BITCOIN

silvercue

Frequentlyhere said:

silvercue said:

And - in addition, there will be some investors looking at BTC as a safer bet than banks at the moment!

I guess this is why I keep talking to Bitcoiners, the takes are just consistently amazing 

 A normal bank fails and its depositors are almost immediately made whole. The normal users would have been anyway, but even the big depositors were, and in the space of a weekend.

Bitcoin  - Lost your phrase? Ooop, 100% loss.  Hacked? Ooop, 100% loss. Put it on a centralised exchange that collapsed? Oop, not your keys not your coins bro, 100% loss.  Bought at the top? 75% loss, bad luck bro, the secret is to buy when it's cheap. When's it cheap? That's SO obvious bro!

The most basic errors or misfortunes whilst using this stuff result by design in catastrophic loss, which is then heralded as a virtue by its proponents. 

@silvercue - also, you call it an asset defined by supply v demand, so is it definitely that and not a currency? Or is it an asset when it goes up, a hedge when it goes down and a currency when it's having a brief respite?

Yes, in the case of SVB the US Gov acted swiftly, but there were considerations to do nothing that looked like a bailout.  Investors got a good outcome.  But they could have lost so much as their investments were only protected to a certain level.

Bank share prices, and therefore valuations, are collapsing.  FRC down 33% today.  Suisse down 98% - a bank that lost $7.8 billion last year, is being rescued by a bank that lost $143 billion last year!    Yet we are constantly told that BTC is volatile!!

Yes, if you screw up and lose keys you can lose everything.  If you screw up driving your car you can die.  Be careful.  I have been using Bitcoin since it was £60 and have loads of crypto in lots of places and never, ever lost any due to these daft mishaps.

Crypto is under sustained attack from the SEC this year and is holding strong. China ban it, Russia ban it.  They unban it....round and round and it is still here.

I always call it an asset.  When my main focus is trading and making money from it that is what it is.  Using it as a currency is great.  Other utility in alt coins is great, but I use crypto to make money.  

I made over 1000% profit in 2021 from Crypto....I make a pittance compared to that on ISAs and Stocks.   Currently, I am making 40-60% APR on yield farms that I do literally nothing with...just watch the money roll in.  

HHarry

silvercue said:

Bank share prices, and therefore valuations, are collapsing.  FRC down 33% today.  Suisse down 98% - a bank that lost $7.8 billion last year, is being rescued by a bank that lost $143 billion last year!    Yet we are constantly told that BTC is volatile!!

 Yep,  Lloyds down 5% this week.  Absolutely collapsed.

 A couple of banks working in niche areas and one with a history of issues have failed / are failing.  That’s 3 banks in the whole world.

bugbyte_2

aaj123 said:

If it falls back to $19k, what does that mean? If it goes to $30k is it going to stay there or swiftly up to $100k or back down to $15k?

Are you able to make such price trajectory predictions for any asset like stocks or gold? Why then insist on needing this for Bitcoin?
....

Example: https://insights.glassnode.com/the-week-onchain-week-10-2023/

Yes you very clearly can make trajectory predictions for real assets by carrying out due diligence on the company you are looking at - profit, loss, assets, dividend history, new product pipeline, management stability and confidence, etc. This then goes into calculations to work out the relative value compared to similar stocks. If a stock is undervalued, it is usually market sentiment and it usually corrects itself *eventually*.

For example. Taylor Wimpy PLC has a PE ratio of 6.4 and a dividend yield of 8.2%. Currently trading @ £1.14 it hit a low in October of £0.88. Its not hard to see why this happened in the context of what has happened in Britain and it is also not hard to see the market over reaction and the apparent value in the company at present. 

You call Bitcoin an Asset, but to be an asset it must therefore have something supporting its price other than sentiment. You quote a link as evidence that there is some mystical metrics that determine the price, but the very first paragraph quoted states:

"Bitcoin prices have been rejected from a series of psychological on-chain levels, related both to Older hands from the 2021-22 cycle and also for the Whale cohort."

Sorry but that is just an attempt to put out unrelated sentences with Bitcoin Bingo words in them in the small hope that we will all nod along because if it sounds important and if we don't understand it then really we must all be thick. Whereas in reality, like all attempts to assign 'value' to Bitcoin, it is just garbage.

EDIT: If the article says what I think it says, it is basically admitting it is the sentiment of previous buyers that are determining the price, which makes the sentence below even more 'true'.

Bitcoin's price is what it is because that is the price other people are willing to pay for it. That is it. There is nothing else.

The price quoted isn't even the real price BTW as I would imagine most large trades are done off platform and agreed without anyone knowing the true cost. 

silvercue

HHarry said:

silvercue said:

Bank share prices, and therefore valuations, are collapsing.  FRC down 33% today.  Suisse down 98% - a bank that lost $7.8 billion last year, is being rescued by a bank that lost $143 billion last year!    Yet we are constantly told that BTC is volatile!!

 Yep,  Lloyds down 5% this week.  Absolutely collapsed.

 A couple of banks working in niche areas and one with a history of issues have failed / are failing.  That’s 3 banks in the whole world.

I don't think the banking sector is going to implode, it is an example.  Credit Suisse is not really a niche or small bank though.  

DannyCarey

Frequentlyhere said:

aaj123 said:

Yet, no such snarky comments are made about dud high profile shares of banks like CS and DB which have been on a permanent slide for ages.

The difference being that there isn't a group of people claiming that CS/DB shares are the future of money and mocking everyone for being invested in anything else or even just for believing in actual money.

Odd thing to say anyway as whilst price changes prompt discussion, anyone who pays attention can see just how manipulated it is. I mean, look at now. Crypto-friendly banks going down, Binance looks set to dash off with the cash, all fiat exit doors are being systematically sealed and BTCUSD is +20% in the last 5 days. It's a nonsense.

I don't think any bitcoiner is mocking anyone on here. It's actually the detractors who come in here with a bad attitude for the most part speaking in a sarcastic mocking manner. 

Time will continue to show that bitcoin has real value. Those who've done the work, understand the asset and own some will probably be well rewarded.

People who dont will continue to be bitter and angry, just like today.

*except for when there's a dip then they come joyfully in here acting like a pound shop Warren buffet... 

aaj123

bugbyte_2 said:

You call Bitcoin an Asset, but to be an asset it must therefore have something supporting its price other than sentiment. 

Yes, there very clearly is 'something' that causes Bitcoin to be of value. Rigid monetary policy resulting in absolutely defined supply and scarcity characteristic, ability to be transferred peer to peer and ability to be self custodied without storage costs, censorship resistance. 

DannyCarey

aaj123 said:

bugbyte_2 said:

You call Bitcoin an Asset, but to be an asset it must therefore have something supporting its price other than sentiment. 

Yes, there very clearly is 'something' that causes Bitcoin to be of value. Rigid monetary policy resulting in absolutely defined supply and scarcity characteristic, ability to be transferred peer to peer and ability to be self custodied without storage costs, censorship resistance. 

Here are 10 somethings for you @bugbyte_2

1. Decentralisation: No government or central authority controls it. This gives Bitcoin a level of autonomy that many people believe will make it more resistant to inflation and economic crises.

2. Limited Supply: There is a finite amount of Bitcoin that can be mined (21 million), which means that it is scarce and many believe it will hold its value better than fiat currencies, that can be printed at will. The number of new participants and active addresses climbs every day also. 

3. Global Reach: Bitcoin can be sent and received anywhere in the world. This makes it an attractive alternative for people who need to transfer money across borders for next to no fees. 

4. Security: The blockchain that underpins Bitcoin is extremely secure, virtually impossible to hack or counterfeit.

5. Accessibility: Bitcoin can be bought and sold easily online, and it is increasingly being accepted as a form of payment by merchants around the world.

6. Low Transaction Fees: Bitcoin transactions are typically cheaper than traditional payment methods, which make it more attractive to people who want to avoid high fees...

7. Increasing Acceptance: Bitcoin is becoming more widely accepted by businesses and institutions around the world, which will increase its legitimacy as a form of payment and store of value.

8. Store of Value: Some people see Bitcoin as a digital gold, a store of value that can hedge against inflation and economic instability... like what we are seeing now with some Banks failing... again

9. Innovation: The technology behind Bitcoin is constantly evolving, with new features and improvements being added to the blockchain. This could make it more attractive to investors who want to invest in cutting-edge technology. Look at what Jack Dorsey is up to now...

10. Financial Freedom: Bitcoin offers users a level of financial freedom and privacy that is not available with traditional banking systems. This could make it more attractive to people who want to avoid government surveillance or control over their finances.

Frequentlyhere

DannyCarey said:

Here are 10 somethings for you @bugbyte_2...

One could refute each of these 10 as being anything of value, but to be honest it'd be a waste of everyone's time as we can just look to what's actually happening in the real world.

Save for a few marginal cases in developing countries, the only thing people use bitcoin for (and far fewer since the bubble popped) is for speculation.

No-one outside of bubbles like these is talking about it, no-one in the UK is thinking it's the future of money.

No-one thinks "ooh I'll use Bitcoin for that money transfer abroad, that'll be cheap/faster" 

No-one thinks " Oooh, bitcoin, that's how I can keep my money safe" - quite the opposite!

And so on, for each of these points. 

DannyCarey

You sure like to speak on behalf of everyone, don't you? Must be nice to know what's inside everyone's head... 

Frequentlyhere

DannyCarey said:

You sure like to speak on behalf of everyone, don't you? Must be nice to know what's inside everyone's head... 

Oh come on Danny, I mean speculate all you want and who knows, perhaps it will hit $100k and you'll be rich. Could happen, stranger things have.

But I'm not exactly taking liberties here - it's not just my opinion that people in the UK aren't buying groceries with bitcoin or aren't sending money abroad in any numbers that are meaningful.

An overwhelming % of us are using Visa/Mastercard/Amex/Cash for spending and using their bank/FX providers/3rd party txfer sites/Wise/Revolut etc for money transfers.  You know this, it's not something you can have your own personal truth on. 

Whether Bitcoin could evolve to be more useful is open to debate. My understanding (tell me if I'm wrong) is that the people who can change things are reluctant to do so for various reasons.