BITCOIN

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.

Zola.

I have made this point about bitcoin in developing nations several times in this thread, but as usual it either gets ignored or shouted down by people who don't want to know. I'm happy to see a group like the HRF putting something like this out.

mooneysaver

Before everyone starts freaking out over the Coffeezilla FUD, you might want to take a look at the new pinned comment: CORRECTION! The V1-V2 100% TAX losses were overestimated and I regret the miscalculation. Our original estimate (link) was $100M based on a calculation of the amount of money Safemoon MADE from the 100% tax. (total LP tokens generated over that period).  The math was right but the interpretation was wrong. The real losses to INVESTORS appears to be lower, about $6,300,000... Blockchain forensics are incredibly complicated and small errors can lead to very different results. The facts are exactly the same.

"Small Error of 93%" yet "the facts remain the same". Yeah okay bud. Video is full of mistakes if you have any brain cells you can see tons of mistakes and things that dont add up. Looks like this "FUD" turned out to be another sale LMAO.’

Aegis

mooneysaver said:

Before everyone starts freaking out over the Coffeezilla FUD, you might want to take a look at the new pinned comment: CORRECTION! The V1-V2 100% TAX losses were overestimated and I regret the miscalculation. Our original estimate (link) was $100M based on a calculation of the amount of money Safemoon MADE from the 100% tax. (total LP tokens generated over that period).  The math was right but the interpretation was wrong. The real losses to INVESTORS appears to be lower, about $6,300,000... Blockchain forensics are incredibly complicated and small errors can lead to very different results. The facts are exactly the same.

"Small Error of 93%" yet "the facts remain the same". Yeah okay bud. Video is full of mistakes if you have any brain cells you can see tons of mistakes and things that dont add up. Looks like this "FUD" turned out to be another sale LMAO.’

Regardless of whether the figures were accurate, it seems pretty clear that the founders of safemoon deliberately set it up to separate "investors" from their fiat currency, and in that I guess they have been successful.

LateNightHunter

OK, so I've read this thread from the beginning and, whilst I was originally pretty anti-Bitcoin, I have enjoyed @Scottex99's posts to the point where investing in bitcoin isn't such a ridiculous idea in my eyes.

I've been reading about from both sides and I have a few views and questions that would be interesting to be answered/challenged, if people are interested?

1. The blockchain is an engineering marvel, but the best idea I've seen put forward was for it's use in marketing perhaps. We are assigned a 'node' if  you will and companies bid on the blockchain to have the right to give us their portfolio of advertising. Not ground-breaking, but as a use for the tech, I thought it was pretty interesting. Thoughts?

2. I see a lot about sh1tcoins and alts and all sorts. I defer to Scott's large investing here for being able to cover the spread so to speak, but surely if Average Joe wants to get into Bitcoin and crypto (surely the end game here as smooth adoptation is key), the message should be invest just in BTC and ETH? As in, these are the Apple stocks of the crypto world

3. I don't believe that crypto will become easily adopted unless some form of relgulation is involved. For example:

Average Joe: "How do I know my investment is safe"
Investment guy: "The record is on the blockchain"
Average Joe: "?????"

People will see the level of scams going (I have read a lot of them and yes it has nothing to do with the block chain) and will want more protection from fraud and losing their wallets.
I'm talking older people, people without huge knowledge of the internet etc, perhaps just gullable people in general). Just parroting the blockchain sees all line and you can't get at cold wallets etc will not get people into it and make it so that it's a good adoption rate. The key is usabilty, I believe someone said they ate some pizza and bought bitcoin. Great, but that isn't the ease which I believe will take it out of the current sphere it is in.

You could then say, as I have seen, that forget all the people who can't or wont get involved, have fun boomers/nocoiners (I know your line there was a joke, Scott). But that is why it is still a joke and meme amongst the general public. You can't promote this as something that will take over, without trying to communicate to those people. A society can only move forward at the pace of it's slowest members. Perhaps the way forward to promote BTC & ETH as an investment ONLY, rather than a currency?

4. If, for arguements sake, I had a few bags in BTC and ETH and the price rose where I could make a profit (doesn't matter how much), how do I go about selling it? As Scott is fond of saying, a $1k buy won't touch the market, but how easy is it to sell? Does there have to be a buyer per se, or is there an exchange to sell them to, or do you put it on the market at $1k per Sat (i'm making the price up) and whoever wants to buy at that price, will buy your particular share?

5. Finally, NFT's are the biggest scam going of the lot. I have resisted calling a lot of the crypto market as such, because it isn't, but these are just awful. What truly is the point of them? The classic right-click/save as idea devalues it in my eyes and in most people's eyes. Look at the recent loss of a guy's prized monkey because someone faked a blue tick on three worthless monkies.This is the only point I find to be useless. Especially for it's use in videogames, which was the main one I saw.

Overall, I just wanted to put out my thoughts and questions. I'm a skeptic, but willing to have my mind changed.

thegentleway

If you’re going to invest I’d say diversify.

Presumably regulation will come at some point.

NFTs are no crazier than an original Van Gogh being worth a lot more than a copy. Problem is people have bought lots of tosh and not just Van Goghs.