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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

#81

Post by wgerard »

wpietri wrote: post #72
ravingraven wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Uh I mean, not that I'm a cryptocurrency enthusiast by any means, but wouldn't prudent estate planning include a prepared will or some sort of next-of-kin document that includes a mechanism for access to your accounts/passwords/passphrases?

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

#82

Post by kobasa »

the_gastropod wrote: post #79
kobasa wrote: 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…

> 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 B…

First of all YOU are the one cherry picking dates (conveniently picking the all-time high price which only lasted for a small timeframe). And now, I'm talking about DeFi (decentralized finance) where you can earn interest on top of your principal.

Also the ETH transaction fee is literally a few cents.

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

#83

Post by ppf »

the_gastropod wrote: post #79
kobasa wrote: 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…

> 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 B…

>Earning interest

He's talking about "DeFi" ("distributed finance") - the current craze in the Ethereum world. Various groups are offering significant interest rates for loaning out your Eth. It's hard to see how it's not another speculation bubble waiting to burst.

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

#84

Post by wpietri »

7777fps wrote: post #24
deweller wrote: post #17

Clickbait title. The subtitle is probably more accurate: "The series of $1,000 days that brought BTC to a record above $19,600 could have been the work of one entity" I'm very skeptical. It is certainly possible that a single entity may have encouraged the rally. But there is no way that a single entity actually moved the markets this much. The amount of cash required would be significant. During this time, there wer…

You're implying a single exchange moving the market needs cash to move it. If the ecosystem has decided one exchange is the lead price, then they manipulate the price without needing the underlying assets. Furthermore, bitcoin is one of the only markets I've seen which rewards "whales" instead of punishing them, because in most markets moving the market you will lose money to slippage. The market price will retract a…

That's an interesting way to think about it. When you say "no one is trading the fundamentals", is that because of some sort of market flaw? E.g., hard to trade that way? Or because there really are no fundamentals to Bitcoin?

By the latter I mean that most tradeable instruments are based in some sort of value external to the trading. Stocks have income streams and assets. Commodities have use value. Currencies have national economies (plus central banks who will defend the price). But I'm having trouble thinking of what a Bitcoin fundamental could be.

One might say it's the collective belief its fans, I guess. But given that Coinbase now supports 30 instruments, it seems like the supply of digital currencies is potentially infinite. Which suggests the fundamental value will tend toward zero.

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

#86

Post by mikl »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #71

Get in now, because it will do it again after the next halving in May 2020. https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/UuzUBUTa-Bitcoin-4-...

Yeah, because everything that happens roughly the same way twice, continues happening again and again, forever ಠ_ಠ

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

#88

Post by uncletammy »

raducu wrote: post #42
deweller wrote: post #17

Clickbait title. The subtitle is probably more accurate: "The series of $1,000 days that brought BTC to a record above $19,600 could have been the work of one entity" I'm very skeptical. It is certainly possible that a single entity may have encouraged the rally. But there is no way that a single entity actually moved the markets this much. The amount of cash required would be significant. During this time, there wer…

If by cash you mean Tether tokens, maybe. A bit strange how tether tokens are printed into existence to save the day for the other cryptos.

> If by cash you mean Tether tokens, maybe.

Bingo. For those curious, here is a very thorough history of Tether and how it's use brought chaos to the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem. It was used as a money printer to prop up an insolvent (and criminal) exchange while creating insane volatility in the markets. It is still alive today and continues to be a massive liability for the entire industry.

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/10/28/tether-and-bitfinex/

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

#89

Post by ppf »

kobasa wrote: post #80
ppf wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And how is it pegged? Someone asked the various exchanges very nicely if they could only trade it for $1?

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

#90

Post by justin66 »

tyre wrote: post #55
kozak wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Put the secret key in a safe deposit box and inherit the key

If you're passing down a single bitcoin as an eccentric memento, okay. Otherwise you should take into account:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box...

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