The Frustration of Ideology: Investing in Cryptocurrency

a reply to: seasonal

Most people dont seem to know this. They think we're all out here betting the farm on Bitcoin.

They dont care about Dash, Cardano, or Qtum. They have no idea what VeChainThor or XLM is doing, they think its all Bitcoin.

a reply to: projectvxn

Yeah, I wasn't even taking into account that market, you were right there.

When Ripple was first created I didn't particularly like it very much due to way it relied on super nodes, it seemed like they had just settled for centralization as a solution, which is the opposite of what cryptocurrency should be. Also the fact their team seemed to be linked to banking institutions didn't really sit well with me. However after watching some lectures about the recent technology they are working on it seems like they are headed in a good direction, and I'm trying to keep an open mind about it. It's still one of the top coins so people clearly like it.

originally posted by: Mandroid7
Any bitcoiners here?
Wanna learn me good?

Is there any value in bitcoin outside of the stock value?

Bitcoin is great to launder dirty money mate! Absolutely fantastic as they can’t trace it and criminal networks love it because the governments can’t freeze their bank accounts

a reply to: Whereismypassword

Bitcoin is not untraceable and you are right about it being used for bad scary things.

And US dollars are great to launder money in too and I think it is being used for bad scary things.

originally posted by: neo96
a reply to: schuyler

Well if people want to play what ifs. Guess I should shove it under neath my matress where it's loses vaule ever damn day. Or my house could burn down or someone might robb me. What the hell ever. There are no certainties in life.

The Venezuelan Bolivar is more stable than crypto right now. When crypto can double one day and get cut in half the next day and is something that amounts to some nerds' promises I can't see that instills any sense of confidence in the medium. A currency of any kind needs stability and acceptance in order to be trusted. Crypto has neither.

a reply to: schuyler

Except the Maduro government wants to form a South American petroleum backed crypto called Petro because the bolivar won't buy you the paper it's printed on.

originally posted by: Whereismypassword

originally posted by: Mandroid7
Any bitcoiners here?
Wanna learn me good?

Is there any value in bitcoin outside of the stock value?

Bitcoin is great to launder dirty money mate! Absolutely fantastic as they can’t trace it and criminal networks love it because the governments can’t freeze their bank accounts

Bitcoin is used by millions of people around the world in largely legitimate transfers. The USD is the number one currency of nefarious activities by far.

When Silk Road was shut down it was barely noticed in overall transaction volume. It's neat propaganda but doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

a reply to: seasonal

Up to $8.95 after 7 days using nicehash on my 780ti.

In a few days I'm ordering a new card.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

I'm looking at it from a practical point of view.

Does it solve a problem?

If there is no problem, does it help create a viable marketplace of value that didn't exist before?

Is it secure?

How much end-user development has gone into this in order to make it consumer friendly?

Does the team exemplify professionalism?

Is leadership engaged with the public and their customers?

Do they have a product, or is their product under verifiable consistent development?

Is their white paper well-written? Is their code sound? Is their GitHub active?

There's a whole lot of questions I ask before I sink money into any cryptocurrency, and indeed any stock/financial instrument(my favorite being ETFs).

This is doubly more important in the cryptocurrency space because it is an unregulated market, there is a whole hell of a lot of junk and scam-coins out there.

The most recent examples being OneCoin and BitConnect/BitConnectX.

If I want to buy a coin, it takes me a while. I look at their white paper, I look at their GitHub(if they don't have one I simply don't bother), I look at their Reddit community, their twitter/facebook accounts and follow whatever I can for a week or two to get a feel for what I am investing in. Red flags for me are anything that focuses on the price of the coin rather than the development of it or its utility as an exchange of value. If the Reddit community is not much more than a bunch of fanboys and girls screaming 'hodl' and 'to the moon' I don't bother with that coin because it is likely infected with pump and dump crews.

I use Doug Polk Crypto a lot as an example because he and I share a very similar mentality when it comes to this market. A lot of his stuff exposes these scams, and though I don't agree with him on everything regarding which coins are good investments, everything he has identified as an actual scam-coin/scheme has been 100% spot on.

a reply to: DJMSN

First, let me say that I'm sorry I missed your post.

The whole idea behind Crypto currencies it seems to me is that the investment is bypassing the established banking system and the fiat currencies that they back and depend on.

Generally, yes. But there is a whole ideological construct around that idea that sees the same kinds of tribalism and ideological lockout as you would in those who follow "establishment" ideology. This is the problem I have, libertarians are supposed to be the most inclusive, free-market advocates the world over. Cryptocurrency IS a libertarian creation specifically created for the advancement of financial liberty and to fight depreciating money. However, it really has morphed into this "Satoshi is Jesus" bull#. People do it with Charlie Lee and Vitalik Buterin. Assigning titles like Crypto Jesus to these men, who in many cases are responsible for the sorry ideological lock they've attempted to place on the crypto market.

However, the only way to start a purchase of Crypto currencies is by handing over fiat currency utilizing the established banking system. Makes little sense to me unless perhaps you are the individual whom created said Crypto currency, then you are rich simply from someone giving you the very fiat currency some oppose.

Except that's not how it works. Every cryptocurrency worth its salt is outperforming the dollar and euro consistently. Most have been around a few years now; some, only a few months. Cryptos are deflationary whereas fiat, in particular, the USD, has a target inflation rate of 1-3% year over year. That guarantees the savers will never exist; that a capital-based economy cannot exist(capital comes from savings), leaving only the debt based system we know today.

Considering the exponential growth of adoption around the world and in general marketplaces, the utility of these coins have been proven. There is adoption and transactions are being made.

The one's who invest early and cashes out for the same fiat currency he or she put into the scheme in the first place but now because others give the same but more due to the inflated price they have inflated the fiat currency they paid in, and are winners but the secondary investors waiting patiently runs the risk of no return and perhaps a loss.

This is true of any investment. Day trading is for people who haven't figured out that holding is the key strategy for dealing with volatility in the crypto space. Bitcoin and others have been trading just fine for a few years now gaining overall. You have to remember that although these coins have been around a while, the market itself and the businesses who operate in that market are still pioneers. The very tip of the spear. It is a nascent market that will require time and investment to grow

Why would a return investor who cashed out and is comfortable with millions in an established fiat return to invest and risk more ?

Because established fiat will ALWAYS lose value over time. There will only ever be 21 million BTC. The last BTC is estimated to be mined in 2140(I've said 2040 before, but I assure people that was a typo). You cannot print more BTC. You can't create more simply by saying so. 21 million is all there will ever be.

There will only ever be 100 billion XRP or 100 million ETH or 873 million VeChain. The supply and issuance is finite. The monumental computer science problems that the invention of blockchain and Bitcoin solved to make this possible in a digital space(rules bent, other broken-remember the words of Morpheus), ensure that cryptocurrencies of importance and substance to the economy will always be worth more than the fiat used to purchase them.

I don't need a 40 room house nor a rare Lambo...i would have to clean the house and pay all those speeding tickets

You must be talking about this guy:
Tai Lopez

Who has YouTube ads talking about lambos and mansions.

He's one of the many scammers on the internet. He actually knows nothing about the crypto market, but he'll be more than happy to "share his knowledge" with you for a fee.

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: schuyler

Except the Maduro government wants to form a South American petroleum backed crypto called Petro because the bolivar won't buy you the paper it's printed on.

They "want to" but have they? And guess what? It's petro-backed, something other than bits and bytes. If you buy crypto today, it could be worth half tomorrow, as the last couple of weeks have proven. It's volatile as hell. It's okay to fool around with money you can afford to lose, but it's not the kind of thing to throw your life savings into. This is a classic hyped bubble.

a reply to: schuyler

Money has been and always will be a method of communicating value. This has been true throughout history, from barter systems, to sea shells, stones, and metals. Now we have authority driven money(fiat).

You need 4 thing's to make a currency; a basis of value, adoption, utility, and trust. Once you've establish that, you need speculators and investors for price discovery to bring it more in line with reality. Same goes on with global fiat, the difference being that global fiat currencies are inflationary with a central issuance authority. Cryptocurrency has no such problems. They increase in value and generally hold it.

People have been saying this since 2010-2011 when BTC was between 20 and 300 bucks. Its sitting at 11500 right now. It has gained 600% and people complain about a 20% drop, claiming the end of crypto as a result.

a reply to: SkeptiSchism

Cryptos actually take quite a bit of energy to produce, in fact, they are expected to take up as much energy as the entire U.S. by the early 2020s and some environmentalists are critical of this.

originally posted by: darkbake
a reply to: SkeptiSchism

Cryptos actually take quite a bit of energy to produce, in fact, they are expected to take up as much energy as the entire U.S. by the early 2020s and some environmentalists are critical of this.

It's a valid concern, energy is a massive issue with increased population coupled with higher energy demands, unless the energy consumption issue of crypto is solved it will never become mainstream. It's possible someone somewhere may solve the issue we will see soon enough.

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

Bitcoin mining is a very energy intensive task. There's a reason for the high cost of mining rigs and power generation systems.

My neck of the woods just sold a bunch of land to a blockchain company. I'm guessing they're gonna run a huge mining operation powered by solar, among other operations like software development for blockchain.

Things are getting interesting. Apple just broke ground out here too. My property value is starting to look like Bitcoin. Its nice, but it's also causing problems, but I digress.

There was a story a while back about Chinese people getting away from China to mine in the US and elsewhere with deserts. Things are getting interesting with regard to bitcoin itself.

Luckily blockchain isn't just a method of building money. Its a method of creating immutable validation, secure distributed networks, and IoT Economic technologies, making all kinds of legal transactions instantaneous. I look forward to the blockchain development future.

Cryptocurrency doesn't bypass anything.

www.theverge.com...

'it's not real money'.



Tell that to the IRS.

originally posted by: neo96
a reply to: seasonal

Up to $8.95 after 7 days using nicehash on my 780ti.

In a few days I'm ordering a new card.

Tis fun stuff...i have a 1060 6GB which makes around 3 per day.

My 1080's make about 6 per day at todays rate.

If you get a 1060 or 1070 which uses the GDDR5 ram it is more profitable to mine ethereum by about 30%

a reply to: ParasuvO

If you get a 1060 or 1070 which uses the GDDR5 ram it is more profitable to mine ethereum by about 30%

Finding them is the problem.

For a reasonable price.

I've only found Nvidia to be the most reasonable seller.

I'm checking their site repeatedly throughout the day so I can hit that add to cart button.

a reply to: neo96

Try and find a small computer seller locally that doesn't overcharge like bestbuy and everyone else.

I hear a shipment is arriving sometime soon.