BITCOIN

Aegis

silvercue said:

Aegis said:

silvercue said:

Aegis said:

silvercue said:

2024 is gearing up to be a great year for crypto.  FED Dovish, interest rate drops expected, halving, Spot ETFs

Bitcoin up 150% already this year and only just starting to gear up.  My biggest bag, ADA, is up 150% in last 3 months.

On top of the ludicrous APRs I am getting yield farming.   Looking good.

My stock portfolio is up 49% YTD, but dwarfed by my Crypto gains.

Funny to see the crypto bashers still spend all of their time in a thread for a product they are not interested in investing in!   

Someone who bought a winning lottery ticket would be showing gains that dwarf your crypto gains. Doesn't make it a good investment, just means that they got lucky. And in fact, it's a very similar concept, in that both are zero sum games at best, so any gains that one person sees must eventually be offset by losses incurred by someone else (or multiple someone elses).

What a ridiculous analogy.  Winning the lottery is millions to one.  99.99999% or players are losers.  

BTC outperforms gold, SPX, NASDAQ regularly.  It has massively outperformed them over the last 5 years, 10 years....

The fact that you think it's a ridiculous analogy shows that you do not understand what a zero sum game is.

If you buy Bitcoin you have a speculative asset you can keep or sell.  It gains or loses value as supply v demand does its thing, in the same way Stocks appreciate and depreciate in value as supply v demand does its thing there.

Not much like gambling on the lottery at 45 million to one odds or more.   

If you think crypto has no value, or is too risky or whatever - good for you.   Most investments carry risk.    if it is not for you, great.   

No, you have misunderstood the difference between buying crypto and buying a company's shares.  If you buy crypto, that's it, you have an asset.  It's an asset which does nothing and has no use to you or anyone beyond being traded at prices far in excess of the actual utility of the asset.  Shares, on the other hand, are a part ownership of a company that actually does something.  For good companies, there will be positive cashflow on the balance sheet, meaning the game is actually positive-sum.  This is a totally different scenario to the zero-sum game that is crypto trading.  The idea that everything supply and demand driven is the same is absurd, there are so many more fundamentals to think about.

silvercue

Aegis said:

silvercue said:

Aegis said:

silvercue said:

Aegis said:

silvercue said:

2024 is gearing up to be a great year for crypto.  FED Dovish, interest rate drops expected, halving, Spot ETFs

Bitcoin up 150% already this year and only just starting to gear up.  My biggest bag, ADA, is up 150% in last 3 months.

On top of the ludicrous APRs I am getting yield farming.   Looking good.

My stock portfolio is up 49% YTD, but dwarfed by my Crypto gains.

Funny to see the crypto bashers still spend all of their time in a thread for a product they are not interested in investing in!   

Someone who bought a winning lottery ticket would be showing gains that dwarf your crypto gains. Doesn't make it a good investment, just means that they got lucky. And in fact, it's a very similar concept, in that both are zero sum games at best, so any gains that one person sees must eventually be offset by losses incurred by someone else (or multiple someone elses).

What a ridiculous analogy.  Winning the lottery is millions to one.  99.99999% or players are losers.  

BTC outperforms gold, SPX, NASDAQ regularly.  It has massively outperformed them over the last 5 years, 10 years....

The fact that you think it's a ridiculous analogy shows that you do not understand what a zero sum game is.

If you buy Bitcoin you have a speculative asset you can keep or sell.  It gains or loses value as supply v demand does its thing, in the same way Stocks appreciate and depreciate in value as supply v demand does its thing there.

Not much like gambling on the lottery at 45 million to one odds or more.   

If you think crypto has no value, or is too risky or whatever - good for you.   Most investments carry risk.    if it is not for you, great.   

No, you have misunderstood the difference between buying crypto and buying a company's shares.  If you buy crypto, that's it, you have an asset.  It's an asset which does nothing and has no use to you or anyone beyond being traded at prices far in excess of the actual utility of the asset.  Shares, on the other hand, are a part ownership of a company that actually does something.  For good companies, there will be positive cashflow on the balance sheet, meaning the game is actually positive-sum.  This is a totally different scenario to the zero-sum game that is crypto trading.  The idea that everything supply and demand driven is the same is absurd, there are so many more fundamentals to think about.

I am not sure where I have said everything supply and demand driven is the same, I have just said that their price fluctuates with supply v demand, which they do.    

I have not misunderstood anything.  I own lots of shares, I trade many every month.  I don't give a rats **** about owning a portion of a company, I buy shares for one reason only, to try and sell them at a higher price than I paid for them.  Same with crypto.    I own crypto to make money from it, that is it.   

Aegis

silvercue said:

Aegis said:

silvercue said:

Aegis said:

silvercue said:

Aegis said:

silvercue said:

2024 is gearing up to be a great year for crypto.  FED Dovish, interest rate drops expected, halving, Spot ETFs

Bitcoin up 150% already this year and only just starting to gear up.  My biggest bag, ADA, is up 150% in last 3 months.

On top of the ludicrous APRs I am getting yield farming.   Looking good.

My stock portfolio is up 49% YTD, but dwarfed by my Crypto gains.

Funny to see the crypto bashers still spend all of their time in a thread for a product they are not interested in investing in!   

Someone who bought a winning lottery ticket would be showing gains that dwarf your crypto gains. Doesn't make it a good investment, just means that they got lucky. And in fact, it's a very similar concept, in that both are zero sum games at best, so any gains that one person sees must eventually be offset by losses incurred by someone else (or multiple someone elses).

What a ridiculous analogy.  Winning the lottery is millions to one.  99.99999% or players are losers.  

BTC outperforms gold, SPX, NASDAQ regularly.  It has massively outperformed them over the last 5 years, 10 years....

The fact that you think it's a ridiculous analogy shows that you do not understand what a zero sum game is.

If you buy Bitcoin you have a speculative asset you can keep or sell.  It gains or loses value as supply v demand does its thing, in the same way Stocks appreciate and depreciate in value as supply v demand does its thing there.

Not much like gambling on the lottery at 45 million to one odds or more.   

If you think crypto has no value, or is too risky or whatever - good for you.   Most investments carry risk.    if it is not for you, great.   

No, you have misunderstood the difference between buying crypto and buying a company's shares.  If you buy crypto, that's it, you have an asset.  It's an asset which does nothing and has no use to you or anyone beyond being traded at prices far in excess of the actual utility of the asset.  Shares, on the other hand, are a part ownership of a company that actually does something.  For good companies, there will be positive cashflow on the balance sheet, meaning the game is actually positive-sum.  This is a totally different scenario to the zero-sum game that is crypto trading.  The idea that everything supply and demand driven is the same is absurd, there are so many more fundamentals to think about.

I am not sure where I have said everything supply and demand driven is the same, I have just said that their price fluctuates with supply v demand, which they do.    

I have not misunderstood anything.  I own lots of shares, I trade many every month.  I don't give a rats **** about owning a portion of a company, I buy shares for one reason only, to try and sell them at a higher price than I paid for them.  Same with crypto.    I own crypto to make money from it, that is it.   

Well, you went out of your way to draw comparisons between stock prices changing according to supply and demand and crypto prices changing according to supply and demand and how the two were essentially the same thing. Hence my explanation of how the two are very different.

For the record, most people buy shares because they expect to participate in the growth of a company, not just to sell the shares on at a higher price at a later date. That's why many shares are considered good yield plays, because they have established a number of years of dividend payments. If your sole reason for buying investments is to sell them for higher prices at a later date, I can certainly see why you wouldn't really care at all about the fundamentals of the business, focusing instead on the technicals, but the problem is that the longer the term of an investment, the more important the fundamentals become while the technicals are largely minimised.

As such, if the sole reason for buying crypto is because you expect that people will be willing to pay more for it in future, that's entirely fine, but it is definitely a zero-sum game and eventually someone will have to lose a huge amount to pay for gains made now.

The fact that it is so dependant on people putting money in for existing holders to make money is what makes me certain that this entire ecosystem is just a form of Ponzi scheme.  Early adopters can make a lot of money from Ponzi schemes, but it doesn't make them legitimate investments.

Scottex99

Blackrock etc are not about to give their clients access to a Ponzi scheme….

There’s also the possibility to make yield by staking your coins and supporting the networks via nodes and other tech type things. 

Granted, that got out of hand in the last bullrun and multiple big firms got in trouble in a domino effect from Terra to FTX to Celsius etc but there are always going to be some bad actors in any industry.

Aegis

Scottex99 said:

Blackrock etc are not about to give their clients access to a Ponzi scheme….

There’s also the possibility to make yield by staking your coins and supporting the networks via nodes and other tech type things. 

Granted, that got out of hand in the last bullrun and multiple big firms got in trouble in a domino effect from Terra to FTX to Celsius etc but there are always going to be some bad actors in any industry.

No idea where you got the idea that Blackrock wouldn't let their clients buy into a Ponzi scheme if they wanted. If they're acting as execution-only brokers, then its wholly down to the clients to decide what to buy, much like Blackrock are not about to start trawling through the list of penny stocks to restrict specific holdings from their clients.  Frankly, if there's demand and the opportunity for them to make money with brokerage or fund management fees, they will do that.  The risk isn't theirs.

Also, "some" bad actors? FTX, Terra and Celsius were among the largest exchanges in the world. It's really not particularly unfair to say that they represented the worst of crypto and were prolific players in the space, not just small outliers.  More to the point, that has no impact on whether the actual investment principles of crypto are sound or not.  It just adds to the issues associated with buying in to the hype: you can't even be sure that you assets are safe if you use some of the largest exchanges in the world.  On the other hand, I have been investing for almost 20 years and have never once had to worry that the exchange that I was using was going to fold and take my investments with it.

Scottex99

Their clients aren’t 19 year old kids on TikTok either, so the biggest asset manager in the world with the richest clients (I assume) has decided that Bitcoin is a genuine asset class, then I’d say that it is too. They surely assume some risk putting their clients money into something with “no instrinsic value” or that is zero-sum. Reputational risk at least.

FTX was brought down by Sam and his cronies with far too much FTT on the balance sheet, it was profitable before that. Terra/LUNA/UST was an algorithmic stablecoin that went bad and Celsius was again profitable until Alex did some crazy stuff with the treasury.

I’m not writing those massive errors off lightly but it doesn’t mean the whole eco system is broken or a Ponzi either.  Similar to retail, there was too much leverage in the peak frenzy of the bull run and they couldn’t cope when prices dropped off. In theory the new wave of exchanges, protocols etc learn the mistakes of the past.

Also that’s all and well that one of your trading venues didn’t go broke, but it could have. Or they could have blacklisted you or restricted access to your account, these things happen in traditional finance too.

User232002

MacPingu1986 said:

Nothing mythical... as many many other posters have commented - buying cryptocurrency, or any currency, or gold, or fine art, or wine, as an investment is a zero sum game because its value is only based on the ability to sell it onto someone else at a later date - for what you hope will be a higher price. The asset doesn't "do" anything itself. You buy it, store it, and hope that someone in the future will pay you more than you paid for it.

When you dispose of your assets to crystalise your gain - that's because you've sold the assets to someone else. Your gain directly and only comes from someone else paying more - it can't come from anywhere else. It's zero-sum trading so those gains have to come from other making losses whether now, or in the future.

Thanks. This is only the 300th time this has been posted in this thread. Just because you keep repeating something doesnt make it correct. 

Many crypto protocols are incredibly profitable businesses that have yearly revenue in the billions with almost zero overheads. Apparently selling a coke to a person on the street is a great business, but selling blockspace to people on the street is zero sum. 

MacPingu1986 said:

This is a money saving board so the relative safety of an asset class is important, as is it's ability to benefit the majority of investors rather than a lucky well timed few.  This is particularly important when various pro-crypto posters are constantly pumping up how others should invest in crypto whilst ignoring (or at the very least quickly glossing over) how risky it is for the vast majority.

As we speak, 90% of all Bitcoin ever purchased is currently in profit. I'd like to check whether that counts as 'vast majority'?

MacPingu1986 said:

Whilst you've made a substantial gain so far, my own experiences with cryptocurrency (not bitcoin) resulted in over an 80% loss. Fortunately it was only a very small part of my savings and investments but many others have faired far worse and as its zero sum without others making losses you *can't* make your gains.

I found the problem....

Aegis said:

For the record, most people buy shares because they expect to participate in the growth of a company, not just to sell the shares on at a higher price at a later date. That's why many shares are considered good yield plays, because they have established a number of years of dividend payments. If your sole reason for buying investments is to sell them for higher prices at a later date, I can certainly see why you wouldn't really care at all about the fundamentals of the business, focusing instead on the technicals, but the problem is that the longer the term of an investment, the more important the fundamentals become while the technicals are largely minimised.

Many crypto protocols are incredibly profitable businesses that have yearly revenue in the billions with almost zero overheads. Apparently selling a coke to a person on the street is a great business, but selling blockspace to people on the street is zero sum. 

Aegis said:

The fact that it is so dependant on people putting money in for existing holders to make money is what makes me certain that this entire ecosystem is just a form of Ponzi scheme.  Early adopters can make a lot of money from Ponzi schemes, but it doesn't make them legitimate investments.

The fact that [The State Pension] is so dependant on people putting money in for [Retirees] to make money is what makes me certain that this entire ecosystem is just a form of Ponzi scheme.  [Boomers] can make a lot of money from [State Pension] schemes, but it doesn't make them legitimate investments.

Fixed your post. Ponzi schemes aplenty in this world. Social Security due to run out in 2032 ish I believe / NI probably sooner. Time for a commodity based monetary system to bring it all down and put everyone back on a level playing field.

Aegis said:

No idea where you got the idea that Blackrock wouldn't let their clients buy into a Ponzi scheme if they wanted. 

I mean, this is obviously a delusional argument devoid of logic. But if it isn't, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Larry for both (1) squaring the ponzi, and (2) giving me access to plenty of boomers to dump my bags on.

MeteredOut

User232002 said:

As we speak, 90% of all Bitcoin ever purchased is currently in profit. I'd like to check whether that counts as 'vast majority'?

What percentage of people who have ever owned bitcoin are in profit, or have sold with a profit?

Aegis

Scottex99 said:

Their clients aren’t 19 year old kids on TikTok either, so the biggest asset manager in the world with the richest clients (I assume) has decided that Bitcoin is a genuine asset class, then I’d say that it is too. They surely assume some risk putting their clients money into something with “no instrinsic value” or that is zero-sum. Reputational risk at least.

FTX was brought down by Sam and his cronies with far too much FTT on the balance sheet, it was profitable before that. Terra/LUNA/UST was an algorithmic stablecoin that went bad and Celsius was again profitable until Alex did some crazy stuff with the treasury.

I’m not writing those massive errors off lightly but it doesn’t mean the whole eco system is broken or a Ponzi either.  Similar to retail, there was too much leverage in the peak frenzy of the bull run and they couldn’t cope when prices dropped off. In theory the new wave of exchanges, protocols etc learn the mistakes of the past.

Also that’s all and well that one of your trading venues didn’t go broke, but it could have. Or they could have blacklisted you or restricted access to your account, these things happen in traditional finance too.

Nope, if they operate on an execution-only basis, they are absolutely not making any sort of determination on the status of Bitcoin as an asset class. They are simply responding to the demand of their clients, some of whom might well be very wealthy and also very foolish. Intelligence and wealth are not perfectly correlated, after all.  To them, there is no risk if they are clever enough to spin it as a "buyer beware" situation. They can quite rightly say that they merely facilitated something their clients were going to do anyway.

In terms of my exchange, in my entire career a total of one investment platform has gone bust, namely Beaufort.  In that instance, the administration was a mess, the ownership of underlying assets was uncertain, and yet it was still 100% protected for all retail clients, so almost no-one lost any money as a result of the platform itself going bust (off the top of my head I can't recall what happened to non-retail clients).  That's one platform needing a bailout in over 15 years, and it was a fairly minor player in the space.  Contrast that with crypto exchanges, which have seen several of the largest going bust just this year, and it quickly becomes clear that this is a very dangerous place to hold your assets, while I can pick an investment platform at random in the UK and be certain that my investments will still be there next month.

MeteredOut

MeteredOut said:

User232002 said:

As we speak, 90% of all Bitcoin ever purchased is currently in profit. I'd like to check whether that counts as 'vast majority'?

What percentage of people who have ever owned bitcoin are in profit, or have sold with a profit?

I doubt we'll get an answer for this from the ponzi-pushers, so

"As of March 2023, the top 1% of Bitcoin addresses hold over 90% of the total Bitcoin supply, according to Bitinfocharts."

https://nbx.com/crypto101/how-many-people-own-1-bitcoin

This is why people should really dig deep into *any* statement said in advocacy of crypto.

So, if 90% of bitcoins are in profit, and 1% of addresses hold 90% of bitcoins, it doesn't take too much stretching of the imagine to think that approaching 99% of people who own bitcoins are not in profit. Those with the most holdings are those that got in early.

(I know the maths doesn't strictly give us that, eg we can't assume the 1% holding 90% is hold the same 90% that is in profit, and a single person can own multiple addresses)