Bitcoins/Litecoins/Virtual Currencies

Deathwing

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Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see any mention of what specific crypto they could add to their 401k. I seem to recall Fidelity being better than others, but managed retirement plans are notorious for offering a bunch of shitty mutual funds that seriously cut into your growth via percentage fees.

Why is blockchain and Twitter a good thing? Honest question. That's the first I've seen it mentioned and I can't wrap my head around why that would be desirable.
 

Arden

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Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see any mention of what specific crypto they could add to their 401k. I seem to recall Fidelity being better than others, but managed retirement plans are notorious for offering a bunch of shitty mutual funds that seriously cut into your growth via percentage fees.

Why is blockchain and Twitter a good thing? Honest question. That's the first I've seen it mentioned and I can't wrap my head around why that would be desirable.

Bitcoin... it's in the title of the article lol.

I think Musk will try and incorporate Blockchain tech into twitter in multiple ways, based on things he has said in the past (and for other reasons). First as an authentication device: think NFT's instead of blue checks, used to identify unique, individual users and to easily prove actual identity. Second (and way more challenging) as a monetization device for ads etc. He may even try and use Doge to do this, but who knows?

The authentication bit will frankly be easier than the monetization bit... not because of the technical challenge, but because of what will likely be some financial restrictions on how much Musk can fuck with twitter's ad revenue, based on his debt from buying Twitter (according to what I'm reading).

Either way, this would all be super exciting stuff for crypto/blockchain. He would be implementing stuff that has been largely theoretical to this point, and he would be implementing it on a massive scale on an already established platform used by people from a huge demographic range (thus exposing a lot of new, influential people to crypto/blockchain). A lot of them would go kicking and screaming, but that's another challenge.
 

Deathwing

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It's lowercase and I thought people were using it as a synonym for any cryptocurrency as a whole. I think I just glanced over it, tbh.
 

Flobee

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Significant. Between this and Musk almost certainly incorporating Blockchain tech into Twitter it's good news for crypto.
This is significant, agreed. However keep in mind that this is just Bitcoin IOU's. They can and will rehypothecate everything they hold multiple times. Good for price action, good for price exposure in 401k, but really not a ton better than just holding GBTC or whatever. Also potential price downside due to that rehypothecation (creates artificial 'paper' Bitcoin above the 21m cap)

Elon's plan for Twitter real human authentication makes me uncomfortable. While I agree with the need to some degree, the actual implementation is a big deal. This could easily tie into a digital ID system that is not going to be very good for online anonymity/freedom. We'll see how they approach it
 
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Arden

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This is significant, agreed. However keep in mind that this is just Bitcoin IOU's. They can and will rehypothecate everything they hold multiple times. Good for price action, good for price exposure in 401k, but really not a ton better than just holding GBTC or whatever. Also potential price downside due to that rehypothecation (creates artificial 'paper' Bitcoin above the 21m cap)

Elon's plan for Twitter real human authentication makes me uncomfortable. While I agree with the need to some degree, the actual implementation is a big deal. This could easily tie into a digital ID system that is not going to be very good for online anonymity/freedom. We'll see how they approach it

Didn't realize that about the BTC IOU's. You're right, that does make a difference. Still a good step, but a smaller one than I thought it was.

Also agree on the authentication thing. I didn't want to get too deep into Deathwing Deathwing 's question about whether it was a "good thing" or not, because you could write a book (and people have) on the subject, but it is definitely a double-edged sword. Clearly it would be good for blockchain, but whether it would be "good" for humanity as a whole is another question.

IMO there is a need for BOTH anonymity and transparency/accountability in the digital world. Right now, we (as a society) are very far on the anonymity end and it's causing a lot of problems. Blockchain can definitely help fix that problem by providing transparency/accountability. The trick is to not go too far so that you entirely eliminate the ability for people to be anonymous when the situation calls for it.

The Circle, by Dave Eggers, does a pretty great job of exploring a dystopian near-future world where digital anonymity becomes a thing of the past. There are definitely some serious implications that you wouldn't think about.

Edit: Should probably mention I'm talking about the book The Circle, not the movie, which I heard sucked. The book isn't all that well written either, but the concepts it explores are pretty good.
 
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Haus

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But seriously... Who has a speculation or reason for when we're going to bottom out on this accumulation phase. Seems like we're slowly sliding down hill. heh
 

Flobee

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But seriously... Who has a speculation or reason for when we're going to bottom out on this accumulation phase. Seems like we're slowly sliding down hill. heh
Two schools of thought that I've seen:

We're accumulating for another ATH run because Bitcoin cycles are lengthening (no blow off top yet on this cycle)
We're 1/2-3/4 through the bear market, we'll see capitulation soon then the bull will start again (4 year cycle continues)

Both are probably not very useful framings, but that's most of what I see from people that generally have a clue. Truthfully the market is beholden to the USD like everything else denominated in USD, so as long as DXY is going parabolic price will go down.

EDIT: Coincidentally this guy put up a related video today. I don't care much for drawing lines on charts, but he is alright imo.
 
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Onoes

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Hey, so I have no idea about investing, and over the last 72 hours have watched something like 60 "investing for dummies" type videos. I typed up a huge thing here, erased it because I'm basically just giving a giant backstory thing that no one cares about, and I'll cut to the chase. A family member has asked me to invest $40,000 for them. I have basically no money invested in anything, and am not the person to ask, which I explained. They aren't looking to get it back for something like 20 years, and just kind of want to put it somewhere and forget about it. They were super interested in Bitcoin specifically, as they read somewhere that a single bitcoin could be worth millions in 10+ years, but again, I know nothing. (I talked my coworkers out of buying a bunch of Bitcoin in 2011 because it sounded insane to me, and thought it was the most obvious scam I had ever heard of... so yeah, historically I haven't been very forward thinking).

They assure me that if all the money disappears it won't be the end of the world or anything, but I genuinely don't imagine they will have a chunk of money like this again and I know I would forever feel like an asshole if I'm like "Sorry... lost it all, who knew Dickcoin would be so awesome?" My limited research right now tells me the S&P 500 is the way to go for a safe bet with smaller returns, but like I keep saying, I know nothing really.

Obviously no one here knows the future, but you lot are probably much more educated and may give some insight or point me at what to read/watch? Its crazy how much information there is, and how much of it just directly contradicts each other, or tosses in totally foreign concepts just when I start feeling like I'm getting some kind of general grasp (One guy went into wrapped Bitcoins last night, and how they are the only thing he would recommend then offered to sell you his classes on it.)

Anyway, what would you forum bros do?
 

Rajaah

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Hey, so I have no idea about investing, and over the last 72 hours have watched something like 60 "investing for dummies" type videos. I typed up a huge thing here, erased it because I'm basically just giving a giant backstory thing that no one cares about, and I'll cut to the chase. A family member has asked me to invest $40,000 for them. I have basically no money invested in anything, and am not the person to ask, which I explained. They aren't looking to get it back for something like 20 years, and just kind of want to put it somewhere and forget about it. They were super interested in Bitcoin specifically, as they read somewhere that a single bitcoin could be worth millions in 10+ years, but again, I know nothing. (I talked my coworkers out of buying a bunch of Bitcoin in 2011 because it sounded insane to me, and thought it was the most obvious scam I had ever heard of... so yeah, historically I haven't been very forward thinking).

They assure me that if all the money disappears it won't be the end of the world or anything, but I genuinely don't imagine they will have a chunk of money like this again and I know I would forever feel like an asshole if I'm like "Sorry... lost it all, who knew Dickcoin would be so awesome?" My limited research right now tells me the S&P 500 is the way to go for a safe bet with smaller returns, but like I keep saying, I know nothing really.

Obviously no one here knows the future, but you lot are probably much more educated and may give some insight or point me at what to read/watch? Its crazy how much information there is, and how much of it just directly contradicts each other, or tosses in totally foreign concepts just when I start feeling like I'm getting some kind of general grasp (One guy went into wrapped Bitcoins last night, and how they are the only thing he would recommend then offered to sell you his classes on it.)

Anyway, what would you forum bros do?

S&P 500 and Bitcoin.

As far as crypto goes, there are various altcoins that are varying degrees of promising: Ethereum and Polygon are tops IMO, Doge may have an astronomical rise if Elon takes over the world. However, it appears Bitcoin is the slow and steady wins the race way to go. Other coins make money quicker but also lose money quicker. Chasing the "get rich quick" stuff is a good way to get nowhere, like I did with Shiba.
 

Rajaah

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Rajaah Update: Been swinging Bitcoin back and forth and making slow profits. Nowhere near what I had in October but it's consistently moving up. I buy in the 30's and sell in the 40's. Last run was buying at 37k and selling at 48k which was a bullseye. Waiting for mid 30's now. There's gonna come a point where it breaks through and heads up to a new ATH and I just have to be sure to not jump off early when we're on that climb. The 37-48 climb was when Russia was buying a ton of Bitcoin which of course probably wasn't gonna last or kickstart a legitimate climb to the 60's. Going by past trends, it's usually late Fall where it jumpstarts, so by then I'll hang onto whatever I've got.
 

Flobee

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Obviously no one here knows the future, but you lot are probably much more educated and may give some insight or point me at what to read/watch? Its crazy how much information there is, and how much of it just directly contradicts each other, or tosses in totally foreign concepts just when I start feeling like I'm getting some kind of general grasp (One guy went into wrapped Bitcoins last night, and how they are the only thing he would recommend then offered to sell you his classes on it.)

Anyway, what would you forum bros do?
S&P 500 is the smart move.

I'm very bullish on Bitcoin, and in your position would invest some % of that money there, but I've also put the time in to understand why I feel like its a safe bet. That being said I haven't put more than 10% of my own mother's money there, mostly due to time horizon and her own comfort. If I wanted to invest outside of just the S&P 500 a small percentage into Bitcoin would be where I would go.

Any nonsense with other crypto currencies is most likely leading you to lose your money. This includes any system that is 'wrapping' bitcoin. There will be other winners in the space I'm sure, but due to a number of factors I don't think that is predictable, and the amount of scams is mind numbing. Bitcoin has a real chance to become the next world reserve currency due to its characteristics, and that is the value proposition there.

Since you posted here I'll provide some resources to help you understand Bitcoin. Note that understanding what Bitcoin is, and why we need it requires quite a bit of contextual knowledge so it can take a lot of research to fully understand. The basics aren't too hard to grasp though.

Its hard to select the 'best' resources and I still haven't come up with a great starter kit, but below should be helpful.

Good general resource. Lots of links to articles/videos explaining all sorts of things

More from same resource, more general Bitcoin information:

One of my favorite "Why we need Bitcoin" videos:
(Andreas is a weird dude, I know)

Rather long series about investing in the current environment from a former banker turned Bitcoiner. There are 4 of these total.

Last but not least is simply the Bitcoin whitepaper. Its 9 pages, outlines the technical details but is still readable and fully explains what it is and why its been created.
 

Onoes

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Awesome, thanks for the info, I'll get to absorbing it! It's funny because my whole life I've been very "I'm not going to invest, I'm going to spend my money now while I can enjoy it! Who even knows if I'll live to see a retirement?".... but I'm 42 now, have a well paying job and could easy save/invest, I've just never been interested in looking into it. The more I'm reading/watching, the more I'm like "Why am I not doing this?", so this kind of worked out. The more I learn, the more stupid I feel for not doing this 10 years ago. So, looks like this whole situation is probably putting me on a better path too.

Thanks again!
 
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Flobee

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Central African Republic announced Bitcoin as legal tender. Panama has given 'crypto' legal status with zero capital gains tax (tender without mandating vendors accept it). That's 3 countries now... probably nothing