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The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

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Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#281

Post by miracle2k »

paulgb wrote: post #251
kybernetikos wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd stay away from BTC too, its poor environmental effects invite regulation and they have no plan to pay for chain security in a way that scales as issuance drops off. If you like the "limited supply" thing (I don't) you might be interested to know that other chains exist that can even have negative issuance, and while there is a plan to eventually stop issuing BTC, right now the supply of BTC is actually increasing…

Yep. To put some numbers on this, transaction fees are currently about 1% of the block reward[1]. As of the next halving next year, transaction fees would have to grow by 50x to make up for the lower block reward. Bitcoiners I talk to either haven’t gamed out the long term, plan to sell before then, or have some wishy-washy story about how Coinbase et al. will mine as a loss leader to keep the industry running. 1: ht…

Coinbase mining at a loss makes it more difficult for other miners to turn a profit?

The profits for miners = the security budget. The chain will work fine regardless, it's just less secure.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#282

Post by tsimionescu »

ls15 wrote: post #262
tsimionescu wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're speaking as if the second largest crypto exchange hasn't just collapsed, and had turned out to be stealing all of its customers' money.

That's not the point. Everyone knows that crypto is full of scams and everyone tells you that you are supposed to hold your own keys instead of leaving coins on an exchange. Almost nobody tells you that keeping coins on an exchange is good practice.

And yet, there are many times over more people using exchanges than holding their own wallets. I don't really care about crypto-in-principle, when crypto-in-practice is anything but safe.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#283

Post by tsimionescu »

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #264
tsimionescu wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're speaking as if the second largest crypto exchange hasn't just collapsed, and had turned out to be stealing all of its customers' money.

You're speaking as if gambling with other people's money was something new https://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?id=...

That's quite different, and virtually no one lost their money in that it was simply stolen by the owners of an accredited brokerage/exchange/bank, like what happened to FTX. And FTX wasn't simply gambling with other's money, they were defrauding their customers (to whom they claimed they are holding all of their money in custody) and also directly embezzling this money for their own gain (houses, publicity, illegal political investments).

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#284

Post by tallanvor »

nlitened wrote: post #203
throwawayxy1 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

In 2022, 140 million people in Russia became criminals without trial, and got cut off from Visa, Mastercard and SWIFT within days. I’d suggest normal people to worry about those things at least a little bit if they have families who depend on them, you don’t want to have all their savings locked up at once.

And if a substantial amount of business was conducted using bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies, I have no doubt the rest of the world would have figured out a way to cut Russians off from them as well. That's one of the prices you pay when your government decides to invade one of their neighbors and tries to commit genocide.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#285

Post by paulgb »

miracle2k wrote: post #281
paulgb wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. To put some numbers on this, transaction fees are currently about 1% of the block reward[1]. As of the next halving next year, transaction fees would have to grow by 50x to make up for the lower block reward. Bitcoiners I talk to either haven’t gamed out the long term, plan to sell before then, or have some wishy-washy story about how Coinbase et al. will mine as a loss leader to keep the industry running. 1: ht…

Coinbase mining at a loss makes it more difficult for other miners to turn a profit? The profits for miners = the security budget. The chain will work fine regardless, it's just less secure.

I think the idea is that if big institutional holders like Coinbase subsidize mining at a loss, the for-profit miners become less necessary. To be clear, I'm not defending this theory, it's just the most reasonable theory I've heard.

As it happens, mining is currently also subsidized by a bunch of retail investors flocking into the publicly traded miners, given that most of them are currently losing money per coin on a unit basis once hardware depreciation is factored in.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#286

Post by oblio »

ls15 wrote: post #265
oblio wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a government decides you'll get a haircut, you'll get one, even if they have to take out the sheep shears to do it.

The Cypriots who preferred to store their cash in their pillow did not get the haircut though.

That opens you up to the "gun and bag" risk, though.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#287

Post by epolanski »

hem777 wrote: post #235
epolanski wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold's value stems from its unique properties as a metal and of its scarcicity.

Bitcoin’s value stems from its unique properties as a digital network and of its scarcity.

This applies to every single cryptocurrency out there, it's not unique to Bitcoin.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#288

Post by Nursie »

hem777 wrote: post #237
Nursie wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good job nobody's advising you to invest in dollars then! FYI the 'trillions printed in the last two years!' line is a meme, not a reality, and those running the currency are accountable democratically, in a way that cryptobros are not.

Those running crypto networks are accountable legally. Those running the currency are not.

I think you have that backwards.

Those running the currency are accountable to the democratic system of the countries they operate within, even if they are not directly elected.

Those running Bitcoin mining and nodes are accountable to nobody.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#289

Post by oblio »

hem777 wrote: post #237
Nursie wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good job nobody's advising you to invest in dollars then! FYI the 'trillions printed in the last two years!' line is a meme, not a reality, and those running the currency are accountable democratically, in a way that cryptobros are not.

Those running crypto networks are accountable legally. Those running the currency are not.

> Those running crypto networks are accountable legally.

How? Aren't 99% of cryptocurrencies unregulated, ergo Ponzi schemes, pump and dump, trades by the same (hidden) identity? That's also a feature why a lot of people and finance institutions are drawn to them.

Plus, did anyone take to account Ethereum, for example, for forking it?

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#290

Post by gfodor »

epolanski wrote: post #45
gfodor wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can own both gold and Bitcoin. At a minimum unless you think those who think bitcoin is ultimately worthless are right, it’s a way to diversify a gold-like asset class along the axis they are similar.

Let's compare a highly valuable and needed metal with 6000+ years of history as a solid investment, with...cryptocurrencies and their proven record of having no real life utility but lots of speculation. Makes sense.

Your sarcastic reply was unnecessary, if you read my post you’ll see I carved out the case you’re talking about. Time will tell.

If you can’t see literally any axis along which Bitcoin and gold are comparable, then I can’t really help you. It’s obvious there are some ways the two are comparable, even if you think these comparisons are weak or ultimately insufficient to hold up the price.

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