive" from a price perspective because price isn't really relevant with an infinitely divisible currency. A "currency split" isn't really a systemic or programmatic change but merely a behavioral change to get people to start displaying the units of account differently. Here is the link to BIP176 that was proposed for Bitcoin:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0176.mediawiki

Very cool, thanks for the link! The write up also makes the point (which I hadn't thought of, but agree with having had it pointed out to me), that numbers starting with lots of zeros are a lot easier to confuse either when you are looking at them quickly when reading or when you type them in.  For example 0.000421 vs 0.000042

Apple_Tango

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #707 on: January 06, 2018, 08:04:44 PM »
Kerry McCarpet posted another video about blockchain on her YouTube channel, and I find her opinion fascinating. I just figure this thread is as good as any to post the link. This time the  topic is about how Blockchain will make us work harder to maintain the value of our money.

https://youtu.be/tswLAdW2IIQ

gp_

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #708 on: January 07, 2018, 10:09:03 AM »
lifeanon269 is correct. Ripple is a permissioned network that uses trusted validators.

i never once said you or him were incorrect. the issue is people continue to talk in absolutes and report false facts without knowing what's happening. again, ripple is working toward no single entity operating a majority of trusted nodes on the XRP Ledger.

powskier

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #709 on: January 07, 2018, 02:33:32 PM »
Binance is quicker apparently.
Kraken takes many days and is a PITA to set up but is US based, Binance is in Hong Kong. Fees at Kraken are smallish.

If you just want to sell your XRP open an account at Kraken, sell your XRP into BTC, then BTC to LTC ( quicker and less fees to send to other exchange then send to Coinbase ( open Coinbase account first) trade your Litecoin for USD direct deposit into your bank account.
 
Why not trade directly xrp to USD in Kraken instead of this convoluted and fee heavy method you ask? Even though I am tier 3 verified the bank deposit or withdrawl has NEVER worked, but Coinbase has worked every time, hence the run around.....yeah the exchanges need some serious oversight IMO, it 's the wild west out there, makes pink sheets look stable.

You could just open an account at Coinbase and wait and believe the rumor that XRP will be listed there soon. In which case you should wait for that spike. Heads up that opening any of these accounts takes numerous days and several hoops to jump through.

For a "currency" that claims to aspire to act as a bridge between every other currency, this seems unnecessarily convoluted. Is there really no way to convert XRP directly to USD with an organization that will actually pay out USD (you know, the most important part of a currency conversion)?
The currency isn't the problem, the exchange is. I can sell the XRP for USD no problem, but because the exchange is overwhelmed I cannot currently move that USD in USD form to my bank account.Hence the need to use other coins to transfer "the value". I am verifed to do this action but it won't go through. They have had 2 different "fix it" tickets to see what is wrong but haven't fixed it. I have not had this issue on Coinbase, but Coinbase does not currently list XRP.

Edited to add: the exchanges are the place that will see regulation first, hopefully. Easily overwhelmed, unreliable. Crypto is gambling for sure, but the exchanges make it seem like gambling in a dark alley on top of cardboard boxes instead of a nice casino. I suspect that during the dumps , the big holders get their rewards and everyone else watches their money disappear because the exchange just says "sorry, services down".
« Last Edit: January 07, 2018, 02:52:42 PM by powskier »

PDXTabs

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #710 on: January 07, 2018, 04:08:25 PM »
The currency isn't the problem, the exchange is. I can sell the XRP for USD no problem, but because the exchange is overwhelmed I cannot currently move that USD in USD form to my bank account.Hence the need to use other coins to transfer "the value". I am verifed to do this action but it won't go through. They have had 2 different "fix it" tickets to see what is wrong but haven't fixed it. I have not had this issue on Coinbase, but Coinbase does not currently list XRP.

Edited to add: the exchanges are the place that will see regulation first, hopefully. Easily overwhelmed, unreliable. Crypto is gambling for sure, but the exchanges make it seem like gambling in a dark alley on top of cardboard boxes instead of a nice casino. I suspect that during the dumps , the big holders get their rewards and everyone else watches their money disappear because the exchange just says "sorry, services down".

That makes me think that there is a demand for better exchanges. How do we invest in an exchange?

maizefolk

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #711 on: January 07, 2018, 05:04:55 PM »
The problem is that the regulatory burden for running an exchange/money transmitting business in the USA is quite high compared to many other first world nations. This is why a lot of foreign banks refuse to open accounts for americans since FATCA passed in 2010 and why some major cryptocurrency exchanges like Bitfinex won't let americans open accounts either.

Coinbase appears to be keeping all of their ducks in a row with regards to legal compliance paperwork, but it means identity validation can take quite a while. They actually seem to spend a lot of time and effort tracking where customers send their bitcoins after their are purchased because they will often freeze user accounts if purchased bitcoins end up being used to pay for things like online gambling or if they think you are selling your bitcoins on platforms like localbitcoins. I imagine it may also be part of the reason they are slower and more reluctant to open up trading in new currency pairs since presumably each new currency increases their regulatory compliance costs significantly.

I know I sure wouldn't want to run an cryptocurrency exchange in the USA. On one side you have crazy high volatility and sudden surges of trading volume that are going to overwhelm however many servers you have stood up, on the second side you're painting a giant target on your back for hackers who'd like to pull money out of your various corporate wallets, and on the third side draconian penalties for failures to comply with banking regulations designed for a previous era applied not just to you, but to anyone you do business with (which makes it hard to maintain relationships with traditional banks to wire customer's money to them).

waltworks

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #712 on: January 07, 2018, 05:59:59 PM »
No intent to derail - thanks to everyone for the fascinating discussion! I have zero interest in "investing" in purchasing currency, crypto or not, but I'm excited to see if cryptos can break the credit card vampire squid stranglehold on payments that we have to live with.

-W

trollwithamustache

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #713 on: January 08, 2018, 08:53:21 AM »
No intent to derail - thanks to everyone for the fascinating discussion! I have zero interest in "investing" in purchasing currency, crypto or not, but I'm excited to see if cryptos can break the credit card vampire squid stranglehold on payments that we have to live with.

-W

This is what first got me playing in Crypto... why do we have to pay banks to use our money?
  Everyone complains about BTC transaction costs but remember, every credit card transaction VISA and the banks get 1-2%... its just built into everyone's prices.

Tonyahu

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #714 on: January 08, 2018, 03:23:49 PM »

EXAMPLE:
Today on 10/04/2017: 1 Bitcoin is $4,800, 1 Monero is $91, 1 Ether is $292, 1 Lisk is $5.45, 1 LINK is $.39 and 1 ARDR is $.16.


Today on 12/06/2017: 1 Bitcoin is $13,400, 1 Monero is $282, 1 Ether is $430, 1 Lisk is $9.10 1 LINK is $.31 and 1 ARDR is $.55.

Today on 1/8/2018: 1 Bitcoin is $14,900, 1 Monero is $400, 1 Ether is $1,150, 1 Lisk is $31, 1 LINK is $1.30 and 1 ARDR is $1.61

Once in a lifetime opportunity.

Mustachio Bashio

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #715 on: January 08, 2018, 08:56:12 PM »
Just started to get into this alt-coin game a couple days ago because of all the fomo.  It's definitely slightly addicting.  Anyone have a new fave they're excited about?  Looking for big things from QASH.

runbikerun

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #716 on: January 08, 2018, 09:31:11 PM »

EXAMPLE:
Today on 10/04/2017: 1 Bitcoin is $4,800, 1 Monero is $91, 1 Ether is $292, 1 Lisk is $5.45, 1 LINK is $.39 and 1 ARDR is $.16.


Today on 12/06/2017: 1 Bitcoin is $13,400, 1 Monero is $282, 1 Ether is $430, 1 Lisk is $9.10 1 LINK is $.31 and 1 ARDR is $.55.

Today on 1/8/2018: 1 Bitcoin is $14,900, 1 Monero is $400, 1 Ether is $1,150, 1 Lisk is $31, 1 LINK is $1.30 and 1 ARDR is $1.61

Once in a lifetime opportunity.

Is this not worrying to some crypto boosters? Based on those numbers, you're looking at an annualised increase of somewhere between 8,000 and 1,000,000 per cent. Given the number of people arguing that we're looking at a bubble, is there an increase that would cause you to consider whether they were right?

PDXTabs

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #717 on: January 08, 2018, 10:48:52 PM »
Is this not worrying to some crypto boosters? Based on those numbers, you're looking at an annualised increase of somewhere between 8,000 and 1,000,000 per cent. Given the number of people arguing that we're looking at a bubble, is there an increase that would cause you to consider whether they were right?

I don't know if you would call me a crypto booster (I've mined 3 ETH), but I definitely think that we are in a bubble. Dogecoin has over a $1B market cap! However, I think that we are in a bubble the way that .com bubble was a bubble. People knew that the internet would create incredible wealth, they just didn't know how, or by which companies. Years later the internet has created incredible wealth, but many of the .com stocks of the late 90s are gone. I'm pretty sure that cryptocurrency is here to stay, but no one really know which ones will survive. Also, some that survive may later fail (just like internet companies, or countries).

EDIT - Not that cryptocurrency can create wealth, except possibly to the extent that it can usurp alternative payment systems.

trollwithamustache

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #718 on: January 09, 2018, 08:16:11 AM »
Just started to get into this alt-coin game a couple days ago because of all the fomo.  It's definitely slightly addicting.  Anyone have a new fave they're excited about?  Looking for big things from QASH.

I've got an old computer mining AEON. yes it is FOMO!  the dear lady troll has announced that she is ready for the crypto bubble to burst as she feels like a wife of a sports fan every time check prices.

forgerator

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #719 on: January 09, 2018, 09:39:17 PM »
Just started to get into this alt-coin game a couple days ago because of all the fomo.  It's definitely slightly addicting.  Anyone have a new fave they're excited about?  Looking for big things from QASH.

Would recommend to diversify crypto portfolio just like you would a regular stock market based one. I would recommend to make Ethereum the bulk of it as it has incredible support and future growth prospects as a Smart contract platform. Other than that look at ones which are working on exciting tech and have a great team that can deliver. Examples, Raiblocks, Substratum, Power Ledger, Stratis , to name a few.

BrandNewPapa

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #720 on: January 10, 2018, 10:21:22 AM »
Just curious what everyone thinks about China's move to shut down miners. How do you think it will affect the BTC and other markets?

I don't know what to make of it. Just looking for opinions.

https://www.ft.com/content/adfe7858-f4f9-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1a00

maizefolk

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #721 on: January 10, 2018, 11:40:06 AM »
Just curious what everyone thinks about China's move to shut down miners. How do you think it will affect the BTC and other markets?

I don't know what to make of it. Just looking for opinions.

https://www.ft.com/content/adfe7858-f4f9-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1a00

If they are completely successful in the crackdown and people don't just move their dedicated mining equipment (ASICs) across the border into other countries, this would reduce the energy consumption of bitcoin by 75% in one fell stroke without decreasing the number of transactions which can be processed on that particular blockchain at all (once the difficulty adjusted).

Of course if all the chinese miners are shutdown and the price of bitcoin stays the same, the profitability of mining would increase a lot (about 4x), which would drive more people to start mining, which would bring energy consumption back up eventually.

If the link above doesn't work, often you can access FT articles without a subscription by googling the title of the article and clicking through from there. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=China+moves+to+shutter+bitcoin+mines

trollwithamustache

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #722 on: January 10, 2018, 03:58:40 PM »
Just curious what everyone thinks about China's move to shut down miners. How do you think it will affect the BTC and other markets?

I don't know what to make of it. Just looking for opinions.

https://www.ft.com/content/adfe7858-f4f9-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1a00

It may actually be really good for BTC long term price increase.  Most of the big Chinese miners knew this was coming and had moved some small  to medium size operations out of China, so while this may shut down a lot of mining hardware, its not like it will stop mining. The network will continue to function process (slowly) transactions.

Shutting down all that hardware with subsidized power will potentially make it easier for all the hobbyist worldwide to mine again and be slightly profitable. That could really invigorate the faithful.

Add in something like this Kodak mining scheme (which seems crazy/desparate?)? Network Hashrates go down and cloud mining with "respectable" Kodak is profitable?  It could get people a lot more excited.

asosharp

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #723 on: January 10, 2018, 06:49:31 PM »
Just started to get into this alt-coin game a couple days ago because of all the fomo.  It's definitely slightly addicting.  Anyone have a new fave they're excited about?  Looking for big things from QASH.

Would recommend to diversify crypto portfolio just like you would a regular stock market based one. I would recommend to make Ethereum the bulk of it as it has incredible support and future growth prospects as a Smart contract platform. Other than that look at ones which are working on exciting tech and have a great team that can deliver. Examples, Raiblocks, Substratum, Power Ledger, Stratis , to name a few.

I read an opinion from CoinFi that said for people who don't want to get too involved but want to try it out for the long term they should invest in the top 20 coins and see how it goes in 3 years time. He reckons one of them should at least make good gains to offset the others.

sol

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #724 on: January 10, 2018, 08:31:13 PM »
I read an opinion from CoinFi that said for people who don't want to get too involved but want to try it out for the long term they should invest in the top 20 coins and see how it goes in 3 years time. He reckons one of them should at least make good gains to offset the others.

You can also improve your odds in the lottery by buying 20 tickets.

maizefolk

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #725 on: January 10, 2018, 09:37:51 PM »
I can't believe how profitable GPU mining has been lately. Also, the supply of GPUs are at an all time low and prices are averaging the highest I have seen since I started mining last spring. Interesting time.

I've noticed this as well. Was close to shutting my rig down as it had about paid for itself (not counting price inflation of previously mined coins, with that it had been quite profitable, but that's more luck than anything else) and was only making about 3x as much per month as I was spending on extra electricity. When I initially built it, mining income was about 10x the cost of electrical consumption.

However, for about the last month or so, income has spiked as high as 20x electricity consumption, so I guess my little experiment isn't quite over after all. Just means my next plan for the machine (trying out TensorFlow to train pattern recognition algorithms) will have to wait a bit longer.

maizefolk

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #726 on: January 11, 2018, 07:37:08 PM »
ZCL to BTCP is an interesting opportunity to make some money if it happens.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ZClassic/comments/7mg5je/zcl_btcp_faq/

It seems like people have decided that forking bitcoin (and having bitcoin right in your name) tends to produce bigger and more active communities than launching a new currency from scratch.

I would imagine this trend will continue to grow until there are dozens if not hundreds of currencies which trace their lineage back to a bitcoin fork.

Padonak

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #727 on: January 13, 2018, 09:12:03 PM »
I have been thinking about market drivers behind the current price levels of crypto currencies and their impact on future price levels. Full disclosure: I do not have any investments in crypto but have been following this space closely for the last couple of months. Here are a few thoughts.

Current prices of crypto currencies ($14K for Bitcoin and $1.4K for Ethetium at the moment) are supported by the fact that people are willing to buy them and pay these amounts of FIAT currencies for them.

There is a lot of hype around various ICOs and tokens. For example, Vechain, Raiblocks, the list goes on. Some of these token prices already increased 10X or more, some have potential to go up significantly in the short term. Most of these startups will likely fail but some of their tokens have potential for high risk speculation, at least in the short term.

Many people want to buy these tokens hoping to get huge returns. ICOs and their tokens exist in the Etherium platform. The tokens can be bought for Etherium coin, so the way to buy tokens for new investors is to buy ETH. For example, new investors can buy ETH on Coinbase/GDAX, convert them to tokens on another exchange such as Binance. Those who already have crypto coins can convert them to ETH and then buy tokens or use ETH they already have.

The main thing that supports high price of ETH is the fact that it can be used to buy ICO tokens. For other cryptos, such as Bitcoin (also for ETH to some extent), it's a combination of momentum and hope that they will partially or even fully replace gold and/or FIAT money (gold as a store of value and FIAT as a store of value and medium of exchange).

The fact that some crypto exchanges struggle to register new customers (e.g. Binance) shows how much hype there is in this space and how many people line up to spend their FIAT money to buy crypto currencies and tokens.

Questions:

How long will this bubble continue to inflate? A few months? A few years? How much will the prices of crypto currencies go up before the bubble pops? This can't go on forever. The prices can't go up to infinity.

What event or a series of events will make this bubble pop? Governments cracking down on crypto? Banks and governments shutting down on/off ramps between FIAT and crypto? Most of the popular ICOs turning out to be either scams or just shitty ideas that never make any money? A new recession in the FIAT economy? Just a random big drop in crypto prices leading to a massive selloff and crypto investors/speculators retreating to FIAT?

What will come out of this bubble? Very little or nothing? New blockchain companies current financial giants such as NYSE, Goldman Sachs, Citibank and Western Union? A completely new paradigm similar to the internet that will change our lives forever when it comes to storing and exchanging value, authenticating products and much more? A completely different world without FIAT where the state is separated from money the same way it was separated from church a long time ago?

PS. I was going to post this in the crypto skeptics thread but as I typed this I realized that I will probably get more thoughtful replies in this thread because in that thread there are too many people who very little or nothing about the crypto space and just hate the whole thing blindly. I am hoping to get some thoughts on this subject from both skeptics and enthusiasts. Also, please correct me if any of the assumptions and facts I stated above are wrong.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2018, 09:51:00 PM by Padonak »

VolcanicArts

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #728 on: January 13, 2018, 10:31:13 PM »
Just saw this thread. My current holdings are BTC, ETH, LTC, XMR, STEEM, POT, EMC2. ETH is my current favorite out of these with a 2018 price target of 3to5k per coin.

theolympians

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #729 on: January 13, 2018, 11:05:46 PM »
Second time I am going to type this on this site today: This sounds like gambling to me.

What are these valuations based on?....More suckers pumping money into the system, as long as that happens it will go up, I guess. I asked roughly this on another thread here but was never answered (I believe): How many crytpo "currencies" are there, and what is the point of having so many? I mean, if one works why buy any other? If you don't like "fiat" currency, wtf is bitcoin or any of the hundreds out there? Everyone takes US dollars, I have heard of no one buying a loaf of bread with it.

Think of it this way: YOU are undermining your country's currency by "investing" in any crypto. If by some wild dream Bitcrap becomes the currency of the future, your dollars are worthless. SS is paid in dollars, you are paid in dollars, your real investments are paid in dollars.

I bet if you bought a brick of cocaine you could make 10x your investment too...

PDXTabs

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #730 on: January 13, 2018, 11:26:43 PM »
Think of it this way: YOU are undermining your country's currency by "investing" in any crypto. If by some wild dream Bitcrap becomes the currency of the future, your dollars are worthless. SS is paid in dollars, you are paid in dollars, your real investments are paid in dollars.

In the US cryptocurrencies are taxed as if they were foreign currencies, gold, or stocks. Do those undermine the US dollar? Does me holding euros or gold really threaten SS? PS - I pay FICA on my mining profits.

EDIT - Also, my VTWSX is priced in dollars, but if the dollar ceased to exist tomorrow I would still own a slice of the global stock market. All of those companies would still exist.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2018, 11:29:51 PM by PDXTabs »

simonkkkkk

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #731 on: January 14, 2018, 04:51:10 AM »

Retire-Canada

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #732 on: January 14, 2018, 06:42:15 AM »
I bet if you bought a brick of cocaine you could make 10x your investment too...

I'm not a crypto fan, but to be fair it seems like the risks of a gangland execution are lower with crypto.

sol

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #733 on: January 14, 2018, 11:20:42 AM »
I bet if you bought a brick of cocaine you could make 10x your investment too...

I'm not a crypto fan, but to be fair it seems like the risks of a gangland execution are lower with crypto.

Maybe, but I still see a relevant correlation.  There's probably a good reason why cocaine and bitcoin are both so popular with criminals, right?  Do you think it's purely coincidence?

PDXTabs

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #734 on: January 14, 2018, 11:35:04 AM »
I'm not a crypto fan, but to be fair it seems like the risks of a gangland execution are lower with crypto.

Maybe, but I still see a relevant correlation.  There's probably a good reason why cocaine and bitcoin are both so popular with criminals, right?  Do you think it's purely coincidence?

Sure, but it is just replacing US currency. 85% of hard US currency is unaccounted for. El Chapo alone is purported to have $14B.

But I can understand why they might prefer BTC to USD since At His Peak Pablo Escobar Was Losing $2.1 Billion A Year Due To Rats Eating Money In Storage

GuitarStv

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #735 on: January 14, 2018, 12:08:18 PM »
Jesus, what do you think the ER rates are for drug dealers?

sol

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #736 on: January 14, 2018, 12:53:36 PM »
Jesus, what do you think the ER rates are for drug dealers?

Probably depends on when they get caught.

How long does it take to commit enough crime to get a life sentence?  That's the holy grail of early retirement, right there.

Padonak

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #737 on: January 14, 2018, 03:29:56 PM »
Oy! Don't post their faces.

What if ETH price goes up to $1,000,000,000 and the dollar becomes green toilet paper? These guys will become super rich compared to the average person. Many poor people will be pissed off when the dollar goes to shit and try to track down and kidnap those guys and their girlfriends. The US has more guns than people, remember?

SimpleSpartan

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #738 on: January 14, 2018, 03:35:07 PM »
Anyone else into substratum (SUB)?

Decentralizing the web, full public beta release soon.

One of the few crypto projects that will make a difference.

sol

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #739 on: January 14, 2018, 05:03:14 PM »
What if ETH price goes up to $1,000,000,000 and the dollar becomes green toilet paper? These guys will become super rich compared to the average person.

I think this comment fundamentally misconstrues the nature of wealth.  You're not a trillionaire if you own two thousand shares of stock "valued" at a half billion each, unless there are enough buyers out there to buy them all at that price, and you sell them at that price.  That net worth isn't any more real than market cap is real.  It's an artifice, a fake number found buy multiplying an instantaneous transaction price for one transaction times the theoretical maximum number of transactions, without considering how additional transactions will impact market price.

Dogecoin went from 0.01 cents to 1.5 cents.  There are something like 21 trillion of them, so the founder is technically a billionaire because he has billions of them.  But they're still effectively worthless, he can't actually sell billions of them at that price.  If he sold more than a few thousand per day, the price would plummet because there's just not that much demand for a meme coin.  He didn't actually make anything of value.  He doesn't control a profit-generating enterprise.  He has no capital, no real estate, no employees, no business model, no nothing.  All he has is trillion digitally signed files that he made on his home computer, and he's managed to sell some of them for around a penny.  Is he really a billionaire?

I think not.  That link posted above suggests that the originator of Etherium was briefly worth more than Mark Zuckerberg, who controls a majority stake in one of the largest and most profitable companies in history.  Does anyone really believe that a minority stake in Etherium can make someone wealthier than the Zuck?

So no, I'm not worried about the "green toilet paper" scenario.  Tulip bulbs went though this same phase, where the price of a single lot of bulbs times the number of lots in the market far exceeded the GDP of the nation.  Just because SOME people are willing to pay outlandish prices for tulips does not mean that person has more wealth than the entire nation does.  He couldn't possibly sell them all at that price because there isn't that much money.  It's ridiculous from every angle.  Wealth is not determined by market price.

Wealth generates cash flow.  Power confers control.  Crypto-bros have neither.  All they have are modern day penny stocks they've effectively pumped up to naive investors.  Remember that for every buyer there needs to be a seller, and every coin sold is someone deciding to cash out of their GDP-sized tulip bulb stake for actual dollars that can be used to pay rent and buy bread. 

The stock market works the exact same way, btw.  If your vtsax balance is one million dollars, you're only a millionaire if there are enough buyers for you to liquidate at that price.  By the time you're Warrren Buffet and you control tens of billions of dollars, finding that many buyers becomes problematic.  If you tried to sell it all, you'd crash the market and destroy your own wealth along with everyone else's.

It's like the entire country has forgotten that liquidity is a thing.  Market cap isn't a real value.  Crypto billionaires aren't really billionaires unless they can deceive people long enough to liquidate their holdings.  The more people sell, the harder it is for them to do that.  Hence the fanatical HODL mentality.  Can't have anyone selling and ruining the gravy train for the sellers, that would ruin their artificial scarcity.

It's a giant economic comedy, and I love it.  Hollywood is going to make some great movies about this, in a few years.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2018, 06:23:29 PM by sol »

Padonak

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #740 on: January 14, 2018, 05:32:51 PM »
Sol, my comment was tongue and cheek and I agree with you about net worth.

The only thing I'd like to add is that the smarter ones among those crypto millionaires and billionaires already cashed out their initial investments and then some, so they are playing with house money. They can take excessive risks and still be ok even if this whole crypto house of cards collapses tomorrow.

The dogecoin guy can't cash out, but many people in that space can and already have, at least partially. There are more than enough greater fools for now to buy coins and tokens from those who were lucky to get in before the prices exploded. Maybe even those who start now can 10X their "investments", who knows? However, the last bunch of greater fools will get screwed big time, many of them will be the shoeshine boy types who probably use credit card debt to buy stupid coins. When this will happen is anybody's guess.


forgerator

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #741 on: January 14, 2018, 09:05:25 PM »
Anyone else into substratum (SUB)?

Decentralizing the web, full public beta release soon.

One of the few crypto projects that will make a difference.

Yes I have it. Was enjoying when it went above $3 but now back to under 2.

VolcanicArts

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #742 on: January 15, 2018, 01:57:37 PM »
I have been trying to find unique cryptocurrencies that are not just different versions of Bitcoin. The two small ones I have found are STEEM and EMC2, as well as my large holding in ETH which I have been adding to for months. Does anyone have any other ideas for unique altcoins? I’ve also purchased POT just so I can have an investment in cannabis.

waltworks

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #743 on: January 15, 2018, 02:25:42 PM »
Slightly OT - if you want exposure to the cannabis industry, I'd be buying ADM or Phillip Morris or something. Your hippy neighbor is not going to be able to compete when the actual agriculture people get involved, POTcoins or not.

-W

theolympians

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #744 on: January 15, 2018, 11:06:03 PM »
I have't been on this site a super long time, but this is getting crazy. Why don't people just buy lotto tickets? All the conversation is about what is going up, unrelated to what it is. What happened to investing for retirement? Stocks, bonds, etfs? It seems this site is becoming more of a get rich quick, jump on the band wagon BS.

maizefolk

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #745 on: January 15, 2018, 11:19:30 PM »
I have't been on this site a super long time, but this is getting crazy. Why don't people just buy lotto tickets? All the conversation is about what is going up, unrelated to what it is. What happened to investing for retirement? Stocks, bonds, etfs? It seems this site is becoming more of a get rich quick, jump on the band wagon BS.

In the 35 posts on the most recent page of this thread, the most I could even charitably read as suggesting people buy [or that the poster had bought] some cryptocurrency because the price is going up, or may go up in the future was 7, and if I don't lean over backwards to read in intent that may not be there it's more like 3-4.

10-20% of posts in a discussion is hardly "all the conversation," wouldn't you agree?


powskier

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #746 on: January 15, 2018, 11:44:40 PM »
I have't been on this site a super long time, but this is getting crazy. Why don't people just buy lotto tickets? All the conversation is about what is going up, unrelated to what it is. What happened to investing for retirement? Stocks, bonds, etfs? It seems this site is becoming more of a get rich quick, jump on the band wagon BS.

LOL, you must have skimmed the thread. Some of us are quickly generating 10's of thousands of dollars having already claimed back original "investment/gamble" and plowing the proceeds into more VTI and VEA. I've at least knocked a year off my fire date in 5 months.

sol

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #747 on: January 15, 2018, 11:57:38 PM »
You have to admit, that's kind of funny.  Immediately after maizeman very reasonably says "well we're not actually saying you should buy" someone chimes in to say "you should buy".  Literally minutes later.  That's gold, right there. 

powskier

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #748 on: January 16, 2018, 12:07:38 AM »
You have to admit, that's kind of funny.  Immediately after maizeman very reasonably says "well we're not actually saying you should buy" someone chimes in to say "you should buy".  Literally minutes later.  That's gold, right there.
You read what you wanted to read. I certainly did not say " you should buy".

thenextguy

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Re: OFFICIAL: Blockchain / Crypto-Currency Portfolios and Discussion
« Reply #749 on: January 16, 2018, 08:33:09 AM »
I have been trying to find unique cryptocurrencies that are not just different versions of Bitcoin.

There are tons of coins that are quite different than BTC. Two I like are ETH and XMR.