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If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

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Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#151

Post by random_kris »

xur17 wrote: post #118
DennisP wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it has morphed. The devs in charge of Bitcoin have purposely abandoned the idea of it being a currency. On-chain transactions are artificially limited to about four per second, and they refuse to change that. They call it a "store of value" now. Other cryptocurrencies are working hard on scaling to the point of being workable currencies.

> The devs in charge of Bitcoin have purposely abandoned the idea of it being a currency. On-chain transactions are artificially limited to about four per second, and they refuse to change that. They call it a "store of value" now. I don't think they abandoned the idea of it being a currency, I think they just have different ideas about how exactly to go about scaling it. The block size limit (and therefore the trans…

is your company hiring? I am a backend java developer who is looking for opportunities in bitcoin world.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#152

Post by llcoolv »

shepardrtc wrote: post #39
account73466 wrote: post #31

Bitcoin has about $133 bil marketcap. NYSE symbols with the twice (2X) this marketcaps according to Yahoo Finance: UNH (UnitedHealth Group) mcap: $262 bil, trading volume: $1.2 bil KO (COCA-COLA) mcap: $231 bil, trading volume: $0.6 bil MRK (MERCK) mcap: $225 bil trading volume: $0.7 bil Therefore, for Bitcoin to be tradeable as similar stocks it has to show $0.25-0.5 bil for $133 bil mcap or $0.5-1.0 bil for $250 bi…

I have a hard time believe its anything other than market makers providing the illusion of trades. Have you seen the price swings? If there was real volume and real transactions asides from trades, how would such insane swings be possible?

Well... Not only on an exchange the trades are real volume and transactions, but there is no other one.

You do have a point about BTC adoption as a mean of payment lagging, but here the topic is trading on exchanges. And as soon as LF matures a bit this is also going to get solved.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#153

Post by poontang1 »

bduerst wrote: post #99
Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The landlord does not need to settle the transaction on the Bitcoin network to spend the money I have payed him. He could spend it anywhere within lightning. This is the crux of your misunderstanding. I really wish people would take more time to understand the things they criticize. There are real problems with lightning, this isn't one of them.

>The landlord does not need to cash the check to spend the money I have payed him. He could spend it anywhere as a third party check . This is the crux of your misunderstanding. Ask your landlord why they won't spend third party checks and you have your answer as to why they won't spend unsettled IOUs on a lightning network. You're free to pull the, "Lightning too complicated for you to understand" but I think you're…

You fundamentally misunderstand how Lightning works.

In lightning you literally have a signed bitcoin transaction that allows you to receive the funds on-chain at any time. You don't submit it because you can continue to cooperatively sign new transactions that change respective balances between you and other channel participants.

This is nothing like an IOU, because you have the ability to settle any time you want (just broadcast a signed transactions you already have), there is just no reason to.

Based on your replies I am going to assume you are actually trying to misinform people.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#154

Post by roenxi »

cwkoss wrote: post #47
rwmj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never owned or traded bitcoin, but as I understand it the main attraction is that it's like the gold standard (of course for people who don't understand why the gold standard was a bad idea).

Gold standard is great for individuals who want to store wealth, but a bad idea for a fiat currency with policy goals like increasing spending, investment and economic velocity. Deflationary currencies are good stores of value, but slow the economy (because why invest/buy now if your money gets more powerful the longer you refrain from spending it). I think Bitcoin is similar to the gold standard, and its popularity…

> Deflationary currencies are good stores of value, but slow the economy (because why invest/buy now if your money gets more powerful the longer you refrain from spending it).

Logically speaking it is irrelevant; instead of holding gold and calling it money an investor can still hold gold except it gets called an investment; but their holding will perform the same way because it is linked to the value of gold. The practical difference is tax treatment which gets complicated. Theoretically if I recall expected inflation/deflation in the currency doesn't change the economic equilibrium because everyone just factors it in to the interest rates and salary negotiations to keep the focus on real value.

And in execution any consistent % inflation/deflation of the money supply makes things weird and confusing because the measuring stick used to measure wealth keeps changing.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#155

Post by BurnGpuBurn »

SRTP wrote: post #132
sevencolors wrote: post #82

Tried to buy some on Coinbase the other day, said it would take 5 days to show up in my account. Doesn't inspire confidence in me.

That has nothing to do with the Bitcoin protocol, rather it's a "security" measure by Coinbase. A typical Bitcoin transaction, even with minimum fees, confirms in under an hour.

I know a Dutch bitcoin payment provider [0] whose transactions typically confirm within less than a second. In short: That's because the risk of a 51% attack on the network to steal my restaurant payment is in all practicality zero. So you don't even have to wait for a confirmation from the network, just the transaction showing up on the network is enough, given the transaction fee is reasonable.

[0] https://www.bitkassa.nl/

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#156

Post by Proven »

seventytwo wrote: post #103

And a million crypto Libertarians just learned why deflation is bad for an economy.

Wut?

As an aside, Bitcoin's best (and still the only major) use case is crypto trading. It even isn't good for that (fiat-denominated crypto currencies are much more useful). That has nothing to do with libertarians.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#157

Post by llcoolv »

spookthesunset wrote: post #61
account73466 wrote: post #31

Bitcoin has about $133 bil marketcap. NYSE symbols with the twice (2X) this marketcaps according to Yahoo Finance: UNH (UnitedHealth Group) mcap: $262 bil, trading volume: $1.2 bil KO (COCA-COLA) mcap: $231 bil, trading volume: $0.6 bil MRK (MERCK) mcap: $225 bil trading volume: $0.7 bil Therefore, for Bitcoin to be tradeable as similar stocks it has to show $0.25-0.5 bil for $133 bil mcap or $0.5-1.0 bil for $250 bi…

> I don't think that Binance is wash-trading Given most of these exchanges are completely unregulated and typically go to great lengths to conceal their identities.... you know they aren't wash-trading how exactly?

Which exchanges are completely unregulated? Last time I checked Coinbase, Bitpanda, etc had a KYC acquisition process identical to the one of a retail bank. Please clarify, otherwise your statement is misinformation.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#158

Post by johnwheeler »

mikeyouse wrote: post #105
whack wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market cap for UNH isn't calculated using future cash flows. The market cap for any security, by definition, is price-per-security * number-of-securities. Similar valuations also exist for gold-funds, which also have no cash flows. You can argue that asset prices should be derived from future cash flows, and hence, both Bitcoin and gold should be almost worthless. But that has nothing to do with the formula for c…

> The market cap for UNH isn't calculated using future cash flows. Yes it is... > The market cap for any security, by definition, is price-per-security number-of-securities.* How do you think you get the price-per-security for a stock? If Apple has $100B in cash, why is their Market Cap $1.2T? This is why people are skeptical of most things crypto... it really seems like there's hardly anyone in the community who und…

Again, market cap _is_ price per share multiplied by shares outstanding.

In practice, the amount of cash a company has has nothing to do with its market capitalization. There are companies with low cash, major debt, and sky high valuations. Stocks are supposed to be valued by discounted cash flows, but that doesn’t mean they are, by any means. The future values of companies are highly subjective.

Technically, cash doesn’t factor into future cash flows so much as it does book or liquidation value.

> This is why people are skeptical of most things crypto... it really seems like there's hardly anyone in the community who understand fundamental financial concepts.

I would argue one reason people are skeptical (annoyed is probably a better word) of crypto because it is full of folks who purport to know fundamental and even advanced financial concepts who are actually deluding themselves.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#159

Post by bduerst »

fghdft4t3t wrote: post #140
bduerst wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I pay someone using lightning then that payment is as good as good. Lightning is an I.O.U. that is not good until you settle on Bitcoin. If you are not using Bitcoin to settle transactions, then you there is zero guarantee of getting paid. Stop spreading these lies about the Lightning network. Trading I.O.U.s on an obscure network is not a payment solution outside of sending money between your friends. For busin…

Lightning isn't an IOU, its actual Bitcoin. What you are doing is trading payment states in channels, these payment channels contain real Bitcoin, locked in smart contracts. You can settle (and close) for your channel for Bitcoin any time you like, and there is a punishment mechanism if you try to cheat (steal) and replay an old channel state. This style of network, or a higher order version of it will certainly be t…

A commitment to pay Bitcoin, that is signed or unsigned, cashable at any time, is an IOU.

It's the same as a signed check, except lightning is passing itself as a network to spend the equivalent of third party checks. Businesses and untrusted parties do not do this, so they settle (cash checks immediately), which Lightning can't handle at scale with users.

If Lightning wasn't really an IOU, then it wouldn't need Bitcoin to settle transactions, now would it?

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#160

Post by bduerst »

poontang1 wrote: post #153
bduerst wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The landlord does not need to cash the check to spend the money I have payed him. He could spend it anywhere as a third party check . This is the crux of your misunderstanding. Ask your landlord why they won't spend third party checks and you have your answer as to why they won't spend unsettled IOUs on a lightning network. You're free to pull the, "Lightning too complicated for you to understand" but I think you're…

You fundamentally misunderstand how Lightning works. In lightning you literally have a signed bitcoin transaction that allows you to receive the funds on-chain at any time. You don't submit it because you can continue to cooperatively sign new transactions that change respective balances between you and other channel participants. This is nothing like an IOU, because you have the ability to settle any time you want (…

That's precisely the same as an uncashed check - an IOU. Just because you can cash it at any time does not make it different from an IOU. Until settled, it's just a "hey I will pay you some Bitcoin in the future".

It's a commitment to a payment that untrusted parties are going to settle immediately for reasons discussed above.

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