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Lone Bitcoin Whale Likely Fueled 2017 Price Surge, Study Says

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Re: Lone Bitcoin Whale Likely Fueled 2017 Price Surge, Study Says

#72
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is fine until you want someone to be able to inherit your money.

Well, that would be stupid from your part if you kept wealth that should be inherited in Bitcoin-form, not a Bitcoin shortcoming. Just like it is not a shortcoming of cash that you can bury it in a hole in the desert and tell no one about it and expect it to be inheritable.

Thinking you will know the day and hour of your death is extremely bad estate planning. Any wealth is potentially inheritable, because you can die at any time.

(And yes, that is a shortcoming of cash. Which is why we've invented other ways to store value, and approximately nobody stores their money in random holes on other people's property.)

Re: Lone Bitcoin Whale Likely Fueled 2017 Price Surge, Study Says

#73
post #2

The more I know about cryptos, the more I remain skeptical. The only people I know that uses cryptos seriously are acquaintancies from latin america, and none of them for storing value, with the exception of Venezuelans. Not even argentinians, that just buy as many dollars they can. IMO this is a thread worth reading on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dj2jro/the_large...

This article makes me bullish about the future price of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Imagine that there is a very large community of people around Bitcoin and all it takes is for 1 strategically placed person to do something extremely risky and ruthless and then the whole community benefits. If just 1 person out of a community of 1 million manages to secure a massive loan and unscrupulously starts buying up Bitcoin with it then that person goes bankrupt; that person might go to jail, but everyone else in that community will profit from that act and bear 0 culpability. Creditors cannot get that money back. The unscrupulous buyer may go to jail and loses access to their coins in the process (thus reducing the remaining circulating supply of Bitcoin). The value stays in the network.

Cryptocurrency is an unjust financial scheme but IMO it's less unjust than any other financial scheme of our modern time such as those found on Wall Street or the Silicon Valley startup funnel with all the hype-driven unicorn startups which allowed a select few crooks to extract billions of dollars from the economy whilst providing no value in return.

So long as the current international fiat system (the giant pyramid scheme that it is) is allowed to continue, cryptocurrency will thrive. Fiat money will flow towards any financial scheme which is less fickle than itself; and unfortunately, at this stage in history, even speculative cryptocurrencies which can handle only 4 transactions per second seem to fit that description.

Re: Lone Bitcoin Whale Likely Fueled 2017 Price Surge, Study Says

#74
post #67
post #2

The more I know about cryptos, the more I remain skeptical. The only people I know that uses cryptos seriously are acquaintancies from latin america, and none of them for storing value, with the exception of Venezuelans. Not even argentinians, that just buy as many dollars they can. IMO this is a thread worth reading on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dj2jro/the_large...

Thankfully your circle of acquaintances isn't even remotely close to representing the wider world out there and the plethora of legitimate use cases that it presents for all sorts of people in this world. Just last week a friend of mine from another country was suppose to send me a few hundred bucks. He could have sent it 'traditionally' but he would have been harassed about why he was sending money abroad and wasted…

> my friend sent me $300

> Oh wait, now it's $310

> Damn, now it's $200

The other downside, as you mention, is that the only main use for Eth is speculating on experimental lending platforms.

Re: Lone Bitcoin Whale Likely Fueled 2017 Price Surge, Study Says

#77
post #2

The more I know about cryptos, the more I remain skeptical. The only people I know that uses cryptos seriously are acquaintancies from latin america, and none of them for storing value, with the exception of Venezuelans. Not even argentinians, that just buy as many dollars they can. IMO this is a thread worth reading on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dj2jro/the_large...

> none of them for storing value

That one is a plus. Money is a transactional tool, speculation and storing value do not add to its main value.

As an aside, everybody that I know that ever brought some crypto coin did it for speculation. The more likely explanation is that I'm looking at the wrong country, but if speculation suddenly stoped being a main use of BTC, I would start to seriously look at it.

Re: Lone Bitcoin Whale Likely Fueled 2017 Price Surge, Study Says

#78
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is fine until you want someone to be able to inherit your money.

There are various types of smart contracts that can help you to do that.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multisignature

Re: Lone Bitcoin Whale Likely Fueled 2017 Price Surge, Study Says

#79
post #67
post #2

The more I know about cryptos, the more I remain skeptical. The only people I know that uses cryptos seriously are acquaintancies from latin america, and none of them for storing value, with the exception of Venezuelans. Not even argentinians, that just buy as many dollars they can. IMO this is a thread worth reading on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dj2jro/the_large...

Thankfully your circle of acquaintances isn't even remotely close to representing the wider world out there and the plethora of legitimate use cases that it presents for all sorts of people in this world. Just last week a friend of mine from another country was suppose to send me a few hundred bucks. He could have sent it 'traditionally' but he would have been harassed about why he was sending money abroad and wasted…

> He could have sent it 'traditionally' but he would have been harassed about why he was sending money abroad and wasted considerable time and effort going to a physical bank branch. Instead in under a minute he sent me some Ethereum and we both were able to confirm the transaction near immediately

Have you heard of options like TransferWise or OFX? They offer immediate transfers, lower transaction fees than ETH or BTC, etc. Using crypto in this manner is wholly unnecessary.

> I can take this money and start earning interest higher than any bank will give me within a few minutes

Earning interest? Are you talking about "HODLing"? ETH has dropped by nearly 90% since its peak less than 2 years ago. There's massive risk in holding ETH/BTC. You don't get to cherry-pick dates and claim that it's better than holding in a bank—it's not. BTC/ETH are 0-sum games, so on average nobody earns a dime of interest.

Re: Lone Bitcoin Whale Likely Fueled 2017 Price Surge, Study Says

#80
post #74
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully your circle of acquaintances isn't even remotely close to representing the wider world out there and the plethora of legitimate use cases that it presents for all sorts of people in this world. Just last week a friend of mine from another country was suppose to send me a few hundred bucks. He could have sent it 'traditionally' but he would have been harassed about why he was sending money abroad and wasted…

> my friend sent me $300 > Oh wait, now it's $310 > Damn, now it's $200 The other downside, as you mention, is that the only main use for Eth is speculating on experimental lending platforms.

You can send a stablecoin if you have a problem with volatility. There's even a native one called Dai which is outside the traditional banking system.
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