It's hard not to think of tulips at this stage
Heh, it would be a nice and symbolic name for the next cryptocurrency. "How much tulips goes for today?", "hackers stole $300m worth of tulips today, the biggest hack after yesterday's $100m heist!".
Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches
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Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches
#52I remember the .com-bubble; it kind of made sense that companies like Amazon were very valuable as they had the promise to transform whole industries. But this one; it is just stupid. Massive amounts of electricity and hardware wasted to keep a distributed ledger safe; an army of computer nerds facilitating fraud, narcotics sale and money laundry; and finally the bankers sensing bucks to be made on a large number of…
That's a very one-dimensional view of things. Blockchain technology carries with it the possibility to change how we think about and use money. Bitcoin is a zero-trust system that still manages to hold $41 billion dollar in value. However, I agree that almost all ICOs are cash-grabs. In my opinion we already have coins for all verticals that matter.
>Blockchain technology carries with it the possibility to change how we think about and use money.
That's the type of fluff I keep hearing coming from the bitcoin enthusiasts but I have yet to read a compelling argument about what it'll enable and how exactly.
"Bitcoin will kill the banks", "bitcoin will prevent the evil government from stealing your money", "bitcoin will cure cancer and polio". How it'll do any of that and why it's a good thing, that's left as an exercise to the reader.
In effect if we look at how bitcoin is effectively used today then the parent is fairly objective I think. There's speculation, more speculation, money laundering, black market stuff, gambling. Oh and did I mention speculation?
There aren't many legit use cases where bitcoin beats fiat nowadays, except maybe sending money to a foreign country (and even then it's not certain, what with the high fees and huge variation in the price of late).
I still don't understand how people expect it to become maistream. "It's like Visa, but if you make a mistake you may lose all your money with no hope of ever getting it back, it's not accepted everywhere and you have to wait for about an hour to get a confirmation. But hey, you can send money to Burundi super easily with it!"
I know, I know, there's SegWit coming, which might address some of these issues. In particular I hear that it'll cure the rabies too. To the moon!
Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches
#53I wonder if this will end with people going to prison for securities fraud?
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Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches
#54Can someone here please be a devil's advocate and convince me to invest in ICOs?
Buy into my ICO. I don't know what it is yet but it's going to be awesome. You can give me the money now if you like - you want to get in early after all if you're going to make the big bucks off it.
Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches
#55Investing in crypto is like a gambling addiction. I know some people who were paper millionaires based on their BTC during the days before Mt Gox collapse. They lost their entire savings once Mt Gox collapsed, since then they have spent years working hard to recover their savings and now they are investing all of it in ICOs. This won't end well. Seems to me like the story is repeating. On a side note, the brigading/s…
It's insidious.
There are routinely four or five posts on the front page about cryptos and they usually lack substance. It seems like an entire industry with a lack of morals, ignorant about law and too often tech, but with the smug self-assuredness that they are on the verge of changing everything as only 20 somethings and extremists possess.
It doesn't really bother me that people are dumb, but it's not cool when you see this constant shilling you speak of, looking to pull in another taker who doesn't understand the tech or the financial implications of what they are doing.
I made and lost more money in a weekend than I'd ever made in a year speculating on cryptos, and this was 3 years ago, can't imagine the community or the possible winnings now. After my initial investment had been lost, I felt that very real pull of putting in just a little more from this paycheck because you know tomorrow you can win everything back. I've never gambled but I was certain that's the pull gamblers feel and I knew at least for me there was no difference. It's funny to watch friends repeat the cycle with Ethereum and ICOs. "Hey, ether is up, just made a profit :)". Of course that was a month ago at the peak, wonder how their investment is doing now?
It's an industry full of bozos and con-artists. Something good might come out of it, but I'm not investing a dollar more into that when I know that same dollar is probably going to fuck somebody else over. Besides, what good is building a fortune out of something you didn't really earn? Cool, you won the lottery, anybody can do that.
Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches
#56It's hard not to think of tulips at this stage
Yes, but high-tech, virtual tulips, and we all know tech is where insane amounts of money can be made, right?
Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches
#57Investing in crypto is like a gambling addiction. I know some people who were paper millionaires based on their BTC during the days before Mt Gox collapse. They lost their entire savings once Mt Gox collapsed, since then they have spent years working hard to recover their savings and now they are investing all of it in ICOs. This won't end well. Seems to me like the story is repeating. On a side note, the brigading/s…
It's insidious. There are routinely four or five posts on the front page about cryptos and they usually lack substance. It seems like an entire industry with a lack of morals, ignorant about law and too often tech, but with the smug self-assuredness that they are on the verge of changing everything as only 20 somethings and extremists possess. It doesn't really bother me that people are dumb, but it's not cool when y…
I know exactly about the pull you are describing. I also invested a small amount (around £1500). When I lost about 1/3 of my initial investment, I felt a really strong urge to deposit more cash and try some risky trade to make my losses back.
I guess this is the feeling gamblers have. I managed to use my will power and cash out my remaining investment and just stay away from this as I understand now how it can become addictive just like gambling in casino.
I know people who didn't resist and threw in their whole life savings into crypto. And they have lost massive amounts of money. I'm sure there are some "lottery winners" that have become millionaires based on early investment in crypto but they are very small minority. Most people end up losing money.
Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches
#58If you've made a 7 figure salary for a few years, you can afford to take a gamble on an ICO with your pocket money. Who needs a second yacht anyway?
Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches
#59It's hard not to think of tulips at this stage
Maybe, but tulips still cost something these days.
I think the same will apply to tokens. They will always be worth something so long as banks keep charging transaction fees for moving money around and so long as a reliable network exits to support the token.
Even if you assume that nobody wanted to hold Bitcoin for longer than a few minutes (long enough to complete a transaction), it would still have value because it saves people lot of money on international transactions.
The total amount of money saved would be reflected in the price of the token based on the real-time supply and demand in any given minute interval.
The intrinsic value of a token is the total amount of money that it saves people from having to pay to bank fees for moving money around (with token price fluctuation risk factored in).
Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches
#60If you've made a 7 figure salary for a few years, you can afford to take a gamble on an ICO with your pocket money. Who needs a second yacht anyway?
If I earned 7 figure salary, I would do the job for about 5 years and then retire. With savings after 5 years of 7 figure salary you should be able create a comfortable passive income.
Buy couple real estate properties and rent them out, invest remainder in blue chip equities and collect dividends. And you never need to work again.