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Bitcoin for pinball

Tulips 2.0

How anyone can talk about cryptocurrencies, particularly BTC, as viable currencies when the general advice seems to be to "hold on and ride out the latest massive slump" on a regular basis is beyond me. Fiat currency is not an investment, it's... a currency.

There is little evidence to suggest cryptocurrencies are making any headway into actually becoming viable alternatives to fiat, quite the contrary many entities are finding themselves forced to back out of accepting it due to its crippling transaction fees and ridiculous volatility. In fact, all the attention right now is on these things as investment vehicles, which is the antithesis of what a currency is.

When you strip away its value as a currency - i.e. something that actually flows - you're basically left with Emperor's New Clothes, a load of people in an echo chamber who subscribe to Confirmation Bias Monthly agreeing that something is valuable because, well, it just is. It's not even a "store of value" when you're talking huge volatility over the span of several hours.

A Guardian article I read said it best - cryptocurrencies right now are like a cure for cancer where the recipe is open sourced, with BTC being one trademarked brand. What value does CancerCure™ have when there will be another 100 different brand names all delivering the same benefit tomorrow? Right now the hype seems to be purely based on the notion that "cryptocurrencies are the future", which feels precipitous at best. Cryptocurrencies as a concept might survive, and in the short term there will be people who make money on BTC and the like - fuelling the gold rush, but there will be vastly more people who lose their shirt believing it to be an bonafide "get rich scheme" for woke folks only that has miraculously passed all the old school investor brigade by.

Hope no one here is overexposed, and no offence intended to anyone :)
 
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It's best to stay away from mainstream media and research things properly to understand it. The cryptocurrencies we have now themselves may not be the future of currecny, but what's important is the Blockchain technology behind them. Blockchain is litterally the most significant invention (or discovery) in the last 100 years at least. It's going to change everything. In fact, there are already projects and companies well underway using it to power new systems and platforms - everything from decentralised video streaming, to gaming, to banking (yes, banks are now interested in implimenting blockchain), even insurance. There's even a decentralised internet system on the way which will completely remove the need for ISP's and will totally eliminate government control - look up Substratum.

Here are 5 blockchain developments coming in 2018 - https://www.coindesk.com/5-blockchain-developments-coming-2018/

Even Goldman Sachs are getting in on it so that says a lot!

Bitcoin I don't think will ever serve as a real world currency, although there are already platforms which allow you to make purchases with a bitcoin debit card so who knows, but it's more a store of value - like digital gold. When you exchange and buy in to alt coins or tokens, you use bitcoins, not USD or GBP. Ultimately, anyone who's in to crypto wants to acquire more Bitcoin and that's a trend which will continue. Add to this the lowering fees and when the lightning network comes fully onboard, things will change a bit more.

Bare in mind also that ALL of the internet giants are looking to implement some form of cryptocurrency payment system right now, and when that happens, which it will at some point in 2018 - be it Amazon or eBay, then things will really start to take off.

We've already past the point of no return on crypto, it's here to stay.
 
LOL stay away from mainstream media etc - thats what scammers usually say, Not saying that crypto is a scam but all of its value is based upon sentiment rather than tangible assets.

We offer several blockchain services to customers already and as you note "the wealthy dicks on wall street manipulating the market to suit themselves" (which is most of our pension funds BTW) - in my view Crypto currency is exactly a manipulation because its based on sentiment and you can affect it upwards or downwards (go read about Soros and the pound). Lots of people are saying it will rise but alot are saying the opposite. Merchant Banks are getting into it means very little, because merchant banks and investment institutions are into _everything_. Until someone pins a liquidisable asset value to crypto currency then its still a high risk venture.

Cheers,
Neil.
 
In my very humble opinion, there's a reason why bitcoin's all time graph is a very similar shape as the "stages of a bubble" image that you can google. Maybe with lightning or whatever, bitcoin will one day be useful but right now, it's just greater fool stuff.

"Blockchain is litterally the most significant invention (or discovery) in the last 100 years at least."
I would have to respectfully disagree with that one.
 
I think there is some hyperbole in Pete's post, but there's not much incorrect. Blockchain technologies do solve the puzzle of establishing trust between anonymous parties. The scope of usefulness for that application is seeing it being adopted in numerous industries. Just yesterday for example IBM and Maersk announced a partnership to use blockchain to simplify the tracking of shipments across continents. We're also seeing companies like Moneygram using Ripple because funds can be moved anywhere in the world within 4 seconds for minimal costs.

That's just two examples, but there are hundreds of technologies using this right now to solve real world problems. So there is a tangible value to the technology and the services that use it.

The value people assign to these currencies right now is pure speculation, based on the hope that other people will also find value in the currency. Same as other speculative investments, such as gold. This is only right now however, as in the longer term it has the potential to be more valuable. I heard an analogy recently that compared it to the telephone. If you're the only person with a telephone it has little value, but as more and more people get involved it becomes more useful and hence more valuable.
 
The fact that so many people here have heard of and are getting excited about cryptocurrencies is a very good indication that the market for them is overheating, not withstanding the recent large falls. It's easy to think you are smart or even an expert when you make money in a rising market, but its when the market really tanks after the bubble bursts that you find out who the smart people really are.
 
Mfresh said:
The fact that so many people here have heard of and are getting excited about cryptocurrencies is a very good indication that the market for them is overheating, not withstanding the recent large falls. It's easy to think you are smart or even an expert when you make money in a rising market, but its when the market really tanks after the bubble bursts that you find out who the smart people really are.
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The crypto market is still tiny, even though it's peak was about 830bn a couple of weeks ago this is still only a fraction of the world population who have got in on it. I think when we hit 10 to 20 trillion market cap then it'll be far more serious. But the problem most people have is they buy at all time high's when crypto is hitting the news, and then when a dip comes shortly after they panic sell, losing money.

All coins took a beating the last couple of weeks, it was down to 420bn earlier today but within the last few hours over 100bn has been pumped back in. Recoveries happen quick. Anyone who bought coins around lunchtime today will have made a lot of money in the last few hours. Some coins are up 80%! It's crazy!
 
Wizcat said:
I think there is some hyperbole in Pete's post, but there's not much incorrect. Blockchain technologies do solve the puzzle of establishing trust between anonymous parties.
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until someone can crack the crypto - which isn't that far away - hence focus on quantum key distro.
 
Neil McRae said:
until someone can crack the crypto - which isn't that far away - hence focus on quantum key distro.
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Would also require the majority (51%) of miners to be malicious and controlled by same individual

I think if you've got that kind of computing power attacking the network there are all sorts of troubles to worry about.
 
Neil McRae said:
until someone can crack the crypto - which isn't that far away - hence focus on quantum key distro.
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Wait.. How would quantum key distribution help? There isn't any key to be distributed on the blockchain network?

I presumed your theoretical attack was on the proof of work hash algorithm?
 
In the specific current block chain design it wouldn’t help on its own, the compute power required isn’t that far away (I chuckle at all the suckers who think they are secure using a VPN h0h0h0)

As a potential hedger I’m only interested in destabilisation.

Neil


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
PeteB said:
Ripple can do one! Sold all mine when I found out it was a centralised currency. No one needs that, also the recent news about them being able to freeze accounts and lock up funds really hurt the price. It goes against everything crypto stands for, and I'll never put any more money into a crypto which is backed by a government or bank.

I'm in about 25 different coins at the moment, sold off most of my Bitcoin but still holding about 10% of my portfolio because I use it for trading. I'm absolutely obsessed with Cryptocurrency now I think it's amazing.

Recently joined a group of traders who offer signals for buying and selling, and got a semi-auto/manual trading bot to work with the signals so now I just hand over instructions from my phone. Don't even need to sit around on the exchanges watching charts all day.

So far so good, getting around 30% profits per week. Love it!
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Read their website. They are moving from centralised to decentralised. The only way they can support the transaction times is by initially being centralised. That's why Bitcoin is **** and can take hours/days.
 
Who buckled and lost out in the 56 hour blood bath that just occured? All the whales are placing fake news and all the n00bz are panic selling. Price crashes and then it all gets gobbled up.
 
Alpha1 said:
Who buckled and lost out in the 56 hour blood bath that just occured? All the whales are placing fake news and all the n00bz are panic selling. Price crashes and then it all gets gobbled up.
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I'm sitting tight and hoping the believers are right, in for a penny and all that (and it's really not many pennies for me). I do have a nagging suspicion that it is about to burst though.
 
Alpha1 said:
Read their website. They are moving from centralised to decentralised. The only way they can support the transaction times is by initially being centralised. That's why Bitcoin is **** and can take hours/days.
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Yeah but they're still doing too much business with banks for my liking. Most of the positive news about Ripple seems to come from optimistic speculators.

People are free to invest in projects they believe in, but I won't be touching Ripple. Personally, I want to see the end of banks and the entire banking system. Cryptocurrency allows (or will allow) every individual to be their own bank, and I think that's amazing.

Alpha1 said:
Who buckled and lost out in the 56 hour blood bath that just occured? All the whales are placing fake news and all the n00bz are panic selling. Price crashes and then it all gets gobbled up.
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insx said:
I'm sitting tight and hoping the believers are right, in for a penny and all that (and it's really not many pennies for me). I do have a nagging suspicion that it is about to burst though.
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I've been hodling like my life depended on it haha! It's the only way!

I did get one coin in the green last night which allowed me to sell and move in to NEO - been itching to get a bag of NEO for ages. Rest of my portfolio is slowly coming back up, so lets hope the bumpy ride is over now.
 
Alpha1 said:
Who buckled and lost out in the 56 hour blood bath that just occured? All the whales are placing fake news and all the n00bz are panic selling. Price crashes and then it all gets gobbled up.
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it was a glorious night! Couldn't have predicted it more perfectly. Next month predict another bloodbath.

Neil.
 
ianw said:
Sold my bit coins yesterday, just under 8k price, felt it a was peak, looking to get back in soon
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Did you get back in? How is everyone doing? Any predictions for when the pullback occurs this time around?
 
What are peoples thoughts this time round. Seems a little different this time round with corporate investors coming in.
 
Aren't PayPal dabbling in it now too?

I've bought up some pretty ammounts of XLM and LTC so waiting to see what happens with them. Got a good return on BTC this year are I bought a bit around the start of the year.

Not making huge money on it but I've enough to buy a new "old" pin now so I'm happy haha
 
Worth looking into the Akash token AKT. The Akash cloud looks promising and you can get 48% interest staking. Token currently at £0.60 with tiny market cap. Looks like a promising one to hold when you look at the team behind it and what they plan to do in the Cloud market place by undercutting AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
 
I took a massive punt on Ripple and moved probably 90% of what I had into it ... just before the SEC announced their lawsuit and it tanked hard. I still think Ripple will make a significant comeback, though it might take a year or two for that lawsuit to get resolved.

During the tank I put a bit into ETH and BTC, so that's helping recoup some of the losses
 
As long as your not putting the house on it all this crypto stuff is a decent punt. Ripple will probably make a comeback though I agree
 
I was lucky and got out of XRP at £0.35 when the SEC news broke. I got in at £0.19 so was lucky. Only a small amount, but up which is nice. Moved it to the AKT token.
 
RobZombie said:
Cryptocurrency probably isn't going anywhere, but the banks will be forced to release their own version(s) to render Bitcoin and other unregulated currency obsolete. Something will certainly happen sooner than later.

I know a number of people who bought Bitcoin years ago...none of which are millionaires or could in any way be described as wealthy. Inexplicable.
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I agree with this guy.
 
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