Bitcoin and Crypto Thread

[Blade Runner]

This might be slightly off topic while simultaneously being on topic. I assume everyone is aware of The Simpsons "predicting" / simply informing the public about a bunch of stuff, like the twin towers, Trump's presidency etc. Apparent they also talk about Bitcoin in 1 or 2 episodes and I watched a longer video where they predicted that Bitcoin essentially crashed to zero as a scam in the year 2025 and then basically skyrockets.
Does anyone here think there is any truth to those predictions coming from such a "reliable" source?



This is just an example video with Simpons' naming XRP, ADA and BTC numbers. Of course, no one should plan their life or investments on the basis of cartoons, but I just wanted to get your thoughts on it.

The XRP thing is a photoshop, the BTC thing with infinity symbol was on there, but people are way into this Simpson stuff, it's mostly a recall bias. There's some stuff I think that the current players in media know has been on the Simpsons that the do just to play with people (like the Ivanka for prez thing that might be announced, but won't actually happen).

 

[PurpleUrkel]

Are you that ignorant of history? Every single fiat currency given enough time has died.

"Enough time"? What does this mean? Tell me when the US dollar is going to die.

Is the U.S. dollar supposed to be some kind of exception to this rule?

Comparing the USA in 2025 to anytime in the past (especially The Roman Empire) is comparing apples to oranges and not a reliable way to predict future American outcomes. America is firing on all cylinders in 2025 in an upward trajectory. There are some horrible things happening for sure, but the good far outweighs the bad.

Also easy to beat inflation if you use fake measures like CPI. also small (unlisted) businesses (i.e. mom and pop operators) have been getting crushed the last 10 years.

Bullshit. I am financially illiterate in the traditional sense of the word. I have no idea what CPI or GDP or "inflation" or "interest" is and I'm not Googling them to find out. I'm a seller and I'm on the ground level of American society selling everyday. I sell America's trash, and America's trash is the best in the world and it is endless. I found a chair on the side of the road last month and sold it Saturday for $200. I bought a pair of 30 year-old sneakers at a thrift store two weeks ago for $5 and sold them for $350. I have been doing this all day, everyday for 10 years and every 4 months (would this be "quarterly"? Lol) my sales are up 20%+ with no signs of stopping.

If you are broke and can't build a successful business in America then that is on you. If I can do it then anyone can do it. I have a really shitty history with money, but 2024 was the year that everything turned around for me so I don't want to hear theories about an American financial/societal collapse when I, a financially illiterate dilettante who doesn't understand money (or bitcoin) is slaying it. I don't say this to brag, but to give young men hope in America. America is still worth fighting for. We need to be importing Christian men, not encouraging them to flee.

Furthermore, I drive thousands of miles on I-40 each year and in thousands of miles of roadway there is barely a single pot hole. I marvel at the functionality of America's infrastructure and how every stop light I pull up to works properly. It's a miracle. And how can so many cars be working and filled with gas and there be so few accidents? Only 40,000 people die on our roads each year which is incredibly low seeing as how there are so many bad drivers out there. We only have 20,000 homicides each year which is another miracle. How can so many people (350 million) live so "peacefully" together with so little conflict? You say this will soon end. I'm calling bullshit on this doom and gloom pagan soothsaying.

Another on the ground bellwether of America's future financial forecast lies with Starbucks which will be going from 16,000+ stores to 17,000+ stores in 2025 and growing their annual revenue from 36 billion to 38 billion in 2025 and from 38 billion to 40 billion in 2026. If Americans are still buying $7 cups of coffee (what I pay for a breve latte there) then the US dollar is not "failing" anytime soon. These are just indesputable, on the ground facts, so enough with all the JQ-BTC fortune telling. Great, you hit 100K. Now what? Cash that shit in and start getting your hands dirty with manual labor. Don't be a greedy jew.

Bitcoin? Who needs it when you've got an ever-growing pocket full of American cash.

 

[FrancisK]

also small (unlisted) businesses (i.e. mom and pop operators) have been getting crushed the last 10 years.

I don't know about Australia but here in the USA nothing could be further from the truth than this.....

 

[expectation]

This might be slightly off topic while simultaneously being on topic. I assume everyone is aware of The Simpsons "predicting" / simply informing the public about a bunch of stuff, like the twin towers, Trump's presidency etc. Apparent they also talk about Bitcoin in 1 or 2 episodes and I watched a longer video where they predicted that Bitcoin essentially crashed to zero as a scam in the year 2025 and then basically skyrockets.
Does anyone here think there is any truth to those predictions coming from such a "reliable" source?



This is just an example video with Simpons' naming XRP, ADA and BTC numbers. Of course, no one should plan their life or investments on the basis of cartoons, but I just wanted to get your thoughts on it.

XRP has a 140B Market Cap at ~2.5$ right now. 3rd Highest of all Crypto right now. It'll take a couple generations of bull bear cycles to even make it to double digits. Don't let your brain fall for crypto twitter trash.

 

[Droughtmeat]

I don't know about Australia but here in the USA nothing could be further from the truth than this.....

Those small businesses were also hit the hardest here in Europe due to the combination of the pandemic, inflation, sanctions of Russia, skyrocketing natural gas prices etc.

If I think about the number of KFCs, McDonald's etc. alone that popped up, while long standing domestic cuisine restaurants were going bankrupt, it told me everything I needed to know.

Great to here that those small business aren't doing badly in the US though.

 

[chance vought]

The only thing more scammy than XRP is the hawk tuah coin. On second thought XRP is even more of a scam because the 3 creator’s actually claim they “just found it” laying around. The origin story they give is hilarious - very similar to the coin that became monero that launched with a huge pre-mine (people discovered that and copied the code and hard forked to monero with a fair launch)

Unlike XRP which is 3 people sitting on 99% of the supply and dumping on retail slowly enough to not crash the price too much.

 

[scorpion]

On second thought XRP is even more of a scam because the 3 creator’s actually claim they “just found it” laying around.

Any source for this? Not doubting you - it just sounds hilarious and I want to read more about it.

 

[Blade Runner]

The origin story they give is hilarious - very similar to the coin that became monero that launched with a huge pre-mine (people discovered that and copied the code and hard forked to monero with a fair launch)

This is what you find for the shitcoins in general, of course. The problem is that it took years for people to understand that BTC isn't "crypto" and there are still 'tards hanging around that don't get that.

Most projects are on a spectrum like this, even ETH which is somewhat more legit, but has major problems, has fiddled with its consensus rules and it thus, centralized essentially (or more than they let on, beyond being a controllable PoS token).

 

[Blade Runner]

Tell me when the US dollar is going to die.

Again, define terms and apply the same criticisms to your topics as you do to others. This is absurd.

America is firing on all cylinders in 2025 in an upward trajectory.

Huh?

I am financially illiterate in the traditional sense of the word.

Indeed.

Bitcoin? Who needs it when you've got an ever-growing pocket full of American cash.

You don't know when to quit, but thanks for this anyway as it's the ultimate Purple Urkel jumping the shark moment.

Your problem is that you mistake legacy and momentum (the USA) for direction.

 

[Australia Sucks]

I don't know about Australia but here in the USA nothing could be further from the truth than this.....

Small-business optimism just hit an 11-year low. 'Will depressed small business owners depress the economy?'

Business owners complain of inflation, high wages, and high input costs—none of which indicate a slowing economy.

fortune.com

Granted the article is from April 2024 but the fact that in the USA small business optimism hit an 11 year low is hardly an encouraging sign.

Even though optimism has increased since the Trump election the business outlook is still perceived to be highly uncertain.

Small business optimism rose before election despite uncertainty: NFIB

Nine out of the 10 factors that determine the NFIB’s optimism index increased last month, including the outlook for business conditions.

www.cfodive.com

• Optimism among owners of small businesses rose last month to the highest level since 2022 even as uncertainty in their outlook hit a 51-year high, the National Federation of Independent Business said Tuesday.

SBET Report - NFIB

A quarterly Small Business Economic Trends industry report highlighting the construction, manufacturing, retail, and services industries

www.nfib.com

"The percent of small business owners believing it is a good time to expand their business rose eight points to a 14%. This is the highest reading since June 2021."

Its improved from a very low base. 14% of small business owners believing its a good time to expand their business is hardly a strong showing despite the improvement.


"The net percent of owners expecting higher real sales volumes rose 18 points to a net 14% (seasonally adjusted), the highest reading since February 2020."

Again only 14% of small business owners are expecting an increase in real (i.e. inflation adjusted) sales. Again its nice that its increased but 14% is still a very weak number.

 

[chance vought]

https://cryptonary.com/research/a-history-of-xrp-ripple/

The story has evolved somewhat, I'm trying to find the original version, but this is the gist. 3 guys create coin, keep 20% for themselves, and "donate" 80% to the "foundation" that they also own - essentially a 100% pre-mine. Its just the most egregious version of almost every other alt-coin pre-mine.

Oh and they also claim they don't control the XRP token...yet "Ripple Labs" runs 7 out of 20 validators!! Its so laughable.

 

[FrancisK]

Small-business optimism just hit an 11-year low. 'Will depressed small business owners depress the economy?'

Business owners complain of inflation, high wages, and high input costs—none of which indicate a slowing economy.

fortune.com

Granted the article is from April 2024 but the fact that in the USA small business optimism hit an 11 year low is hardly an encouraging sign.

Even though optimism has increased since the Trump election the business outlook is still perceived to be highly uncertain.

Small business optimism rose before election despite uncertainty: NFIB

Nine out of the 10 factors that determine the NFIB’s optimism index increased last month, including the outlook for business conditions.

www.cfodive.com

• Optimism among owners of small businesses rose last month to the highest level since 2022 even as uncertainty in their outlook hit a 51-year high, the National Federation of Independent Business said Tuesday.

SBET Report - NFIB

A quarterly Small Business Economic Trends industry report highlighting the construction, manufacturing, retail, and services industries

www.nfib.com

"The percent of small business owners believing it is a good time to expand their business rose eight points to a 14%. This is the highest reading since June 2021."

Its improved from a very low base. 14% of small business owners believing its a good time to expand their business is hardly a strong showing despite the improvement.


"The net percent of owners expecting higher real sales volumes rose 18 points to a net 14% (seasonally adjusted), the highest reading since February 2020."

Again only 14% of small business owners are expecting an increase in real (i.e. inflation adjusted) sales. Again its nice that its increased but 14% is still a very weak number.

I'm here on the ground brother and among my family tree we probably own a hundred different businesses, not exaggerating, everything from convenience stores and pizza joints to hotels, water parks, wholesale distributors and financial companies with everything in between. Nobody is complaining as everyone's net worth has skyrocketed as did anyone's who owned a tangible asset, went right up with inflation during Covid. You shouldn't get so much of your knowledge from the internet brother, they can line up those numbers however they feel that day.

The only business that failed during Covid were garbage ones teetering on the edge anyway, Covid just pushed them over. Once you got past the first couple months everyone's numbers exploded.

 

[RedLagoon]

XRP has a 140B Market Cap at ~2.5$ right now. 3rd Highest of all Crypto right now. It'll take a couple generations of bull bear cycles to even make it to double digits. Don't let your brain fall for crypto twitter trash.

Could you elaborate on this? How is it so different from BTC and a scam?

@chance vought thanks, missed your comment

@FrancisK I wish they would let me in to the US as it's not like that here let me tell ya.

 

[Australia Sucks]

I'm here on the ground brother and among my family tree we probably own a hundred different businesses, not exaggerating, everything from convenience stores and pizza joints to hotels, water parks, wholesale distributors and financial companies with everything in between. Nobody is complaining as everyone's net worth has skyrocketed as did anyone's who owned a tangible asset, went right up with inflation during Covid. You shouldn't get so much of your knowledge from the internet brother, they can line up those numbers however they feel that day.

The only business that failed during Covid were garbage ones teetering on the edge anyway, Covid just pushed them over. Once you got past the first couple months everyone's numbers exploded.

As for boots on the ground street level feel I cannot comment on USA as I have not spent time there. But where I live in Sydney, Australia I definitely see massive amounts of empty shops, office buildings etc and many small shops constantly having turnover i.e. one year you see a coffee shop in the street then the next year the same place is a restaurant then two years later its a bakery, etc.

If you look at the figures in almost any western country including in the U.S. concentration in terms of market share of the top 3 or 4 players has increased in almost every industry fairly consistently for the past 20+ years. You can see in the US how much market share has Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Starbucks, McDonalds, Chick-Fil-A, etc taken from small operators.

New Data Shows the Rise of Corporate Concentration in the US in the Past 100 Years - ProMarket

New research observing 100 years of concentration in economic activities and investment in research and development shows that the dominance of large businesses has been increasing for at least a century and, as Marx conjectured, may be a feature of the increasingly stronger economies of scale...

www.promarket.org

Just because your family has done well and has business acumen doesn't mean its the norm.

 

[FrancisK]

As for boots on the ground street level feel I cannot comment on USA as I have not spent time there. But where I live in Sydney, Australia I definitely see massive amounts of empty shops, office buildings etc and many small shops constantly having turnover i.e. one year you see a coffee shop in the street then the next year the same place is a restaurant then two years later its a bakery, etc.

If you look at the figures in almost any western country including in the U.S. concentration in terms of market share of the top 3 or 4 players has increased in almost every industry fairly consistently for the past 20+ years. You can see in the US how much market share has Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Starbucks, McDonalds, Chick-Fil-A, etc taken from small operators.

New Data Shows the Rise of Corporate Concentration in the US in the Past 100 Years - ProMarket

New research observing 100 years of concentration in economic activities and investment in research and development shows that the dominance of large businesses has been increasing for at least a century and, as Marx conjectured, may be a feature of the increasingly stronger economies of scale...

www.promarket.org

Just because your family has done well and has business acumen doesn't mean its the norm.

Well you just said it, small shops and office buildings....those are garbage businesses that were teetering on the edge anyway. Yes the big players got the biggest slice of the pie of course they did but everyone else got a taste also. It's not just my family, anyone I know that owned a business worth a damn is thriving here in the USA. As I said I don't know anything about Australia nor do I claim to with internet article education so I'll take your word for it, we were discussing the USA.

 

[expectation]

Could you elaborate on this? How is it so different from BTC and a scam?

@chance vought thanks, missed your comment

@FrancisK I wish they would let me in to the US as it's not like that here let me tell ya.

My point was that the market cap is large for XRP that the upside for it is pretty limited if you're looking for the next leg up in Alt Season. I would expect ~4-9 at best but it could also not happen as well.

I have been seeing a lot of twitter bull-posts on XRP that is predicting 15, 100, and 1000 and beyond. Do yourself a favor and ignore them because to even achieve anything over $9 USD they would need to overcome the market cap of an equity like Visa.

BTW - half of the tokens is held by XRP / Ripple Labs. If they want to, its easy for the holders to collude and influence the market. An extreme example is that Hawk Tuah meme coin that someone posted earlier.

I have a busy day but I'll link you to VirtualBacon on this if you want more details.

 

[Steady Hands]

Hi all, I found dashcam footage of @chance vought being offered fiat to settle a traffic dispute, but he stands firm and negotiates to receive payment in bitcoin

 

[chance vought]

Anyone who pre-mines tokens or keeps some “for the foundation” is just seeking a fiat money printer for themselves.

It either works as advertised or it doesn’t…it should not need a company, foundation, or a marketing team.

This is Ripple, Etherium, Solana, EOS (which “raised” 100,000 BTC back in the day - the EOS guys still have the bitcoin I think)

100,000 bitcoin and the “investors” never saw a working product: that’s a Kickstarter worse than the “air umbrella”

 

[GoodShepherd]

JP Morgan, Visa and Master card combined are all under Bitcoin.

 

[GoodShepherd]

I'm here on the ground brother and among my family tree we probably own a hundred different businesses, not exaggerating, everything from convenience stores and pizza joints to hotels, water parks, wholesale distributors and financial companies with everything in between. Nobody is complaining as everyone's net worth has skyrocketed as did anyone's who owned a tangible asset, went right up with inflation during Covid. You shouldn't get so much of your knowledge from the internet brother, they can line up those numbers however they feel that day.

The only business that failed during Covid were garbage ones teetering on the edge anyway, Covid just pushed them over. Once you got past the first couple months everyone's numbers exploded.

I think what kept USA going during the lockdowns was the fact that people still got paid out by the government to stay home so they continued buying stuff as usual, here in South Africa people werent allowed to go to work and didnt get paid out anything so lots of businesses suffered and closed down, at the time my tiny business tripled in size within a few weeks I was one of the lucky ones, I dont own that business anymore though.

A lot of people also made lots of money illegally during the lockdowns in my country selling tabacco and alcohol, the South African government banned the sale of these products for quite some time but not its consumption so lots of people were going to neighboring countries and bringing in cigarettes by the boxes and selling them from their garages at huge profits, same with the alcohol, I knew a restaurant owner who was making more profit selling cigarettes that what his entire restaurant was making.