Bitcoins/Litecoins/Virtual Currencies

Kirun

Kirun

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Flobee said:
More decentralized than literally anything else that can act as money. It was built with precisely this situation in mind. It may or may not succeed but so far things are going exactly as expected. Take some time to consider what a brand new reserve currency built on the internet would look like as it bootstrapped itself. Think about how digital scarcity and provable digital ownership without trust in any centralized authority changes the world.

Instead of trying to shit on the idea of something new happening actually try to think about what it is. Do some research. Bitcoin has the potential to be one of the greatest inventions in human history.

Governments will try to regulate it, they've already tried (see Nigeria, Venezuela, China, Iran)
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Banning mining isn't quite the same as actual regulation of the currency itself - that just limits how it's acquired. Regulation comes later, after governments/elites are done playing fuck fuck games and have made their money. Once Bitcoin becomes an actual threat, (major retailers start accepting it as a form of payment, "average" people can afford to do anything with it beyond stacking sats, etc.) that's when the regulation will come.

But, let's pretend that it all goes perfectly according to plan and is truly "decentralized". Where does the energy required to have it as a world reserve currency come from?
 
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Flobee

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Mist said:
Something that requires this much electricity is pretty easy to regulate and/or shut down if that's what government decides it wants to do.

That's how they tracked down pot grows, remember?
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You can regulate mining in a country, but that doesn't stop Bitcoin. Some other country is going to allow it.


Kiroy said:
not sure why you're using the word tried - it's been very successfully regulated in china
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You sure about that?

www.cnbc.com

After a bitcoin crackdown, China now calls it an 'investment alternative' in a significant shift in tone

China called bitcoin an "investment alternative" marking a significant shift in tone after regulators cracked down on cryptocurrency trading in 2017.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
 
Mist

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Kirun said:
Banning mining isn't quite the same as actual regulation of the currency itself - that just limits how it's acquired. Regulation comes later, after governments/elites are done playing fuck fuck games and have made their money. Once Bitcoin becomes an actual threat, (major retailers start accepting it as a form of payment, "average" people can afford to do anything with it beyond stacking sats, etc.) that's when the regulation will come.

But, let's pretend that it all goes perfectly according to plan and is truly "decentralized". Where does the energy required to have it as a world reserve currency come from?
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Retail acceptance has fuck-all to do with it's usefulness as a global reserve currency.

Stability.
Whether you can back loans with it.
How fast you can reliably trade large quantities of it.

Until all the banks in the world can reliably settle their accounts each night in Bitcoin or Ethereum or some other currency, the dollar is still king.

Supposedly the US has top researchers working on a Fedcoin that will have the transactional benefits of bitcoin but also be backed by the giganticest army in the history of the world.
 
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Flobee

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Kirun said:
But, let's pretend that it all goes perfectly according to plan and is truly "decentralized". Where does the energy required to have it as a world reserve currency come from?
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I don't have time to dig up sources right now but look into stranded energy and how Bitcoin can monetize it. Have a big river in Iceland that is too far away from civilization to utilize? Put in some mining rigs and a Blockstream satellite and you've effectively monetized 'unusable' energy. Own 1000 acres in the Sahara? Build a solar array with Bitcoin rigs. You've just monetized previously worthless real estate and increased human productivity by transmuting real energy into digital value.

Civilization has been built around trade routes historically. It could be built around energy sources in the future.

I'm not being condescending when I say you need to do some research. Your questions have answers if you take the time to look. You shouldn't trust me or anyone else to figure it out for you.
 
Araysar

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Mist said:
Something that requires this much electricity is pretty easy to regulate and/or shut down if that's what government decides it wants to do.

That's how they tracked down pot grows, remember?
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Over 90% of bitcoin has been mined already, babe
 
Keystone

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So I don't really folow crypto much except the one's i'm in, (VET and BTC) but today i've heard from like 3 different people without even looking at crypto stuff about Solana, and a quick glance it looks pretty damn solid. Anyone actually done any research on it? Thinking about dropping a small position in it just based on the 15min of googling I did but curious if any of you that are more involved in the space than I am have other opinions.
 
Haus

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Mist said:
Seriously, are there any crypto exchanges that aren't shit?
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Not really. And Dex's are sometimes a navigational issue. Not to mention gas fees if it's a Dex on ethereum. I'm currently tinkering a little with MATIC and Quickswap. Love the low gas fees, but hate the limitations in terms of trading there. Of course we're just seeing the advent of Defi options that will let you place limit orders (UniLayer), but I think sooner or later we'll get some more legit Defi trading options.

Only thing coinbase has going for it for me right now is that it's the easiest on/off ramp for me via ACH. Binance has been a bitch for me to try to use/get KYC done on...

It's almost like they WANT me doing all my trades on much harder to track Defi exchanges....
 
Jackie Treehorn

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Keystone said:
So I don't really folow crypto much except the one's i'm in, (VET and BTC) but today i've heard from like 3 different people without even looking at crypto stuff about Solana, and a quick glance it looks pretty damn solid. Anyone actually done any research on it? Thinking about dropping a small position in it just based on the 15min of googling I did but curious if any of you that are more involved in the space than I am have other opinions.
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I won’t claim to know a lot but everything I read is positive. Sounds like it has a place and will grow over time. It recently had a pretty big jump as I watching and failed to jump on.
 
LachiusTZ

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Mist said:
Something that requires this much electricity is pretty easy to regulate and/or shut down if that's what government decides it wants to do.

That's how they tracked down pot grows, remember?
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Pot didn't take that much power unless your were a literal moron.

And helicopter fly overs were rare, and limited in a lot of places.

What you heard about was the exception.
 
LachiusTZ

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Flobee said:
Alright let me try to break it down.

ETH has foregone a number of limitations Bitcoin put on its client in order to maintain decentralization. More specifically Bitcoin does things like limit the blocksize in order to ensure that a maximal amount of systems can handle running full nodes to validate the network. I run a Bitcoin node on a Raspberry Pi.

It is hard to get reliable data on running an Ethereum full node because nobody actually does it. The specs are high and getting higher (here is an article from 2018). The blockspace is growing exponentially which will eventually price out everyone but the most dedicated from running their own full node to validate. Plenty of folks run pruned nodes, however this does not allow one to fully validate the blockchain thus largely defeating the purpose. A lot of nodes that people do run are hosted by AWS or other cloud providers due to system requirements (again reducing decentralization)
Note that this is for a pruned node in 2018 which means it actually doesn't even validate the entire blockchain. Its much bigger now.
View attachment 351538

Oh yea, and almost everything that runs on Ethereum runs through Infura. Using IPFS and 'decentralized' nodes (Many are hosted by infura) to validate the blockchain is great, but what good is it if nearly every single dApp that runs on Ethereum runs through Infura?
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Now lets talk about the much hailed move from PoW to PoS. Proof of work has been well explained and has been proven as a method to secure a blockchain basically taking advantage of wherever the cheapest power can be found. This has a number of benefits that aren't being appreciated as they get drowned out by the climate change FUD but that's another topic entirely. Proof of stake deserves being explicitly described:



So whoever has the most money controls the network. Did you know that 80% of the supply is held by a relatively small amount of wallets? Note that this can be somewhat deceiving due to how exchange wallets work. You will find similar statistics about Bitcoin due to this. However Bitcoin is not moving to a consensus mechanism that gives power to those that hold the most of the asset. I hope you see how this could be problematic. Proof of stake is literally no different than our current system. Especially shady considering that when Ethereum launched it was largely premined!

Vitalik and Consensys have ultimate control of the network. This is clear when you look into the DAO hack. Vitalik was able to singlehandedly stop all ETH trading on all exchanges. This is clearly not decentralized in any way shape or form. No single person can (or should ever be able to) do this in Bitcoin. He also decided that ETH "should be money" and it should have a deflationary supply cap. This was not the original intent of the network. I happen to agree that setting ETH's supply cap to slowly decrease or stay steady is a good idea for tokenomics. I'm not fool enough to be confident it will stay that way. ETH monetary policy changes at the whims of a few.

Here are a bunch of examples somebody put together claiming ETH is a scam. Running into this is scared me initially as I got into crypto via ETH and still hold everything I bought. I didn't want to believe it, its just a bunch of images some asshole put together. Its probably not all true and some that is true is likely exaggerated. Unfortunately as I took the time to dig deeper I was able to confirm more and more of the claims. At this point I basically think ETH is controlled opposition to try to capture capital as is flees the traditional system and maintain as much control as possible.

We're going to make money on ETH in the short/medium term I have no doubt. You're dancing with the devil though IMO. There is more but I've spent enough time on this. I know most won't care about this because they don't understand why decentralization is so fucking important for what we're going through right now. Make your tendies boys.
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There are several things in here I can rebut, and I don't know what I'm talking about. Which makes me continually skeptical

You are more read than most of us on this, but that's the prettiest waitress at denny's syndrome.

I think we are at the stage in crypto we are at with climate change. The rabbit hole is so deep, that no normal person can reasonably get a concrete answer. You will end up with either something confirming bias, or be of an opinion that mirrors the last thing you read (simplified this).
 
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Flobee

Flobee

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LachiusTZ said:
There are several things in here I can rebut, and I don't know what I'm talking about. Which makes me continually skeptical

You are more read than most of us on this, but that's the prettiest waitress at denny's syndrome.

I think we are at the stage in crypto we are at with climate change. The rabbit hole is so deep, that no normal person can reasonably get a concrete answer. You will end up with either something confirming bias, or be of an opinion that mirrors the last thing you read (simplified this).
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Agreed. I'm no final authority on this or any other issue. I do however have a significantly different opinion than most here so I try make sure that it is heard. I obviously think I'm correct and I generally like you guys and if I can sway someone from going all in on something I consider a scam then I'll do so. I would say that if you think there is a 5% chance Bitcoin can be what I'm saying it can be, you should probably allocate at least 5% of what you put into crypto into BTC.

The only right answer in this space is to do your own research and form an opinion. Its a ton of work, but everyone is a scammer. Part of Bitcoin's ethos is "Don't trust, verify" its baked into the protocol itself.

Also, if I'm not posting about the utopian cypherpunk future where we're all driving lambos purchased with our magic internet money then this place will become a degenerate shitcoin trading echo chamber real quick. Trading is cool, but crypto is so much bigger than that. I genuinely think that the future can be fucking awesome rather than some dystopian nightmare, Bitcoin plays a big role in making that happen.
 
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Jackie Treehorn

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I’ve read a few times now and heard various dubious youtube talking heads say that Bitcoin going down or stagnating while Ethereum rises is an indicator of bad market health.

True? Or is this just a change in sentiment of BTC vs ETH that perhaps bucks past trends.
 
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Flobee

Flobee

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Jackie Treehorn said:
I’ve read a few times now and heard various dubious youtube talking heads say that Bitcoin going down or stagnating while Ethereum rises is an indicator of bad market health.

True? Or is this just a change in sentiment of BTC vs ETH that perhaps bucks past trends.
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So when the top blew off in the last bullrun BTC went down some and ETH/alts surged for a month or so before the whole thing capitulated. I imagine that is what they're referring to. I do not believe that's where we are right now though. A lot of Youtubers make money off directing the herd into short/long positions so that whales can liquidate them. I would take their predictions with a grain of salt personally.

Its not that they're wrong all the time. In order to get followers they need to be right often enough to trick folks into following them into liquidation events.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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BRIEF-Coinbase Allowing U.S. Users To Buy Crypto With Their PayPal Accounts - Coindesk

BRIEF-Coinbase Allowing U.S. Users To Buy Crypto With Their PayPal Accounts - Coindesk​


REUTERS 12:08 PM ET 4/29/2021


April 29 (Reuters) -


* COINBASE ALLOWING U.S. USERS TO BUY CRYPTO WITH THEIR PAYPAL ACCOUNTS - COINDESK Source text : Coinbase Debuts 'Buy With PayPal' (But Read the Fine Print) - CoinDesk
 
Rajaah

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Jackie Treehorn said:
Dear diary:

maybe I should have simply stayed in the 19.4 ETH I had a couple of weeks ago.
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Yeah, right about now that's looking like the right call. I also sold my MANA and ADA a few weeks ago and then they went way up.

Well, I'm sticking with VET. If this causes VET to never grow again...well, I owe everyone an apology, but I'm not going to jump out of it any time soon.

Getting back in over the weekend is probably the way to go, but I got back in at .1850 today because I don't see it crashing to the degree that we predicted. Yeah, it seems like the "crash" was already pre-emptively going on before the speech. Though I did make some gains, selling at .21 a couple days ago and buying at .185. I don't think it's going to end up at .15 or anything crazy like that. Was thinking today would be the day of a large sell-off but not really.

In retrospect I'm probably buying back in too early. Good chance it'll be better to get it on the weekend. Right now it's all about getting the best deal before it rebounds. It's still following a similar price trajectory to what MANA was doing a few months ago.
 
Sanrith Descartes

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Dice Vegas GIF by The Weeknd
 
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