BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales • Hacker News Board

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#251

Post by metamet » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 3:41 PM UTC

throwaway413 wrote: post #241

metamet wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You completely missed the part of my post where I said "in terms of traditional financial advisement".

Ok. Would you mind clarifying/elaborating on that?

Sure. It's basically the fact that the sentiment regarding crypto in the traditional world of financial advising has been equated to ponzi schemes. The value of the technology hadn't been validated or proven to point where holding BTC had any inherit value beyond what others who wanted the BTC were willing to pay for it. The market pressures weren't real.

However, smart contracts and the adoption of the blockchain by technology's bigger players has provided some validation to what's happening. Regardless of the white papers, and how one individually assessed the thesis, it didn't have market adoption and it wasn't as if BTC was actually producing something. So investing in BTC (a virtual commodity in limited value) had no real business purpose.

So crypto was in the same boat as ponzi schemes, until very recently. Now it's being taken seriously due to providing actual value.

The only thing BTC is really good for right now is to act as an intermediary between it and alts--since you can buy BTC and ETH with fiat, then transfer those to alts. BTC isn't a valid currency for transactions for a variety of reasons. It is simply the backbone of the crypto economy at this point, and the grandfather of the technology--so there's some lure to it as a limited asset that, so long as someone wants it, someone can sell.

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#252

Post by mancerayder » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

Yizahi wrote: post #135

glenneroo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poloniex and Binance let you convert to/from Tether (USDT). Do you consider Poloniex or Binance to be sketchy?

You forgot Bittrex.

How bad is Bittrex compared to the others?

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#253

Post by mancerayder » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

jv22222 wrote: post #113

dudus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you trade it for bitcoin someone is selling you that bitcoin for tether. That person will go ahead and trade that tether for some other coin.... rinse repeat, but in the end someone is holding that Tether, if exchanges stop accepting tether eventually your only option is to cash out to USD. USDT is basically being used as a trade coin, to avoid cashing out (maybe to avoid taxation) or to speculate on USD with the…

The concept of tether is a good one. I wish that a reputable company or YC startup would do exactly the same thing but in a very legitamate way. It seems like they could make a good amount of money by charging withdrawal and transfer fees.

How does one keep track of each Tether-like coin's fiat backing?

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#254

Post by bonestamp2 » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 7:16 PM UTC

teknologist wrote: post #248

bonestamp2 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was bitconnect cheating though? I totally thought it was possible that they were a ponzi scheme until I ran my own bitcoin trading bot. But, don't take my word for... if you look at bitcoin trading bots that you can run yourself (many example on youtube of people running their own), bitconnect's return rate was significantly lower than typical bitcoin trading bots. So, if bitconnect was getting typical returns (and i…

This is new to me. What does a Bitcoin trading bot do exactly? Do they trade alt-coins through exchanges?

Yes, exactly.

Bitconnect claimed to be running a trading bot but everyone said they were just running a ponzi scheme because the returns were about 1%/day... even though they refunded everyone's coins when they stopped the lending bot program. I've never heard of a ponzi scheme that can return everyone's money when it closes up.

Not to mention, I think it's completely possible they were actually running a real trading bot because you can run your own trading bot and earn more than 1%/day very easily. People here really don't like to hear facts because it's easier to go with your gut feeling about some paradigm you've never heard of than doing the research, so they downvote any comment that says bitconnect was anything other than a ponzi scheme (or they'll call it a pyramid scheme if they really want to prove they don't know what they're talking about).

The trading bot uses BTC, ETH or USDT as a base currency and then buys alt coins with the base currency then sells them back to the base currency of your choice using an exchange. If it's configured right, it will make dozens of trades a day for small profits, which add up through the day (and night).

I personally run the bot called "Profit Trailer" and use it with the exchange "Binance". I use Binance because you can buy their coin and get lower fee trading by using their coin to pay for the fees.