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Bitcoin passes $120k milestone as US Congress readies for 'crypto week'

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Re: Bitcoin passes $120k milestone as US Congress readies for 'crypto week'

#101

Post by robocat »

TrackerFF wrote: post #74
kupfer wrote: post #15

I wish people would gamble with something other than a proof-of-work coin. There are very similar alternatives now. When bitcoin rises, more money is spent on mining. Whoever holds bitcoin is in part responsible for this waste of energy.

I wish people would rather invest in companies, than parking their money in crypto.

Outside of the US it isn't that easy (to invest in individual shares - because there's not much that's attractive)

With the current US administration I haven't been that keen to be invested in US shares either.

And I attempt to be somewhat ethical in my investments - that really limits my options.

Re: Bitcoin passes $120k milestone as US Congress readies for 'crypto week'

#102

Post by BobaFloutist »

sigwinch wrote: post #94
thom wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the avoidance of doubt, what’s the next 10-100x sure thing?

Look for something that popular AI uniformly but inexplicably endorses. One side of Costa Rica versus the other. Stock ticker symbols which coincidentally look like Gaelic words.

I can't tell if you're having a psychotic break, endirsing a specific conspiracy theory, making fun of people doing either of those, or obtusely referring to a particular stock.

Re: Bitcoin passes $120k milestone as US Congress readies for 'crypto week'

#103

Post by beeflet »

DSingularity wrote: post #10
TrackerFF wrote: post #3

I sold 100 BTC back in 2015, which cleared all my debts and landed my first apartment. But obviously in hindsight, it was the most expensive mistake I've made in my life. I started following cryptocurrencies back in 2012. Still, for my life, I can't see the real value. Back then, when things were starting out, the idea was to bank the unbanked, make money transfer seamless, cheap, and fast, and basically break up act…

It’s the algorithmically enforced scarcity coupled with “to the moon” culture. That’s all that’s going on. If it keeps going up I won’t be surprised. If it dumps down I won’t be surprised. No floor and no ceiling — only a gambler would keep his net worth tied up to crypto. You did the right thing once you crossed a threshold to significantly change your financial status. Any other decision would have put yourself in…

There are cryptocurrencies like dogecoin and monero that have an infinite supply and a constant production of new coins, and they still see use. So I'm not certain that scarcity is the only motivating factor.

In fact, I would think that a growing money supply is good for driving real-world usage.

Re: Bitcoin passes $120k milestone as US Congress readies for 'crypto week'

#104

Post by beeflet »

polivier wrote: post #47
TrackerFF wrote: post #3

I sold 100 BTC back in 2015, which cleared all my debts and landed my first apartment. But obviously in hindsight, it was the most expensive mistake I've made in my life. I started following cryptocurrencies back in 2012. Still, for my life, I can't see the real value. Back then, when things were starting out, the idea was to bank the unbanked, make money transfer seamless, cheap, and fast, and basically break up act…

I started looking into bitcoin when it was at around $3, but never made a move to buy any. I have some regrets, but when I stop to think about it, I would clearly have sold everything when it reached $10 or something. So I haven't passed up the opportunity to make millions, I only passed up the opportunity to make a couple hundred bucks.

This is the same attitude I have. There's no regret in not predicting the powerball numbers.

When you consider the actual price you would have bought in and the actual price you would have liquidated, those theoretical 10x-100x gains start looking more like 3-10x gains. And for small investments that's not going to make you a millionaire.

Re: Bitcoin passes $120k milestone as US Congress readies for 'crypto week'

#105

Post by beeflet »

ryandvm wrote: post #97
TrackerFF wrote: post #3

I sold 100 BTC back in 2015, which cleared all my debts and landed my first apartment. But obviously in hindsight, it was the most expensive mistake I've made in my life. I started following cryptocurrencies back in 2012. Still, for my life, I can't see the real value. Back then, when things were starting out, the idea was to bank the unbanked, make money transfer seamless, cheap, and fast, and basically break up act…

Honestly, if you had held all of your BTC until today you would be an idiot. Just because it made it to $120,000 doesn't mean that it was predictable or even an rational. Given that Bitcoin _still_ doesn't have a use case beyond buying drugs means the bottom could fall out at any time. There is no rebar in this structure.

bitcoin has little use case in buying drugs anymore

Re: Bitcoin passes $120k milestone as US Congress readies for 'crypto week'

#106

Post by beeflet »

pcdoodle wrote: post #45
TrackerFF wrote: post #3

I sold 100 BTC back in 2015, which cleared all my debts and landed my first apartment. But obviously in hindsight, it was the most expensive mistake I've made in my life. I started following cryptocurrencies back in 2012. Still, for my life, I can't see the real value. Back then, when things were starting out, the idea was to bank the unbanked, make money transfer seamless, cheap, and fast, and basically break up act…

The security is the value. It's a truth engine. A 60 minute old block would be almost impossible to tamper with.

Bitcoin isn't a particularly well-designed cryptocurrency, even in terms of security. You could use pretty much any blockchain for the timestamp application.

Re: Bitcoin passes $120k milestone as US Congress readies for 'crypto week'

#107

Post by beeflet »

pyman wrote: post #17

I'm interested in debating these facts: - 2.4 million bitcoins are lost forever [0]. Their owners, for one reason or another, can't access their wallets. No insurance, no guarantees, nothing. - 1.1 million are owned by a mysterious person who sits at the top of the pyramid [0]. - 2.3 million belong to investors and speculators [0] (who, I'm guessing, make money by pumping and dumping). - 1 million are owned by banks…

Cryptocurrencies are not like other forms of money. They don't have intrinsic value. Cryptocurrencies are only valuable insofar as they are well distributed.

What did the banks win? The nerds of the world sold them fool's gold.

Re: Bitcoin passes $120k milestone as US Congress readies for 'crypto week'

#108

Post by pyman »

beeflet wrote: post #107
pyman wrote: post #17

I'm interested in debating these facts: - 2.4 million bitcoins are lost forever [0]. Their owners, for one reason or another, can't access their wallets. No insurance, no guarantees, nothing. - 1.1 million are owned by a mysterious person who sits at the top of the pyramid [0]. - 2.3 million belong to investors and speculators [0] (who, I'm guessing, make money by pumping and dumping). - 1 million are owned by banks…

Cryptocurrencies are not like other forms of money. They don't have intrinsic value. Cryptocurrencies are only valuable insofar as they are well distributed. What did the banks win? The nerds of the world sold them fool's gold.

Control

Re: Bitcoin passes $120k milestone as US Congress readies for 'crypto week'

#109

Post by pyman »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #100
pyman wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the system itself is decentralised, but if most people depend on centralised exchanges and a handful of whales can move the market, how is that any different from the system we already had?

People can minting the money

Blockchain is capitalism at its finest. It rewards risk because risk-taking drives innovation, builds businesses, and creates jobs. Banks fund that because it grows the economy, and they make money on the upside. So yeah, risk-takers get the incentives, and thanks to those incentives they end up siding with the banks and preaching the system they're now part of.

Imagine the cost if JPMorgan had to run all that compute themselves: power, hardware, cooling, security, redundancy. It'd be massive.

So what did the mysterious man at the top of the pyramid do? He got the public to do it. By distributing the computational load and offering tokens as rewards, he turned millions of people into the infrastructure. They pay for the hardware, run the nodes, and keep the system alive for free.

Satoshi knew exactly what they were doing and why. That kind of precision doesn't come from guesswork. So chances are we'll never know who they are.

Same goes for the economist who inspired by Milton Friedman turned the idea of future-income-based education into the student loan system we have today.

Some ideas don't want a face.

Re: Bitcoin passes $120k milestone as US Congress readies for 'crypto week'

#110

Post by NomDePlum »

sweezyjeezy wrote: post #52
RS-232 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing your story. I too frequently think back on "what could have been." Back in 2013, I bought and sold a bitcoin, and every time I see a crypto headline I remember my mistake of spending it. Maybe we should not be so hard on ourselves. Afterall, we still have a heartbeat. Did we truly make a mistake, or did we narrowly avoid getting consumed by avarice?

BTC is a (roughly) net-zero enterprise, every dollar taken out of the system comes from someone else putting a dollar in. Sure, if you had a crystal ball you could have made millions, but if everyone else ALSO had that same crystal ball you couldn't, since traders are mostly just shuffling money between themselves anyway. There's no point kicking yourself over not foreseeing a far-fetched future scenario, if you were…

A lot of the stock market is built on this model too surely?

I get some of it works off dividends etc, but so much is sentiment driven and also based off of someone else making a loss.

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