Bitcoin and Crypto Thread

Based_Christian_Dude said:
Michael Saylor is tossing off again. Doesn't want to show proof of reserves on-chain...


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This is typical Tether-like FUD…

Tether could
A: scam people with fractional reserves for a few years then blow up eventually or
B: have full reserves and be the most profitable company in the world per employee ($300mm + per employee per year) in perpetuity

Strategy could
A: not buy bitcoin and run a scam for a few years and blow up or
B: buy bitcoin and become the most valuable company on earth into the 22nd century

Saylor himself says to buy Bitcoin - not MSTR
You should definitely have bitcoin first. But in a 401k you can’t own real bitcoin - you can be an unsecured creditor holding a bitcoin ETF that takes .25% of your bitcoin every year, or you can be an unsecured creditor with MSTR that is accreting 15% more bitcoin per year.

Things are not as black and white as some influencers tweet about.

Based_Christian_Dude said:
There's also talks of seedy deep state folks putting pressure on the devs and miners to remove the 21 million cap supply as well as quantum computer rumours. Dark days are on the horizon.
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The majority of users aren’t going to go for inflation - the entire reason for bitcoins existence.
Quantum computing is probabilistic and will probably never be a threat to encryption. If it is, bitcoin will adapt as it has to every threat that it has faced.
Based_Christian_Dude said:
Speaking of hash and nodes, @chance vought @Blade Runner are you running Bitcoin-core or Bitcoin Knots?
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I’m running core still, because I don’t know if I want to go through the hassle of reconfiguring my node (and the possibility of force closing lightning channels)
 
Also with the MSTR fud it’s a different situation to tether because MSTR is a publicly listed company and its accounts are audited. While accounting fraud in general is possible the Bitcoin blockchain is very transparent so it’s very for an auditor to verify that MSTR actually owns the Bitcoin it claims. If a company was going to commit fraud it would likely choose something easier than Bitcoin to commit fraud with.
 
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The thing with bitcoin is this:
It rewards honesty, and punishes dishonesty.

Yes you can scam with bitcoin and make temporary wealth.

You can act with integrity and build lasting wealth that benefits all.

Bitcoin facilitates and encourages cooperation.

This is counter to the fiat paradigm of winners (wall st, banks, govt) profiting at the expense of losers (slave class that does ALL of the actual work).
 
chance vought said:
Quantum computing is probabilistic and will probably never be a threat to encryption. If it is, bitcoin will adapt as it has to every threat that it has faced.
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Yes, total FUD. No one can even tell you what it is even, let alone that we all know it doesn't exist. It philosophically doesn't matter, either - you need the steak, which actually solves the brute force, not the sizzle that can fool people into thinking using AI is better, when it actually isn't. That kind of thing (notice it's all marketing).
chance vought said:
This is counter to the fiat paradigm of winners (wall st, banks, govt) profiting at the expense of losers (slave class that does ALL of the actual work).
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This is exactly what is happening right now in front of everyone's faces. You will either have some satoshis or BTC in the next 5-7, or you'll be part of the new "slave" labor class that hopes to get paid by someone in sats. The programmable CBDC isn't going to be fun, so prepare yourself.
 
Blade Runner said:
You will either have some satoshis or BTC in the next 5-7, or you'll be part of the new "slave" labor class that hopes to get paid by someone in sats. The programmable CBDC isn't going to be fun, so prepare yourself.
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Are you suggesting that governments are going to implement draconian CBDCs in the next few years and that Bitcoin will be the only viable alternative currency for people to maintain wealth outside of that system?
 
Blade Runner said:
This is exactly what is happening right now in front of everyone's faces. You will either have some satoshis or BTC in the next 5-7, or you'll be part of the new "slave" labor class that hopes to get paid by someone in sats. The programmable CBDC isn't going to be fun, so prepare yourself.
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On this point I have to disagree. The existence of bitcoin prevents CBDCs from gaining any adoption.

The rent-seeking class are the ones who will be in trouble.
 
scorpion said:
Are you suggesting that governments are going to implement draconian CBDCs in the next few years and that Bitcoin will be the only viable alternative currency for people to maintain wealth outside of that system?
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They won't be draconian, they'll be for "willing participants" who want their "free money" (promises of entitlement). They will be programmable, increasingly (USDT and USDC) - I'm guessing on time frame but certain crises and crunches will absolutely give rise to these faster than most people think here.
chance vought said:
The rent-seeking class are the ones who will be in trouble.
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My position includes this, and I would argue you are ignoring how few people will have real exposure to (especially self custodied) BTC. The rent seeking class, combined with those who didn't get BTC, thought it was what scorpion says, doubt it, haven't done the homework, etc will be over 90% of people. Many of these people will die in increasing rates in the next 15 years for various reasons, the foremost being stress, the covid stuff, and other ramifications of the crisis era.
 
Every week so much whale buying of bitcoin is occurring, plus new announcements of whales entering the market. For example just in the past week we have had Trump media announce it will buy $2.5 billion of bitcoin, Cantor Fitzgerald saying it will start a $2 billion dollar Bitcoin backed lending division and the Pakistani government just announced a strategic Bitcoin reserve, etc.

I am wondering with all the increasing amount of whale buying going on who is even selling the bitcoin for them to buy and why isn’t the price higher? Is retail selling their bitcoin en mass? (Personally I think not) or is it price manipulation via the derivatives market so the whales can accumulate more bitcoin?
 
Australia Sucks said:
I am wondering with all the increasing amount of whale buying going on who is even selling the bitcoin for them to buy and why isn’t the price higher?
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You're just now starting to wonder this? There are a small number of Bitcoin whales who collectively own tens (if not hundreds) of billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin, and who actively collude to move the market up and down at will. This has been going on for the better part of a decade now (since the 2017 bull run). Being totally unregulated, the Bitcoin market is ripe for manipulation of this sort - indeed, it is almost certainly the single most manipulated market in the world.

The game these people are playing is very simple: utilize the massive leverage they can exert over the market through the size of their positions to swing trade, acquiring more Bitcoin on dips and offloading it onto retail suckers on pumps. The recent innovation has been convincing corporate and institutional investors to become bagholders, with Michael Saylor being the preeminent example (although I suspect he may be an active participant in this scheme - playing the hype man, his role is to pump the markets and drive demand through MSTR Bitcoin purchases).

The fact is that despite its "value", very few people are interested in buying or owning Bitcoin. The pool of buyers remains extremely small, and a huge number of Bitcoin transactions are wash trades between whales. Pumps are coordinated, and dips are exploited. All the while, the whales' massive positions are slowly offloaded to credulous Bitcoin cultists, who are trained to DCA, HODL and never sell (it's literally impossible to imagine a more effective message to inculcate bag holders with). At some point the game will come to an end, and people are going to have to live with the fact that they squandered their life savings on worthless entries on a distributed spreadsheet.
 
scorpion said:
The fact is that despite its "value", very few people are interested in buying or owning Bitcoin. The pool of buyers remains extremely small, and a huge number of Bitcoin transactions are wash trades between whales.
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This is demonstrably false.

"According to a report by Bitcoin investment firm River on Tuesday, more Americans now hold Bitcoin than gold. The report said that 50 million Americans hold the leading cryptocurrency compared to about 37 million who hold the precious metal, citing data from Bitcoin education-focused entity The Nakamoto Project and Gold IRA Guide."


It is hard to find accurate estimates but from what I can see based on various estimates thrown around somewhere between 100 million and 200 million people worldwide own Bitcoin. If you argue Bitcoin is also a type of currency that would place it in the top 5 currencies in terms of ownership worldwide.

I would hardly call 100 million + people an extremely small pool of buyers. You are just making arguments devoid of any fact.
 
Australia Sucks said:
"According to a report by Bitcoin investment firm River on Tuesday, more Americans now hold Bitcoin than gold. The report said that 50 million Americans hold the leading cryptocurrency compared to about 37 million who hold the precious metal, citing data from Bitcoin education-focused entity The Nakamoto Project and Gold IRA Guide."
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If you actually believe this then you're certainly credulous enough to own Bitcoin.

I've also got a bridge I'd like to sell you.
 
scorpion said:
At some point the game will come to an end, and people are going to have to live with the fact that they squandered their life savings on worthless entries on a distributed spreadsheet.
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Worthless entries on a spreadsheet would be fiat.

Besides information is a highly valuable commodity.

Look at the size and profits of companies like Meta, Alphabet, Amazon etc. These companies are essentially monetizing information.

Besides you are not understanding the mentaility of the younger generation. They grew up paying hard cash for virtual currencies in games (buying Robox on the Roblox game, buying gold in world of warcraft etc) so Bitcoin is not such a big leap for them, and the concept is in fact more familiar to them then something like physical gold. Many 18 year olds have never even seen physical gold aside from jewellery.
 
scorpion said:
If you actually believe this then you're certainly credulous enough to own Bitcoin.

I've also got a bridge I'd like to sell you.
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By definition no asset gets to a multi trillion dollar market capitalization without widespread ownership. As far as I am aware of its never happened before in history.

I personally know a lot of people in real life who own Bitcoin and I have not attended any crypto events. I am just talking about friends, family, guys I worked with etc so I find it hard to believe that Bitcoin ownership is not widespread.

For example in Australia the top cryptocurrency exchange is Coinspot. Coinspot has 2.5 million customers and here there are KYC verifications when you open an account so these are not bot accounts. That is 2.5 million accounts from just one exchange and Australia has a population of only 28 million.
 
scorpion said:
You're just now starting to wonder this? There are a small number of Bitcoin whales who collectively own tens (if not hundreds) of billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin, and who actively collude to move the market up and down at will. This has been going on for the better part of a decade now (since the 2017 bull run). Being totally unregulated, the Bitcoin market is ripe for manipulation of this sort - indeed, it is almost certainly the single most manipulated market in the world.
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So, tell me, who has been "conspiring" for 15 years to give BTC an average CAGR near 40% when all the traditional finance people claimed it would die over 500 times and go to zero, including you?
scorpion said:
At some point the game will come to an end, and people are going to have to live with the fact that they squandered their life savings on worthless entries on a distributed spreadsheet.
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We can audit BTC: hash, wallets, movement of satoshis, etc. That cannot easily be done with any other asset, certainly not gold.
scorpion said:
If you actually believe this then you're certainly credulous enough to own Bitcoin.
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You make extraordinary claims, but one thing keeps coming back: the same thing you claim about BTC can be said about every other market, most notably equities markets. Tell me, is that a 100+ year old conspiracy as well? Are equities markets not manipulated? Like I said, we can audit the BTC network; it is fundamentally honest in the long term because of it, and because it's not based on fiat.

Humor me. What's the reason to make BTC the best performing asset and then make "people bag holders"? They already had the equities markets, which presumably this was happening in (certainly for retail). There's nothing about your claims that are logical, and they certainly aren't simple. It is far more likely that it is what we claim it is, especially when the new multipolar world (Fink, Saudi, nation states, etc) agree.

By the way, did you see that Jamie Dimon bent the knee? Indeed. Interesting you didn't bring that up. What happened?

Just as we said, he had no choice.



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Australia Sucks said:
I personally know a lot of people in real life who own Bitcoin and I have not attended any crypto events. I am just talking about friends, family, guys I worked with etc so I find it hard to believe that Bitcoin ownership is not widespread.

For example in Australia the top cryptocurrency exchange is Coinspot. Coinspot has 2.5 million customers and here there are KYC verifications when you open an account so these are not bot accounts. That is 2.5 million accounts from just one exchange and Australia has a population of only 28 million.
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And yet here we are, with your original question having no good answer:
Australia Sucks said:
I am wondering with all the increasing amount of whale buying going on who is even selling the bitcoin for them to buy and why isn’t the price higher?
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If so many people are buying, including governments and institutions, why hasn't the price ramped massively higher? Demand is far outstripping supply from miners, so what's going on? Answer: there is no supply squeeze, because demand is actually much, much lower than you think.
 
scorpion said:
If so many people are buying, including governments and institutions, why hasn't the price ramped massively higher? Demand is far outstripping supply from miners, so what's going on? Answer: there is no supply squeeze, because demand is actually much, much lower than you think.
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Remind us please, will you change your mind at 150k? 300k? 500k?

Never?

What if a central bank (or 5) admit they hold it on their balance sheet?
 
Blade Runner said:
So, tell me, who has been "conspiring" for 15 years to give BTC an average CAGR near 40% when all the traditional finance people claimed it would die over 500 times and go to zero, including you?
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Initially, the early adopters who accumulated enormous positions when Bitcoin was trading under $10.
Blade Runner said:
Humor me. What's the reason to make BTC the best performing asset and then make "people bag holders"?
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I strongly suspect that at this point there are state-sponsored groups working in concert to manipulate the market, simply because it has proven an easy way to make money off the books. In this regard it functions similarly to state-run lotteries, which are essentially just taxes on poor, desperate and/or stupid people. Bitcoin operates as a tax on greedy and credulous people.
 
scorpion said:
If so many people are buying, including governments and institutions, why hasn't the price ramped massively higher? Demand is far outstripping supply from miners, so what's going on?
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I do not have a good answer for this but if I had to guess I would say the big players are using the paper market (derivatives) to manipulate the Bitcoin price lower to give them more time to accumulate the same way that big players used the derivatives market to manipulate gold prices (albeit for a different purpose to mask the true extent of inflation). If everybody who had derivatives contracts demanded physical delivery of their gold tomorrow there would be a run on gold and the price would likely be $10,000 to $20,000 per ounce.
 
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