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Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

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Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#391

Post by zerostar07 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #276
panarky wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> definitely a bubble, really cant deny that anymore You could be right. But I don't understand everyone's certainty that cryptocurrencies are a fraud-bubble-scam-Ponzi-mania. The growth curve fits both exponential and logistic (S-curve) functions. Exponential growth is unsustainable, while logistic growth describes most technology adoption. Halfway through the cycle they're indistinguishable. When there's 98% agreem…

Bitcoin doesn't produce anything of use to most people. I can already transfer my money from my bank to a merchant with quite low fees. Even in Africa, the possibility of phone-based money allows people to do this. Bitcoin's risks don't balance its benefits for most users of currency and basically, it's a currency or a "technology", it's simply a unique commodity akin to art or Tulips. I mean, if the bubble was tulip…

the finance system doesnt produce anything of use to most ppl. "Liquidity" is not something you can eat.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#392

Post by zMiller »

tomkarlo wrote: post #360
zMiller wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot on. Use as currency for Bitcoin (and other coin networks) is still in it's infancy and cannot scale the way it needs to should it want to replace fiat. The important distinction I would draw though that stores of value have historically been cumbersome to transport and liquidate, Bitcoin solves that problem in a very good way. I feel it's important to also address this 20$ bitcoin fee meme that seems to be going…

"Single dollars" is still a nosebleed-high fee for a simple electronic value transfer. Consider that pricing on something like an ach transfer is quoted in fractions of a percent (so like 75 cents for $100 USD sent - and caps out entirely at some low value like $5 per transaction regardless of the payment size.

International ACH transfer ? Any international Wire or remittance in general will cost you at least 25$.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#393

Post by randomsearch »

Bitcoin looks like a bubble to me.

The way I think about investment is that you should only invest if you have a clear and rational reason to do so.

There is a rational reason to use fiat: you need to pay taxes in it. The government also provides all sorts of guarantees about your cash when deposited in a bank. These are solid, irrefutable arguments.

Investment in bitcoin seems to be based on an argument along the lines of “we need to change currency because centralised is bad” or “it’s just another form of gold”, or worse: “because it will keep going up”. None of these arguments make sense. Yes, maybe bitcoin will become a big currency. But why? Can you give a watertight answer as for the value of fiat? Some people answer “it’s decentralised”, but that is clearly untrue. Miners and exchanges are the centralised concentrations of power in bitcoin, but they are unregulated.

The idea of cryptocurrency is interesting and exciting, but investing in something purely because it’s interesting or exciting is only a good idea if you’re happy to lose that money. No doubt bitcoin is important as a technological milestone, but that does not make it a good investment.

When bitcoin crashes, it could undermine various startups, which will have a knock-on effect to the startup bubble we’re in. Presumably that won’t be enough to crash a stock market, unless bitcoin reaches astronomical levels.

Hmm. Maybe I should buy some gold.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#394

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

jordanpg wrote: post #359
exelius wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strayed so far from fundamentals that it's bound to crash. I really hope it's not that big when it does...

It's not obvious to me that "fundamentals" apply here. This is literally unprecedented and cryptocurrency economies are uncharted territory.

It's not obvious to me that "fundamentals" apply here. This is literally unprecedented and the Internet economy is uncharted territory.

-- said a million articles in 2000

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#395

Post by panarky »

johnwheeler wrote: post #235
panarky wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> definitely a bubble, really cant deny that anymore You could be right. But I don't understand everyone's certainty that cryptocurrencies are a fraud-bubble-scam-Ponzi-mania. The growth curve fits both exponential and logistic (S-curve) functions. Exponential growth is unsustainable, while logistic growth describes most technology adoption. Halfway through the cycle they're indistinguishable. When there's 98% agreem…

> 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…

> By then, you'll realize it was a mirage all along

This is exactly my point.

Why are you so certain?

How can you tell the difference between this and any other technology adoption logistic curve?

People make statements like you do with 100% confidence, and you could very well be right! But where do you get your certainty?

And were you equally certain about the inevitable demise of cryptocurrencies when the market was 1% or 10% of its current size?

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#396

Post by smokeyj »

andr3w321 wrote: post #365
jordanpg wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not obvious to me that "fundamentals" apply here. This is literally unprecedented and cryptocurrency economies are uncharted territory.

The fundamentals are at the current price of $17,000/btc bitcoin mining costs are about $14.5B annually(144 blocks of 12.5 btc/block plus ~3.8 btc/block in fees) in electricity expenses due to paying off miners which is about on par with the 8th largest company in the world Facebook. Bitcoin's revenue/year is however much money people feel like FOMOing in + however much tether money bitfinex feels like printing which…

It isn't crazy to imagine crypto becoming adopted for actual transactions. Even if people are currently speculating, they're still downloading wallets they can spend from and loading it up with currency. For all these users there is now nearly zero obstacles to spending. This isn't even to say bitcoin is the transaction layer, but bitcoin still provides liquidity to any alt/2nd layer solution.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#397

Post by spookthesunset »

panarky wrote: post #395
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…

> By then, you'll realize it was a mirage all along This is exactly my point. Why are you so certain? How can you tell the difference between this and any other technology adoption logistic curve? People make statements like you do with 100% confidence, and you could very well be right! But where do you get your certainty? And were you equally certain about the inevitable demise of cryptocurrencies when the market wa…

> Why are you so certain?

Because the fundamentals of Bitcoin and The Blockchain are complete garbage. Both are solutions in search of problems. Neither solve any real world problems outside of how to conduct shady, illegal business (murder for hire, crypto-ransomware, mail-order bath-salt delivery) and both do a pretty piss-poor job of even that.

This is why bitcoin will ultimately fail. It is a useless product. Full stop.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#398

Post by codedokode »

While cryptocurrencies are mostly used for trading, I think it is a technology with great potential.

There are still several unsolved problems with cryptocurrencies like having to keep a large database on disk and slow transactions (and illegal status in some countries). They are not protected from 50% attack by governments. When they are resolved, it can become really good alternative to card systems.

VISA has many disadvantages compared to Bitcoin:

- it uses outdated technology and is absolutely insecure (card details are easily stolen and sold in large volumes, they still use unencrypted magnetic stripe)

- it can require paperwork and a deposit to accept payments. It is difficult if you do something legally gray (for example, related to porn)

- it is difficult to get a card without identification even if you are not going to do anything illegal

- transaction cost is high for small payments

- US government forbids to use VISA on some territories for political reasons

- merchants often refuse to accept cards from some banks or some regions (for example: Digital Ocean doesn't accept some prepaid virtual cards)

- companies can collect and exchange customer data when they pay with a card. Because it has your name.

- the data on transactions from all countries go through systems controlled by US

It is only natural to replace those outdated magnetic card systems.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#399

Post by scribu »

zerostar07 wrote: post #385

This means that people are investing small amounts and going for the cheaper coins using coinbase. which means that cryptocurrencies may be having their facebook moment at this time , and their network effect is about to get a LOT bigger over the next months. While people may only invest small amounts (and coinbase can and should make sure they do), cryptocurrencies will come out of this extremely strengthened if a s…

> Unlike tulips which wither, these people are not likely to sell their bitcoins even if there is a correction.

[citation needed]

Even long term investors in traditional securities often get panicky during bear markets. They sell their holdings, even if the underlying value hasn't really changed.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#400

Post by zerostar07 »

scribu wrote: post #399
zerostar07 wrote: post #385

This means that people are investing small amounts and going for the cheaper coins using coinbase. which means that cryptocurrencies may be having their facebook moment at this time , and their network effect is about to get a LOT bigger over the next months. While people may only invest small amounts (and coinbase can and should make sure they do), cryptocurrencies will come out of this extremely strengthened if a s…

> Unlike tulips which wither, these people are not likely to sell their bitcoins even if there is a correction. [citation needed] Even long term investors in traditional securities often get panicky during bear markets. They sell their holdings, even if the underlying value hasn't really changed.

on the one hand bitcoins dont physically wither, on the other hand, it's about the personalities of people who own it. I don't know who pumps the bitcoin bubble, but much of the bitcoin is owned by people who can't quickly cash it out for USD or EUR because it's either illegal, not taxed or going to face big taxes. many of them are also ideologically driven. Sorry i dont have citations, i m (fittingly) speculating over these
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