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Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

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Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#21
post #17
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin as had the better part of decade and it's still practically useless in the real world.

Case in point I guess. It is kind of amazing how one of the most important recent technological developments has been written off for more than a decade by the users of this site. Same with TypeScript for a long time as well, and then there was a magical turning point somehow that the entire zerg all of a sudden discovered static typing was actually useful. For one of the best sites for discussing the latest happenin…

There is nothing anyone could say that would convince you aren't on the OneTruePath(tm) is there?

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#22
post #14
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US part of Mt. Gox was managed well it would today be... Coinbase? Which is soon to be worth $63B.

Coinbase didn't need Mt. Gox to become what they are today. I'm not sure this line of reasoning holds much water. Perhaps if we were to follow Vessennes' absurd chain of reasoning to its logical conclusion, CoinLab itself should be countersued by Mt. Gox creditors for failing to become as successful as Coinbase given their head start in the US.

I think Coinbase is successful because it's the "default" exchange for noobs in the US. Mt. Gox was the default exchange until it failed and if it had never failed (which is a longshot assumption, granted) then it would probably still be the default, largest, and most valuable US exchange today. (Of course, non-US exchanges like BitMEX are far larger because they offer more "exciting" products.)

CoinLab itself should be countersued by Mt. Gox creditors for failing to become as successful as Coinbase given their head start in the US.

CoinLab's deal with Mt. Gox was never consummated so they did not have any head start.

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#24
post #9
post #6

The problem with trying to suggest that Bitcoin is a fundamentally flawed idea is that you will be down voted to oblivion. As a computer science concept it's rather mundane. We know what merkle trees are. It's an extremely wasteful form of computing. Mining is an exercise in wastefulness. Proof-of-work is one of the worst concepts I've ever seen. Ah, Tether.

I've never seen self propagating transaction networks that pay for themselves and recruit their own evangelists before bitcoin. Seems pretty amazing.

It's called religion. They just separated the transacting (tithing, etc) from the self propagating evangelism. The tithing was the important part, though.

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#25
post #23

Since we're on the subject, how do people think the Tether situation will play out?

That's a very different subject, I don't see any overlap

Mt Gox was responsible for the first bitcoin bubble. Tether has been responsible for multiple bitcoin bubbles now, using their crypto that was supposedly backed by the USD 1 to 1. The rationale for pumping bitcoin is the same: to recoup stolen money.

Look at the money inflow graph. Tether surpasses everything else

https://coinlib.io/coin/BTC/Bitcoin

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#26
post #17
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin as had the better part of decade and it's still practically useless in the real world.

Case in point I guess. It is kind of amazing how one of the most important recent technological developments has been written off for more than a decade by the users of this site. Same with TypeScript for a long time as well, and then there was a magical turning point somehow that the entire zerg all of a sudden discovered static typing was actually useful. For one of the best sites for discussing the latest happenin…

> beats other stores of value in almost every metric.

Which metrics you selected so crypto beats following in "almost every metric"?

- real estate

- gold

- $ in cash

- $ in a bank account

- stocks

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#27

Since we're on the subject, how do people think the Tether situation will play out?

Some agency orders a freeze on Tether which triggers a panic of USDT -> BTC -> USD trades, creating a situation where 1 BTC = ~200K USDT and 1 BTC = ~20K USD. I don't expect this to happen in 2021.

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#28
post #17
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin as had the better part of decade and it's still practically useless in the real world.

Case in point I guess. It is kind of amazing how one of the most important recent technological developments has been written off for more than a decade by the users of this site. Same with TypeScript for a long time as well, and then there was a magical turning point somehow that the entire zerg all of a sudden discovered static typing was actually useful. For one of the best sites for discussing the latest happenin…

> Crypto has value simply because it is better at storing value than the mediums that came before it.

Is this a serious claim? The last one and a half months have seen extraordinary speculation in cryptocurrency markets, even by the standards of cryptocurrencies. Lots of wealth is being produced; relatively little is being stored.

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#29
post #17
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin as had the better part of decade and it's still practically useless in the real world.

Case in point I guess. It is kind of amazing how one of the most important recent technological developments has been written off for more than a decade by the users of this site. Same with TypeScript for a long time as well, and then there was a magical turning point somehow that the entire zerg all of a sudden discovered static typing was actually useful. For one of the best sites for discussing the latest happenin…

Low volatility is a pretty important metric for stores of value. By that metric almost anything other than GME shares is better than cryptocurrency: cash in any hard currency, gold, silver, luxury watches, ...

Re: Mt. Gox demise as told by a Bitcoin insider

#30

FYI, this “Bitcoin Insider” (there should be no such thing in a decentralized currency?) apparently took $5M from mtgox, claiming he could get them through regulation in the U.S. (he did no such thing)... then sued them for $16B after they went bankrupt, holding the thousands of creditors hostage for years... so far. And apparently now fortress will give him (CoinLab) $11M to move (slightly) out of the way.

We know today the the FBI sought to destroy bitcoin as a policy objective. The double posting was used inside the trusted network. To undermine the core function, in the end FBI agents went to jail for their own criminal actions - MT Gox was useful for media purposes
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