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Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

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Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#421

Post by tuesdayrain »

trident5000 wrote: post #292
incrudible wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One other thing - you cant even move BTC in or out of Robinhood. Robinhood for crypto is a complete scam right now. If you buy an option for a barrel of oil, Robinhood doesn't even deliver it to you. Same for wheat and gold. What a scam! In all seriousness, if you want to speculate on the price of Bitcoin, Robinhood may be better than using some of these more sketchy exchanges that offer decent amounts of leverage.…

"though that'll probably land you on some FBI watch list." I have no idea why you would think this.

It's amusing to see people on "Hacker" News afraid of the spooky tech that is Bitcoin :)

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#422

Post by akra »

guiomie wrote: post #295
bhupy wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also still wrapping my head around this just like you, but I think I understand enough to answer some of your questions. > We know transactions are slow and expensive, so it’s not a good replacement for ordinary commerce. I don't think that this is obviously true. Digital transfer of the US Dollar is similarly slow and expensive (see: ACH, Wire, SWIFT). The response you'll hear the most frequently is that BTC (an…

The counter point to GME is to look at gold.

Gold's differentiator is long term trust. No matter what other people in the world do it will always exist as it is as long as it isn't touched.

With gold I trust the laws of physics and reality (not a human based system), with BTC I trust the consensus of the network participants and that the rules everyone follows will result in trustworthy outcomes, with a bank I trust that bank.

The big threat to BTC trust therefore IMO is if the network participants as a whole or enough of them aren't trustworthy. Marginal cost of mining a block favors cheap electricity countries (i.e. hydro China power) in the long term as the difficulty of the network changes to price out other competitors as they scale up. In that instance do you trust the person with the cheapest electricity to verify your transactions? Given my understanding of crypto that's probably the biggest threat to any long term investment in BTC. For PoS currencies I'm guessing your trusting the stakers by amount put down (i.e the rich people) to verify your transactions.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#423

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

sytelus wrote: post #314
ur-whale wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your feeling is IMO the norm for lots of folks. I have had this conversation with many a friend, who actually view Bitcoin as a Ponzi, and therefore decide not to play the game (a ponzi ca be lucrative if : a) you know it's a ponzi b) you're smart in your timing and not too greedy but it's still a crapshoot). The real questions are: - what if it isn't a Ponzi ? - how much will your "won't touch it with a 10 feet pole…

It is a ponzi scheme. I think eventually majority of investors will participate in it. At present, total stock + gold market is $100T. If you expect 5% of this diverted to BTC then upper bound on BTC market cap is $5T. This means upper bound on BTC price is $250K. When that price arrives, suddenly things will become stagnant. People will wait for few years in the hope something will happen and then sell out for more…

I think the price of BTC will continue trending upwards depending on the economic outcome. It will basically become a hedge against the system every time there's a recession (every 10 years or so).

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#424

Post by garmaine »

osrec wrote: post #208

I believe Bitcoin is the experimental precursor to proper distributed money. For some reason, even though BTC was meant to be "money", it is now being treated as an asset (at a basic level, an asset is something you hold onto, as it produces additional value, unlike money, which tends to devalue if not put to work). It's almost as if the next big idea in distributed money will be around disincentivising "asset" like…

I think Freicoin is what you're looking for:

http://freico.in

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#425

Post by lph »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #189
azinman2 wrote: post #120

So it sounds like lemming group think. It seems like someone one should hold “just in case,” but no real valid reason to do so yet (that I’ve heard). We know transactions are slow and expensive, so it’s not a good replacement for ordinary commerce. It can be used to transfer across borders, but there often is asymmetry in capital movement that makes this difficult in the places you need it most (poor countries with r…

The forefront of the Bitcoin frenzy isn't even on the blockchain, it's at the exchanges. Hardcore tech people and those who don't (or can't) trust institutions with their Bitcoin will pay the transaction fees to get their money out of exchanges and into their own wallet. The average retail investor, however, doesn't want to be their own bank. They just want in on the price action, while letting the exchange manage th…

> That said, Tesla's Bitcoin purchase does make a lot of sense ... They then announced their Bitcoin purchase with fanfare that drove the price up, marking a quick return on their investment.

Tesla is a car manufacturer! It doesn't make any sense at all! At any company that made sense, a CEO would lose his job for gambling $1B of company money in a casino totally unrelated to the company's business interests.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#426

Post by meowkit »

frongpik wrote: post #276

I'm thinking if the bitcoin's future is wire transfers between countries. In that case all 21M btc will be comparable with 100T of the world gdp and 1 btc will be worth 50M. Also, it will be illegal for peons to touch real btcs.

I agree with the sentiment, but wouldn’t say its so simple as just wire transfer. Its very possible Bitcoin will become a reserve currency/asset for macroeconomic exchange. If its not controlled by any one country or bank, it removes the effects of currency hegemony we have seen across the centuries.

Countries will still maintain their own currencies for legal tender/monetary policy purposes, but they will likely be in the form of CBDCs and have interoperability with public and private blockchains.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#427

Post by fomine3 »

trident5000 wrote: post #260
bogomipz wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Does anyone really think the person buying crypto $100 at a time in their Robinhood account wants to pay $18 (current average transaction fee) every time they want to move that BTC into their wallet?" I'm curious is this the transaction per $100 or is $18 a flat fee regardless of transfer amount?

The average transaction fee is a bit disingenuous. Many people are not even using segwit and thats on them. You can also use lightning at this point in time but people dont know how to do it and wallets have not implemented yet. High fees usually prod people and services to adapt to the current tech to get costs down. I expect this to happen soon as high fees are somewhat recent. Also you can send a 50 cent tx fee an…

Why Lightning isn't adopted well? Is it unreliable or can be frauded due to it's not blockchain? What's the point to use non-blockchain tech?

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#428

Post by SomewhatLikely »

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #269
azinman2 wrote: post #120

So it sounds like lemming group think. It seems like someone one should hold “just in case,” but no real valid reason to do so yet (that I’ve heard). We know transactions are slow and expensive, so it’s not a good replacement for ordinary commerce. It can be used to transfer across borders, but there often is asymmetry in capital movement that makes this difficult in the places you need it most (poor countries with r…

> but no real valid reason to do so yet (that I’ve heard). I hold because i expect us to continue approaching the game-theoretic attractor. I've held for years and will keep holding. Every year, i see more and more people coming around to my perspective. How many years can you watch the price keep going up before you'll eventually consider that you might be missing something? > We know transactions are slow and expen…

> They can make doing so a crime, but don't have the technical ability to, say, freeze funds.

If the governments of the world made it a crime for miners to include transactions involving certain blacklisted addresses in their blocks that could be a big step towards a freeze.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#430

Post by trident5000 »

fomine3 wrote: post #427
trident5000 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average transaction fee is a bit disingenuous. Many people are not even using segwit and thats on them. You can also use lightning at this point in time but people dont know how to do it and wallets have not implemented yet. High fees usually prod people and services to adapt to the current tech to get costs down. I expect this to happen soon as high fees are somewhat recent. Also you can send a 50 cent tx fee an…

Why Lightning isn't adopted well? Is it unreliable or can be frauded due to it's not blockchain? What's the point to use non-blockchain tech?

Tech rollout takes time. Because paying for your coffee is insignificant and you dont need nuclear level security to protect it. But nevertheless it should be very secure.
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