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Goldman Sachs Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk

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Re: Goldman Sachs Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk

#231
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lightning network could fix everything, or fail spectacularly. I think an even bigger danger than failing spectacularly is if they take too long to roll it out. Other cryptocurrencies are already gaining some favor because of the situation BTC is in now with the high transaction fees. It has a good chance of working, in my opinion (the lightning network), if they don't dawdle too long. But the clock is ticking.

IMO Lightning network solves a non-problem. It only sets up a transactionless channel between two parties. The whole promise of Bitcoin was secure transfer to anyone. Maintaining a balance between two parties is trivial and solved thousands of years ago. The whole reason we have currency is to allow transactions between people that don't trust each other, so I don't think Lightning network will do anything significan…

Lighting network channels don't require you to trust the other party.

Lighting network is also distributed, you don't need a direct channel between you and another party to pay them. You just have to find a route.

Re: Goldman Sachs Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk

#232
post #198
post #29

Can someone explain this collective mania to me? This is all 100% pure speculative frenzy, right?

95% speculative frenzy, 5% building the financial framework of the future. It's a bit like the dot com boom in the crazy days when most of the stuff went bust but some real companies came out of it.

Or financial disaster because we can't help the economy by manipulating the money supply. Most people think this leads to deflation. Truly a new currency for the guilded future!

Re: Goldman Sachs Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk

#233
post #168

What's with all the extreme negativity with Bitcoin and its trading price on HN? I've been noticing that in all the BTC related threads recently. Yes, this is possibly getting too large too fast. Yes there is a chance this is a bubble because the barbers and shoeshine boys are talking about it. But there is also a chance that we genuinely are at the beginning of the transition from Fiat currencies to crypto (beginnin…

Some of the negativity about Bitcoin in particular is around the relative lack of utility of the actual network, and how this usefulness hasn’t grown with the price. Currently, Bitcoin Core (the dominant fork still) has ridiculously large transaction fees (sometimes averaging over $20 for a given day) and transactions can take hours or days. There’s also some contention because Bitcoin Cash (the other fork of Bitcoin…

There are many other cryptocurrencies. It's a well known fact that Bitcoin is probably one the worst ones at the moment. Its hopes rest on the core team's ability to provide an effective solution to the scaling problem, and so far their track record leaves much to be desired. Meanwhile there are new coins based on new protocols emerging, some showing a lot of promise.

Re: Goldman Sachs Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk

#234

There's a cryptocurrency called RaiBlocks that is working to be the best at transfer of value. The protocol uses new cryptocurrency concepts evolved over the years and I believe it can be quite revolutionary. In my opinion, bitcoin is one of the worst cryptocurrencies at the moment, and to be honest I hope to see it die soon. Create a wallet using this site https://raiwallet.com/ , paste your address here and I'll se…

I'll happily take you up on your offer xrb_3enb5r6u5tguje5jknzi7zepnqdqrsy7io7z7jwxbpuxjkinhwhomawmnry5

I had heard about XRB for awhile but I'm surprised I couldn't find it on any of the major exchanges.

Re: Goldman Sachs Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk

#235
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, you're behind the curve, aren't you.

Hm, what are bitcoins used for today ? I was still seriously under the impression that there still wasn’t any serious use, except for illegal activities... ( i’m not talking about eth which found an interesting usages with ICOs, just bitcoins). Edit : i’m also not asking for the list of legal shops that accept bitcoins, i’m wondering about the percentage of officialy legal bitcoin transactions vs the rest.

Why do you think a public ledger will be the medium for illegal transactions?

How exactly do you plan on converting fiat to btc and then paying for transactions? Every step of the way is going to be on the. public. ledger. Forever. Linked to each step along the way. C'mon.

BTC is for people who don't want to be at the whim of banks or paypal. Or it was anyways, until the fees became too high and the transaction times became too long.

The serious use is with other coins like ETH (powering smart contracts, dApps) and BCH (hard fork of bitcoin from August that doesn't have BTC's current issues). Or altcoins. Raiblocks and XRP have extremely quick confirmation times.

All of which have a public ledger by the way. If you want to do illegal activities, you'd probably want to use Monero or NAV, but first you'd have to prove either are truly private.

Re: Goldman Sachs Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best performing asset class over the last few years. Even if it is a bubble, you might as well allocate a few %'s of your portfolio to it if you're wealthy..

Well actually that's not what we advise but we're not GS either. >Best performing asset class over the last few years. Previous performance is not a predictor. >Even if it is a bubble, you might as well allocate a few %'s of your portfolio to it if you're wealthy If it's a bubble it's a terrible idea to allocate a few percentage points to it.

>>If it's a bubble it's a terrible idea to allocate a few percentage points to it.

If I had $100 million, I wouldn't have any issues with investing $2-3 million in Bitcoin just for shits and giggles.

The idea is that when you have boatloads of money, you don't have to be risk-averse, as the marginal utility of each dollar you have is very low.

Re: Goldman Sachs Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk

#237

There's a cryptocurrency called RaiBlocks that is working to be the best at transfer of value. The protocol uses new cryptocurrency concepts evolved over the years and I believe it can be quite revolutionary. In my opinion, bitcoin is one of the worst cryptocurrencies at the moment, and to be honest I hope to see it die soon. Create a wallet using this site https://raiwallet.com/ , paste your address here and I'll se…

I'll bite your bait. Just made an account, my address is xrb_3zrgt5ocbm6u5xjy8xxy8q918bi5rg7eimu5suywjmgebnwnhy4d63bwohk3 Although this site doesn't seem all that secure

sent :)

https://raiblocks.net/block/index.php?h=74031BB65A3CEB5E4222...

Re: Goldman Sachs Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk

#238
post #168

What's with all the extreme negativity with Bitcoin and its trading price on HN? I've been noticing that in all the BTC related threads recently. Yes, this is possibly getting too large too fast. Yes there is a chance this is a bubble because the barbers and shoeshine boys are talking about it. But there is also a chance that we genuinely are at the beginning of the transition from Fiat currencies to crypto (beginnin…

Some of the negativity about Bitcoin in particular is around the relative lack of utility of the actual network, and how this usefulness hasn’t grown with the price. Currently, Bitcoin Core (the dominant fork still) has ridiculously large transaction fees (sometimes averaging over $20 for a given day) and transactions can take hours or days. There’s also some contention because Bitcoin Cash (the other fork of Bitcoin…

The negativity often seems to go beyond reasonable criticism and delve into spite. As another commenter suggested, I suspect a bit of jealousy is at play and it wouldn't surprise me if a few spiteful commenters wouldn't discuss the shortcomings in a much different way if they held Bitcoin.

Obviously, there is more than enough happy-clapping on the side of speculators to balance everything out, but I do wish the conversation more often found a practical mid-ground.

Re: Goldman Sachs Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk

#239
post #168

What's with all the extreme negativity with Bitcoin and its trading price on HN? I've been noticing that in all the BTC related threads recently. Yes, this is possibly getting too large too fast. Yes there is a chance this is a bubble because the barbers and shoeshine boys are talking about it. But there is also a chance that we genuinely are at the beginning of the transition from Fiat currencies to crypto (beginnin…

> Again, this could go the other way and it could all come crashing down soon and maybe the hype dies down.

The housing market crashed in 2008 when everyone defaulted on their loans and all the speculation on those assets went upside down. I wonder what a cryptocurrency crash would look like.

Re: Goldman Sachs Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk

#240
post #234

There's a cryptocurrency called RaiBlocks that is working to be the best at transfer of value. The protocol uses new cryptocurrency concepts evolved over the years and I believe it can be quite revolutionary. In my opinion, bitcoin is one of the worst cryptocurrencies at the moment, and to be honest I hope to see it die soon. Create a wallet using this site https://raiwallet.com/ , paste your address here and I'll se…

I'll happily take you up on your offer xrb_3enb5r6u5tguje5jknzi7zepnqdqrsy7io7z7jwxbpuxjkinhwhomawmnry5 I had heard about XRB for awhile but I'm surprised I couldn't find it on any of the major exchanges.

sent :)

https://raiblocks.net/block/index.php?h=D6753964A8C48FAF2A18...

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