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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

#401

Post by scribu »

zerostar07 wrote: post #400
scribu wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ov…

> 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.

That's certainly an interesting aspect, but I thought you were talking about all the new, smalltime buyers of cryptocoins, which I assume don't fall into this category.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#402

Post by CPLX »

exelius wrote: post #342
charlesdm wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it is a bubble, that doesn't mean it can't go another 20x from here, depending which crypto you put your money in. There's cheap liquidity (ho ho ho said the FED and the ECB), there are institutions (pension funds) that are starting to buy in, and in comparison, the dot-com bubble (which was mainly a US led bubble, not global) went to $5.7tn to $1.7tn. Gold is worth $8tn globally. Why couldn't Bitcoin get to…

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

Bitcoin doesn't have fundamentals. Stocks are a claim on assets, buildings, inventories, and future profits. Real shit, like a parking lot full of trucks or something. Those are the fundamentals. Cryptocurrencies dont have anything like that.

To the extent that there is an analogous concept it's their utility as a means of exchange. Which outside of drugs and hard drive ransoms is minuscule at best.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#403

Post by lsaferite »

volker48 wrote: post #134
xutopia wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today I went to one bank to transfer 60k from one account to an account in a different bank. I paid 7.50$ to get a certified check from Bank A. Went to the Bank B near my house to deposit it there. Unfortunately the branch near my house isn't where my account is. They tried faxing a photocopy of my certified check to the other branch but the line was busy. They're going to continue trying until 3pm today when they cl…

I had a similar experience recently. I finished a contract job and received a check too large to deposit over my banks mobile phone app and unfortunately my bank doesn't have any local branches. I have a backup bank to do local deposits, but the transfer took 5 days to fully clear at my primary bank.

I had to call my bank and explain that I needed a mobile deposit limit increase which took less than an hour to happen. Prior to that conversation I was cussing a lot though.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#404

Post by zerostar07 »

scribu wrote: post #401
zerostar07 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ov…

> 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. That's certainly an interesting aspect, but I thought you were talking about all the new, smalltime buyers of cryptocoins, which I assume don't fall into this category.

yes sorry about that. i assume however that people investing a small amount will not panic, because they really don't care. It's like buying an expensive fad fashion item, that is then left to collect dust rather than being sold. fear of missing out is driving adoption atm

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#405

Post by stephengillie »

phil21 wrote: post #306
stephengillie wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can't send money from bank account to a different bank to your unsophisticated friend (plumber, maid, or mr sandwich) just knowing his phone. Banks in the USA do not allow deposits into accounts without account holder permission. They won't let you stop by a branch and deposit into a friend's account (to pay them back) without a formal arrangement, so it's easier just to find your unsophisticated friend and giv…

> Banks in the USA do not allow deposits into accounts without account holder permission. They won't let you stop by a branch and deposit into a friend's account (to pay them back) without a formal arrangement This is not (universally) true. I've had many friends/family deposit checks for me at my local branch when I'm out of town/on vacation/whatever. I've done it myself for other people. I believe the banks in ques…

I was turned down by both Bank of America and Columbia Bank (local WA State bank), as it violated their security procedures at the time - this was about 10 years ago.

The reasoning presented was a little suspicious - they envisioned someone "forcing" you to unwillingly take a loan (of like $100) by depositing it into your account. Then they would demand their $100 back and use this as leverage to blackmail or otherwise disrupt your life.

But I don't totally disagree. To me, depositing money into another person's bank feels...improper - like performing an oil change on someone else's car, or taking someone else's books back to the library, or walking into your neighbor's unlocked house to lock all the doors. There are very good reasons someone would want these done for them, and also edge cases where these would cause an issue for the other person. It's a moral grey area to me.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#406

Post by johnwheeler »

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…

> But where do you get your certainty?

By way of an understanding of human nature. From the book Bull! A history of boom and bust:

“...A bubble, Galbraith observed, is always supported by the belief that there is something new in the world. The history of past cycles is dismissed as irrelevant.“

That’s it in a nutshell. It is a time-tested part of who we are, and it’s almost like you’re either born with the ability to see that or you’re not. I don’t know why.

I don’t know how much the price will go up, but it going up, even to a million dollars a coin, means little. It will eventually go down and violently so, and some people will be badly hurt. Just people being people.

Assets need to be productive in order to be true investments. Like farmland or businesses. Otherwise, you’re speculating on price appreciation. Look at gold over the last 100 years and overlay its price graph over the Dow Jones during the same period. They’re not even close.

http://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-y...

http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/historical/marketindexes.h...

That’s the difference between speculation and investment.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#407

Post by emmasz »

garybro wrote: post #303

I've made about $110k profit this year in crypto on a $21k investment earlier this year, and I think this is all a giant bubble. I was at my parents' house for Thanksgiving and a commercial with Ron Paul talking about Bitcoin came on, which coincided with around the time it went to $10k, and it hit me really hard that this isn't going to last forever (and probably will hurt sooner rather than later). I liquidated eve…

Some people could be in it for the adrenalin. People do dangerous things all the time, so it can still go on... what's the serotonin level for crypto users? :)

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#408

Post by scribu »

zerostar07 wrote: post #404
scribu wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That's certainly an interesting aspect, but I thought you were talking about all the new, smalltime buyers of cryptocoins, which I assume don't fall into this category.

yes sorry about that. i assume however that people investing a small amount will not panic, because they really don't care. It's like buying an expensive fad fashion item, that is then left to collect dust rather than being sold. fear of missing out is driving adoption atm

Huh... that seems like a separate category from the domestic speculators I was thinking about.

But then, how does an influx of a large number of fad buyers strengthen cryptocurrencies in the long term, if these buyers just completely forget that they own cryptocoins after the hype dies down?

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#409

Post by djtriptych »

hansjorg wrote: post #295
djtriptych wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, but even the innovation in those countries is concentrated in a few key cities. Akkra, Nairobi, j'burg, etc. There are huge disconnected swaths of people in all of those countries.

It's nuts to imagine that Africa as a continent compares to the West in terms of fintech. We like to imagine Africa as a monolith; it's a terrible mistake.

Re: Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled

#410

Post by DenisM »

CPLX wrote: post #402
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...

Bitcoin doesn't have fundamentals. Stocks are a claim on assets, buildings, inventories, and future profits. Real shit, like a parking lot full of trucks or something. Those are the fundamentals. Cryptocurrencies dont have anything like that. To the extent that there is an analogous concept it's their utility as a means of exchange. Which outside of drugs and hard drive ransoms is minuscule at best.

You’re forgetting currency control evasion. If a businessman from a country with tight controls wants to move money out of the country he would buy bitcoin and then sell it the other side of the border. This sort of activity is going on all the time, and it creates demand for crypto currencies.
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