BITCOIN

Zola.

I like looking at new stuff too. The problem is the incentive for honest, organic growth with crypto currency is long gone and it appears to have been a one time thing via Bitcoin. 

Now the knowledge of the crypto currency concept is out of the bag,  all new forks and tokens will have a large incentive from the owners to be corrupt / keep a massive stash for themselves.  Lots of speculation that Vitalik made Ethereum with the backing of JP Morgan and they kept 70% of the pre mine for themselves. I also see ETH as a massive risk, they have been chopping and changing their "roadmap" continuously and I dont think they will ever move from POW to POS without massive forks and messes. That along with everything else suggests to me that their platform is poorly designed and much too complicated to be able to properly scale. Just look at their gas fees...an absolute joke.

For me I am not looking to trade or gamble on alt coins, as I believe most of them to be worthless and long term its a recipe for disaster.

I see only one currency being discussed at a national state level, on wall street etc and its for good reason. 

Malthusian

To be fair to Vitalik et al, Satoshi Nakamoto also kept a massive stash for themself. They just lost the keys.

If Vitalik owns 70% of ETH it's in his interest not to destroy his paper wealth by trying to dump it all at once and crashing the market.

I see only one currency being discussed at a national state level, on wall street etc and its for good reason.

I agree. Kind of like how the daily newspapers always bang on about the gold price and only rarely about silver or platinum, even though all three are of roughly equal economic significance. Gold will always be a prettier colour. Bitcoin will always be the first crypto.

Zola.

Some (not very exciting) updates form the bitcoin conference happening now..

- Bitcoin is legal tender and tax free in Próspera, Guatemala 
- Bitcoin is tax free in Madeira, Portugal and they are bringing in very low corp taxes for bitcoin companies.  
- Senator proposes Bitcoin legal tender law in Mexico 

More announcements later..

Zola.

Jack Mallers continues to impress - his Lightning payment company Strike has partnered with major point of sale companies (e.g. NCR - 1 in 6 terminals in the world use NCR).

This means that now you can use any non custodial Lightning wallet to walk into all the major shops - the likes of Home Depot, McDonalds etc and spend your bitcoin, instant cash settlement. The merchant can choose to receive bitcoin or cash. This thoroughly destroys the narrative that you cant spend your bitcoin anywhere.. merchant fees are almost free also (vs Visa's 3% charge). 

This will setup a merchant war with the likes of Visa, Mastercard etc. Companies like Amazon will be looking to companies like Strike for integration so that they don't have to pay these fees. Open source systems win long term, closed systems will lose out.

Another small domino...

Scottex99

Zola. said:

Some (not very exciting) updates form the bitcoin conference happening now..

- Bitcoin is legal tender and tax free in Próspera, Guatemala 
- Bitcoin is tax free in Madeira, Portugal and they are bringing in very low corp taxes for bitcoin companies.  
- Senator proposes Bitcoin legal tender law in Mexico 

More announcements later..

Not sure if Madeira has any different regs/laws to Mainland Portugal but the mainland has no Cap Gains for crypto for the next 10 years from memory. They probably incentivise the setting up of companies, buying of properties with crypto too.

Gibraltar has no cap gains anyway and I'll think we'll see a few more smaller jurisdictions following suit (for crypto). Dubai. Bahamas etc. Estonia to some extent. Malta tried to become the "Blockchain Island" and Isle of Man was even before that. Those two latter ones were failed projects due to the local banks not wanting to support crypto transactions, there's been a bit more adoption there in last couple of years too

adamp87

Zola. said:

Jack Mallers continues to impress - his Lightning payment company Strike has partnered with major point of sale companies (e.g. NCR - 1 in 6 terminals in the world use NCR).

This means that now you can use any non custodial Lightning wallet to walk into all the major shops - the likes of Home Depot, McDonalds etc and spend your bitcoin, instant cash settlement. The merchant can choose to receive bitcoin or cash. This thoroughly destroys the narrative that you cant spend your bitcoin anywhere.. merchant fees are almost free also (vs Visa's 3% charge). 

This will setup a merchant war with the likes of Visa, Mastercard etc. Companies like Amazon will be looking to companies like Strike for integration so that they don't have to pay these fees. Open source systems win long term, closed systems will lose out.

Another small domino...

Will it though? I don’t know Strike but are there not still high fees and such involved?

and using Bitcoin for a McDonalds seems a more expensive way of paying for a McDonalds taking fees into account? Or are there zero?

wirh the value of Bitcoin as it is, I think it’s much harder to get people to use it as a normal payment coin currently.

Most likely if I have just £5 in BTC it will be worth more next year, so why use it on a Big Mac? 

Zola.

adamp87 said:

Zola. said:

Jack Mallers continues to impress - his Lightning payment company Strike has partnered with major point of sale companies (e.g. NCR - 1 in 6 terminals in the world use NCR).

This means that now you can use any non custodial Lightning wallet to walk into all the major shops - the likes of Home Depot, McDonalds etc and spend your bitcoin, instant cash settlement. The merchant can choose to receive bitcoin or cash. This thoroughly destroys the narrative that you cant spend your bitcoin anywhere.. merchant fees are almost free also (vs Visa's 3% charge). 

This will setup a merchant war with the likes of Visa, Mastercard etc. Companies like Amazon will be looking to companies like Strike for integration so that they don't have to pay these fees. Open source systems win long term, closed systems will lose out.

Another small domino...

Will it though? I don’t know Strike but are there not still high fees and such involved?

and using Bitcoin for a McDonalds seems a more expensive way of paying for a McDonalds taking fees into account? Or are there zero?

wirh the value of Bitcoin as it is, I think it’s much harder to get people to use it as a normal payment coin currently.

Most likely if I have just £5 in BTC it will be worth more next year, so why use it on a Big Mac? 

No, fees are tiny. simply because Strike is piggy backing on an open source network. Their infrastructure costs are low. This is the beauty of open source software.

As for spending, many will want to realise gains of significant profits now and again to treat themselves. No different to selling some stock or using savings to buy something really. 

Zola.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/08/tesla-block-blockstream-to-mine-bitcoin-off-solar-power-in-texas.html

Blockstream and Jack Dorsey’s Block, formerly Square, are breaking ground on a solar- and battery-powered bitcoin mine in Texas using solar and storage technology from Tesla. 

Zola.

https://twitter.com/HRF/status/1512488123430756363?s=20&t=lzAixDYXNhUPlfmIZdHQ-w

A view from the Human Rights Foundation on bitcoin in developing nations. 

tebbins

Zola. said:

https://twitter.com/HRF/status/1512488123430756363?s=20&t=lzAixDYXNhUPlfmIZdHQ-w

A view from the Human Rights Foundation on bitcoin in developing nations. 

It only took 204 pages of the thread for me to find something Bitcoin is good for.