What is Celsius?

[tecate]

To add to what tecate wrote, there's another important point to note. No one will be diluting my bitcoin holding, or taking any of it to cover any losses related to Celsius. The issue is between Celsius and their customers.

Absolutely - there are no bailouts in crypto.

But historically such events as Celsius have tended to matter little in the long run for bitcoin.

In calling this a couple of years in advance of it happening, Long claimed that all it would serve to do is reinforce and strengthen Bitcoin. Many Celsius 'investors' are more likely to be pursuing casino coins than fully appreciating what Bitcoin brings to the table.

These types of products are available within DeFi on a non-custodial basis but they're not in any way user friendly yet. Either they will benefit if they get the product offering right and/or Bitcoin benefits as people learn that there's power in the asset being self custodied and additional yield isn't a risk worth taking.

Off topic for this thread, but to me the far more interesting conversation to be had is about the macro picture - rising rates during a time of record government debt. June US inflation coming in at a new high of 8.6% despite the rate hike already, and people leaving stocks and bitcoin for a dollar that's losing that much to inflation. How long will people be happy to sit out in dollars? are we facing stagflation? will the government pressure the Fed to ease off as election time approaches?

The macro picture is wild. It would have been far easier to work out how Bitcoin plays out with the last 10 years macro. What we have in front of us right now makes the whole thing impossible to figure out (and Bitcoin is the least of it). Anyone interested in that would also be interested in Drukenmiller's interview that I linked to in the previous post.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

@tecate Van Ecke is defining "inflation" of bitcoin as the change in its supply. He's entitled to define inflation any way he wants but the common definition is the one Brendan has linked to - the change (specifically the fall) in the purchasing power of a currency. For sure Caitlin starts talking about the same "inflation" as Van Ecke but then compares it to the completely different inflation of common usage the 8-9% currently applying to the dollar, showing a shocking level of ignorance for one with such credentials. But she can be excused for a central dogma of the cult is that Van Ecke's definition of inflation is the same as the common definition. Reminds one of how great minds can hold the most implausible religious beliefs.
Milton Friedman once said that "inflation is always and everywhere a function of the supply of a currency". Meaning that increased supply fuels inflation. So does bitcoin turn Milton on his head? 300% increase in supply since 2020 but a zillion% deflation. 1.7% current rate of supply increase but inflation running at c. 20% per day.
Not at all. The key is that Milton is talking about a currency, a medium of exchange for which the rate of exchange with real goods and services is the be all and end all. Bitcoin is not and never was a currency qua medium of exchange as was intended by its creator. It is and always was a speculative bauble.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

It's as plain as day that her comments were in the specific context of the circulatory supply of bitcoin - and how Bitcoin's monetary policy in that respect is coded in to the digital currency.

tecate

I just looked at what she said in the video. And you may have heard something else. But she used the word "inflation" to mean the increase in the supply of Bitcoin.

I am worried for you. If you can't see that, it suggests that you are not critically evaluating comments on BTC due to your blind allegiance. That can only spell trouble.

She got it wrong. You should admit that and evaluate whether the rest of what she says is credible.

Brendan

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

Anyway, Caitlin's argument was outrageous. Holding bitcoin as an "asset" expected to lose value at 1.8% p.a. should be good enough for anyone, why chase yield? Is she serious? An expected loss of 1.8% per annum is adequate reward for holding an "asset" whose volatility/risk is off the Richter scale And she was 10 years heading Morgan Stanley's pension business

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

So now the cult is blaming bitcoin's woes on the macro situation. I thought bitcoin was meant to save us from Armageddon; this should be its day in the sun.

 

[DazedInPontoon]

So now the cult is blaming bitcoin's woes on the macro situation. I thought bitcoin was meant to save us from Armageddon; this should be its day in the sun.

Well yes, this is why it's interesting.

 

[DazedInPontoon]

Holding bitcoin as an "asset" expected to lose value at 1.8% p.a

Here's how I think about it. For the simplest case if supply of bitcoin is increasing at 1.8% and to exclude other factors we assume 0 net change in bitcoin adoption, and a dollar inflation rate of 0, then bitcoin should lose value against the dollar at 1.8%.

If we change one parameter in that scenario, for example say the dollar is losing value at 8%, then bitcoin should increase 6.2% against the dollar.

So does bitcoin turn Milton on his head? 300% increase in supply since 2020 but a zillion% deflation.

No because the variable in the equation that led to this was that the net change in adoption was massive, increasing by orders of magnitude in a decade.

 

[tecate]

@tecate Van Ecke is defining "inflation" of bitcoin as the change in its supply. He's entitled to define inflation any way he wants but the common definition is the one Brendan has linked to - the change (specifically the fall) in the purchasing power of a currency.

I just looked at what she said in the video. And you may have heard something else. But she used the word "inflation" to mean the increase in the supply of Bitcoin.

Indeed she did Brendan - and as per the Duke, that's perfectly fine.

Milton Friedman once said that "inflation is always and everywhere a function of the supply of a currency". Meaning that increased supply fuels inflation

Friedman and Long are on precisely the same page. And its with a nod to Friedman that she tried to link and reference the 1.77% inflation in the circulatory supply of Bitcoin to the monetary phenomenon that Friedman is talking about relative to the US dollar. But how can she do that? With Bitcoin we know precisely what the circulatory supply is. With the US dollar (or euro, etc), we have NO EARTHLY IDEA - from one second to the next. We have to wait for the high priests to hold their FOMC meetings and declare if they're turning on or turning off the tap. That's what she was referencing and those were her intentions. You know this well - and it's bad bloody-mindedness that you've raised this and taken the thread completely off topic.

Bitcoin is not and never was a currency qua medium of exchange as was intended by its creator. It is and always was a speculative bauble.

And with every passing day of these discussions, the realities you're so desperately clinging to are changing. Within the past ten days:
Deloitte: 85% of US merchants surveyed say enabling crypto payments is high priority
PayPal lets users transfer Bitcoin and Ethereum to external wallets
Lummis Gillibrand crypto bill will allow $200 exemption to facilitate crypto payments

I am worried for you. If you can't see that, it suggests that you are not critically evaluating comments on BTC due to your blind allegiance. That can only spell trouble.

She got it wrong. You should admit that and evaluate whether the rest of what she says is credible.

See above Brendan. And as regards the 'critical evaluation' charge, that's a riot. You have not been a neutral in these discussions since the outset. You have repeatedly refused to acknowledge that there is a non-negligible prospect that Bitcoin continues to develop. You can believe that Bitcoin can ultimately fail and that its failure is the most likely outcome. However, to not acknowledge that outside possibility when it has been developing at pace in the five years you've been pushing back against it - demonstrates a complete lack of critical evaluation, terminating in a zero credibility conclusion.

What the Duke has gone on with is completely off topic. What Long mentioned - when considered in the context she sets it in - is entirely on topic. I pointed this out - but on we go - because I was right on the money from the get go i.e. the Duke looked for any old angle to discredit for the sake of it - and if that mean't taking Long's comments out of context, that was perfectly fine. There's your 'blind allegiance' to 100x'ing down on a position and belief of how the world works and how the likes of Bitcoin couldn't possibly work or belong.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

Here's how I think about it. For the simplest case if supply of bitcoin is increasing at 1.8% and to exclude other factors we assume 0 net change in bitcoin adoption, and a dollar inflation rate of 0, then bitcoin should lose value against the dollar at 1.8%.

If we change one parameter in that scenario, for example say the dollar is losing value at 8%, then bitcoin should increase 6.2% against the dollar.

Well yeah, that's an explanation. Is that what Caitlin meant? Does anybody hold bitcoin with its massive volatility on that calculus? The vast majority are holding bitcoin as a speculation for untold riches not a boring 1.8% inflation versus fiat's targeted 2% inflation.

No because the variable in the equation that led to this was that the net change in adoption was massive, increasing by orders of magnitude in a decade.

Adoption? What exactly is that? Bitcoin soared to 70k last year; was adoption a factor? Is adoption in reverse responsible for current woes? Adoption as a medium of exchange has been negligible. So I presume you mean adoption as a speculative bauble. Milton was not referring to speculative baubles, he was referring to currencies as mediums of exchange.

@tecate Brendan asked questions in OP about what Celsius did. In the first reply, you show a video of a cult hero questioning why folk would want to earn any more than bitcoin's inbuilt inflationary slippage. Debatable whether that addressed OP but between the two, it does make subsequent critique of the cult hero's credibility on topic.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

"Those other guys are driven by profits, margins, bonuses, and their own bottom line. And while all of these things are perfectly reasonable motivating factors to achieve success in business, we at Celsius are driven by a deeper, broader mission in which success is measured by our external impact rather than our internal bottom line."

Boss this doesn't quite explain what "these guys" do but it does show that they are well intentioned good guys. And to be fair if their endeavours speed up the demise of crypto they will have done the human race a favour and achieved their deeper, broader mission.
This is more heart warming inspirational stuff:

"An economy where financial freedom doesn't come with a price tag. Where the interests of the people are put first. Where ethical behaviour is the baseline, and where everyone – and we mean everyone – has the opportunity to succeed financially. With a little bit of humanity and honesty, and the power of a digital currency that's as strong as it is accessible, we're ushering in the new economy today."

These guys issued their own coins and cashed in $1.6 billion as part of their mission. I mean who could begrudge folk with such noble aspirations a little bit of the evil mammon for themselves.

 

[DazedInPontoon]

This is apparently a fairly technical detailed description of what they were doing:

Coin Metrics' State of the Network | Substack

Crypto data for the decentralized economy. Click to read Coin Metrics' State of the Network, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

coinmetrics.substack.com

You can click the "Let Me Read It First" link to avoid signing up.

It starts with an overview:

Celsius posits itself as a “network” or “lender”, but in reality its market operations closely resemble that of a high-leverage hedge fund. User deposits are actively managed and deployed across DeFi lending platforms for its products to reach double-digit yields.

These DeFi lending markets enable liquidity providers to attain leverage by maintaining a Loan-To-Value (LTV) ratio called the collateralization ratio in DeFi lingo. When prices collapse and the market value of the collateral flirts with that ratio, lenders must provide more liquidity or the loan might be liquidated and leverage unwound.

 

[tecate]

Boss this doesn't quite explain what "these guys" do but it does show that they are well intentioned good guys. And to be fair if their endeavours speed up the demise of crypto they will have done the human race a favour and achieved their deeper, broader mission.
This is more heart warming inspirational stuff:

I think the schadenfreude might be clouding your judgement there a tad, Duke.
Over the longer stretch, all this will do is make the likes of Bitcoin stronger.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

I think the schadenfreude might be clouding your judgement there a tad, Duke.
Over the longer stretch, all this will do is make the likes of Bitcoin stronger.

Keep the faith

 

[tecate]

Keep the faith

Faith has nothing to do with it, Duke. We've seen this movie before. Misallocated capital gets rekt. Bad projects vapourise, Good projects tighten their belts, refocus and build out the tech.

'Faith' happens at 2pm EST when JP, your 'In God We Trust' high priest decides what way the wind is blowing.

 

[tecate]

Here's a recently published paper that underscores my point that Bitcoin is not going to be put down by this recent Celsius debacle:

How Brand Hive Minds Thrive: Understanding Bitcoin's Resilience

"Crises are often the moments that catapult decentralized brands into collective consciousness."

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

As [undefined] puts it, the hive mind “is irredeemably social, unabashedly of many minds,” but it “decides as a whole when to swarm and where to move. A hive possesses an intelligence that none of its parts does….”. The internet and the WWW have laid the infrastructure for the possibility of inscribing “human and artificial minds into one planetary soul” where “distributed, headless, emergent wholeness becomes the social ideal” [undefined]. The hive can collectively hold onto a memory longer than any individual node.

Now that’s a poke in the eye to doubters like me.

 

[newirishman]

Now that’s a poke in the eye to doubters like me.

Hive Intelligence. Sure.

Or as Terry Pratchett would have put it:

The IQ of a mob is the IQ of its most stupid member divided by the number of mobsters

 

[tecate]

Now that’s a poke in the eye to doubters like me.

I wouldn't be inclined to classify you as a 'doubter' Duke, given the absolute condescension on display here in early 2018 from you and others. The objective of the paper isn't to deal with someone's 'doubt' about Bitcoin generally (and it certainly can't deal with your condescension). It does investigate a line of thought surrounding Bitcoin's resilience though.

Hive Intelligence. Sure.

Or as Terry Pratchett would have put it:

The IQ of a mob is the IQ of its most stupid member divided by the number of mobsters

And yet Bitcoin has had shocks and adaptive cycles that have dealt with those shocks - only making it more robust all the while. You dismiss hive intelligence yet you're participating in it right now. Anything web2-related implicates hive intelligence. Web3 takes it a step further.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

@tecate's latest reading (#35) provides lots of pretentious and makey-up words (netnographic e.g.) to soothe the "faithful" (their term) in their hour of anguish (yep, good old schadenfreude).
The message that is drawn from the study of bees is that the bitcoin "brand" is resilient. A somewhat less ambitious objective than that of Satoshi.
I surely will concede that one, without having to bother about how bees socialise with each other. The bitcoin "brand" is here to stay, when kopykats like Ethereum and Ripple have long been forgotten. Bitcoin will head the pantheon of monuments to man's capacity to be seduced by cults and the desire to make fortunes; right up there with those other brands - the South Sea Bubble and Tulipmania.

 

[tecate]

@tecate's latest reading (#35) provides lots of pretentious and makey-up words (netnographic e.g.) to soothe the "faithful" (their term) in their hour of anguish (yep, good old schadenfreude).
The message that is drawn from the study of bees is that the bitcoin "brand" is resilient. A somewhat less ambitious objective than that of Satoshi.
I surely will concede that one, without having to bother about how bees socialise with each other. The bitcoin "brand" is here to stay, when kopykats like Ethereum and Ripple have long been forgotten. Bitcoin will head the pantheon of monuments to man's capacity to be seduced by cults and the desire to make fortunes; right up there with those other brands - the South Sea Bubble and Tulipmania.a

As regards the 'anguish', there's no anguish here. I'm on record as stating price would retrace the best part of a year ago already.

Go on then Duke - tell us we will never see $20,000 ever again. ( like you had done once before ).