Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Discussion Thread

[willow_hiller]

Back to this FBLIE story...I want them prove this. There are only 3 ways they recovered the btc:

How about... the FBI ran a Trojan-horse messaging app that advertised itself as end-to-end encrypted and marketed it to criminals; and a member of DarkSide sent their wallet keys over the app? Trojan Shield: How the FBI Secretly Ran a Phone Network for Criminals

There are plenty of logical explanations beyond lame conspiracy theories.

 

[daniel]

Over the years there has been so many times when I have heard newcomers who have never used Bitcoin having a very strong conviction that Bitcoin will never grow large because of reasons. Often the arguments are pretty much
Bitcoin no workie because:
1. Deflation
2. States will ban it
3. Not backed by anything
4. Crime
5. Bitcoin 2.0 will replace it
6. Goods on silkroad/etc nominated in USD
7. Gold is better
8. Consume too much energy

etc etc.

I used to offer everyone on another message board free 0.01BTC if they just downloaded electrum and pasted their generated address. It was pretty crazy to see so many posters arguing why bitcoin was a horrible investment yet refusing to even receive free money.

Imo if you are gonna have a strong opinion about something at least try it first. Instead of wasting 1hour debating it, waste 5min trying it. Ok, now unfortuneately it is prohibitly expensive to try it, but for all the people who failed to do this between 2013-2019 but still had a strong opinion during this time, imo consider what is wrong with you and leave the debate to the people who are sane...

See what papa Elon is doing, he teaches his kid to set up a dogecoin mining rig. Why? To learn what’s it all about. Once you have done this you can enter the intellectual arena, try your arguments, be right sometimes, be wrong sometimes and be less wrong over time. Until then, leave it to the adults.

Speaking for myself, using BTC would violate my commitment to try to minimize my carbon footprint. Using BTC supports the crypto universe which, IMO serves mostly criminals and speculators.

OTOH, if you offered me 1BTC right now, greed would overcome my principles and I'd accept. I'd keep it only as long as required by the terms of the gift, and then I'd cash it out for real money, which I'd put into an indexed mutual fund. I'm envious as hell of the people who got in early and are now multi-millionaires. But I still regard crypto as a Ponzi scheme that mostly benefits the early adopters and criminals.

Note that I would not keep my wealth in fiat money any more than I'd keep it in crypto. I keep enough money for expenses, including whatever luxuries I can afford, and a buffer for emergencies. But my store of wealth is in holdings that actually produce something of value: mutual funds in stocks and bonds that pay dividends and interest. Stocks are ownership in companies that actually produce value, and bonds are interest-paying loans to companies that use the money to produce value, or to government entities that need money to buy the things needed to run their jurisdiction.

Neither crypto nor fiat nor gold produce anything of value. Any of them can be used for speculation but none is a suitable store of value because they are dead assets. They just sit there.

 

[heltok]

Speaking for myself, using BTC would violate my commitment to try to minimize my carbon footprint. Using BTC supports the crypto universe which, IMO serves mostly criminals and speculators.

Back in the days when it cost cents to send bitcoins, the marginal electricity cost was very low. Now when it is in the hundred of dollars it is thousands time higher, thansk to Blockstream. Fwiw I also offset my carbon footprint, my biggest culprit is that my airplane rides are not electric. Hopefully my investment in Tesla can do something about that, and hopefully my Ethereum speculation will help make crypto PoS. Then in hindsight it will hopefully been a few years with some extra carbon footprint, but afterwards a much more efficient system compensating for that... Also using fiat currency is supporting government funding of wars which have a pretty insane carbon footprint also, which crypto might lessen.

 

[Xepa777]

The fact that entire countries are now acknowledging and adopting Bitcoin is astounding. I didn't think this would happen for years.

Politicians from El Salvador, Paraguay, Panama, Brazil, Mexico and more have all expressed support for Bitcoin adoption.
All the Countries Where Bitcoin Adoption Is Being Considered

There's $100 trillion in the fixed income market that will be re-allocated in the coming 10 years, and I'm betting on Bitcoin to get a meaningful chunk of that market.

 

[Xepa777]

Joe Biden’s technology advisor has disclosed that his largest personal investment is in bitcoin. The next generation of entrepreneurs and technologists see the digital currency as an inevitability. Just a matter of time. https://out.reddit.com/t3_nv2u6c?ur...GsK-xX4Qa6MAMoWtuN97XCtLPYBZu&app_name=mweb2x

 

[daniel]

Joe Biden’s technology advisor has disclosed that his largest personal investment is in bitcoin. The next generation of entrepreneurs and technologists see the digital currency as an inevitability. Just a matter of time. https://out.reddit.com/t3_nv2u6c?url=https://twitter.com/apompliano/status/1402235067523645446?s=21&token=AQAA2hHAYOi3CxH6nVQjcpGGsK-xX4Qa6MAMoWtuN97XCtLPYBZu&app_name=mweb2x

It may be inevitable, but not as a useful day-to-day currency when the price can skyrocket or the bottom can fall out in a day, when there's zero protection against fraud or theft, and when a $5 transaction to buy groceries can cost $100 to process.

It's inevitable that speculators will buy and sell anything and create a market price that's unrelated to anything but the willingness of other speculators to buy, in the hopes of easy profit.

 

[Xepa777]

It may be inevitable, but not as a useful day-to-day currency when the price can skyrocket or the bottom can fall out in a day, when there's zero protection against fraud or theft, and when a $5 transaction to buy groceries can cost $100 to process.

It's inevitable that speculators will buy and sell anything and create a market price that's unrelated to anything but the willingness of other speculators to buy, in the hopes of easy profit.

With the Terra blockchain:

• Their crypto (UST) is pegged to US Dollars, providing stability in purchasing power
• Their crypto (UST) has a long-run 10% stable interest rate
• There is built-in insurance against smart contract failure, and third party companies like publicly traded Intellabrdige (CRBTF) can build in those security layers easily
• The transaction fee is around 5-10 cents depending on the type of transaction
• Founded by Stanford engineer graduate, backed by Coinbase + Robinhood CEO + Galaxy Digital
• Interview with ARK Invest and Terra CEO - The Terra Blockchain with Do Kwon - ARK Podcast
• Interview with Robinhood CEO and Terra CEO - Under the Hood

With Celsius:

• Your cash is generating a 8%+ interest rate
• By end of this year there will be direct deposit capability to your Celsius account and a credit card you can use tied to your account (which builds credit for you)
• Celsius is coming out with an insurance fund, has insurance on cold storage coins, and has its clients over-collaterize actively lent out crypto for insurance
• There IS protection against fraud/theft with a wide variety of security protocols (i.e. during the login process, Celsius tracks IP address and see if someone is logging in through Tor, VPN, IMEI (if you get sim swapped they can detect it as they track serial number on your phone))
• Won't be transaction fees when you buy stuff with Celsius credit card, or annual fees
• Celsius CEO has 3 unicorns on his belt, made the wifi system for NYC subway system, and is very legit - Alex Mashinsky - Wikipedia
• Celsius has $20 billion AUM and has some very large corporate partnerships that will be announced by end of this year

The world does not start and stop at Bitcoin. There's multiple protocols for multiple use cases, ranging from daily grocery buying to the $100 trillion store of value market. Bitcoin is an important part of the crypto future, but it is not the end-all-be-all.

Crypto will change the world the way Tesla is changing it now. And any true disruptive innovation investor like I was when I invested in Tesla in 2013 will see striking parallels here.

 

[electricar]

Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Terra, Celsius, Ripple, Omni, Waves - I just decide which of the 10,000 and counting Crypto currencies to invest in.

 

[Getinring]

With the Terra blockchain:

• Their crypto (UST) is pegged to US Dollars, providing stability in purchasing power
• Their crypto (UST) has a long-run 10% stable interest rate
• There is built-in insurance against smart contract failure, and third party companies like publicly traded Intellabrdige (CRBTF) can build in those security layers easily
• The transaction fee is around 5-10 cents depending on the type of transaction
• Founded by Stanford engineer graduate, backed by Coinbase + Robinhood CEO + Galaxy Digital
• Interview with ARK Invest and Terra CEO - The Terra Blockchain with Do Kwon - ARK Podcast
• Interview with Robinhood CEO and Terra CEO - Under the Hood

With Celsius:

• Your cash is generating a 8%+ interest rate
• By end of this year there will be direct deposit capability to your Celsius account and a credit card you can use tied to your account (which builds credit for you)
• Celsius is coming out with an insurance fund, has insurance on cold storage coins, and has its clients over-collaterize actively lent out crypto for insurance
• There IS protection against fraud/theft with a wide variety of security protocols (i.e. during the login process, Celsius tracks IP address and see if someone is logging in through Tor, VPN, IMEI (if you get sim swapped they can detect it as they track serial number on your phone))
• Won't be transaction fees when you buy stuff with Celsius credit card, or annual fees
• Celsius CEO has 3 unicorns on his belt, made the wifi system for NYC subway system, and is very legit - Alex Mashinsky - Wikipedia
• Celsius has $20 billion AUM and has some very large corporate partnerships that will be announced by end of this year

The world does not start and stop at Bitcoin. There's multiple protocols for multiple use cases, ranging from daily grocery buying to the $100 trillion store of value market. Bitcoin is an important part of the crypto future, but it is not the end-all-be-all.

Crypto will change the world the way Tesla is changing it now. And any true disruptive innovation investor like I was when I invested in Tesla in 2013 will see striking parallels here.

I do have to say I’m pleasantly surprised with Celsius. Love earning the yield which has been 10-13% on my stable coin which otherwise was just earning measly interest in a savings account. Of course I don’t park everything in there but the transparency with Celsius is refreshing especially with the AMAs where you can ask the CEO anything.

 

[lascavarian]

Andrew S. on CNBC interviews head of Digital Chamber of Commerce (crypto). Question is asked but result is talking points. Next question is asked and dodged. Finally ransomware come up and is dodged with “what about” response. Andrew is openly laughing at this point and tries another ransomware question and again gobbledygook attempt at response.

This may end up as a video clip. It is worth a watch for the art of promotion without substance skills IMO.

 

[daniel]

With the Terra blockchain:

• Their crypto (UST) is pegged to US Dollars, providing stability in purchasing power
• Their crypto (UST) has a long-run 10% stable interest rate
• There is built-in insurance against smart contract failure, and third party companies like publicly traded Intellabrdige (CRBTF) can build in those security layers easily
• The transaction fee is around 5-10 cents depending on the type of transaction
• Founded by Stanford engineer graduate, backed by Coinbase + Robinhood CEO + Galaxy Digital
• Interview with ARK Invest and Terra CEO - The Terra Blockchain with Do Kwon - ARK Podcast
• Interview with Robinhood CEO and Terra CEO - Under the Hood

With Celsius:

• Your cash is generating a 8%+ interest rate
• By end of this year there will be direct deposit capability to your Celsius account and a credit card you can use tied to your account (which builds credit for you)
• Celsius is coming out with an insurance fund, has insurance on cold storage coins, and has its clients over-collaterize actively lent out crypto for insurance
• There IS protection against fraud/theft with a wide variety of security protocols (i.e. during the login process, Celsius tracks IP address and see if someone is logging in through Tor, VPN, IMEI (if you get sim swapped they can detect it as they track serial number on your phone))
• Won't be transaction fees when you buy stuff with Celsius credit card, or annual fees
• Celsius CEO has 3 unicorns on his belt, made the wifi system for NYC subway system, and is very legit - Alex Mashinsky - Wikipedia
• Celsius has $20 billion AUM and has some very large corporate partnerships that will be announced by end of this year

The world does not start and stop at Bitcoin. There's multiple protocols for multiple use cases, ranging from daily grocery buying to the $100 trillion store of value market. Bitcoin is an important part of the crypto future, but it is not the end-all-be-all.

Crypto will change the world the way Tesla is changing it now. And any true disruptive innovation investor like I was when I invested in Tesla in 2013 will see striking parallels here.

Where are those interest payments coming from? Bonds (and in the old days, bank accounts) pay interest because they lend out the cash. They don't hold it. Those interest payments on crypto are coming from new speculators buying in. It's the definition of a Ponzi scheme: Paying early speculators with proceeds from late arrivals. And if they're lending out coins at interest, they're lending to speculators, because no actual functioning business borrows crypto for their operating expenses or to expand their operations. And nobody but a speculator borrows crypto because you could well have to pay it back at astronomical rates because the coin you pay back could be worth double of what it was when you borrowed it. Nobody would lend crypto either because it could go the other way and you get back a fraction of the value you loaned. It would be idiocy to borrow or lend crypto except for speculation. And that's how any legitimate financial institution functions: By borrowing and lending currency that has a stable value and can be used by the borrower for something useful.

As for "stable" crypto pegged to dollars, that's a house of cards. They're holding the exchange rate steady by buying coins back at a fixed rate, but that only works as long as new speculators keep buying in. I don't remember which crypto it was that claimed to actually hold dollars to back its coins, and investigators found that they didn't even have dollars, just commercial paper, which wouldn't have been so bad except that they didn't have nearly enough of it to actually cover the coins.

There's a reason why nations have a single currency: There was a time when currency was issued by banks, and every bank had its own. It was total chaos: Nobody knew what any one currency was actually worth. For a modern economy to function, it needs a generally-accepted and predictable currency. With a hundred different cryptos, how are you going to buy a gallon of milk? Do you really expect your local corner convenience store to accept all of them? Maybe you're visiting a friend a half a mile away and it's more convenient to buy your milk at a different store that day, but they accept a different crypto than you have. Now you have to change your coin to a different crypto. It just won't work! Crypto is great for ransomeware criminals because they can demand you pay in the crypto of their choice. Other than that, it's just speculators.

 

[Xepa777]

Where are those interest payments coming from? Bonds (and in the old days, bank accounts) pay interest because they lend out the cash. They don't hold it. Those interest payments on crypto are coming from new speculators buying in. It's the definition of a Ponzi scheme: Paying early speculators with proceeds from late arrivals. And if they're lending out coins at interest, they're lending to speculators, because no actual functioning business borrows crypto for their operating expenses or to expand their operations. And nobody but a speculator borrows crypto because you could well have to pay it back at astronomical rates because the coin you pay back could be worth double of what it was when you borrowed it. Nobody would lend crypto either because it could go the other way and you get back a fraction of the value you loaned. It would be idiocy to borrow or lend crypto except for speculation. And that's how any legitimate financial institution functions: By borrowing and lending currency that has a stable value and can be used by the borrower for something useful.

As for "stable" crypto pegged to dollars, that's a house of cards. They're holding the exchange rate steady by buying coins back at a fixed rate, but that only works as long as new speculators keep buying in. I don't remember which crypto it was that claimed to actually hold dollars to back its coins, and investigators found that they didn't even have dollars, just commercial paper, which wouldn't have been so bad except that they didn't have nearly enough of it to actually cover the coins.

There's a reason why nations have a single currency: There was a time when currency was issued by banks, and every bank had its own. It was total chaos: Nobody knew what any one currency was actually worth. For a modern economy to function, it needs a generally-accepted and predictable currency. With a hundred different cryptos, how are you going to buy a gallon of milk? Do you really expect your local corner convenience store to accept all of them? Maybe you're visiting a friend a half a mile away and it's more convenient to buy your milk at a different store that day, but they accept a different crypto than you have. Now you have to change your coin to a different crypto. It just won't work! Crypto is great for ransomeware criminals because they can demand you pay in the crypto of their choice. Other than that, it's just speculators.

Where are interest payments for Celsius coming from in lending activity? It comes from loaning to various market makers, arbitragers, exchanges, etc. It's not "the definition of a Ponzi scheme". If you want to go over this in depth I highly recommend joining the Celsius Discord group and starting a conversation there, where you'll get a lot of thorough explanations - Join the The Celsians Club Discord Server!

In terms of the Terra ecosystem...How is stable crypto pegged to dollars a house of cards? Check out the seniorage system -

or maybe the actual white-paper is more sufficiently technical - https://www.terra.money/Terra_White_paper.pdf

Highly recommend you listen to the Ark Invest podcast with Terra and the one with Robinhood's CEO.

There is a consolidation of major cryptos for geographical monopolies. Ethereum in Western countries, perhaps Cardano in Africa, Terra Luna for Asian countries. And I view individual company coins more like stocks rather than legal tender used to buy milk. You currently don't buy Starbucks coffee with $TSLA shares ya?

As for "crypto is great for ransomware" point, please don't promote FUD headlines. Then you just become corporate-manipulated $TSLAQ for another industry. Check out those resources, engage in dialogue with these communities, there's a lot of misconceptions to clear up even among the most blue-chip of projects (Bitcoin, Ethereum).

 

[daniel]

$TSLA does not pretend to be currency. Crypto pretends to be currency, but is useless as currency. $TSLA represents ownership in an innovative and growing company producing consumer products and new technology. The stock is volatile but the company is growing. Crypto is an invented commodity that produces nothing, that has no actual use other than speculation and black-market wealth transfer. $TSLA would be useless as currency because its value is too volatile. Fortunately, nobody is claiming that it could be currency. Crypto is useless as currency for the same reason, but its proponents insist that it should or could be currency.

And much smarter people than me have denounced crypto in the same terms that I've been using here.

I don't doubt that the communities of true believers might be quite convincing. It's a rabbit hold I don't plan on going down. I don't have to watch all the flat-earth YouTube videos to know the Earth is not flat.

 

[heltok]

For being a useless currency, it’s usage has grown a lot since 2009.

Blockchain.com | Charts - Estimated Transaction Value (USD)

The most trusted source for data on the bitcoin blockchain.

www.blockchain.com

 

[wdolson]

Traditional currency markets move rather slowly with respect to one another. The system can handle the dollar moving vs the Yen a few cents a day, but if the Yen went from 110 Y to the $ to 200 in a day, it would cause trade chaos. In times of turmoil is a county a national currency has crashed against other currencies in a short time and it always results in chaos.

Crypto currencies are all highly volatile right now, but they have always had more volatility than traditional currencies. I agree with @daniel, that makes them pretty much useless as an actual currency. If Starbucks took a given crypto, the cup of coffee you bought yesterday could be the equivalent of $30 or $0.50 today and you just don't know from day to day.

The difficulty in tracking them does make it a good black market currency. Black markets are more tolerant to volatility than traditional markets because the people in them know that's the cost of doing business.

The G7 or G20 countries could decide to gang up on crypto currencies by requiring law enforcement tracking of transactions or face being banned in all developed countries combined with laws with stiff penalties for violations. They could also start imposing stiff taxes on transactions. Banning them completely would just force them deep into the black markets where they would hang on, but the number of people participating would decline as well as the value.

The Chinese are cracking down on crypto mining now. Authoritarian regimes are going to be among the first to try and stop crypto. Anything that threatens their control makes them nervous. There is a lot of crypto activity in Russia, but it's quite possible the FSB is very aware of or may be running any crypto operation of any size.

 

[wdolson]

For being a useless currency, it’s usage has grown a lot since 2009.

Blockchain.com | Charts - Estimated Transaction Value (USD)

The most trusted source for data on the bitcoin blockchain.

www.blockchain.com

View attachment 671896

Does that include trading activity or actual purchase of goods and services only?

Crypto is following the same pattern of growth as tulip mania. The crypto currency market may still be around in a few years, but it could completely collapse like bubble markets tend to do.

 

[heltok]

Does that include trading activity or actual purchase of goods and services only?

Crypto is following the same pattern of growth as tulip mania. The crypto currency market may still be around in a few years, but it could completely collapse like bubble markets tend to do.

Tulip mania being a major event is largely a myth:

There Never Was a Real Tulip Fever

A new movie sets its doomed entrepreneurs amidst 17th-century “tulipmania”—but historians of the phenomenon have their own bubble to burst

www.smithsonianmag.com

Tulip mania - Wikipedia

Other things following the growth pattern of tulip mania is Tesla, Amazon, Apple etc. Just because something is growing as investors/speculators are driving up valuations, does not imply that it is a bubble or not.

It’s hard to say what is trading and what is trading of bitcoin for physical/digital objects. Economies are complex. One site that are used for trading of crypto for goods/services was Bitpay, did report a growth in usage:

Could not find a newer graph, but at least for a few years they went from 0 to 200k monthly transactions. Imo it is pretty clear that in 2009 there was ~0 trades crypto<->goods, and in 2016 there was a lot. So I think we can safely say that real use of the useless currency did increase at least for a few years. I myself have done a few hundred purchases using Bitcoin, from monthly rents to beers and bitcoin stickers.

 

[Daniel in SD]

So, I've got a question for the crypto experts out there. What would stop a government from declaring any ransom paid to be stolen property and making possession of it illegal? It seems like that would make people (especially exchanges) hesitant to accept bitcoin traced to that transaction.
Or say I have bitcoin stolen from me and I find out that it has made its way into the wallet of an exchange. Could I sue the exchange for return of my property? Is every Satoshi unique or is there something I'm missing?

EDIT: I guess what I'm missing is that as bitcoin gets moved from wallet to wallet it gets mixed (sort of like melting gold bars together and making new gold bars?). Wallets would get corrupted by the ill gotten bitcoin very quickly. Though I suppose you could calculate a percentage of each wallet that is stolen bitcoin...

 

[daniel]

For being a useless currency, it’s usage has grown a lot since 2009.

Blockchain.com | Charts - Estimated Transaction Value (USD)

The most trusted source for data on the bitcoin blockchain.

www.blockchain.com

View attachment 671896

Transaction volume does not distinguish between the purchase of goods and services, or the trading of coins as speculation. The vast majority of transaction volume is speculators buying and selling coins in the hopes of making a profit off the change in price. Of the transactions for actual goods and services, the great majority is black market, especially including ransom paid to hackers.

So, I've got a question for the crypto experts out there. What would stop a government from declaring any ransom paid to be stolen property and making possession of it illegal? It seems like that would make people (especially exchanges) hesitant to accept bitcoin traced to that transaction.
Or say I have bitcoin stolen from me and I find out that it has made its way into the wallet of an exchange. Could I sue the exchange for return of my property? Is every Satoshi unique or is there something I'm missing?

EDIT: I guess what I'm missing is that as bitcoin gets moved from wallet to wallet it gets mixed (sort of like melting gold bars together and making new gold bars?). Wallets would get corrupted by the ill gotten bitcoin very quickly. Though I suppose you could calculate a percentage of each wallet that is stolen bitcoin...

That's the same issue that comes up if you tried to use only coins mined using green energy. It gets all jumbled together.

 

[heltok]

So, I've got a question for the crypto experts out there. What would stop a government from declaring any ransom paid to be stolen property and making possession of it illegal? It seems like that would make people (especially exchanges) hesitant to accept bitcoin traced to that transaction.
Or say I have bitcoin stolen from me and I find out that it has made its way into the wallet of an exchange. Could I sue the exchange for return of my property? Is every Satoshi unique or is there something I'm missing?

EDIT: I guess what I'm missing is that as bitcoin gets moved from wallet to wallet it gets mixed (sort of like melting gold bars together and making new gold bars?). Wallets would get corrupted by the ill gotten bitcoin very quickly. Though I suppose you could calculate a percentage of each wallet that is stolen bitcoin...

Ask the same question for dollars. Another interesting fact, most dollar bills contains illegal drugs.

Contaminated currency - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Speaking of these non fungible tokens. Given that there has already existed very high quality fake dollars:

Superdollar - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Italy seizes 556,000 euros in fake coins minted in China

Italian police on Friday seized 556,000 euros (440,196 pounds) in fake euro coins minted in China from a ship container in the port city of Naples, investigators said.

www.reuters.com

'Counterfeiting is an art': Peruvian gang of master fabricators churns out $100 bills

It takes ten to 12 people to create a fake bill, says one counterfeiter, but the profits are huge in Lima – where investigators know of four sophisticated operations

www.theguardian.com

Don’t you think that there currently are factories in China, North Korea etc that are devaluating major currencies already? I recommend that you check out the counterfeit currency section in major darknetmarkets and read the reviews for the most popular options, where you can buy $100 for $20 worth of crypto. This is small scale compared to the criminal gangs/governments. Do you think this is sustainable?