BITCOIN

TimSynths

LateNightHunter said:

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.

Keep it simple to begin with, use Coinbase and buy some BTC and ETH. Try not to look at it everyday (will be hard) I just make a note of values on a Sunday evening.

Selling is easy, again can use Coinbase.

Scottex99

LateNightHunter said:

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.

Nice to see someone open-minded, generally my main confusion about the whole crypto boom and why people don't at least spend a few days trying to figure out if there is anything legit there. Seems like a huge opportunity cost because you may be older, don't understand how it works and heard some (bias) central banker call it a scam. Even if I knew 0 about it, I'd probably hold some as a hedge to my sanity just in case BTC goes to $1m one day.

1 -  I wont pretend to know even a fraction of the uses, there are millions of uber smart people out there and as crypto is sucking up a lot of young talented devs, new things are being built all the time. In the ICO boom of 2016/17 it was pretty basic stuff. eBay will use X coin for its supply chain or order records, HealthCoin will revolutionise hospitals and many other things that didn't really play out when people realised that creating a token (to raise funds) and forcing it's use, isn't necessarily an upgrade to an already existing centralised database. I read an article recently for some altcoins used for even tickets on the blockchain and the result was similar. Plus can your average user even figure out how to buy/swap the asset? Do they need a metamask wallet to log in and even buy the ticket? But the rise of Decentalised Finance (DeFi) is clear. DeFi Summer was 2021, billions of dollars of liquidity locked into contracts/protocols, some of them with anon Devs. Staking/Yield Farming, comfortably making 20% APY on your stablecoins., never mind 3 figure APYs on some of the exotic stuff. There's been plenty scams, exploits, hacks. People have made fortunes and lost them. Lending protocols can give you fiat as a loan against your coins, not a taxable event and you can borrow $10k in about 3 mins, just clicking a few buttons on the app. 25% LTV to get decent rates, no need to go to a physical branch, fill put endless forms, just deposit your coins and make sure your LTV isn't getting too high because of the varying value of the assets you posted as collateral.

2 - Yes. There's 10,000 coins already, most will never be worth anything. There's a variety of reasons to buy some alts, hold stablecoins etc and some people have crazy high risk tolerance. But for your average investor coming form the traditional world, BTC and ETH are the biggest blue chips by far. 

3 - There's billions moving around the world unregulated already but there is plenty of regulation too. The FCA has approved a few firms, whilst others have left as they are apparently useless and way too slow. I'm sat in Gibraltar right now where there is a Distributed Ledger Technology Framework already and its been live since 2018. I have plenty of coins sitting on exchanges and in protocols. Most of it is "safe" but there is always counterparty risk too. If you are not controlling the private key for your assets, an exchange could deny you access tomorrow and there's not a lot you can do. Not a great argument but to me Binance/Kraken have had years to pull that stunt, the reason they don't is they are making hundred of Ms per week in fees. There's plenty of crypto friendly banks, my company has about 9 accounts already, in a variety of jurisdictions who have realised getting ahead of the trend might just pay off if the traction crypto has, continues in the same way over the next few years.

A BTC meme but makes a valid point:
No one uses it.
Only computer nerds use it.
Only drug dealers use it.
Only gamblers use it.
Only a small percentage of the population uses it.
Only small companies use it.
Only small countries use it.

4 - Sell it the same place you buy it. Coinbase/Kraken/Binance etc. There are Decentralised exchanges too with Automated Market Making but you either market sell or you put a limit in at say say $40K, once the price gets there it will fill. I use other desks for our company flow but use Exchanges from time to time too, there is a lot of liquidity. I've seen $1-5m fill almost instantly on the bigger exchanges.

5 - I disagree generally, the PFP (profile pic) NFTs that we are seeing right now are just a flex for people that already made it and have money to burn, or were lucky enough to buy 5 Apes for $200 each. They shouldn't be 100 ETH right now but they are, it's a free market. Modern art is a good comparison. Or some ugly but rare painting. The Mona Lisa was lost for like 100 years and nobody cared, now its visits alone probably fund the yearly cost of The Louvre. I have one decent one which is an animated bunny in front of a blue Lambo (lol), been offered 6.5 ETH for it at peak which is like $20k. Most of it is pure hype and quite a few scams too. But I think there is still a place for NFT items in gaming, fashion, collectibles etc. We have an Metaverse office in Decentraland, we'll probably make money on the land regardless if we ever have a virtual meeting there or not.

Cheers

LateNightHunter

I see BAYC’s Insta got hacked today.

About 100 Apes have been TWOC’d.

This is where there needs to be regulation

Scottex99

Or people being more careful in not connecting to scam contracts.

Problem with sovereign wealth is if you get hacked, mis-paste a wallet or use the wrong chain, there's likely not a lot you can do to get your money back

LateNightHunter

https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1518637579633053701?s=20&t=m4nBYUxqhLLzlE0iilFlJw

I think they had 2FA enabled as well.

Malthusian

Security protocols are only as strong as their weakest link. 2 factor authentication offers 0 protection if the wrong person has access to the smartphone.

I am shocked, shocked that bros who sell monkey clip art to other bros on the basis that they'll rocket in value might have a weak link somewhere in their office.

Scottex99

BAYC had 2FA on their Insta, that's not really an issue that the page got hacked.

The issue is once the hackers had access, they started chatting about a fake airdrop (of ApeCoin I assume). To claim you need to connect your Metamask/web3 wallet to their site. Once connected and you approve the transaction (which most people dont read the actual txn code for and what you are approving). They then have full access and swipe all the coins and NFTs.

So there were probably at least 3 stages were BAYC holders could have been like hmmm does this seem legit? Why is their an airdrop when the coin is already in circulation and listed on most major exchanges?

People make mistakes but they got tripped up by their own greed imo

Zola.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-61248809

Would be great if we can keep this thread on topic, (Bitcoin!)

Reaper

Zola. said:

Reaper said:

I'm no crypto fan but I wouldn't entirely rule out investing if the market falls far enough. Not yet though because I'm expecting there is going to be another fall when El Salvador inevitably abandons Bitcoin and in doing so kills the idea off for other countries waiting to see the outcome of the experiment. I gather the IMF has indicated it won't give them any loans until they do (link).

I am curious how they pay their tax out there. Does the government tell you how much you owe in both bitcoin and fiat? If so I would delay paying until the last moment then pay with whichever was the least, which could save you a massive amount of money (and cost the government lots)!

Why is it inevitable they will abandon? It's not.
...
If El Salvador continue as they are,  and their bitcoin bond deal is very profitable, you can be sure other nations will copy this playbook. Then things will get really interesting...

Let's revisit and check on how those important bitcoin bonds are doing. Remember he is looking for $1 billion to replace conventional bonds and to fund the building of Bitcoin city.

The total number of investors who have bought them is... drumroll... zero.

As a result El Salvador is heading for a default with the yields on their conventional bonds now only beaten by Ukraine.

Somehow I don't think this is going to inspire any other countries to follow suit.

Link to Bloomberg story

lozzy1965

Zola. said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-61248809

Would be great if we can keep this thread on topic, (Bitcoin!)

El Salvador and Central African Republic, just the kind of countries Bitcoin needs for acceptance!  Me thinks the leaders of those countries are just rolling the dice and playing - again - with the prosperity or otherwise of their citizens.  If they win, they are visionaries, if they lose, well, they were only poor, war ridden, crime ridden countries anyway.