Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled • Hacker News Board

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#291

Post by GalacticDomin8r » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 9:26 PM UTC

zodiac wrote: post #275

zMiller wrote: post #150

This thread's audience is obviously a 'developed nations' one. From our perspective yes, Crytpo's use case as currency make absolutely no sense (yet), we tap our Visa card to pay instantly with no fees and no fraud liability, hard to beat. As a store of value however there is a very strong use case in the western world. Of the top my head, it is estimated that 10% of our GDP is in off shore havens, think about that i…

> we tap our Visa card to pay instantly with no fees I hope you mean realize that merchants eat the fee and are contractually not allowed to offer discounts for cash payments. And many of them are not happy about this situation.

It's an economic compromise. They don't have to be happy about it, just sign the agreement. Or don't and forgo those customers who will only pay that way.

I doubt cypto currency is going to help that setup at all, and most likely it will just offer more avenues to do the same.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#292

Post by narrator » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 9:27 PM UTC

etr-strike wrote: post #281

johnwheeler wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I don't understand everyone's certainty that cryptocurrencies are a fraud-bubble-scam-Ponzi-mania. When it blows up, you won't understand why the SEC didn't protect you. By then, you'll realize it was a mirage all along, and you'll want someone to blame for letting it get so out of hand. Every piece of news you interpret will tell you that losing money was not your fault, because that's what you'll want to beli…

Unlike people who invest in the stock market, no one buying cryptocurrencies in under the delusion they'll be bailed out.

That there are still so many haters shows that this cryptocurrency thing has a way to go.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#293

Post by junk_f00d » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 9:28 PM UTC

Helloworldboy wrote: post #218

jliptzin wrote: post #5

What is causing the sudden rise in litecoin?

because it's strictly better than BTC. Faster and cheaper transactions.

The tech is identical, it's simply used less than BTC so doesn't face the same stress of scaling.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#294

Post by bushido » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 9:30 PM UTC

etr-strike wrote: post #281

johnwheeler wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I don't understand everyone's certainty that cryptocurrencies are a fraud-bubble-scam-Ponzi-mania. When it blows up, you won't understand why the SEC didn't protect you. By then, you'll realize it was a mirage all along, and you'll want someone to blame for letting it get so out of hand. Every piece of news you interpret will tell you that losing money was not your fault, because that's what you'll want to beli…

Unlike people who invest in the stock market, no one buying cryptocurrencies in under the delusion they'll be bailed out.

True. Only if they have zero leverage at play. No borrowed money, no loan to default on. If not then there is most definitely going to be some element of a bailout.

Anecdotal: but in the last month I have come across 6-8 people who have taken or know someone who has taken 2nd mortgages, maxed out their lines of credits, and credit cards to "invest" in crypto.

I'm generally a-ok with investment loans (not from credit cards), they are a good resource to reduce portfolio risk - if the loan remain tax deductible. But what is currently transpiring is insanity.

Someone will definitely get bailed out (hint: it will likely be the banks that's unknowingly provided the leverage).

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#295

Post by hansjorg » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 9:32 PM UTC

djtriptych wrote: post #264

bllguo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Africa is actually more sophisticated than the US in many ways regarding fintech Anyway, this is a straw man. Who is saying cryptos are useless? People are saying that they are a bubble, that the valuations are irrational.

No it’s not. There are pockets, but virtually all of the innovation in Africa is happening in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa. That’s a small slice of an enormous continent.

I don't know anything about fintech in Africa, but the countries you listed have a total population of 318 million people. That's about 26% of the total population in Africa, a pretty large slice isn't it?

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#296

Post by oreo81 » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 9:32 PM UTC

zMiller wrote: post #150

This thread's audience is obviously a 'developed nations' one. From our perspective yes, Crytpo's use case as currency make absolutely no sense (yet), we tap our Visa card to pay instantly with no fees and no fraud liability, hard to beat. As a store of value however there is a very strong use case in the western world. Of the top my head, it is estimated that 10% of our GDP is in off shore havens, think about that i…

Visa actually has charge fees of 1.5%-2.5%....

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#297

Post by milcron » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 9:35 PM UTC

stormbrew wrote: post #23

_m8fo wrote: post #11

Can someone familiar explain why cryptocurrencies aren't a bubble? They both seem to exhibit similar characteristics. Clearly, are shown by the site here, these aren't nearly as liquid as fiat currencies, nor are they really used to purchase anything. So... What is it? EDIT: upon thinking about it, MLM wasn't the term I meant.

So like, there are a lot of problems with cryptocurrencies obviously, but they don't really resemble mlm in any particular way even if you consider them to be a scam? In multilevel marketing, people are being sold downstream profits directly from people they sign up. If you sign up another person you take a cut of their revenue. If you sign up enough people and they sign up enough people you stand to gain a lot of mo…

There are some MLM scams in crypto. Bitconnect, for instance.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#298

Post by biot » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 9:37 PM UTC

tromp wrote: post #284

biot wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part I’ve never liked is that Satoshi Nakamoto only mined for 10 days and got ~1M bitcoins. Today, if I mine for 10 days I’ll probably get 0.001 bitcoins. Even if you adjust for increased computing power, why are my hash calculations valued a billion times less than his? Why can’t I get 1M bitcoins for a similar effort? From a market value standpoint, his computing effort is worth $18B. If, today, I put the same…

He would have had to mine for 139 days to get ~1M bitcoins (50BTC every 10 min). More if other people are mining too.

Wikipedia says he mined “at genesis and for 10 days afterwards”. Regardless of 10 or 139 (perhaps “genesis” includes several years of development), it doesn’t change the point.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#299

Post by junk_f00d » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 9:38 PM UTC

Many here insist it's a speculative bubble. And while I might agree that perhaps BTC is in such a state (this may extend toward LTC, ETH, etc), I'm curious to know your thoughts on the less popular and lower market cap "alt-coins" such as the Y-Combinator backed Request Network and Quantstamp. It's hard to say anything in crypto is truly undervalued at the moment, but I believe if anything is, it's projects with real utility that extends beyond speculation.

For those that believe in the technology that blockchain, DAG and smart contracts offer there is a lot up and coming projects that might contribute a lot to the space (and beyond into the real industry world, potentially).

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#300

Post by nrhk » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 9:41 PM UTC

zodiac wrote: post #275

zMiller wrote: post #150

This thread's audience is obviously a 'developed nations' one. From our perspective yes, Crytpo's use case as currency make absolutely no sense (yet), we tap our Visa card to pay instantly with no fees and no fraud liability, hard to beat. As a store of value however there is a very strong use case in the western world. Of the top my head, it is estimated that 10% of our GDP is in off shore havens, think about that i…

> we tap our Visa card to pay instantly with no fees I hope you mean realize that merchants eat the fee and are contractually not allowed to offer discounts for cash payments. And many of them are not happy about this situation.

Yup, and that liability consumers are protected from? Merchants pay that back in chargebacks and chargeback fees.