Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Discussion Thread

[lascavarian]

Why should my savings dissipate because you want to know how much is in play?

Fair question.

Do you have a thing of value? What is it worth you to find out? These are legitimate questions we all face.

I have a painting by Hattie K. Brunner that may be worth something. There is only one in the world and I have had it for over 50 years. I have kept it safe and maintained it at my expense. I would have to pay for an appraisal by a professional (one opinion) to get an idea for insurance purposes. It is always a cost. My only way to know for certain is to sell it but I can never trade it for an identical one.

If you have a thing of value held since 2011, it is related to scarcity (my opinion). It has nothing unique or creative or of particular labor or effort to distinguish it to anyone other than you. It's primary feature in the marketplace is scarcity. But there is no defined scarcity so it is at best speculative scarcity because no one knows what exists other than a likely maximum number. The degree of that speculative scarcity is not even able to be calculated due to many problems. This is a significant uncertainty working against value IMO.

It is to your advantage to establish the degree of scarcity. It is mostly you who benefits from knowing how much is in play

You merely have to establish in trade the presence of your thing of value. How you do that is up to you, trade it for like or use it or whatever. Only those that don't would see value decline and that fee might be used to insure (maybe) the value of those who have established value like you.

Transparency would be improved and in fact there is strong likelihood that the scarcity would grow because loss is a close friend of Murphy. Value would grow.

On another issue, I want nothing to do with the many questions like the Satoshi mystery just as no one needs to ponder Hattie K. Brunner. But I am a Tesla stockholder and recently I and likely others are drawn into it for better or worse. I might have far more of my saving in this thing of value than you shortly but how am I to know? Uncertainty and lack of transparency in an asset are not helpful to a stockprice IMO.

Thanks for you question.

 

[JRP3]

I'm getting interested in NFTs mainly because my daughter is interested in Art and reasonably talented.
Selling a bit of Art online, might be a better option that flipping burgers, at least until she can get a job in the really, really, good ice cream shop.
Currently a lot of NFTs are Ethereum based, and the transaction costs to list your Artwork for sale are high.
I'm looking out of the right option, in terms of transaction costs, and quality of site.
I have a year or 2 so no rush.... it is an interesting area to research...
All Crypto is interesting, and has some potential to change the world.

Beeple sold an NFT for $69 million

 

[JRP3]

Elon Musk's Weekend Dogemania: Calls On Coinbase To Support Dogecoin And Sends Wrong Crypto Soaring Again

Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk supported Coinbase enabling Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) on its trading platform over the weekend. What Happened: The entrepreneur’s support came in the form of a reply to a question posed by a Twitter user. Yes! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 13, 2021 Tesla’s...

finance.yahoo.com

 

[JRP3]

Two sides of the (Bit)coin Bitcoin mining can be a 'bridge' to a renewable energy future by supporting green projects, a leading North American miner says

 

[Xepa777]

If y'all haven't heard about this yet, I just wanted to introduce you to the greatest free money printer I've seen in my life.

It's called Celsius.

If you store Bitcoin on Celsius you get 6% compound interest!

Screw crypto though, if you store CASH on Celsius you earn 10.5% compound interest!!! What!?!?!

Also imagine you getting your employer direct deposit to Celsius with a 10.5% interest rate, then having a credit card through Celsius that auto pays off every month from your account while building your credit score.

Friggen nuts. Crypto is empowering an entirely new form of lending and it's disrupting banking mechanics. Due to traditional banks not valuing crypto at anything (try getting a loan and see how they value btc as an asset), Celsius can offer loans to these institutions (mainly market makers and arbitrage firms) at like 12-15% interest rate. They then give 80% of their revenue back to the community every week as yield.

When Celsius gives loans out to institutions, their counterparties over-collateralize. And when you think of crypto you think of risk...but imagine in a disaster scenario where Celsius has to liquidate someone...it's MUCH easier to liquidate crypto than it is to liquidate a mortgage. And crypto runs 24/7, so it's actually faster response than the stock market.

When Bitcoin dropped 40% in a single day in March 2020, Celsius operated just fine. Didn't haircut any depositor's assets.

THIS is the future utility value of crypto. Goes far beyond "buy and hold bitcoin durr." And now it gives Bitcoin intrinsic value as you can model cash flows to your asset.

Celsius has the third largest AUM of any crypto asset management firm, only after Grayscale and BlockFi. And after months of research I've come to the belief that Celsius is superior to BlockFi (for reasons I can expand upon later).

How do I invest in any other stock now that I have to compare it against Bitcoin + 6% dividend? Oil stocks don't even do that!

~~~IN-POST MODE EDIT:

This post has been sent to Moderators’ attention for “Sounds scammy — ToS "advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations"? Although I think the user's probably well-intentioned”

Without further comment on its merits, weaknesses or anything else, a suggestion that ALL do all conceivable due diligence whenever there is a free lunch being offered.~~~

 

[Rarity]

As a window on what Musk may be thinking with regard to Bitcoin, I found Michael Saylor's Corporate Strategy session in February particularly helpful and refreshingly dispassionate. Don't know if this video has been discussed before on this thread. Musk may be creating a balance sheet strategy and a P&L strategy for Tesla with Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Corporate Strategy with Michael Saylor

Bitcoin can be integrated into the P&L as well as the balance sheet of corporations. Including Bitcoin treasury strategy, competitive advantage, and examples of corporations successfully integrated Bitcoin.

www.microstrategy.com

There have been articles saying that folks from SpaceX attended this conference, but wasn't this a virtual conference anyway?

Lastly, it occurs to me that Musk may be borrowing some against his personal assets and buying Bitcoin. In today's environment, he is probably getting extremely low interest rates.

 

[StateoftheArt]

As a window on what Musk may be thinking with regard to Bitcoin, I found Michael Saylor's Corporate Strategy session in February particularly helpful and refreshingly dispassionate. Don't know if this video has been discussed before on this thread. Musk may be creating a balance sheet strategy and a P&L strategy for Tesla with Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Corporate Strategy with Michael Saylor

Bitcoin can be integrated into the P&L as well as the balance sheet of corporations. Including Bitcoin treasury strategy, competitive advantage, and examples of corporations successfully integrated Bitcoin.

www.microstrategy.com

There have been articles saying that folks from SpaceX attended this conference, but wasn't this a virtual conference anyway?

Lastly, it occurs to me that Musk may be borrowing some against his personal assets and buying Bitcoin. In today's environment, he is probably getting extremely low interest rates.

Yes, i just watched Saylor's youtube video with Ross Steven of NYDIG yesterday. Very good stuff. I'm very impressed with Saylor.

The probability of the trend of corporate balance sheet cash percentages coming to BTC as a store of wealth/hedge is rather high to almost inevitable. It could be quite the domino effect.

Add the fact that many more ETFs are coming online for traditional investors to get exposure it is hard to ignore the transfer of wealth to digital gold. It is going from what seemed like a crazy risky ponzi to potentially ultra stable store of wealth that could upend the traditional banking system.

I was very skeptical of BTC 1-2-3-4 years ago but the more you look into it the more it makes sense. Especially now. Seems like a wave is coming.

Could be wrong but this is where my research leads me.

This fascinates me much like TSLA did in 2013. I find the people ahead of the game on this are like the regular posters that were on this Board back then and who rarely post now....objective/realists. Much unlike the virtuous nonsense that has become to commonplace on here nowadays.

 

[lascavarian]

Today becomes another interesting date in Tesla history just for fun.

$852 was the closing Tesla stock price the day before it was announced that $1.5 billion had been invested in Bitcoin.

$662 was the closing Tesla Stock price the day before it was announced that Tesla is accepting Bitcoin for vehicle purchases.

 

[Discoducky]

Is it weird I want to invest in BTC just so I can buy my next Tesla with BTC? I wish I could buy BTC with etrade or fidelity.

 

[Xepa777]

If y'all haven't heard about this yet, I just wanted to introduce you to the greatest free money printer I've seen in my life.

It's called Celsius.

If you store Bitcoin on Celsius you get 6% compound interest!

Screw crypto though, if you store CASH on Celsius you earn 10.5% compound interest!!! What!?!?!

Also imagine you getting your employer direct deposit to Celsius with a 10.5% interest rate, then having a credit card through Celsius that auto pays off every month from your account while building your credit score.

Friggen nuts. Crypto is empowering an entirely new form of lending and it's disrupting banking mechanics. Due to traditional banks not valuing crypto at anything (try getting a loan and see how they value btc as an asset), Celsius can offer loans to these institutions (mainly market makers and arbitrage firms) at like 12-15% interest rate. They then give 80% of their revenue back to the community every week as yield.

When Celsius gives loans out to institutions, their counterparties over-collateralize. And when you think of crypto you think of risk...but imagine in a disaster scenario where Celsius has to liquidate someone...it's MUCH easier to liquidate crypto than it is to liquidate a mortgage. And crypto runs 24/7, so it's actually faster response than the stock market.

When Bitcoin dropped 40% in a single day in March 2020, Celsius operated just fine. Didn't haircut any depositor's assets.

THIS is the future utility value of crypto. Goes far beyond "buy and hold bitcoin durr." And now it gives Bitcoin intrinsic value as you can model cash flows to your asset.

Celsius has the third largest AUM of any crypto asset management firm, only after Grayscale and BlockFi. And after months of research I've come to the belief that Celsius is superior to BlockFi (for reasons I can expand upon later).

How do I invest in any other stock now that I have to compare it against Bitcoin + 6% dividend? Oil stocks don't even do that!

~~~IN-POST MODE EDIT:

This post has been sent to Moderators’ attention for “Sounds scammy — ToS "advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations"? Although I think the user's probably well-intentioned”

Without further comment on its merits, weaknesses or anything else, a suggestion that ALL do all conceivable due diligence whenever there is a free lunch being offered.~~~

Lol Celsius sounds too good that it was labeled as scammy! Hah! That's crypto disruption for ya. I'll take pride in that mod edit.

I've gotten so many of my co-workers on Celsius. Seriously, 10.5% interest rate on cash like it's a total no-brainer. I remember telling colleagues that Teslas were not only FASTER than ICE cars, but also SAFER as well...both due to being battery powered. Also mind blowing.

Celsius has a team that finds ways to generate yield with your crypto. They're involved in Bitcoin mining, DeFi, price arbitrages (i.e. GrayScale). As a depositor I benefit from all of that without having to actually learn/do it myself. I TRIED to do DeFi myself, but I'm not technical enough to understand smart contracts or understand cyber security risks. Having a centralized entity like Celsius put all their resources into doing that properly and just giving me yield from their efforts is a more than fair tradeoff.

What's crazy about the Celsius model is that the more money they give to depositors, the more profit they make. Here's the flow: the more people make in yield on Celsius -> the happier they are + spread it (like what I'm doing now) -> more people on platform holding their CEL token + crypto which Celsius can use to generate yield -> more revenue for Celsius the company.

It's a flywheel. Literally their whole goal is to give as much yield to customers as possible.

Credible Banking with Celsius Network: - Ha$o for $ound Money

Fed up of receiving the raw end of the deal with your bank? Join me for a deep dive into Celsius Network who put the community first and are disrupting the traditional banking sector.

www.hasoforsoundmoney.com

Now sure, you can buy Bitcoin on Coinbase...but you're not earning yield on it. And Coinbase is capturing all the value when they IPO. We as depositors don't receive compensation for that.

With true crypto projects, a lot of the value is tied to their utility coins. And this goes beyond Celsius, but basically ALL the crypto projects. If you want other examples of this, look at the Luna ecosystem. I'm also a big fan of what they're building - http://arringtonxrpcapital.com/wp-c...ecting_the_saver_walking_tall_with_anchor.pdf

Here's a good Youtube video on the topic -

Downsides? Well Celsius could get hacked. However, their whole business model is on loaning out / using their crypto to generate yield so they have <20% of crypto in storage at any given time. What if their clients default? Well to take a loan from Celsius companies/individuals have to over-collateralize their loans, which I referred to in my original post. So that serves as collateral + margin call mechanics. And Celsius has a wide array of entities it loans its coins out to, with no entity approaching close to 10% customer concentration and a limit on entire categories of yield. That's broad diversification of yield generation.

Compare that to BlockFi which many in crypto have speculated mainly generate yield through the GBTC premium arbitrage. Which...this was somewhat validated yesterday when BlockFi massively slashed their yield rates across the board on Bitcoin and Ethereum. Unfortunate, as I had several BTC in BlockFi

I'm deep in the rabbit hole y'all. Hahaha. It's incredibly intellectually fascinating, and the mechanics are so absurd that they get flagged for spam! LOL.

I will say...I've discovered a way to get 20% annual yield on US Dollars (via stablecoins). But I haven't done enough due diligence yet to feel confident enough to shill it here yet hahaha.

EDIT: I spent MONTHS researching Celsius. Compiled a lot of my research and put it here on this Google Docs -> -

What Is Celsius?

 

[Cal1]

I've watched the BC thing get bigger and bigger. Strange watching folks confuse investments with currency. WHY would anyone in their right mind pay for something with something else that can appreciate in value? Yea paying $75k in BC that might be worth $80k by the end of the week seems crazy. Not much to brag about using BC at that point.

Oh yea what about the seller receiving $75k of BC that is worth only $70k later? Seems pretty dumb to hold that BC and watch it drop in value. I guess everyone assumes BC will only go up over time.

Currency is not an investment. Investments are not currency. All of this fun is going to come crashing down at some point in the future. Of course this is MHO and my loss if I don't get on the bandwagon. Seems funny that Tesla might be willing to take BC in payment for my Plaid + but not my Tesla shares (based on value at time of purchase). Which are going down as I write this post!

Oh yea, Tesla shares are not currency.

 

[lascavarian]

Lol Celsius sounds too good that it was labeled as scammy! Hah! That's crypto disruption for ya. I'll take pride in that mod edit.

I've gotten so many of my co-workers on Celsius. Seriously, 10.5% interest rate on cash like it's a total no-brainer. I remember telling colleagues that Teslas were not only FASTER than ICE cars, but also SAFER as well...both due to being battery powered. Also mind blowing.

Celsius has a team that finds ways to generate yield with your crypto. They're involved in Bitcoin mining, DeFi, price arbitrages (i.e. GrayScale). As a depositor I benefit from all of that without having to actually learn/do it myself. I TRIED to do DeFi myself, but I'm not technical enough to understand smart contracts or understand cyber security risks. Having a centralized entity like Celsius put all their resources into doing that properly and just giving me yield from their efforts is a more than fair tradeoff.

What's crazy about the Celsius model is that the more money they give to depositors, the more profit they make. Here's the flow: the more people make in yield on Celsius -> the happier they are + spread it (like what I'm doing now) -> more people on platform holding their CEL token + crypto which Celsius can use to generate yield -> more revenue for Celsius the company.

It's a flywheel. Literally their whole goal is to give as much yield to customers as possible.

Credible Banking with Celsius Network: - Ha$o for $ound Money

Fed up of receiving the raw end of the deal with your bank? Join me for a deep dive into Celsius Network who put the community first and are disrupting the traditional banking sector.

www.hasoforsoundmoney.com

Now sure, you can buy Bitcoin on Coinbase...but you're not earning yield on it. And Coinbase is capturing all the value when they IPO. We as depositors don't receive compensation for that.

With true crypto projects, a lot of the value is tied to their utility coins. And this goes beyond Celsius, but basically ALL the crypto projects. If you want other examples of this, look at the Luna ecosystem. I'm also a big fan of what they're building - http://arringtonxrpcapital.com/wp-c...ecting_the_saver_walking_tall_with_anchor.pdf

Here's a good Youtube video on the topic -

Downsides? Well Celsius could get hacked. However, their whole business model is on loaning out / using their crypto to generate yield so they have <20% of crypto in storage at any given time. What if their clients default? Well to take a loan from Celsius companies/individuals have to over-collateralize their loans, which I referred to in my original post. So that serves as collateral + margin call mechanics. And Celsius has a wide array of entities it loans its coins out to, with no entity approaching close to 10% customer concentration and a limit on entire categories of yield. That's broad diversification of yield generation.

Compare that to BlockFi which many in crypto have speculated mainly generate yield through the GBTC premium arbitrage. Which...this was somewhat validated yesterday when BlockFi massively slashed their yield rates across the board on Bitcoin and Ethereum. Unfortunate, as I had several BTC in BlockFi

I'm deep in the rabbit hole y'all. Hahaha. It's incredibly intellectually fascinating, and the mechanics are so absurd that they get flagged for spam! LOL.

I will say...I've discovered a way to get 20% annual yield on US Dollars (via stablecoins). But I haven't done enough due diligence yet to feel confident enough to shill it here yet hahaha.

EDIT: I spent MONTHS researching Celsius. Compiled a lot of my research and put it here on this Google Docs -> -

What Is Celsius?

Satoshi, is that you?

 

[JRP3]

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio, the founder of the $150 billion hedge fund Bridgewater Associates — the world’s largest — made a case that there’s a “good probability” bitcoin could be outlawed, similar to when the U.S. government made it illegal to privately own gold.

Dalio sees 'good probability' bitcoin gets outlawed

'Every country treasures its monopoly on controlling the supply and demand. They don’t want other monies to be operating or competing,' Dalio tells Yahoo Finance's Andy Serwer.

finance.yahoo.com

 

[willow_hiller]

First sale in BTC I've spotted online:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1374608738976473094

 

[willow_hiller]

I also hope Elon talks more about the node they're running in-house. It's my understanding this is done so they can verify their own transactions?

Would running your own node possibly help to cut down on transaction fees? And maybe they're running it with renewable energy?

 

[jhm]

From the thread you just posted-


Bitcoin Market Cap = $700B
Global currencies = $80,000B

Bitcoin energy = 184M GJ
Banking and gold energy = 2834M GJ

So Bitcoin is 0.875% of all currencies yet uses 6.5% the energy of all gold mining and the global banking system?


That's not to mention how slow BTC transactions are in comparison, how little of it is used for actual currency rather than just a value store, and how many fewer services BTC provides than all global currency banking.



This is the opposite of "debunking" that BTC is incredibly wasteful energy-wise.

Even among cryptos it's terribly wasteful of energy, let alone compared to "traditional" banking

So basically if the price of bitcoin increased another 10X, then it would be proportionately more efficient than banks and gold. This is a scaling problem, no? The question is, how does crypto scale? To do this right, we really need to consider what supporting technologies are necessary for bitcoin to scale 10X. Thus, we need to look at Lightning Network and other layer 2 technologies.

Also let's be accurate, the market cap of bitcoin is closer to $1T than $700B. So 184GJ/$700B = 0.262J/$ now falls to 0.184J/$. Now that I make that claim you'll come back with "You don't understand how PoW works! The energy use goes up!" Ok, so this proves my point that it matters how things scale, doesn't it? And right now there is a shortage of hardware for mining, which means that even though miners might wish to increase their hash rate and burn more electricity, they are constrained by the hardware they've got. This, of course, is a scaling issue. And scarcity of hardware is an issue for all crypto combined (and it even impact other industries like auto makers). This is why you really need to look broadly at the whole crypto ecosystem, not just bitcoin in isolation.

Also so long as hardware is the bottleneck, optimizing the cost of electricity is a secondary issue for miners. Once there is a surplus of hardware, power cost will be the most competitive issue. Also as demand for mining services rise, they reach a scale where seeking out and developing the cheapest power really matters. This means the cheapest solar power on the planet will dominate mining operations as crypto scales. Spending 9c/kWh to buy coal power in China just won't be competitive when at any point in time solar is below 2c/kWh somewhere on the planet and there is enough hardware to tap it. Indeed, there is a very interesting tradeoff between crypto mining gear and batteries. If batteries become cheap relative mining gear, then miners will buy more batteries to extend operations near super cheap solar sources. I think it is very smart for Tesla to be getting their hands dirty with mining and node operations. The nexus of computational power, solar power and battery storage is super important for Tesla to figure out how to optimize, not just for crypto, but for the whole digital economy.

How crypto will operate at the $20T scale 5 or so years from now is not like it operates today at the $2T scale. Surely we must recognize that banking at the $80B scale enjoys many scaling efficiencies that at present are conceivable for the crypto ecosystem. If crypto ever reaches a comparable scale, we'll be able to make a fair comparison.

 

[jhm]

Is it weird I want to invest in BTC just so I can buy my next Tesla with BTC? I wish I could buy BTC with etrade or fidelity.

I've been away from TMC for a while. I've been immersing myself in crypto.

I wanted to buy GBTC, but my broker would not allow it. That really pissed me off. So I've been loading up on MicroStrategy (MSTR), Saylor's company. Right now they hold 91,326 BTC. Presently that BTC hoard is worth more than the market cap is currently trading. Basically, I think the company adds about $1B (maybe as much as $2B) to its BTC holdings. So right now MSTR is at a pretty serious discount.

Even so, my broker made me so made that I actually opened up an account at Gemini so that I could do direct crypto trading. Right now I really like Filecoin (FIL) and Chainlink (LINK). But that's for another discussion.

My recommendation is that curious investors get set up to trade crypto directly. I have learned so much more by this experience than I would have trading crypto ETFs in a brokerage account. Just figuring out how to move money around and avoid transaction costs is an education that gives me more appreciation of what is really going on in crypto. And I'm sure that I will continue to learn as I go. It's a bit like how driving your own Tesla gives you experience that can help you better appreciate Tesla as an investment.

 

[jhm]

FYI, below is my very simplistic model for MicroStrategy. The operations generate about $80M in non-GAAP earning, which at a modest 12.5 P/E gets to $1B, or $131/share. Then the 91,326 BTC gets valued at current BTC-USD exchange rate, which is presently $4.7B. So the combined value of MSTR is $5.7B or $751/share. The current market valuation $601/share is 20% discount to my valuation.

So I'm happy to buy at these discount prices because I want exposure to BTC.

 

[StateoftheArt]

thank you jhm. that is some BS your broker wouldn't allow you to purchase GBTC as it is trading at quite a discount right now. what are your thoughts on Litecoin? Seems to me like the next natural purchase after BTC.

 

[jhm]

Dalio sees 'good probability' bitcoin gets outlawed

'Every country treasures its monopoly on controlling the supply and demand. They don’t want other monies to be operating or competing,' Dalio tells Yahoo Finance's Andy Serwer.

finance.yahoo.com

I don't buy it. What majority would push this through Congress? This would be a huge generational mistake for either party to make. Only boomers would want to ban this to protect their USD-denominated retirement money. Millennials and Gen-Z would be utterly pissed off at whatever lot of politicians destroyed their crypto wealth. And no one ever cares what Gen-X thinks anyway.