Bitcoins/Litecoins/Virtual Currencies

I still have 4 bitcoin I'm holding on too, just waiting for the next huge bubble to sell and then walk away. I stopped mining a while ago, even with free electricity, it wasn't worth it.

I figure the next halfing in 2020 will lead to a price spike

BrutulTM said:

If something happened in the past, that definitely means that it's going to happen again.

Investing in something that has absolutely no fundamentals and is 100% based on fear, greed, and irrational exuberance sounds awesome.

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No fundamentals? The idea behind the software is sound, and investment institutions are even trying to create their own versions if for nothing else but to increase transaction speed while lowering costs. The volatility of BTC in particular in based on fear, greed and irrational exuberance, sure. But the principles behind it are not. And new tech will spawn from it as well.

I expect we will see something come out of it in the form of specific, targeted transactional currencies rather than any real, meaningful digital currency. Something akin to Paypal. Ripple is sort of trying to do this but I think they are failing by pushing XRP on institutions who may otherwise be willing to use their platform. People love the convenience of digital payments, we already see it in pseudo crypto currencies as simple as your various fast food apps. It isn't an actual crypto currency but you are loading money into these apps that you can only spend at specific outlets simply for convenience and maybe some bonus points. People love this and it's already proven. So if a company like Amazon decided to create something like Amacoin and created a reward system around it, and then branched out to try to get other outlets to accept the payment as well? I think that is how we will see crypto start to really gain traction as a consumer driven currency rather than just a value store or shelter.

Ravishing said:

Crypto isn't going anywhere. I expect we'll see a decline over the holidays, which has been typical, then a bump up in jan/feb.

Last time crypto/bitcoin spiked, it went to 1k then dropped back to 100-200 and stayed there a couple years until last years spike to 19k.

Crypto is still growing roots, markets will rise and fall, but over long term it's most likely to rise. It will also depend which coins "make it" .

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I was saying it last year when everyone was buying it, but "crypto" as a speculative asset is a fools game. Sure, you may make some money on it, but it defeats the entire purpose of a means of exchange. Until people stop trying to make money with it, it's doomed to failure.

Harp on all you want about how the back end technology is revolutionary, fine, but stop hyping up all these worthless coins as the next big thing. As long as you can magic a new coin into existence with nothing backing it except people pumping it up, it's still worthless.

That said, in the year since it became trendy, I've found out that the whole idea that it's "super awesome" because it's anonymous and whatnot is all bullshit too. I'm tempted to say that you were all lied to about the technology and all the fancy "features" you think it has aren't even grounded in reality.

You seem to be thinking about it purely from an investment standpoint and not from a technology standpoint. Not sure what to tell you about that.

Ohio is allowing taxes to be paid in Bitcoin
Ohio 'rolls out the red carpet' for blockchain businesses by accepting bitcoin this tax season

What I don't understand is what does blockchain have to do with the value of Bitcoin? Can't I just make a different blockchain application that suits my transactional needs if I'm a bank?

You could use blockchain to track your bank's assets, yes, but they're still physical assets, so you can always verify them for real. It may still be a better way of handling your business, but it's not predicated on the same need. The necessity of blockchain to bitcoin is because bitcoins don't exist in outside of code, so it needs to be very high fidelity, auditable, etc. so I can't magic bitcoins into existence and introduce them to the economy. Then getting so its accepted and painlessly transactable trillions of times while remaining high fidelity is a trick.

Blockchain as a method/tool and crypto as a currency are separate things, but most of the blockchain talent is invested in making crypto a successful concept.

If all it took to be money was having an interesting bit of technology.... money is a lot more than a transaction.

Bitcoins will never be anything except a libertarians pipe dream until it is guaranteed by a government and thereby a military force. You know the saying perfectly well. Money is power. When you're talking about it on this abstract of a level money is literally the ability to project force.

At best you're looking at being co-opted. I mean shit, you already have been. The FBI owns most of the bitcoins anyway. There may come a point in the future where the US Government -does- guarantee some version of bitcoins. But it's not gonna be anonymous when they do, man.

Honestly, it makes more sense to buy gold or gold certificates.

And that doesn't make a whole lot of sense either.

BrutulTM said:

When I say fundamentals, I mean that you are buying something of value. I don't give a fuck about the technology that's used to create bitcoin. That's NOT what you're investing in. You're investing in the currency itself, which is just plain bullshit. You guys are talking about it like you're buying one of those falling down Chinese skyscrapers and telling me "Dude, these were built with the best, most high tech, machinery known to man!". Who cares, you're buying the shitty building, not the top of the line excavators and bulldozers that were used to build it.

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Hrmmm. There aren't many zealots here for the coins themselves. The tech is what interests me and seeing how it evolves is why I still pay attention at all to the crypto markets. I have a very small investment in GBTC and that's it. Most of the discussion here lately seems to revolve around blockchain and it's implications rather than buying or selling coins.