Bitcoins/Litecoins/Virtual Currencies

BrutulTM

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Right now coins are still being released into the system.. until 2022 or something, but the majority are here, and dividing BTC among 7billion inhabitants (if BTC ever becomes a "standard") means it will be a very valuable asset.

That will never happen if people are hoarding it and trading it to make a profit. And I wouldn't bet on artificial scarcity when you can just start a new similar currency whenever you want assuming it does eventually become something that people want to use.

As someone that deals in actual commodities, I have often wished that the Wall Street people would just invent some imaginary commodity to gamble on and stop fucking with the price of livestock and grain so maybe I'm getting my wish with this stuff.
 

Arative

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I would imagine a lot of the price drop in bitcoin is tied to the futures contracts and people shorting those.
 

Ravishing

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That will never happen if people are hoarding it and trading it to make a profit. And I wouldn't bet on artificial scarcity when you can just start a new similar currency whenever you want assuming it does eventually become something that people want to use.

"just create a new coin" lol.

Simple to say, but not so easy in reality. You need the mining infrastructure in place to support the new coin, otherwise it's never going to be taken seriously, and always skepticism behind the "developer" of whatever new coin. You need the payment platforms setup and so much more too.

You can't just dismiss the 6+ years of growth BTC has had in terms of popularity, infrastructure, support, etc.

I predict 2-3 very popular cryptocurrencies long-term. BTC being 1 for sure, time will tell on the others.

And EVERY fiat currency is artificial as well, but with Govt backing, so saying BTC is "artificial scarcity" blah blah, whatever. At least with BTC everyone knows the cap and only way to change it would be changing the structure/protocol which would split the coin entirely and wouldn't be BTC, it'd be BTC-Infinity, or whatever, and BTC with the 21million cap would still exist.

So yes & no, it's artificial because it's 1s and 0s, but it's not artificial because it's actually hard coded and can't be changed. Unlike fiat.
 

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
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iwl7vz69cea01.gif
 
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BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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You can't just dismiss the 6+ years of growth BTC has had in terms of popularity, infrastructure, support, etc.

Of course not, but if the price or stability is enough of a problem that there isn't enough to meet demand, someone will start a new version which will reduce the demand for BTC and bring the price down. That's just how markets work. Right now the demand is zero though. No one is buying it to use as currency. Assuming that demand will exist in the future is just speculation.
 

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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It's the peaks that don't make sense The price has nothing to do with the actual value of the tech, it's a classic speculative bubble.

Buffett on cryptocurrencies: 'I can say almost with certainty that they will come to a bad ending'

But of course the most successful investor in the history of the world doesn't know what's going on. He's old and dumb according to all the bitcoin geniuses who lucked out on one long shot and then weren't smart enough to get out when they should have and are now fixated on the number that was in their theoretical bank account for about 5 minutes last December and are going to keep dreaming of that until they have nothing left.
Came to post this. "The dips don't make sense!" but yet somehow the massive upswings in price do?
 

Ravishing

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Came to post this. "The dips don't make sense!" but yet somehow the massive upswings in price do?
First of all, I'm not "omfg shocked!!!".

I'm saying that if you actually buy it for the core tech, the massive decline is nonsensical just because "omfg regulations!".

It's an emotional dip.

I know that these things happen because of market factors, but my point is that the future is still bright and not to be emotional just because it's down 25%.

I am a long term investor and don't get caught up in the minute-by-minute swings.

Edit: This is exactly what I said and I stand by it
"If you're a believer in the tech then the dips don't make sense."
 

Torrid

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The price is now where it was two months ago.

Bitcoin has tremendous value as a 'new asset class' as enthusiasts like to say. It has properties that nothing else has, so direct comparisons cannot be made. You can easily argue that it's not worth X or Y dollars per coin, but you can't argue that it's worthless.

Gold has value far beyond its utility as a metal as well, and Buffet also criticizes goldbugs. With bitcoin, you can at least use it to buy things more easily than using a credit card with far more privacy. High fees will be temporary.
 

James

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Looks like it's bouncing back, but we'll see. Does anyone know what triggered this? Can't believe a whale or two could trigger a ~$400 billion drop in the total market cap.
 

vGrade

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None of you guys have any idea wtf is going on. I just sit here and popcorn making money.

Its the same crash that has happened these few weeks every year for the last 5 fucking years. So many soft hands. New investors giving money to the elite.

Edit: Arative knows whats up
 
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vGrade

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Looks like it's bouncing back, but we'll see. Does anyone know what triggered this? Can't believe a whale or two could trigger a ~$400 billion drop in the total market cap.
Could be a bulltrap. Hard to tell
 

Torrid

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I'm also fairly significantly long at this point. Money, mouth etc. Unfortunately I had a position at 13.5k already for the past month and that was using up much of my equity.

If it drops to a new bottom again, I expect heavy buy pressure at 8k since that's the number I see traders throwing around a lot. (probably because of Novogratz's tweet)
 

Khane

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Yes, and the institutions in question have to buy into XRP and hold XRP which they may not want to do and very well may choose to use the Ripple settlement system with fiat currency and eat the extra transaction costs instead. There are a lot of "ifs" when it comes to a company being willing to bet on XRP in the amounts necessary to be able to use it as their transactional intermediary currency.

Ripple's biggest hurdle right now is the fact that the developers hold way too much of the currency. The lower transaction costs aren't enough to offset that risk at the moment in my opinion. They are going to need to do something about that.

I'd like to see Ripple go public.
 

Heylel

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I've only got $1k in ETH and that's basically it. It seems to be flattening out a tad higher than when I first bought in, so I'm tempted to go ahead and sink another $1k.
 

vGrade

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I've only got $1k in ETH and that's basically it. It seems to be flattening out a tad higher than when I first bought in, so I'm tempted to go ahead and sink another $1k.
I dont understand this. You can make more money gambling on a scam coin that you can with your 1 ETH. I mean fuck I made 1k dollars between the first and last post on this page. What is it you think your 1 eth is going to do? I would rather sell that for 2k Stellar Lumens and guarentee a profit.

EDIT. Unless im reading this wrong and you have 1000 Ethereums which in case congrats!!
 

Ravishing

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I dont understand this. You can make more money gambling on a scam coin that you can with your 1 ETH. I mean fuck I made 1k dollars between the first and last post on this page. What is it you think your 1 eth is going to do? I would rather sell that for 2k Stellar Lumens and guarentee a profit.

EDIT. Unless im reading this wrong and you have 1000 Ethereums which in case congrats!!

typical alt coiner.

if he bought it early he might have 2-3 eth, or maybe he's breakeven with 1 eth, but if it goes back to 1300, making 33% is still great and a lot less risky. Not everyone is willing to gamble on the alt coins.