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It can all go to zero

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Re: It can all go to zero

#191

Post by virgilp »

adamnemecek wrote: post #51
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these articles always pretend a 20% selloff is the beginning of the end There are individuals in this thread claiming "there will always be buyers" and that the probability of Bitcoin becoming worthless is zero. The point of the article isn't that Bitcoin is doomed. It's that there is a substantial non-zero probability it ends up worthless. That such an elementary claim about a volatile asset is controversial almos…

Ok can you talk more about your failure case then? What are the conditions like what exactly is the end result. There are 0 exchanges?

Let me tell you a story.

My parents, before I was born, worked as teachers in Africa. They were sent via an agreement of our (communist) state with the Belgian government and were paid "expat" money. Only problem is, they knew that when they came back the government would take all their money (coerce them to exchange it at shit exchange rate, for a currency that was basically worthless). So they invested - they bought stuff. What did they buy? Well, they figured that ivory can only increase in value. So they bought ivory carvings - african art. We're sitting on a bunch of it - except for the artistic/decorative value... the monetary value is zero. Nobody touches ivory. Unless I'm willing to deal with some very shady persons and risk jailtime - I can't turn it to cash.

You think it's unlikely that governments worldwide would ban any given crypto - including BTC? Just watch what happened recently in a few countries....

Re: It can all go to zero

#193

Post by adamnemecek »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #186
adamnemecek wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so we disagree on whether Bitcoin has peaked or not. Do you feel like crypto has peaked? There's this half trilion just waiting to be multiplied. Like people just bought in, they wont be selling. In some sense, I wonder if the fact that beginner investors bought in means that it's more resistant to a price dump as they wont have stop losses. If they bought for 1000, they wont sell for 500 thereby keeping the price…

> Like people just bought in, they wont be selling Is this a serious argument?

You've never met a "naive" investor.

Re: It can all go to zero

#194

Post by overhang »

singularity2001 wrote: post #63

it might even go to minus one if there is another bug in ethereum. jokes aside it can't go to zero because I will buy all bitcoins once it goes back to $0.01/BTC, where it was just some years ago.

And then it will well and truly be stuck at $0. It would be foolish indeed to buy a coin of any cryptocurrency when all the coins are held by one individual.

Re: It can all go to zero

#195

Post by rlucas »

narrator wrote: post #45
pwaai wrote: post #23

I think this summarizes the entire situation of the past 24 hours after China has banned its citizens from foreign crypto exchanges http://archive.is/2018.01.16-165846/https://twitter.com/AntP... Just looking at r/Poloniex it doesn't seem like quick customer turnaround is a thing.

Every bubble has money coming from somewhere. The mortgage bubble had all the BBB- derivatives that were ridiculously underpriced turning trash into treasure. Bitcoin is all about money trying to get out of China. There is a bit of people in countries with trashy currencies trying to save, some illegal commerce and some greater fool speculation on top of that, but that's not a lot of money comparitively. As China squ…

Why do you think the mortgage derivatives were broadly speaking underpriced?

There are a lot of kinds of risks you can buy that exhibit "picking up dimes in front of a steamroller" risk, and are priced fairly. That is, 99% of the time you get a free dime...

Re: It can all go to zero

#196

Post by Robotbeat »

ejanus wrote: post #160
Robotbeat wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone announces they have had a large quantum computer for a while and have cracked every public key on the blockchain. That'd probably do it. Quantum Jubilee, y'all. The year of decryption, all private keys revealed, all captive coins set free. It's just a matter of engineering at this point. Give it roughly 10 years.

Not only cryptography coins,even traditional banking,e-commerce,and our modern society would go down. Quantum for all.

Yup. Quantum Jubilee is coming. But interestingly, even just the credible threat of Quantum Jubilee could have devastating effects on Bitcoin classic. Banks might be better prepared to switch over to quantum-resistant encryption since they're already centralized.

Re: It can all go to zero

#197

Post by seannyg »

What is the general thinking on what the right properties of cryptocurrencies should be to give them nonzero value? (e.g., cheap, low volatility, low transaction cost (in time and expense to transacting party), reliability of transactions, lack of central authority?)

To motivate this, there are many reasons for gold to have become the physical currency of choice, outlined here: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25255957

I would imagine that the long-term cryptocurrency will have comparable benefits (whatever those benefits are for cryptocurrencies).

Re: It can all go to zero

#198

Post by danhak »

aitrean wrote: post #33

Time for the monthly cryptocurrency panic thread. While I fully agree that most cryptocurrencies are grossly overvalued, these articles always pretend a 20% selloff is the beginning of the end, when, in crypto land, 20% selloffs are a pretty standard bad day for the market.

> While I fully agree that most cryptocurrencies are grossly overvalued...

Could you please explain what “overvalued” even means in this context, and how one might go about determining fair value for cryptocurrency? I’ve yet to receive a straight answer on this.

Re: It can all go to zero

#199

Post by sillysaurus3 »

NathanKP wrote: post #145
saas_co_de wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I understand it bitcoin is guaranteed to go to zero by design because there is a fixed limit on issue and so eventually there will be no incentive to mine and the network will collapse.

Actually Bitcoin has transaction fees for exactly this purpose. The idea is that once all the coins are mined the primary way that miners make money is from the fees that people pay to miners to get their transactions recorded in the blockchain. For reference a lot of times you currently have to pay a fee of >$10 to get your transaction recorded in the blockchain, and estimates of around $10 million a day in transact…

Yes, miners will receive transaction fees. But have you run the numbers on how much those transaction fees would have to be to match the current block reward?

The endgame seems completely untenable. No one is going to pay a huge amount per BTC transfer. So what do you think will happen to all those miners, with all their mining equipment?

We currently have a monstrous block reward every 10 minutes, and yet tx fees are already $10 to $20. Imagine how much the fees will be when there's no reward.

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