BITCOIN

Aegis

HCIMbtw said:

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 don't see why not.  If the sole source of returns is that more people are expected to pile money in, then the profits that people take can only come from new investors. 

Adyinvestment

Bitcoin's fundamentals are going very strong, it is just that during a bear market all the positive news stories don't have the same attention.

Stories like the below, with Blackrock partnering with Coinbase to allow institutional investors to invest, I think is extremely good news for Bitcoin's future price, but hardly gets a mention outside Bitcoin enthusiast circles at the moment.

Coinbase partners with BlackRock to create new access points for institutional crypto investing (cointelegraph.com)

Zola.

It's spluttering along in terms of fiat price, but holding up pretty well given the pretty horrendous macro economic outlook.

Behind the scenes, developers are fighting over a plethora of innovative proposals. This (ugly) website details many of these BIPs (Bitcoin Improvement Projects). Which are voted on, argued over and the best ones developed, slowly. There is always work being done on Bitcoin. BIPs are where key innovations like the Lightning Network were born, and where all the best innovations will come from in the future.

You can see lists of all the work also here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips
Open and transparent. 

The ignorant claims of "BitCoiN CaN't ScALe" is utterly ludicrous.

Many people don't appear to realise or understand what open source software is or means. Many of the worlds best innovations are open source, such as Android OS, which makes up about 75% of the market share of phones globally....

HCIMbtw

Frequentlyhere said:

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.

Quite a lot going on with regard to regulation, have adoption from companies like fidelity allowing 401k investments in BTC. BTC ETF's have been rejected by regulators recently. Longer term we have the BTC halving in 2024. Still have a narrative around country adoption with places like Tonga, but growing consumer adoption is far more important. 

Think everyone's just taking breath after huge cascading liquidations and all the 3 arrows capital, luna, celsius drama though to be honest. Took a huge amount of leverage out the markets. 

I see a lot of narrative saying the bottom is in, though I am not convinced we won't re-test as I still think main markets are fragile and BTC is not decoupled. 

For me it is all pretty simple though, the long term narrative remains the same and now is a great time to continue DCA'ing.   

Adyinvestment

I went to Avon Valley adventure park today (kids loved it by the way), when booking the tickets last night on the website I noticed at the top of the page large pay with Bitcoin and some other Crypto logo's.

Today at the park, all the food/drink places had "Pay With Bitcoin" in very prominent positions and I kept seeing Bitcoin signs wherever you could buy anything, the tanoid system repeatedly stated the park was cashless and to pay with either card or Bitcoin.

I did ask one of the staff serving if it was used much, he said it was very new and not many customers used it, but also said that a lot of people had asked about it. He did not know how the transaction was processed but I could see a lightning sign on the screen so I assume the lightning network.

That is some serious free advertising for Bitcoin.

barnstar2077

Adyinvestment said:

I went to Avon Valley adventure park today (kids loved it by the way), when booking the tickets last night on the website I noticed at the top of the page large pay with Bitcoin and some other Crypto logo's.

Today at the park, all the food/drink places had "Pay With Bitcoin" in very prominent positions and I kept seeing Bitcoin signs wherever you could buy anything, the tanoid system repeatedly stated the park was cashless and to pay with either card or Bitcoin.

I did ask one of the staff serving if it was used much, he said it was very new and not many customers used it, but also said that a lot of people had asked about it. He did not know how the transaction was processed but I could see a lightning sign on the screen so I assume the lightning network.

That is some serious free advertising for Bitcoin.

Maybe it's because they can't afford their own rollercoaster, so Bitcoin will have to suffice! :  )

Adyinvestment

barnstar2077 said:

Maybe it's because they can't afford their own rollercoaster, so Bitcoin will have to suffice! :  )

Ha ha I see what you did there  

I did also semi joke with the cashier that I expect the owner/s had a stack of Bitcoin 

Malthusian

Adyinvestment said:

I did also semi joke with the cashier that I expect the owner/s had a stack of Bitcoin 

You are correct. The people behind the park are so deep in crypto that on 2 July the park hosted "The Bitcoin Adventure". It took some Googling to find any details, but the event seems to have been a success, as far as crypto bro seminars hosted in an adventure park outside Keynsham go.

This family-friendly weekend is designed to let you and your family en joy one of the best visitor attractions in the South West while learning about Bitcoin in a casual and open environment.
Enjoy the relaxing Deck bar with a cool drink while expandind your mind about Bitcoin. Never has there been a more relaxed and enjoyable way to learn about the future of money. [sic]

Promoting Bitcoin to farmers' children in between rabbit cuddling and pig racing. Gonna be a long crypto winter.
Before anyone starts complaining about strawmen (geddit?), the Cointelegraph write-up explicitly celebrated encouraging minors to gamble on Bitcoin.

Coach Carbon, the Bitcoin football coach behind Bitcoin Ballers was helping toddlers to teenagers “get off zero” with an inflatable football goal. 

["Getting off zero" is crypto jargon for persuading newcomers to put money in Bitcoin for the first time.]

*edit* Oh, and even they (notwithstanding the marketing nonsense) don't accept crypto.  I checked the booking prices - all prices are quoted in GBP, no prices quoted in BTC or any of the other tokens mentioned. 

You do however get a whole 50% off if you convert crypto to GBP via their affiliate link - but it's still 50% off in GBP.

The future of money!

Frequentlyhere

You do however get a whole 50% off if you convert crypto to GBP via their affiliate link - but it's still 50% off in GBP.

The future of money!

Love this. Imagine what people would think if that promo applied to any other currency - " get 50% off if you pay in Euros!". What kind of currency needs a chunky discount to get people to use it?

It's basically a promo akin to 'sign up to our loyalty card/wine club/costly magazine subscription and get a freebie on your first purchase', I suppose because it basically is a loyalty club rather than a currency.

Frequentlyhere

I'm reading that chalk board/promo literature again, and actually this is pretty sick stuff, and I don't mean that in in the youthful 'amazing' sense.

I mean, this bit:  "This family-friendly weekend is designed to let you and your family enjoy one of the best visitor attractions in the South West while learning about Bitcoin in a casual and open environment."

In what world is it appropriate to market bitcoin directly to children by wrapping it up alongside pony grooming? Do they give out toys and mcdonalds cheeseburgers if the children answer questions about decentralised finance correctly?

We adults can debate all day long (and do) about whether it's a currency, investment, ponzi, pyramid, the future of money etc but for gawds sake leave the kids out of it. 

It just feels so wrong. I just googled "is it legal to promote speculative financial investments to children" and I felt pretty queasy just typing that in.

I didn't find anything by the way, presumably because the authorities haven't conceived of a financial sector that might stoop that low. 

edit: Geez, the source manages to look even worse. 

"“Organiser DB explains: Learning through play for children is important and Bitcoin Ballers, Zebedee, Gamertron and Robotechy gave children the opportunity to have fun and learn about Bitcoin.”

How on earth is this not illegal?