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Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

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Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#341

Post by mywittyname »

whoisninja9 wrote: post #302
nikolay wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see hundreds of my friends sending money free with Venmo each month. I know nobody having any slightest interest in Bitcoin or the likes. Once in a while, somebody would ask me if it makes sense for them to invest some cash into Bitcoin as they've heard about some crazy growth, but when I explain to them some, they all decide it's too risky, and those who are the anarchist type stick to gold.

transactions with fiat is fine, good luck storing all of your wealth in fiat (specially with worldwide QE, fiat is more pumped than anything can be) : http://www.fiatfate.com/

The solution to this is, and always has been, to buy equities. Put your wealth to work generating an income stream.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#342

Post by bitmapbrother »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #303
bitmapbrother wrote: post #298

I recall being downvoted when I replied to someone asking if it was too late to invest in Bitcoin when it was at $4000. In my reply I quoted Roger Ver by saying that it was never too late to invest in Bitcoin. I also decided to walk the talk and buy some at $4000 with money I could afford to lose. Glad I did.

That's crazy thinking though. It's only "never too late" if it never stops going up. Just because it went up from $4k doesn't mean that you won. Unless you sell now and walk away. Point is, it's impossible to know if you're leaving money on the table.

This is a long term investment for me so I don't plan on trying to time the market or cash out early. I fully expect to see Bitcoin rise above $10,000 in 1 year.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#343

Post by mywittyname »

lr4444lr wrote: post #333
tudorconstantin wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin's value is given by the trust people put in it. Just like with the fiat currencies as a matter of fact, because I don't know of any of them to be backed by anything else than trust. Of course, the US dollar has the whole US economy and the biggest army in the world as its plus, but it also has its minuses: the US treasury can and does print as many as it wants, in the detriment of ALL USD holders. Bitcoin's p…

And let's not understate the value of the dollar that goes beyond economic fluctuations and military might: it's legal tender for paying your taxes if you're a US citizen. That's not to say I suggest investing in treasuries, but strictly as a comparison with Bitcoin.

Yup, if you work or do business in the US, then you need USD. No trust necessary.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#344

Post by tome »

RoboTeddy wrote: post #305
110011 wrote: post #229

It's scary to see so much faith in bitcoin given it's horrendously wasteful proof-of-work scheme to avoid double spending. There are better alternatives that minimize latency nearly a hundred-fold and avoid proof-of-work altogether. Example: Algorand ( https://people.csail.mit.edu/nickolai/papers/gilad-algorand-... ) Even if this new cryptocurrency is "just" a proof of concept there are many others like it that are m…

Wasteful by what standard? Right now each day it consumes ~$1m worth of electricity in order to protect ~$1.5 billion of new payments. Economically, this "electricity safety fee" works out to less than a tenth of a percent.

0.1% per day? Are you sure? That's a 3.5% fee per year! That's astonishingly high for any sort of custodian's fee.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#345

Post by mywittyname »

dleslie wrote: post #339
gburt wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without making any judgement on whether it is a useful transactional "currency," I hear this sort of thing a lot, but I don't understand it. Surely either BTC is a good transaction mechanism or it isn't and the rampant increase in value is largely irrelevant. You could convert USD to BTC and buy something while maintaining exactly the same held balance, no?

You're holding two currencies, one loses about 2.5% of its value a year, the other gains about 1500% (some huge factor) of its value in that same period. Which one do you purchase the coffee with? The one that's losing value as you hold it, or the one that's going gangbusters?

I'd absolutely, without hesitation, dump the volatile one. If it can appreciate by 15 times in a year, then, clearly it can fall to a 15th of its value just the same.

I need to know that I can pay my mortgage and buy food at the end of the week, so stability is paramount.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#346

Post by LyndsySimon »

tessierashpool wrote: post #282
LyndsySimon wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly use Bitcoin to buy things that I either don't want on my credit card bill or from merchants that I don't feel comfortable trusting with my credit card information. For me, that's generally things like gift cards, VPN and VPS rentals, etc. It also seems to be gaining significant traction on porn sites, both for memberships and for per-artifact transactions. I expect that it will continue to be useful in the c…

just FYI, HN doesn’t allow deleting or editing posts after a very short window. maybe you know this, and I doubt you’ll face consequences for this confession of “evading state control,” but seems like a worthwhile caveat in context.

Thanks, but I'm OK with it.

As far as I know my sending money to my friend is not illegal under US law, but it is illegal for my friend to use it. That's what I meant by "evading state control" - those of Venezuela, not the US. I'm not terribly concerned about the Venezuelans coming for me :)

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#347

Post by tome »

tqi wrote: post #263

Is this good or bad for BTC as a currency? On one hand, I can see how being more valuable makes it more likely to be supported by retailers / banks / etc, but on the other hand I can't imagine spending BTC on anything when prices keep skyrocketing... at which point I feel like it ceases to be a currency (BTC in particular, not crypto in general).

> On one hand, I can see how being more valuable makes it more likely to be supported by retailers / banks / etc

I doubt it. If anything it's being more stable that will make it more attractive to use in commerce.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#348

Post by RoboTeddy »

tome wrote: post #344
RoboTeddy wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasteful by what standard? Right now each day it consumes ~$1m worth of electricity in order to protect ~$1.5 billion of new payments. Economically, this "electricity safety fee" works out to less than a tenth of a percent.

0.1% per day ? Are you sure? That's a 3.5% fee per year ! That's astonishingly high for any sort of custodian's fee.

oh it's 0.1% of new payments per day.

if you wanna compare it to all stored value instead (about $100bn), then the "electricity safety fee" comes out to ~0.001% per day.

(these comparisons are just meant to help put the electricity costs roughly in scale against the benefits they help provide)

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#349

Post by mywittyname »

SippinLean wrote: post #280
zanny wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a bit of a fraud to claim bitcoin can ever replace fiat currencies, though. Its deflationary, has a fixed coin limit, is incredibly centralized, and its tx rate is awful and costs a ton to move any of it around the chain. The only value in bitcoin is in how much it exchanges for at this point, and that is definitionally a pyramid scheme, because current buy-ins need more adoption to drive the price up so they p…

What you said still falls quite short of a literal pyramid scheme, which has a pretty specific definition. There is no central organization to recruit new members. People that buy bitcoin receive a real, usable product. Every person holding bitcoin profits when the price goes up. This is all in stark contrast to a true pyramid. The way specific ICOs are structured, I could see an argument for some kind of pyramid; bu…

Well, there are two components to a pyramid scheme: 1. returns to early investors are generated by contributions from new investors. 2. Each new investor attempts to recruit two or more new investors.

The "profits" for existing investors are paid with money from new investors. So it checks the first requirement to be a pyramid scheme. Now, this isn't explicit, but people still understand that the more BTC investors, the higher the price.

And BTC investors go online and evangelize. They talk about how BTC is a full-proof investment that can only go up-up-UP. Even this thread is full of them. So that checks the second requirement to be a pyramid scheme.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#350

Post by aeternus »

nikolay wrote: post #277
nikcub wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> boasting much faster and cheaper transactions and real anonymity Cost me over $4 to send Monero transactions last month. Cost me about $3 to send a Bitcoin transaction this morning. The average and median transaction fees between the two networks have been pretty close for a while I like Monero but it has some way to go - it needs a light client, multisig completed, and hasn't really had to confront any scaling iss…

I see hundreds of my friends sending money free with Venmo each month. I know nobody having any slightest interest in Bitcoin or the likes. Once in a while, somebody would ask me if it makes sense for them to invest some cash into Bitcoin as they've heard about some crazy growth, but when I explain to them some, they all decide it's too risky, and those who are the anarchist type stick to gold.

Venmo is great for small payments, and makes way more sense than bitcoin for that use case.

Bitcoin's use-case is not microtransactions or payments among friends. It is providing secure and trustworthy payments when no trusted third party exists, independent of governments, companies, etc.

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