Bitcoin - steer clear or not?

Sister Sara said:
The "boiling the oceans" is a euphemism of negative energy use of bitcoin. Here is an example of one of the more extreme headlines Bitcoin Is on Track to Consume All of the World’s Energy by 2020
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It is a an extreme headline alright and well qualified in the text. When leading economists predict a value of zero and the cult accepts that is a real possibility they are not talking "euphemistically", figuratively or for shock effect - they mean it. You are wrong to think these zero forecasts are in the same vein as "boiling the oceans".
Sister Sara said:
To date, opponents of Bitcoin have either been horribly wrong (as in the lost opportunity by persuading others not to buy)
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Ah! Those know all Nobel-laureates have robbed poor gullible folk of a life of leisure. I am not aware of any litigation seeking redress. Make no mistake; Bitcoin is worse than a Ponzi scheme in that it net destroys wealth - yes that electricity. When it goes to zero the later entrants will have transferred possibly trillions to the early cohorts.
I know the current American meme sees it as fashionable to rubbish the experts from the medical support for vaccination to scientific evidence of climate change to Nobel laureates stating unequivocally that Bitcoin is a massive self delusion. Maybe I'm a gullible old baby boomer but I don't apologise for trusting the views of experts in their fields. And yes I respect them for refusing to claim that they know the precise time of the denouement - they don't know. Compare this to RFK who not only rejects vaccination but predicts that in 10 years, no less. bitcoin (then in total MAGA control) will be worth more than all the World's stockmarkets put together.
 
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letitroll said:
Guthries' ransom demand is in Bitcoins for a reason
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Another case use for bitcoin albeit it for nefarious reasons.

Kidnapping and ransoms are occurrences long established before bitcoin existed so it would be unfair to credit it with such.

Can you address the point I made about bitcoin's impact on inducing the crytpo industry into existence and the impact it has had on tech, finance and US legislation?
 
letitroll said:
Guthries' ransom demand is in Bitcoins for a reason
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The Kidnappers Of Savannah Guthrie's Mom Want Bitcoin—But It’s Not As Anonymous As Many Think​

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Bitcoin isn't anonymous — investigators can trace every transaction on the blockchain​

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@Duke of Marmalade no disrespect but I appear to have triggered a somewhat ott reaction?

I'm suggesting that the extremists on both sides of the Bitcoin debate have been, wrong, wrong, wrong!

This is irrefutable.

As much as the $1m per coin, 15% of global transactions etc have failed to emerge, so have the ponzi, pyramid, fraud, return to zero claims.
This after 17yrs!

Duke of Marmalade said:
When it goes to zero the later entrants will have transferred possibly trillions to the early cohorts.
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Let me probe this a little. This infers that the early entrants are selling now or have sold their bitcoin? How else could the early entrants profit from the ponzi scheme without getting out before the collapse to zero? To do so, they must sell.

If the early(-ier) entrants are selling surely this would induce a massive price fall? Afterall, having bought at micro-prices relative to today they must have buckets of bitcoin?

One of the earliest entrants was the legendary Bitcoin pizza purchase (use case doubters take note). The 10,000 BTC for one pizza, or $700m pizza in todays prices.

Can I ask, if it were you that received that 10,000 BTC (assume you co-operated as a favour for a friend into his nerd-tech projects).
You receive 10000 BTC, transaction done at a cost to you in region of $41 at the time of the transaction.

As the price begins to increase how long before you offload the bitcoin from your phone wallet? Double, treble, quadruple the price?
I mean, surely when BTC hit $500 it would be time for you to cash in your chips for this ultimately worthless fad for a cool $5m?

Or is it reasonable to assume that most of the early purchasers of bitcoin have either left the field or at least, sold off significantly at this point?

If not, then at what price are they willing to sell? Going from $0.01 to $100,000 and still not selling would suggest they wont sell at any price. Therefore, when the crash to zero happens they will be left holding the buckets of bitcoin as much as anybody.

By any definition if an asset returns to zero then the holders will get burnt. This applies to any asset.
The fundamental flaw in your thinking is the concentration on price. Bitcoin will unlikely ever go to zero as long as bitcoin does what bitcoin does.
Unless someone invents a better bitcoin, or unless one day the bitcoin network is corrupted. Otherwise, to all intents and purposes it is not going away anytime soon.
 
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Sister Sara said:
no disrespect
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I welcome disrespect :)
Sister Sara said:
I'm suggesting that the extremists on both sides of the Bitcoin debate have been, wrong, wrong, wrong!
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Well extremists are (nearly) always wrong so I agree. But the view of the Nobels that bitcoin will go to zero has not been proven wrong.
Sister Sara said:
Let me probe this a little. This infers that the early entrants are selling now or have sold their bitcoin? How else could the early entrants profit from the ponzi scheme without getting out before the collapse to zero? To do so, they must sell.
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Well yeah. Let's say that bitcoin goes to zero tomorrow. Then the closing post mortem accounts will be as follows;
Winners
Miners profits
Early exits at a profit (we keep hearing of btc (m/b)illionaires)
Expenses especially on electricity.
Losers
early exits at a loss - these are probably in a minority
Existing holders

Losers will equal Winners - that’s basic accountancy

That's similar to Ponzi with the exception of the expenses
Note that there has been no wealth creation unlike the post mortem accounts of a bankrupt company.
Sister Sara said:
The fundamental flaw in your thinking is the concentration on price. Bitcoin will unlikely ever go to zero as long as bitcoin does what bitcoin does.
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I didn't follow much of your earlier argument but I have highlighted a key phrase above. Where’s @Purple when I need him?
What bitcoin does right now and has been doing for a very long time is hold out the possibility of effortless windfall profits. Once that possibility is no longer perceived to be valid bitcoin is dead. If it had achieved its original purpose and was a significant player in medium of exchange then yes that would be unlikely to disappear.
 
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Duke of Marmalade said:
What bitcoin does right now and has been doing for a very long time is hold out the possibility of effortless windfall profits.
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No it doesn't, as "windfall profits" are never mentioned in the Whitepaper, nobody has guaranteeing or promising "windfall profits".

These are the extreme views that to-date, have never materialised, so why not focus on what the Whitepaper (a proposal to fix a problem by providing a solution) actually says?

Anyone at any time can plug into the Bitcoin network a buy a portion of BTC with their fiat currency and at any time of their choosing they can plug out of the Bitcoin network by selling their BTC - ponzi schemes do not, cannot, function in that manner.

You have already admitted that BTC solves the double-spend problem.
Duke of Marmalade said:
It solved the "double spending" problem without needing a trusted custodian of the ledger. But it did not solve the need for a trusted custodian to anchor the ledger entry to real value.
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The second part of this is not clear to me. Am I reading correctly that the trusted custodian to 'anchor' the ledger could be a piece of government legislation confirming that it recognises BTC as legal tender? I may be misconsturing your point so would be grateful if you can explain what a trusted custodian is and how they anchor the ledger entry to 'real value'.
 
ClubMan said:
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i always hear this response as some waving of BTC as the KEY crime medium out there today - yet the criminals continue to use it as their preferred method for kidnapping, ransom & ransomware….so given these aren’t dummies one can only assume that bitcoin is superior to cash (which requires physically collecting it) or bank transfer which is indeed truly traceable given AML/KYC of regulated banks.

BTC may not be perfectly anonymous- but it must be anonymous enough cause every high profile kidnapping or IT ransomware attack has its ransom request in BTC,


Sister Sara said:
Can you address the point I made about bitcoin's impact on inducing the crytpo industry into existence and the impact it has had on tech, finance and US legislation?
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Yes bitcoins success launched thousands of imitators and thousands upon thousand of scams….its legacy has not been good.

As I’ve said cryptos penetration into tech is pitiful…it’s essentially non-existant….legislation should not be taken as some sign of success various scams and schemes (timeshares for example) got so big that they required legislation to be enacted and of course if you study the 2024 election you’ll see that the crypto ‘industry’ bought Donald Trump (running crypto casinos is hugely profitable and in America that equals access )
 
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Sister Sara said:
No it doesn't, as "windfall profits" are never mentioned in the Whitepaper,
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The Whitepaper set out one and only one purpose for bitcoin, as your posted extract so clearly shows; that is to act as a medium of exchange. With the exception of kidnappers it has singularly failed in that mission. What gives bitcoin a trillion dollar market cap is the belief that it will continue to provide windfall profits. That is a very tenuous grip on meaningful existence (for the price) as can be seen by the near trillion dollar wipe out in a matter of months.
Sister Sara said:
may be misconsturing your point so would be grateful if you can explain what a trusted custodian is and how they anchor the ledger entry to 'real value'.
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The best example are the Gold tokens. Gold tokens use blockchain technology to ensure the integrity of your digital entry without needing to trust the sponsor. The ledger itself is cyber tamper proof. But the fact that it represents ownership of gold relies on trusting the sponsor to stand by its promise to give physical gold in exchange for your digital token. Natoshi solved the problem of creating a cyber tamper proof distributed ledger but ignored the crucial link between these sacrosanct digital entries and real assets.
Stable coins are crypto space’s answer to this need for a link to real assets but they can’t avoid the need for trust in a sponsor such as Tether.
Project Agora is essentially about creating stable coins with the sponsor being a collection of major banks or indeed central banks.
 
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Duke of Marmalade said:
Stable coins are crypto space’s answer to this need for a link to real assets but they can’t avoid the need for trust in a sponsor such as Tether.
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Stable coins are just NFTs that link to a dollar bill instead of a jpg of an ape. It all depends of trust on the sponsor, as you say.
 
Fortune said:
You're saying holding BTC is a hedge against a collapse of EUR. Those assets also provide the same utility
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Yes, a use case for BTC. That is in fact what you are saying - "those assets also provide the same utility".
You have just provided a use case for bitcoin.
 
The title of this thread could just as easily have been...

"Gambling -steer clear or not*

Crypto currencies have been around for a long time now, and anyone who still thinks that they are anything but a market for gambling, with that market manipulated by the car big players, needs to open their eyes.

There's been endless posts made here and elsewhere online, so do some research...

Then, ask yourself, if betting on anything other than a win-loose-draw scenario (i.e. price rise, price drop or price stays the same), is a good idea.

Why not bet within the regulated gambling arena, instead. You can bet on a football result etc. there, and achieve the same thing, albeit with less potential for participating in a market believed to have criminal funds in use.
 
Fortune said:
That's exactly how ponzi schemes work. New entrants pay early leavers
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That's how ponzi schemes work, that is not how BTC works. New investors are free to exit BTC at any time taking profits or losses. There is no impetus for early investors to exit other than their own determination.

BTC has 21m units divisible to 100,000. Anyone can buy some BTC at any time they choose, and sell their BTC at any time they choose. Ponzi schemes do not, cannot operate that way.

I was advised of the virtues of the S&P 500 ETF. Im not familiar with these financial products so took a closer a look - my goodness! What an absolute casino!!

Here is a (very) small sample of stocks over the last few weeks that have plummeted in price. I've kept their names out for fear of reprimand but as you can see the market cap of these companies shows we are not dealing with penny stocks. The falls are huge yet somehow I am supposed to think BTC is volatile!

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Anyone betting on these ETF's are purely speculating. There is no 'investment', no substantive strategy, no analysis, no determination of which stocks will fall out of the S&P 500, which may enter the S&P 500.
Anyone advocating 'investing' in these ETF's are pure speculators.
It is pure speculation based on a hunch of passed performance. It is just handing your own money over to someone else to play with in the casino of the US stock markets. At least with BTC I determine my own input and exit.
 
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Sister Sara said:
Yes, a use case for BTC.
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You keep banging on about "use" cases.
Of course it has perceived "use" cases for some folk, why else would they be paying $65k* per unit.
The MSO** conducted a survey amongst 1,000 adults who admitted to purchasing bitcoin. The findings are very interesting.

988 said it was in the hope of making a big profit and quick; a significant subset of 187 said it was to get a deposit on a house;
6 said it was through ETFs to get a diversification play but no more that 2% of their portfolio (smart ass nerds:();
4 said it was insurance against Armageddon so that in that event they could laugh at all those suckers who relied on fiat;
2 said it was to buy latte from a slot machine they knew and would impress the girls; this was the closest to a medium of exchange use case.

Interestingly nobody admitted to using it for criminal purposes but then they wouldn't say that would they.

* correct at time of writing, This could be wildly different even a day later.
** MSO - Marmalade Statistics Office; the survey had a sampling error of 2.864% :(
 
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