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As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

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Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#161

Post by jayd16 »

krrrh wrote: post #87
DenisM wrote: post #73

The most remarkable thing about BTC is diffusion of responsibility. If it was issued and marketed by a single entity the participants would be in hot water by now for violating the Securities and Exchange laws. However here we had one non-affiliated group of bigger miners issuing the coins and another group of volunteer enthusiasts hyping them up. Since the second group was not hired by the first, the first group can…

Preston Byrne pointed out since there is no pyramid, this can’t be called a Ponzi scheme. It deserves a new name, the “Nakamoto scheme”: https://prestonbyrne.com/2017/12/08/bitcoin_ponzi/

Isn't most of the scheme the classic pump and dump?

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#162

Post by Nursie »

stale2002 wrote: post #159
Nursie wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone owns 10s of millions of dollars worth of miners that are temporarily turned off, do you think this entity would want an attack to succeed? Well that depends on how much they're holding and how deep they are in the hole at the given time. > No. They'd want to protect their future investment in mining equipment. Unless they were in financial trouble and an attack would get them some cash, fast. The sort of…

What I am saying is, that it one "desperate" miner attacks, then 5 other miners, who don't want to lose their investment, will defend. The network is not static. It doesn't matter if one miner wants to make a quick buck, because the defenders have more to lose, and would spin up defending POW if needed.

Until/unless a large player takes this sort of approach, like, say, Bitmain, who have just hit massive financial difficulties.

It absolutely can be in the rational self interest of such players. Relying on other dormant capacity to come up in defence seems fanciful at best.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#163

Post by stale2002 »

sgt101 wrote: post #135
jMyles wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assert that the diffusion of responsibility is a key feature of decentralized technology precisely because it renders us unable to "nip it in the bud".

And yet, should it become illegal for people to exchange fiat for crypto and for domiciled entities to own crypto all the decentralisation in the world wouldn't help.

You are talking about an extreme edge case situation, where the entire world declares crypto to be illegal.

I will agree that in this situation, crypto is probably dead.

The much more likely scenario, though, is that a couple countries try to make crypto illegal, and other countries don't, and the decentralization of crypto makes it very difficult for the attacking country to stop it.

The banning country isn't going to be able to target miners in other countries or take down exchanges that aren't located there.

Crypto is still useful in this much more likely scenario.

Think countries like Venezuela. They don't want people moving money outside the country, and yet people are doing that right now, with crypto, and the Venezuelan government can't stop it.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#164

Post by klipt »

marcosdumay wrote: post #34
hudon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that even if the difficulty adjusts, there will be dormant ASICs waiting to be used. If the price lowers enough and enough ASICs are out on the bench, it’ll at one point becoming economically beneficial to turn them all on and attack the network rather than having them collect dust and depreciate.

Didn't think about it. That's a relevant threat to every coin that can use the Bitcoin ASICs. And probably will even happen to others before hitting BTC itself.

Cost of 51% attacks on various coins: https://www.crypto51.app/

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#165

Post by Proven »

I am still amazed these useless startups employ that many people (after layoffs), considering they have no useful product or service.

At least in theory, through Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, they would enable permissionless trade and payments but that's explicitly impossible as all customers are KYC'd to death. There's literally nothing useful being done, no value being addded.

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#167

Post by GavinMcG »

krrrh wrote: post #87
DenisM wrote: post #73

The most remarkable thing about BTC is diffusion of responsibility. If it was issued and marketed by a single entity the participants would be in hot water by now for violating the Securities and Exchange laws. However here we had one non-affiliated group of bigger miners issuing the coins and another group of volunteer enthusiasts hyping them up. Since the second group was not hired by the first, the first group can…

Preston Byrne pointed out since there is no pyramid, this can’t be called a Ponzi scheme. It deserves a new name, the “Nakamoto scheme”: https://prestonbyrne.com/2017/12/08/bitcoin_ponzi/

"Scheme" implies a unified/central schemer, though. We can already call it a fad, or a mania (a la tulip mania).

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#168

Post by 21 »

JBReefer wrote: post #72
21 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean, like pension funds trading the stock market?

How are _pension funds_ scams?

I didn't say pension funds are scams, but that pension funds make their profits from trading against non-knowledgeable people (like GP implied bitcoin traders do)

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#169

Post by tim333 »

DenisM wrote: post #49
wolco wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are part of the getting in late group and the lower valuations are most probably signs they are leaving the market. I remember when the price started to increase I didn't think 4,000 would hold. 2500 seemed like the correct price. The fact that it hasn't fallen below that amount means there are more investors. Personally I was using it to purchase goods before the runup and the slowness and increased fees made m…

> I didn't think 4,000 would hold. 2500 seemed like the correct price How did you arrive at the 2500 figure? Is there some sort of fundamental analysis that could be done, or was it all technical?

Not sure how he got 2500 but there's a long term log graph here and if history repeats you might expect the low to be about 2500 to 1500 and occur about 6 months to a year from now https://cryptoslate.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/chart.png

Re: As Bitcoin Sinks, Industry Startups Are Forced to Cut Back

#170

Post by mancerayder »

wpietri wrote: post #88
verdverm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A year ago, I was explaining to family why crypto was a thing. This year I'm explaining why it crashed and why it's to be avoided. Also, why blockchain and crypto are not the same thing. There are many who participated in the 2017 speculation that will actively avoid and advise against participation this go around. The bubble popped and it will be many years before we see worthy investments take shape.

I think another factor is that we've passed peak uncritical press coverage. Never again will there be as large an influx of media-driven naive optimists who think that the price will only go up.

There's also been a crackdown on crypto advertisement by the ad-tech giants.

Further there's a more aware SEC and I imagine there'll be a few examples made to make everyone think twice.

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