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Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

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Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#151

Post by arcticbull »

brian_cloutier wrote: post #138
arcticbull wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s plenty of ways. Consider TransferWise. They generally charge 0.8% for USD-CAD and 0% for USD-INR. Pretty cheap. InteractiveBrokers allows you to exchange at market rates on the multi trillion dollar forex market for 2/10ths of a basis point ($20 per million). You’re also leaving out two steps in your calculus that really tilt the scales. You’re not paid in Bitcoin and your recipient cannot spent Bitcoin, ther…

I have used Bitcoin to send money internationally. I did not spend any money on turning my dollars into bitcoin, because I already had bitcoin. I did not pay $90 in electricity costs, it seems a little silly to bring the block reward up. You already have a good argument for what you're trying to say, you don't need to pretend that a cost others pay is a cost the transaction sender pays. As far as I know the recipient…

Ill grant you socialized cost of block reward is contentious and probably a distraction, though I personally stand by it. I’d argue your friends have simply deferred the conversion fee back to fiat, but I digress.

There may be times when it’s less expensive, although it is also riskier, just ask the dude who lost $400K to the Quadriaga collapse.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#152

Post by gruez »

headmelted wrote: post #45
seibelj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tether is a cornerstone of the crypto industry. You can post some random blog posts here but Tether is actually used by trading firms, and can be minted and redeemed through their portal here https://app.tether.to/app/login The Tether FUD is so dumb, but it's the last straw being grasped by perma-bears.

Nonsense. Tether has never been redeemed, and even if it could be redeemed, there is no possible way that they could cover the balance of issued tethers. It’s the mother of all Ponzi schemes, clearly, and is definitely going to implode in the next big pullback.

>Tether has never been redeemed

Why is this relevant when you can withdraw tethers for USD at any participating exchange? Or are you saying that None of the exchanges that support tether (eg. bitfinex) has never fulfilled a withdraw?

>It’s the mother of all Ponzi schemes, clearly, and is definitely going to implode in the next big pullback.

Sounds like a great way to make a lot of money. Tether is currently trading 1:1 with USD (yes, even at exchanges that offer real USD). It should be easy to short-sell a bunch of tether, and buy it back when in collapses. And unlike short-selling stocks, your downside should be relatively low as tethers can't realistically go above their current price.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#154

Post by optimalsolver »

calebm wrote: post #54
jayd16 wrote: post #22

Can someone explain why BTC going from 13k to 20k in a month isn't the yearly pump and dump?

Bitcoin is a hedge on the US dollar, so people probably suspect the economy will go down since Biden won.

Is that why Dow hit 30,000? Because investors are bearish on a Biden economy?

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#155

Post by cheaprentalyeti »

dustingetz wrote: post #35
jayd16 wrote: post #22

Can someone explain why BTC going from 13k to 20k in a month isn't the yearly pump and dump?

Patio11's take: (2019) "Credit bubble? Yes, there can no longer be serious doubt about this: people bought Bitcoin with money that didn’t exist, pushing up the price of Bitcoin. A lot of people currently think they are richer than they are." https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/10/28/tether-and-bitfinex/ I'd be interested in reading a counter-take, most bitcoiners I know just look away.

I'm late for an appointment, but...

I'm reminded of the example of the closing years of the Kuomintang in China, where they were suffering from massive hyperinflation. Small businesses and co-ops would bet temporary loans from the central government in its banknotes but immediately change it to silver if possible to do business with, so they wouldn't have to deal with the debasement of the real currency over the course of the year.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#156

Post by the_only_law »

bilater wrote: post #153

Hacker news tech bros pissing on Bitcoin with smart sounding but really just dumb ass e=mc2 arguments. Then they wonder why they have to answer to that PM or idiot CEO.

Wait I thought it was the tech bros shilling btc, I can't keep up anymore.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#157

Post by paulgb »

brian_cloutier wrote: post #147
paulgb wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy use in equilibrium is proportional to the value of the block rewards plus transaction rewards. In a world where Bitcoin replaces gold or visa, it would be significantly worse for the environment than it is today, since the value of each unit would have to increase to satisfy the demand.

> Energy use in equilibrium is proportional to the value of the block rewards plus transaction rewards. Good point, you're right, I was forgetting this. > since the value of each unit would have to increase to satisfy the demand. I didn't follow this though, what do you mean? > In a world where Bitcoin replaces gold or visa It doesn't seem very meaningful to me to talk about energy usage in this world because Bitcoin…

> I didn't follow this though, what do you mean?

I should have worded it better, I just mean that if Bitcoin were to replace gold as the primary store of value, the price of Bitcoin would have to rise significantly to absorb the demand, since supply is inelastic. This in turn would increase the environmental externalities.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#158

Post by cloudinshape »

arcticbull wrote: post #146
cloudinshape wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is perhaps the most important project we'll see in our lifetimes. The liberation of the most important asset in a capitalist society, money, from the tragedy that has been the current fiat system can not be over emphasized. Money touches everything and is about time the market takes control of it, takes it away from the crony-states destroying the value of our savings, hence destroying our productivity, under…

None of the social ills you identify are a function of fiat currency which is intentionally a temporary, lossy store of value. You take your fiat and you invest it and nothing you say below the first paragraph matters. Savings are meant to be assets not currency, whether that’s stock, bonds, real estate - whatever. Even a savings account collateralizes loans. You’re not supposed to save cash. Whoever told you that ha…

> You take your fiat and you invest it and nothing you say below the first paragraph matters.

If only.

The problematic part of a fiat system is not that is fiat, but that is in the hands of the government who knows not how to exercise constraint and inflates it at will to "pay" for things, more realistically, to promise to pay for things that if it had to actually pay for it will never be able to afford.

> The issue is that people don’t have money, and they don’t have wealth. This is strictly a social problem.

What do you think money is? Money is how societies choose to interact with each other; in a sense, money IS society, at the very least money is the first brick on which to build one. The government printing money and using it to pay for political favors (via military or natural resources contracts, monopoly markets, etc.) is at the core of the wealth gap.

> Replacing one inflationary currency with a worse distribution than a banana republic, with a different deflationary currency with a worse distribution than a banana republic changes nothing.

You don't understand what bitcoin is. Bitcoin's advantage is that the inflation rate is not controlled by the government, ie. they can't print money to buy stuff they can't afford, With bitcoin, governments can't print the wealth gap.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#159

Post by brian_cloutier »

paulgb wrote: post #145
brian_cloutier wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think both of you are misunderstanding what centimeter is trying to say. They didn't suggest that Bitcoin will replace traditional finance, or that traditional finance is a waste.

Ok, but then at best the argument is whataboutism -- it's ok to waste more energy because we already waste a lot? The reality is that Bitcoin already objectively uses a lot of energy by design, and the problem will only get worse if its price goes up.

I don't want to try to argue in centimeter's place, since I'm not sure I agree with them, but the most charitable reading of their comment is not that they're trying to attack the status quo to distract from the energy usage of bitcoin.

They seem to be saying that traditional finance uses a lot of energy but we're mostly okay with that because we find financial products and services useful.

Bitcoin also uses a lot of energy, but it's only a "waste" if you think it's providing no value. Bitcoin is one of the few ways to buy "hard money" and if you value that the energy is not being wasted, it's being spent on provisioning a valuable service.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#160

Post by alwillis »

arcticbull wrote: post #112
brian_cloutier wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit $6 is very expensive when compared to credit card fees, but Bitcoin is the only way I know of sending someone in a different country $10k for just a $6 fee. It would still be $6 if you sent $1M.

There’s plenty of ways. Consider TransferWise. They generally charge 0.8% for USD-CAD and 0% for USD-INR. Pretty cheap. InteractiveBrokers allows you to exchange at market rates on the multi trillion dollar forex market for 2/10ths of a basis point ($20 per million). You’re also leaving out two steps in your calculus that really tilt the scales. You’re not paid in Bitcoin and your recipient cannot spent Bitcoin, ther…

Moving $10,000 USD to CAD on the blockchain is roughly $399 not $6.

This is so disingenuous it's not even funny.

There are so many countries that US residents can't send to without going through a middleman, which takes a cut. Bitcoin isn't for sending money to CAD, which of course you can do. It really shines to sending money to places that don't have nearly as much financial infrastructure.

A regular wire transfer can take up to 3 days and cost 5-10%.

A bitcoin transaction that takes 1 day is cost 1 satoshi per byte. A satoshi is 1/100,000,000 of a bitcoin. Checking a realtime dashboard (https://bitbo.io), a satoshi is worth $0.00019225.

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