BITCOIN

joep2

This is bigly bullish, congrats to all hodlers!

https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/bitcoin-jumps-to-fresh-record-as-trump-offers-some-praise-for-the-cryptocurrency-6d837739

Scottex99

MeteredOut said:

This thread is turning into twitter.

To the moon. HODL.

COULD be construed as cope.

ATH been called for months on here with valid reasoning imo.

ETFs sped it up, people have realised what money printing has done to inflation and how messy monetary policy is. BTC has a fixed supply.

Could it be faddy? Yes. Could there be some black swan lurking? Yes. People in the game 5+ years are happy they’ve made it through with their bags and (for now) have a nice return on their investment.

Its going higher.

Scottex99

Actually I was being nice and just saw the “ponzi-peddler” comment some pages back.

GL with the cope. 

Highly advisable to fomo in at $80k once you change your mind 

MeteredOut

The thing about anything that is driven by the greater fool theory is that it is those who have “made money” (mostly on paper) who make the noise, driving further FOMO, as evidenced by this thread when the price is rising as opposed to falling.

Frequentlyhere

RichTips said:

"UK regulators to allow crypto-related securities"

"Bitcoin bulls are not the bigger fools"

Not my words. They're both from the FT, today.

That second one is an opinion piece, and honestly doesn't seem to have any more solid ground than "price goes up, so I guess it good".
It actually fairly systematically debunks any utility in bitcoin, but then finishes "There is an old Wall Street saying for moments like this: only the fools are dancing, but the bigger fools are watching"

Which is about as posh a version of 'FOMO' as I've seen.

To be honest though, if people like @scottex99 ,who seem to have their eyes open about the risks and spend little time talking about the supposed real world utility of the thing, then fair play to them.

The things I still mainly don't like about it are:

1) The real world bad things - funding crime, harm to environment.
2) The harm to less wise people who are sucked into  propagandising about price/utility.
3) The deception/outright lying that some do - "Bitcoin is good for the environment" " More fraud in the US dollar" I find very grating still.
4) Kind of linked to the above, this thing where the price goes up and suddenly ordinary PF boards are infiltrated with giddy excitement of fervent speculators, who then retreat like crabs into the rocks when the tide comes in.

Though in fairness I do think 3) and 4) are declining somewhat (unless this run goes on much longer perhaps!).

silvercue

MeteredOut said:

The thing about anything that is driven by the greater fool theory is that it is those who have “made money” (mostly on paper) who make the noise, driving further FOMO, as evidenced by this thread when the price is rising as opposed to falling.

Prices of stocks rise and fall.  Some go to almost worthless.  The same FOMO happens with companies like NVIDIA and TESLA a couple of years ago, both over-valued according to many analysts, but they ignore the TA and keep going.

I have a diversified investment portfolio.  Last year I made over 50% profit on my stocks and shares portfolio, which is the best I have done so far, but that is "mostly on paper" as I have sold very little.     I always make more on crypto than anything else.  People can call it what they want.  Gambling is a common phrase, but in my experience it is about weighing up risk v reward.  It is higher risk but rewards are higher, generally speaking.   I actually think if you research well enough and avoid trying to make money on small caps, then the risk is not really any greater than stocks.  Certainly not in my experience.

People do tend to be more vocal when things are going well, that is down to a level of excitement I think and I see exactly the same with stocks - AI being a perfect example.    Just get an eToro account and you will see that FOMO in overdrive!

DannyCarey

Frequentlyhere said:

RichTips said:

"UK regulators to allow crypto-related securities"

"Bitcoin bulls are not the bigger fools"

Not my words. They're both from the FT, today.

That second one is an opinion piece, and honestly doesn't seem to have any more solid ground than "price goes up, so I guess it good".
It actually fairly systematically debunks any utility in bitcoin, but then finishes "There is an old Wall Street saying for moments like this: only the fools are dancing, but the bigger fools are watching"

Which is about as posh a version of 'FOMO' as I've seen.

To be honest though, if people like @scottex99 ,who seem to have their eyes open about the risks and spend little time talking about the supposed real world utility of the thing, then fair play to them.

The things I still mainly don't like about it are:

1) The real world bad things - funding crime, harm to environment.
2) The harm to less wise people who are sucked into  propagandising about price/utility.
3) The deception/outright lying that some do - "Bitcoin is good for the environment" " More fraud in the US dollar" I find very grating still.
4) Kind of linked to the above, this thing where the price goes up and suddenly ordinary PF boards are infiltrated with giddy excitement of fervent speculators, who then retreat like crabs into the rocks when the tide comes in.

Though in fairness I do think 3) and 4) are declining somewhat (unless this run goes on much longer perhaps!).

A bit like all the naysayers staying quiet in a bull market too? Other than coming along and being bitter of course... 

or sneering after a drop... 

RolandFlagg

Most people don't understand this, and it's getting too late for them because the ETFS, MSTR and Nation States are buying up all the supply.

Frequentlyhere

Danny, this thread was dead as a doornail from both cynics and fans for months, the only thing that stimulates conversation is the price rising, and then it's the fans starting the conversation.

Though I don't think this thread is particularly bad for shilling for the most part to be honest. It's more PF forums on reddit I'm talking about.

I'm not bitter, good luck to you guys as you seem fairly well adjusted and prepared for the ups and downs. 

 It's the other specific concerns I raised that I take issue with ( well exemplified by the most recent comment before this one, but I won't even bother commenting on it!). 

User232002

Frequentlyhere said:

The things I still mainly don't like about it are:

1) The real world bad things - funding crime, harm to environment.

Just because you believe in them doesn't make them real.

Frequentlyhere said:

2) The harm to less wise people who are sucked into  propagandising about price/utility.

Stupid people will lose their money in many ways. The traditional financial system doesn't protect them from much of this either.

Frequentlyhere said:

3) The deception/outright lying that some do - "Bitcoin is good for the environment" " 

Villages in Africa have the lights on because of Bitcoin mining: https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/04/17/gridless-mining-extends-power-in-africa/

This hydroelectric plant will be able to provide affordable electricity to the neighboring village and is unobtrusive to the surrounding ecology. Gridless is able to do this because whatever electricity the village doesn’t use will be used for mining bitcoin. The cost of the energy paid to mine the bitcoin will more than offset any losses associated with providing the electricity to the village since instead of being wasted, it will actually be used.

So while a mainline criticism of bitcoin is that it requires too much electricity to work, here’s a tangible example of a rural community enjoying access to electricity because of bitcoin mining. These Kenyans now have access to electricity because of bitcoin, not in spite of bitcoin. Gridless is cutting into that 770 million without electrical power one bitcoin-enabled microgrid at a time.

As for the environmental concern associated with bitcoin mining’s dependence on energy that’s often repeated, providing access to electricity where it wasn’t possible before should surely outweigh whatever moral weighing a critic has for green energy production. Besides, hydroelectric power is renewable.

Kinda like someone came here years ago and told you that game theory incentives made Bitcoin miners an excellent and mutually beneficial companion for building out renewable electricity grids, eh?

But this won't happen in developed nations right? Texas shows otherwise; https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/06/texas-paid-bitcoin-miner-riot-31point7-million-to-shut-down-in-august.html

Before you ask me why a state entity paying a Bitcoin miner to not use electricity can possibly be good for the environment, how about doing a little thinking....

Frequentlyhere said:

3) The deception/outright lying that some do -  " More fraud in the US dollar" I find very grating still.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2023/06/03/crypto-isnt-criminal-and-us-policy-should-reflect-that/

Despite allegations of crypto being the preferred tool for nation-states and other large scale criminal enterprises to use, U.S. officials have testified directly against this idea. In April 2022, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testified that it would be hard for an economy, or any large scale operations (private sector or governmental) to use crypto to evade sanctions. Specifically, her testimony discussed the reality that large transactions would be easily traced on the underlying blockchain, and that the Treasury Department had not seen significant evasion via crypto as of that date.

It is also important to note that the 2022 National Terrorist Risk Financing Assessment revealed that while crypto was, and is, being used by criminal and terror organizations, that the use appears limited when compared to traditional financial instruments. The report also makes note of the fact that these traditional financial instruments, including the U.S. dollar, remain the tool of choice for criminal and terror financing.

Another allegation that is commonly lobbed at the crypto sector is that, because of the underlying blockchain technology, transactions and information are unable to be obtained for investigative purposes. This is precisely the opposite of the reality with regards to current market research. Reviewing Chainalysis reports from 2021 and 2022, the trend is clear; the percentage of crypto transactions involving criminal actors is decreasing rather than increasing as overall volume of transactions continues to increase.

Frequentlyhere said:

4) Kind of linked to the above, this thing where the price goes up and suddenly ordinary PF boards are infiltrated with giddy excitement of fervent speculators, who then retreat like crabs into the rocks when the tide comes in.

Just when did that tide come in exactly? Bitcoin hit $20k in Dec 2020 and has been no more than 20% below that since that date. That period that you refer to as 'the tide coming in' was when I publicly posted that I was buying more. That purchase is now up 3.5x. Measuring from the ATH and thinking that $70k to $16k in a year was a 'crash' when it was at $10k a year before that is just bad analysis. Not to mention the audacity of talking about the tide coming in at a time when the asset is currently at ATH.

I keep thinking that people can't keep failing this maths test over and over, but I am starting to think I may be wrong. I'll finish with this from a frequent poster in this thread;

Malthusian said:

As for Bitcoin - the people behind it cashed out years ago, took the money and ran. All that is left is the equivalent of people in a collapsed pyramid scheme still dutifully trudging door to door, trying to flog the boxes of self help products or soap that are cluttering up the living room.

Sounds like something that could have been posted in this thread last week right? It was posted on 6th November 2015.

Price of Bitcoin on that date? $400.