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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

#151

Post by jki275 »

lawn wrote: post #141
jki275 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was certainly hype and hysteria -- but ultimately every time it would look like it was going to turn down, more USDT would magically appear and prop the price up. It's really a textbook study in how to manipulate markets -- and yes, it was probably one entity doing it. Now who that entity is may be a matter of speculation, but it's likely bitfinex/tether, which are really the same company run by the same people…

It was actually easy to predict when Bitcoin would rise at that time: shortly after hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Tether were printed.

That is correct as I remember it...

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

#152

Post by mraudiobook_com »

askmike wrote: post #106
DagAgren wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, Bitcoin as designed is technically incapable of being in widespread use for payment, due to a severe lack of network capacity, and a complete lack of interest in ever changing this. Instead, all effort is going into a building a flawed second layer that is theoretically unsound and a usability nightmare.

The idea here is that the blockchain model where everyone checks everything that happens doesn't scale to billions of users. Fortunately for people who disagree, there are hundreds of crypto projects that think this is possible. Including straight up copies of Bitcoin like Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV.

Bitcoin Cash is not a copy you dope, it is Bitcoin, just with scaling enabled.

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

#153

Post by ppf »

askmike wrote: post #129
jcranmer wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Lightning usable yet? I recall hearing it's been "imminent" since at least 2017...

You're clearly listening to the wrong people. It's usable for sure, but that doesn't mean billions of people can (nor want) to use it now. I'm using it just fine.

It's less usable than it's parent blockchain!

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

#154

Post by xur17 »

leppr wrote: post #128
ppf wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

DeFi loans are typically very over-collaterized. Due to this, they represent way less of a risk to the economy than traditional credit.

I've looked into using these a few times, and I'm honestly more worried about smart contract bugs.

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

#155

Post by xur17 »

ppf wrote: post #139
leppr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DeFi loans are typically very over-collaterized. Due to this, they represent way less of a risk to the economy than traditional credit.

How much collateral do you need for an asset that is as volatile as a cryptocurrency?

I believe makerdao sets it at 150%. If it ever drops under that amount they auction off the underlying asset on the the open market.

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

#156

Post by cft »

DagAgren wrote: post #99
StavrosK wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, I try to add it to all my side-projects that accept payment. I looked at a few payment providers and settled on OpenNode, as they had the right mix of an easy API, quick support and good documentation, though I would like it if they supported more cryptocurrencies. If you want cryptocurrencies to succeed, you need to make them widespread as a form of payment. I already lament Steam and Stripe removing Bitc…

Unfortunately, Bitcoin as designed is technically incapable of being in widespread use for payment, due to a severe lack of network capacity, and a complete lack of interest in ever changing this. Instead, all effort is going into a building a flawed second layer that is theoretically unsound and a usability nightmare.

That's not an issue at all, for large transactions. The real issue is each payment being a taxable event, due to IRS treating it as property, rather than currency. You literally have to report each payment on schedule D and calculate its cost basis! This burden kills any legal US adoption.

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

#157

Post by neiman »

It's impossible to have a discussion based on news reports, so here's a link for the original paper. I copied the title and abstract below.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3195066

I browsed through the paper. Their main result, if I understood correctly, is that they found "considerable evidence that Tether is used to purchase Bitcoin following Tether authorization and a drop in Bitcoin price, and that this phenomenon has a sizable relation to future Bitcoin prices and other coins."

This result, if true, does not imply directly the conclusion ("rally caused by single whale").

First, it doesn't explain the original raise of the price before the fall (that followed with tether purchases). Second, these results can have, I think, alternative explanations. For example, Tether was used as a tool for shorting Bitcoin, hence it makes sense that it be sold after Bitcoin price drops.

I write this with knowing that perhaps my interpretation of the paper is wrong, since it relies heavily on professional jargon I'm not familiar with.

------------------------------- title: Is Bitcoin Really Un-Tethered?

Abstract: This paper investigates whether Tether, a digital currency pegged to the U.S.dollar, influenced Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices during the 2017 boom. Using algorithms to analyze blockchain data, we find that purchases with Tether are timed following market downturns and result in sizable increases in Bitcoin prices. The flow is attributable to one entity, clusters below round prices, induces asymmetric autocorrelations in Bitcoin, and suggests insufficient Tether reserves before month-ends. Rather than demand from cash investors, these patterns are most consistent with the supply-based hypothesis of unbacked digital money inflating cryptocurrency prices.

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

#158

Post by cubano »

vbezhenar wrote: post #3
iagovar wrote: 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...

With current Bitcoin volatility it's crazy to store money with it. I really love tech which allows me to remember passphrase and having all money locked inside my brain, so I would certainly use it if it weren't so volatile.

Yes...except when you forget the password on your wallet after someone, as an incredible charity offering, sent you 0.75BTC, and that wallet turns out to be "ultra-secure and distributed", which means you can't recover the contents by sending an password change request email.

Yes...I do currently have 0.75 BTC in a locked wallet where I forgot the password and it's totally frustrating.

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

#159

Post by CamelCaseName »

buboard wrote: post #115
empath75 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market cap is an absurd metric for cryptocurrencies. If print a billion tokens and sell you one for a dollar, it’s a billion dollar market cap.

so are stocks

Stocks are, generally, asset backed and revenue generating.

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

#160

Post by maeln »

kobasa wrote: post #67
iagovar wrote: 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…

Yes but you don't end up with the few hundred bucks, you end up with Ethereum. If you need to pay for something using euro, dollar, ... you going to need to convert it which will include fees.

Plus, I don't want to defend the banking industry, but there is often two reason why transferring money is a bit cumbersome with banks: Scam and terrorism/money laundring.

The first thing is, the average Joe cannot help himself but get scammed. Because of this banks have to try to check has much has possible that you are doing what you think you are doing and make you jump through some hoop. Because had the end of the day, its probably the bank that will have to pay for your idiocy. They have insurance but insurance are not free. Crypto-currency usually don't care about this, if you send BTC to one address, you send BTC to one address, and if it was a scam, you have no way to get anything back. Being able to transfer money at just the click of a button also has its problem, lets be honest.

And terrorism / money-laundering. There is a lot of regulation about it, none that crypto-currency care about. You could be sending BTC to Daesh, nobody can stop you. Banks have to stop you. Just like they have to check that the money you are sending / receiving is legitimate and not from some illegal operation. That is why international money transfer takes more time and cost a lot more.

Now granted, a lot of banks are still awful at preventing scam even though they are extremely cumbersome to use. Just like a lot don't want to be bother with the whole money-laundering process and will try to discourage you to do anything that would require them to follow the process. And yes, some of them abuse their dominance to put ludicrous fess, etc. But the fact is that crypto-currencies live in a dream world where they don't have to put up with the rules that banks do. And that is why they will either never see widespread use, or they will have to find a way to comply with country regulation, which will need the third party that they tried so hard to remove.

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