651–660 of 1001 posts
So bitcoin became something like money and stocks, just a number in a SQL database? And we can now finally make bitcoins out of thin air? How long before the amount of bitcoins traded by hedge funds will be larger than the amount of bitcoins that exist in the actual bitcoin network?
The amount of fake bitcoins traded by exchanges and custodians probably exceeded 21 million already over the last 5 years. Hence, “not your keys, not your coins”
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> if the US regulators want to change how a crypto is traded ... tough biscuits They can happily regulate on and off ramps, and enforce traceability etc for anything that touches the 'real' economy though, should they wish.
Decentralised exchanges provide a solution, but if a country tries to stifle bitcoin like this, then the bitcoiners can just leave and live somewhere else, taking their wealth with them as 12 words in their head. History shows that societies with the hardest money win.
I think I’d like that to be true, but I don’t see much evidence of it. Do you have some examples?
With quantum computing growing rapidly, aren't all blockchains in danger of being decrypted and drained in the future?
Quantum computing is not "growing rapidly", it is at best "fast approaching" (and even that is doubtful). There is no quantum computer that does any kind of useful work today at all * - the biggest accomplishment of any quantum computer to date has been to run a simplified version of quantum factoring that calculated the prime factors of 15 are 3 and 5, if I remember correctly (maybe it was 21 = 3 × 7 actually?). Als…
With quantum computing growing rapidly, aren't all blockchains in danger of being decrypted and drained in the future?
Quantum computing is not "growing rapidly", it is at best "fast approaching" (and even that is doubtful). There is no quantum computer that does any kind of useful work today at all * - the biggest accomplishment of any quantum computer to date has been to run a simplified version of quantum factoring that calculated the prime factors of 15 are 3 and 5, if I remember correctly (maybe it was 21 = 3 × 7 actually?). Als…
This is one reason amongst a few to be bearish on bitcoin over longer timescales, even as a 'store of value'.
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There's a fair amount of ill-placed arrogance. It seems that the majority on this board confidently and incorrectly believe that they know all there really is to know about bitcoin. Essentially that it's a scam that wastes energy. If you try to help them understand, you're generally attacked as if you are shill, and then they continue along in their ignorant bubble. It's a shame, but their attitude isn't conducive to…
> You buy bitcoin at the price you deserve. This is out-of-touch on so many levels. What about people born in ten years? What about people born in ten years in developing countries? The only thing crypto“currencies” have done is increase the wealth disparity and greed. https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html
Regarding developing countries, bitcoin provides anyone with a phone access to a bank, and one that offers better savings accounts than any fiat account.
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We have as many reasons to believe that the legacy of the Roman Empire, through the Catholic Church, still exists today and is a billion people strong as we do why it fell at any one particular day for any one particular reason.
i can't parse your comment, but it seems to presuppose that the roman empire fell on one particular day; there seem to be a lot of candidates, though. which one do you mean
There are several reasons we could argue that the Roman Catholic Church is the continuation of Rome and so Rome never truly fell.
That is what I was trying to say in the previous comment.
I can't help thinking that Bitcoin ETFs could mark "Peak Bitcoin". When lots of people are trading it at their high street broker in their regular account, Bitcoin becomes just a number in a box - a crypto currency without crypto - with nothing underlying it.
The value is purely a function of speculative demand. And while previously people anticipated the demand would go up "organically" because of actual real-world usage, you know to pay for stuff and such, that hasn't really materialized in the way we hoped. How many actually use BTC for things like that? At its BEST it has usage to purchase other coins - but that's about it.
It is digital gold, but with seemingly less IRL usage. When I started with BTC 12 years ago, the community was really optimistic on the potential use cases - but mostly the aspect of it replacing expensive wire transfers, potential for being a digital currency you could use in your daily life.
After each hype cycle that belief diminished, and it became more apparent that people only buy it to get richer by the means of speculation.
The days of BTC 1000x'ing are long gone. Even if 1 BTC is to go for $1MM, that's "only" a 21.5x increase, and it would mean that BTC alone has a 21 trillion cap. That's half of the entire S&P500 market cap. And you'd still have a slew of other safe coins that competes against BTC for the same money.
So, my point is: While BTC is still the king of crypto, it lives in a financial market that is mostly driven by speculation and expectations of huge returns. The very same investors can earn a lot more by gambling on "lesser" coins.
There's still money to be made, but that boils down to people buying and selling between the various boom and bust cycles. We're 15 years into this now.
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The main problem here is that you're looking at the energy use as a waste. It's absolutely not, but in order to understand why, you need to understand what's wrong with the current monetary system and the terrible effects it is having on the world. You're also missing that bitcoin's game theory means that it will ultimately only use unwanted/wasted energy. Bitcoin miners can mine anywhere in the world and those tryin…
> The main problem here is that you're looking at the energy use as a waste. It's absolutely not It is. Mining is literally bruteforcing…
My prediction is that Bitcoin will become fully institutionalized within twenty years, to the point that the “Bitcoin” held by investors are entirely disconnected from the theoretical blockchain. A similar thing happened with stocks. Not so long ago they used to be physical pieces of paper. You could trade shares peer-to-peer and even anonymously by handing over the share certificate to someone in person. For dividen…
Crypto is more like a currency than a share. It is transnational - if one jurisdiction applies regulatory burden, activity will flow somewhere else without that changing the operation of the market. Hence, it would be far harder for the US to coax changes into the crypto market, and it would require heavy cooperation from other governments.
The US government has leverage against crypto to these limits: (1) some companies that operate as exchanges operate there; (2) some people with US bank accounts want to exchange cash for crypto; (3) the US has some extradition reach against non-US firms who have US customers.
In the last twenty years the US government has extended its legislative reach for banking matters into other developed countries. Their mechanism for doing this: they offer cheap lending (free money) to banks who sign up to their rules. This could change. The London eurodollar trade happened despite the wishes of the US gvt, and such things can happen again. The security environment will be significant in how things change.
In a US-overreach scenario, I would look to India as a place that could emerge as a crypto haven. India is distinct from the Russia/China axis, which lack rule of law - the state can disappear you on a whim. India is comfortably distinct from the US security block, where security agreements can be used as leverage for legislative reach. Several south american countries could run plays also.