Bitcoin

[DaveC]

Bitcoin is pushing the pursuit for clean energy.

Delusional I am not, poor I might [Strike]bitcoins[/strike] become.

Sorry, you're delusional.

As someone who claims what he does in support of saving the planet this is the definition of hypocrisy.

Bitcoin was invented to launder money and make payments that would otherwise be risky because they are against the law. It encourages corruption, which is at the very heart of wealth inequality and the unfair treatment of our fellow human beings.

It turns out that many transactions are NOT anonymous, which is a failing of Bitcoin but supporters turn that around and tell you it's a feature. Combine this with the incredible energy usage and it's clear to me this might not be the way to go.

But hey, the promise of a quick buck is hard to resist especially when you feel like you don't currently have enough. I'll continue to invest in myself and my own business, I believe in it and what I want to do.

 

[NorthStar]

DaveC, you're entitled to your opinion, but calling me delusional and hypocrite I object.
Expand your mind and see beyond your reason. You can disagree with anything, anyone.
Respect other's opinion. Don't mix up things you're not sure of.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I wish to respectfully disagree. I am certain there will be 25 percent or 50 percent declines in price at times.

But from the little I understand about Ethereum I think the concept is completely brilliant.

Whether the eventual victor is Bitcoin or Ethereum or Litecoin or XRP (Ripple) or IOTA one of these things is the future of financial transactions.

 

[Folsom]

amazing fact [159 countries]

Ya but your amps eat more idle current than half of those countries... Throwing in all the countries that basically don't use electricity makes it less impressive. Greenland? It's a country that has a population of a large town.

we all know why this currency was developed. Plain and simple...to hide shady or crooked money.

Not true at all. Considering it was developed to stop the possibility of double spending, it is actually to fight crooked institutional money. It eliminates the need for 3rd parties, known as clearing houses. By doing that it creates something usable by everyone for true value movement, independent of crooked "authority".

Bitcoin was invented to launder money and make payments that would otherwise be risky because they are against the law. It encourages corruption, which is at the very heart of wealth inequality and the unfair treatment of our fellow human beings.

It turns out that many transactions are NOT anonymous, which is a failing of Bitcoin but supporters turn that around and tell you it's a feature.

But hey, the promise of a quick buck is hard to resist especially when you feel like you don't currently have enough. I'll continue to invest in myself and my own business, I believe in it and what I want to do.

Dave you've fallen victim to the mass confusion on the subject. Here is the section from the white paper:

The traditional banking model achieves a level of privacy by limiting access to information to the
parties involved and the trusted third party. The necessity to announce all transactions publicly
precludes this method, but privacy can still be maintained by breaking the flow of information in
another place: by keeping public keys anonymous. The public can see that someone is sending
an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone. This is
similar to the level of information released by stock exchanges, where the time and size of
individual trades, the "tape", is made public, but without telling who the parties were.
As an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them
from being linked to a common owner. Some linking is still unavoidable with multi-input
transactions, which necessarily reveal that their inputs were owned by the same owner. The risk
is that if the owner of a key is revealed, linking could reveal other transactions that belonged to
the same owner.

It is meant for increased privacy, but not being anonymous. It's well known that to be completely anonymous you can't have the public knowing how much was transfered, along with other features. Countless people took this as meaning untraceable, but that was an error on their part. At no point is that claim made. And at no point does anyone believe stocks are untraceable. The point is increased privacy so that not everyone in the world can easily just look at it.

I don't see the problem, if you aren't suspect then why would there be any need to put you under the lens? Innocent until proven guilty is something I believe in.


Can any of you tell us how you would launder money with it? Did you know you have to show federal ID at every Bitcoin ATM? Coinbase is considerably more secure than your bank account... It's pretty damn hard. Even if you manage to transfer value with it for that purpose, how did you buy it? how are they going to sell it? In order for laundered money to have use... I'm sure you see my point.

And the reality is the amount of money that could be used for "illicit" activity, is petty compared to the truly big money launderers found in the institutional systems. It's hard for me to really understand why any of you would give a rat's ass about a few hundred dollars or maybe at absolute best a few thousand, going unnoticed... (which requires being cash to start with) For me it's the millions and billions that are bothersome, the money made off of everyone's backs, that is bothersome when it comes to illegal activity.

Fiat is still king for illicit activity, by an absolutely massive margin that makes cryptos look like a grain of sand on a beach... but I don't see anyone ranting and raving about it.





While maybe I should try to explain better about the value in Bitcoin, I don't really think there is much point to anyone that doesn't want to hear it (so they won't).

 

[Folsom]

I wish to respectfully disagree. I am certain there will be 25 percent or 50 percent declines in price at times.

But from the little I understand about Ethereum I think the concept is completely brilliant.

Whether the eventual victor is Bitcoin or Ethereum or XRP (Ripple) or IOTA one of these things is the future of financial transactions.

Ethereum isn't meant to be a currency. It could be used like one, but given the crazy amount of capabilities it has for computing etc, why?

Have you looked at LiteCoin? It makes the best case for being used as a currency like you use fiat. Bitcoin will never be used for daily transactions. It just isn't made for that, at least for buying candy bars from the gas station. A house? Yes. This is why some people are into Bcash, because they want daily money spending ability.

XRP will never be used. It's intended for banks. And Ripple network that is being used as banks has started use without XRP. That means almost all the banks that adopted Ripple don't use a cryptocurrency. They are just writing IOUs on a blockchain. As my article states, Ripple network is basically a massive fraud that allows banks to be free to do anything they desire without oversight. Asian banks have flocked to it for that reason, as most people can't understand how and why it offers no actual value. Furthermore XRP majority is held by Ripple and they sell it in bulk to people so it won't appreciate, maybe ever. I surely hope you didn't buy any.

IOTA is a strangely speculative thing. If you read their paper you see how they mean to be a blockchain for the "Internet of things" but under the premise for FREE transactions. Don't be surprised if the value of the token goes to nothing once they are really up and running. Maybe I missed something, but it appears people are investing to pump a company that could be a big part of the future, but don't understand there isn't really a reward system in place.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Folsom, IOUs on a blockchain is Ripple's main innovation, I think. XRP was not envisioned mainly as a currency, I don't think.

I have bought only Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin and shares of three seemingly legitimate blockchain-related companies.

Why do you think IOTA has been going crazy recently? Maybe the IOTA blockchain will levy a charge in the future?

 

[NorthStar]

• https://www.wired.com/2013/12/fbi_wallet/

 

[Folsom]

Folsom, IOUs on a blockchain is Ripple's main innovation, I think. XRP was not envisioned mainly as a currency, I don't think.

I have bought only Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin.

Why do you think IOTA has been going crazy recently? Maybe the IOTA blockchain will levy a charge in the future?

XRP is made just to transfer money in and out of markets quickly, avoiding traditional red tape. That's the idea. And yes, that is Ripple main "innovation" - which is a joke since real cryptos can transfer value and the IOU system isn't needed at all. It still scares me how dirty banks can be with free reign to do anything because somewhere it says they did X - but are not upheld to it (not a problem with a true crypto).

I'm not certain on the IOTA craze, I have yet to see how it turns into a return. The interest in it is very clear as technology. People are expecting all our devices to be online (not just phones and computer), and the blockchain is one innovative way to do it so that maybe it won't drive us totally crazy or be used maliciously.

 

[NorthStar]

Over $13,000 ... https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-price-climbs-above-13000-to-reach-new-all-time-high/

Right now: Bitcoin = $13303.47

• https://www.coindesk.com/angellists-naval-ravikant-token-summit-bitcoin-solves-money-problems/

 

[NorthStar]

_____

1 Bitcoin equals
14515.44 Canadian Dollar
_____

December 3, 2017 ^ @ 6:00 PM (Pacific Time)

Now, less than three days later:

1 Bitcoin equals
17235.19 Canadian Dollar

P.S. It went over 18,000 Canadian Dollar, after I posted the above just an hour or so later. And, over $14,000 USD. ...Almost $14,400

 

[NorthStar]

Here's a good article on bitcoin's energy consumption:
• https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/bitcoins-insane-energy-consumption-explained/

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ethereum isn't meant to be a currency. It could be used like one, but given the crazy amount of capabilities it has for computing etc, why?

. . .

I do not think of Ethereum as a currency. I think of Ethereum as a brilliant way to use computers to program infinitely customizeable financial contracts.

In your view is the potential supply of Ethereum as limited as the potential supply of Bitcoin? On which one do you think a technology cabal could more easily change the existing rules and increase the supply?

 

[KeithR]

another fun fact - there are almost as many bitcoin accounts as US brokerage accounts

just about to hit 14k today.

my guess is this looks like an 65-85% decline. you can timestamp this. if they approve the short ETF, i'm in. Gold was another easy short around 1800.

 

[Ron Resnick]

12/06/17/14:41:00

You are on the record, my friend!

(I was looking for a 20% decline off of 10,000, so I sold 3 Bitcoins at 9,700. But the 20% decline occurred off of 11,700, and I wound up buying the 3 back at about 10,500! )

 

[KeithR]

You are on the record, my friend!

(I was looking for a 20% decline off of 10,000. The 20% decline occurred off of 11,700!)

Ron, there are so many weak hands in this trade it will be significantly further than people expect. Besides, bitcoin has fallen 80% like 5 times in its young history.

I'm just looking at charts - 5k and 2k are distinct possibilities

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . . Making a quick buck is always tempting but here there is nothing of substance, nothing.

Respectfully, I just don't see how you can believe there is absolutely nothing of substance here. I think it clearly is something. Only time will tell how big that something is, and if it revolutionizes one or more types of financial transactions.

 

[ack]

Bitcoin futures to be launched on Sunday on CBOE

Bitcoin received a boost after Friday’s announcement by the main U.S. derivatives regulator that it would allow CME Group Inc and CBOE Global Markets to list bitcoin futures contracts.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ews 1700 2017-12-06&utm_term=US Business 1700

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ron, there are so many weak hands in this trade it will be significantly further than people expect. Besides, bitcoin has fallen 80% like 5 times in its young history.

I'm just looking at charts - 5k and 2k are distinct possibilities

I agree. When you look at the chart the thing has run up so far and so fast that the lines of support are far, far down.

 

[Steve Williams]

the reality is no one knows when the bubble will burst

 

[KeithR]

it will end when you see an island top reversal on huge volume. we are closer than people think.