BITCOIN

jcontest

Aegis said:

Linton said:

Zola. said:

Cus said:

After the last few minutes months has it shook you Zola our are you still committed?  

What kind of events need to happen for you to cut losses?
Comment: This is not a dig, I'd like to know what a pro bitcoin investor thinks?

Not at all. I am not aiming to trade Bitcoin on a very short term basis, so my time horizon is far out. I am also adding to my stack when the prices are low (as well as continuing to buy index funds etc).

What events would need to happen to cut losses? It would have to be something utterly devastating, like a serious bug in the code, or some other catastrophic self inflected wound.

Everything else is just speculation and noise. 

Are prices for Bitcoin low at the moment?  What analysis tells you that?

Bitcoin has dropped by more than 40%  (in USD) in the past year.  Why could it not drop by 40% in the next year?

This is exactly the question I keep coming back to - how do you determine fair value so that you know whether short term movements are buying opportunities?  The answer usually seems to be "long term trend", which in my view simply doesn't adequately answer the question of where value comes from.

I think we should look at "paying with BTC" in the same way as "Cash Accepted" or "Pay by Phone" or "Pay with Visa".  For people that hold huge amounts of BTC the swings could be against you when you purchase something (cash in your BTC) but you could save a lot too.  Early days I loved the idea of BTC, these days I do not.  It doesn't scale well at all and I think that will eventually mean the end for it.  Plus a lot of people think it's "hiding" your money and transactions (Much like they think of a VPN for networks) but when they soon realise that there is a public ledger that can track their money forever then the luster on that idea will dull.

fwor

jcontest said:

BTC has thus far been nothing more than a self fulfilling ponzi scheme.

It's a lottery ticket.  It may pay out big or you may walk away with nothing.

I don't think either of those comparisons is fair to Bitcoin. A Ponzi scheme has a very well-defined set of characteristics, and Bitcoin doesn't match. Similarly, with a lottery ticket, either you win or you don't and then the ticket has no value.That doesn't describe Bitcoin at all - IMO it will continue to exist, with an accepted value, for many years to come.

Having said that, I've never "invested", for a number of reasons. One is the lack of transparency and accountability at the edges - at the exchanges, which every owner is dependent on to change into something they can use as everyday currency.

But more than that, the problem for me is that Bitcoin was a prototype. It was a good one, but still riddled with flaws. IMO it will slowly drop into obscurity as better cryptocurrency systems are developed. And IMO those are likely to be utilitarian - a means to an end, and not something that anyone would ever consider "investing" in.

jcontest

fwor said:

jcontest said:

BTC has thus far been nothing more than a self fulfilling ponzi scheme.

It's a lottery ticket.  It may pay out big or you may walk away with nothing.

I don't think either of those comparisons is fair to Bitcoin. A Ponzi scheme has a very well-defined set of characteristics, and Bitcoin doesn't match. Similarly, with a lottery ticket, either you win or you don't and then the ticket has no value.That doesn't describe Bitcoin at all - IMO it will continue to exist, with an accepted value, for many years to come.

Having said that, I've never "invested", for a number of reasons. One is the lack of transparency and accountability at the edges - at the exchanges, which every owner is dependent on to change into something they can use as everyday currency.

But more than that, the problem for me is that Bitcoin was a prototype. It was a good one, but still riddled with flaws. IMO it will slowly drop into obscurity as better cryptocurrency systems are developed. And IMO those are likely to be utilitarian - a means to an end, and not something that anyone would ever consider "investing" in.

It is something that's difficult to compare to.  It was probably around 2010/2011 back when I was dealing with it, and honestly back then we would just give each other portions of coins because it was something neat to play with.  To me, and it may just be me, It's quite a bit like a Ponzi or Pyramid scheme now.  Neither do fit into what Bitcoin is but they come close.  You will find less "Winners" in BTC than "Losers".  Speculation is a rough game, if people have money to burn then I guess it's not a big deal.  Our Governments will eventually adopt some form of "Digital" currency, but something like BTC can't scale globablly unless there's a lot of design changes.  It's also a bit backwards too, the more BTC is used is the more cost it incurs (by processors), where with cash, the more it's used is the more processors can cut cost due to volume.

fwor

jcontest said:

It's quite a bit like a Ponzi or Pyramid scheme now.

Bear in mind that you're adding to a thread that has 235 pages of comments already.

What you are saying has been said here before, earlier in the thread (probably several times over) and neither the analogy with Ponzi nor with pyramid type schemes holds up to closer examination.

But I think it's generally agreed that it doesn't scale well, and it is ridiculously (some would say unacceptably) resource-intensive in its current form. Both issues have been worked on, and continue to be worked on, but I don't personally see that as being fixable with Bitcoin. Other cryptocurrency solutions will be better.

Aegis

fwor said:

What you are saying has been said here before, earlier in the thread (probably several times over) and neither the analogy with Ponzi nor with pyramid type schemes holds up to closer examination.

I have yet to see any actual analysis that leads me to think it's anything other than a Ponzi scheme.  236 pages or not.

barnstar2077

jcontest said:

Aegis said:

Linton said:

Zola. said:

Cus said:

After the last few minutes months has it shook you Zola our are you still committed?  

What kind of events need to happen for you to cut losses?
Comment: This is not a dig, I'd like to know what a pro bitcoin investor thinks?

Not at all. I am not aiming to trade Bitcoin on a very short term basis, so my time horizon is far out. I am also adding to my stack when the prices are low (as well as continuing to buy index funds etc).

What events would need to happen to cut losses? It would have to be something utterly devastating, like a serious bug in the code, or some other catastrophic self inflected wound.

Everything else is just speculation and noise. 

Are prices for Bitcoin low at the moment?  What analysis tells you that?

Bitcoin has dropped by more than 40%  (in USD) in the past year.  Why could it not drop by 40% in the next year?

This is exactly the question I keep coming back to - how do you determine fair value so that you know whether short term movements are buying opportunities?  The answer usually seems to be "long term trend", which in my view simply doesn't adequately answer the question of where value comes from.

I think we should look at "paying with BTC" in the same way as "Cash Accepted" or "Pay by Phone" or "Pay with Visa".  For people that hold huge amounts of BTC the swings could be against you when you purchase something (cash in your BTC) but you could save a lot too.  Early days I loved the idea of BTC, these days I do not.  It doesn't scale well at all and I think that will eventually mean the end for it.  Plus a lot of people think it's "hiding" your money and transactions (Much like they think of a VPN for networks) but when they soon realise that there is a public ledger that can track their money forever then the luster on that idea will dull.

I don't think it is like pay by phone or Visa.  If I have a thousand pounds in my bank account I know it will be worth pretty much the same amount in a few weeks time when I come to spend it on something with my Visa card.  Also, I can trace where my money goes and where it came from.  It is also covered if the bank collapses (to a point.)  The bank will also investigate if I say that something untoward has happened.  We don't need extra currencies.

HCIMbtw

Aegis said:

fwor said:

What you are saying has been said here before, earlier in the thread (probably several times over) and neither the analogy with Ponzi nor with pyramid type schemes holds up to closer examination.

I have yet to see any actual analysis that leads me to think it's anything other than a Ponzi scheme.  236 pages or not.

Can ponzi's be decentralised? 

I totally understand ponzi rhetoric with regard to s**t coins, but it feels totally misplaced with regards to BTC

Calling it zero sum I wouldn't argue with

Malthusian

Zola. said:

Oxford will have the option to keep whatever Bitcoin they want from sales, or just take fiat cash... 

They aren't taking any Bitcoin. The raison d'etre of their sponsors is converting Bitcoin to fiat so actual businesses like Oxford City FC will accept it.
All Oxford City's bills are in GBP so there would be no reason to hodl Bitcoin unless the owners had gone full crypto bro and decided that "Bitcoin to $400,000" is their ticket to the Premier League.

On the subject of football, here is a non-league team who are a heavily focused Bitcoin club, who also openly share their financial reports. 

Not exactly surprising. Football and gambling have always been joined at the hip.

Aegis said:

I have yet to see any actual analysis that leads me to think it's anything other than a Ponzi scheme.  236 pages or not.

All Ponzis are zero sum games but not all zero sum games are Ponzis.
A Ponzi scheme involves the administrator of the scheme making payments to players out of the pot, typically on a regular basis, in cargo cult imitation of an investment. When the pot inevitably runs out and people stop putting money in, the game ends. 
A pyramid scheme involves players paying money to the person who signed them up (and, usually, the person who signed them up, and so on), in exchange for the right to be paid by those they recruit and that they recruit in turn. 
If Bitcoin is a scam (I make no judgment if it is or it isn't, because there is no such thing as a scam; it is a semantically useless word that people apply to everything from fraudulent schemes to sharp practice to overcharging to not winning a raffle), it would be a "pump and dump".

Zola.

Malthusian said:

Zola. said:

Oxford will have the option to keep whatever Bitcoin they want from sales, or just take fiat cash... 

They aren't taking any Bitcoin. The raison d'etre of their sponsors is converting Bitcoin to fiat so actual businesses like Oxford City FC will accept it.
All Oxford City's bills are in GBP so there would be no reason to hodl Bitcoin unless the owners had gone full crypto bro and decided that "Bitcoin to $400,000" is their ticket to the Premier League.

With respect - you don't know that, unless you know the Oxford owner and they can confirm? Coin corner are a bitcoin exchange, where you can buy or sell bitcoin. Yes they can instant sell upon transaction, but they can also keep whatever they want, even if its a small percentage of a sale. 

It's also interesting that a chartered financial planner appears to have to be educated on what a ponzi scheme is.. 

"Ponzi scheme" is just another lazy term thats thrown around really without much thought about what it actually is.  

Frequentlyhere

It seems to have been a while since anything really of note happened with Bitcoin specifically. I had a look at the top posts in r/Bitcoin over the last month and it just seems to be the usual banter.

So, to the enthusiasts, genuinely, what is next? 

The fiat value of the thing isn't really doing much (though one could argue that's a good thing (less volatility) perhaps).

So, putting the price aside, where do we go from here? Are there interesting tech changes afoot, is mass adoption progressing, what's really happening?

From the outside, it just seems like the whole thing is drifting along at the moment to me without much direction, good or bad.

edit: As an aside, the paid puff "news" pieces from the likes of time magazine and forbes I found whilst trying to answer this question are just so rubbish. " Analysts say BTC could hit $300k or $5k by December. Why? Because they reckon so!" is the gist.