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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

#361
post #337

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.

Wasteful as in we can do better. Did you see the link in my comment? One of the authors of that paper is actually a Turing award winner. Ultimately we've reached a point where there are more efficient alternatives to having hundreds of people computing billions of hashes to reach consensus. To put this in perspective imagine a group of people sorting by randomly permuting and checking if it works, while stubbornly re…

Really interesting paper! +1 on trying to solve this problem, I was just trying to put the size of the problem in perspective (the house isn't really burning down).

I suspect people underestimate the game theoretic consequences of stake systems like Algorand as compared to PoW. (For example, the dynamics of contentious forks may look quite different.) I don't know which is better! But those types of consequences are likely much larger (for better or worse) than the electricity savings.

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

#362

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.

> but when I explain to them some, they all decide it's too risky, This isn't much of a surprise after looking at some of your prior comments regarding Bitcoin. A few gems: > Yeah, imagine using Netscape in 2017 and not Chrome - that's pretty much how I look at Bitcoin. > Thanks, but no thanks! I'd keep as far away from this stinking pile as possible! > Mere mortals do not have Bitcoin and are not interested in it -…

I don't tell them these opinions - I explain to them what Bitcoin is and how it works and what's needed to keep it operational. Nobody likes China's involvement - especially the anarchist types. Bitcoin is full of pseudo-anarchists and people living in denial because Bitcoin is their last hope of having a decent living.

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

#363

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.

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.

I am amazed how many people use Venmo. I'm one of the first adopters, I've never actually used it except to donate the penny I was given when I opened my account, but I see such a diverse crowd using it today daily - it's beyond my most optimistic expectations for it or a similar service! So, PayPal did a great decision to acquire them as Venmo doesn't have the notoriety of PayPal proper!

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

#364
post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, imagine using Netscape in 2017 and not Chrome - that's pretty much how I look at Bitcoin. The anarchists say how important Bitcoin is, yet, all they care is its fiat exchange ratio as all they care about - cash out their stash in fiat just right before it starts dropping in a get-rich-quick pipe dream.

Are you talking about any specific "anarchists"?

Well, those who express a pathological fear of governments, control, and so on.

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

#365
post #297

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.

Given that it's risky, you could (should) have told them to just invest a tiny amount, like 1% of their savings. That's what I told some folks, and now their investment is up 10× so their 1% investment turned into 10% and their are really happy about it.

There's a moral side of each investment, too, and this one here is not a positive one.

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

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea on the tax implications of this? Do you have to pay cap gains when using crypto as collateral? If not, seems like it'd be massively useful for whales to cash out without paying taxes.

honestly, this seems like a grey area and I have no idea! but the concept of this platform is amazing, and has already been approved. They are taking SALT deposits currently (just opened a few days ago) so they are ramping up for full operation soon. I would suggest to hit up their reddit...i'm gonna do the same :-)

How do they asses creditworthiness?

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

#367

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/

My 401(k) and the fund I spent less than 10 minutes selecting gives me roughly 15% annual growth. Just last month alone it was about 5%. Greed hurts and kills. I'm happy with this return, and I'd instead invest my time in building something tangible than sitting on a stash of Bitcoin and waiting for the day to sell to come, which would never be. It's just very degrading from a psychological point of view - not selling bitcoins does nobody good, including the owner whose psyche is getting severely affected. On forums, I see people living in misery just to invest every penny in cryptos in hopes of a better life, which possibly would never materialize. With stocks and selecting the right companies to you invest in, and having a modest growth that doesn't activate greed that emphatically, the positive outcome for the world as a whole is evident.

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

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A guy living in a basement in China, Ukraine, or Russia is not sophisticated enough to make such investments. Bitcoin is the amateur investment dream, but, unfortunately, there is unscrupulous money behind it, too. When there's a supply of avid supporters living in denial and who invest any penny in it at any price, there's an opportunity to make money out of somebody else's stupidity.

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

#369
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regular money doesn’t climb.

Sure it does. The USD has surged in value in the past few years. It's gone up like 20% against most other major world currencies in the past five years.

4% p.a. doesn’t look like climbing to me...

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

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly, this seems like a grey area and I have no idea! but the concept of this platform is amazing, and has already been approved. They are taking SALT deposits currently (just opened a few days ago) so they are ramping up for full operation soon. I would suggest to hit up their reddit...i'm gonna do the same :-)

How do they asses creditworthiness?

by you using your current crypto stack as collateral. you put up your stack, add SALT tokens:

1 salt token + collateral = 10,000 loan 10 salt token + collateral = 100,000 loan 100 salt token + collateral = 1,000,000 loan

no credit check.

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