Bitcoin....who's gotten into it?

[shera]

No you're the liar. Pants on fire.

The chart is accurate.

[bennymac]

Are maggots coming to the padded room for high level discussion about cryptocurrency? I laugh.

What makes this so special that this topic deserves only educated, intelligent discussion. Threads about much more important topics are full of dumb questions and memes. Get a grip. Or take a lap at least.

[MontuckyFried]

The big question now is whether to act on your theory after the huge run this week. You gonna sell tonight or you gonna hold?
(BTW, glad I only put a couple bucks in BAT. What a dawg!)

Nah. My portfolio's so tiny that the fees aren't worth me buying/selling. So Im just holding tight no matter what happens. Mostly just observing.

And your BAT hasn't served you well? My stash more than doubled in value since I started like a month and a half ago!!! Been my hottest performer by far!


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[jm2e]

You are getting some good answers!

There is significant non-novelty activity in the USA as a store of value and non-correlated asset in modern portfolio theory as well as a strong speculative play (mad gainz, brah!).

But we have a robust financial system supposedly. Off the top of my head I can list some other critical real world uses for btc: means for those under Chinese thumb to have economic independence, means for people in countries with hyperinflation and/or struggling economies (Turkey, Brazil, Argentina) to hold onto their hard earned savings.

For straight commerce consider all the unbanked in Africa. They have been relying on crypto and digital wallets for a long time now.

Thanks. That’s good stuff.


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[jm2e]

Nah. My portfolio's so tiny that the fees aren't worth me buying/selling. So Im just holding tight no matter what happens. Mostly just observing.

And your BAT hasn't served you well? My stash more than doubled in value since I started like a month and a half ago!!! Been my hottest performer by far!


Sent from my Pixel 3 using TGR Forums mobile app

Shoulda sold last night! Here we go agaaaaaiiin!

I bought a few Pumpkin Spice Lattes worth at $1.22. Maybe time to recycle that cup.


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[MontuckyFried]

Shoulda sold last night! Here we go agaaaaaiiin!

Aaaaaaand just like clockwork, here's today Sunday dip! Seriously. I see this every Sunday. Took a screenshot of what I first saw when I opened up my Gemini app...



Wish I had more in it or even knew what the hell I was doing so I could somehow take advantage of it. Like I said, when they nail me for $1.50 to trade, it's just not worth it for my few measly bucks I have in there. What do the big players do? Are their fees jacked up to match larger trades, or do the various trading systems favor larger transactions?

[AKPogue]

^That's interesting. Maybe people trading drunk?

[shera]

I think Asia.

[MontuckyFried]

I think Asia.

Asia, huh? Please elaborate. I'm trying to figure this one out. It's been consistent since I've been monitoring this stuff for the past couple months. Every. Single. Sunday. Everything takes a brief, but temporary nosedive.

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[stalefish3169]

Asia, huh? Please elaborate. I'm trying to figure this one out. It's been consistent since I've been monitoring this stuff for the past couple months. Every. Single. Sunday. Everything takes a brief, but temporary nosedive.

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The meme consensus is that Asia was the big buyer during the 2017 bull run. Crypto was so popular in Asia then that there was a relatively higher price in South Korea known as the Kim Chi premium. This time the situation is generally thought to be reversed with Western institutions being the primary driver of price increases while Asia is dumping since a lot of them got burned by ICOs that pumped and dumped.

Most big money players close their positions before the weekend so there is a lot less liquidity. Therefore, it takes a lot less buying or selling to move the market. I would be very cautious about trying to trade against anecdotal evidence of the market "dumping every Sunday." Markets and crypto especially have a good habit of doing the opposite of what everyone is expecting. Right now it's Sunday afternoon in the US and Monday in Asia and it's mostly green across the board.

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[stalefish3169]

The big question now is whether to act on your theory after the huge run this week. You gonna sell tonight or you gonna hold?
(BTW, glad I only put a couple bucks in BAT. What a dawg!)


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I strongly encourage you to zoom out and focus on the macro trends. The trend is your friend. Focusing on short-term price swings will eat you up emotionally and will often decimate your bankroll. Besides that, if you can keep your positions for more than a year, your tax burden goes way way down.

Even though Warren Buffett has no interest in crypto or changing the status quo at his advanced age, he was spot on when he said, "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient." Crypto is similar, except with much greater short-term volatility.

Look for projects with strong fundamentals, scale into long-term positions, and look to hold for extended periods of time. I also like to scale out of trades as well instead of selling all at once. My opinion of this strategy galvanized a little bit ago when I panic sold some UNI because I was worried that BSC was gonna eat ETH's lunch and DeFi was cooling off. I bought the UNI in January for $6 and then sold it all in one shot at $20 because. The next day it pumped to $30. Not a big deal because it was still a winner, but wish I would've scaled out.

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[pureantigravity]

Aaaaaaand just like clockwork, here's today Sunday dip! Seriously. I see this every Sunday. Took a screenshot of what I first saw when I opened up my Gemini app...

Wish I had more in it or even knew what the hell I was doing so I could somehow take advantage of it. Like I said, when they nail me for $1.50 to trade, it's just not worth it for my few measly bucks I have in there. What do the big players do? Are their fees jacked up to match larger trades, or do the various trading systems favor larger transactions?

Asia, huh? Please elaborate. I'm trying to figure this one out. It's been consistent since I've been monitoring this stuff for the past couple months. Every. Single. Sunday. Everything takes a brief, but temporary nosedive.

Or perhaps Sunday nights are just not a good time typically for people to do a lot of buying.

Given that it takes $50M per day just to pay miners on the network, any pause in buying has the exact same effect as series of large sells. Who spends time late on Sunday night buying crypto or stocks? Not many people. But miners sell on an ongoing basis.

$50M of miners fees every day isn't chump change. Every day. $50,000,000. Feed the hash calculators or suffer the wrath of China's miners and their insatiable appetite for US dollars. This price needs support!

[pureantigravity]

That's why this isn't a zero sum game. If it was a zero sum game, the sum would be zero. But this is a negative sum game. Only constant inflows offset the constant outflows.

[MontuckyFried]

The meme consensus is that Asia was the big buyer during the 2017 bull run. Crypto was so popular in Asia then that there was a relatively higher price in South Korea known as the Kim Chi premium. This time the situation is generally thought to be reversed with Western institutions being the primary driver of price increases while Asia is dumping since a lot of them got burned by ICOs that pumped and dumped.

Most big money players close their positions before the weekend so there is a lot less liquidity. Therefore, it takes a lot less buying or selling to move the market. I would be very cautious about trying to trade against anecdotal evidence of the market "dumping every Sunday." Markets and crypto especially have a good habit of doing the opposite of what everyone is expecting. Right now it's Sunday afternoon in the US and Monday in Asia and it's mostly green across the board.

Interesting. And you were right. I checked again in the evening and everything was back up. Still. I'll check back next Sunday because there may even be more of a distinction between AM vs PM. However, this is the first time I've seen it bounce back by the afternoon. It usually doesn't recover until Monday or Tuesday.

And yeah, as much as I think I'm onto something, I'm still not confident enough to put my money where my mouth is yet. At least for shuffling stuff around. HOWEVER, it might be worth putting initial funds on Sunday mornings versus later on the week. Maybe? I dunno. I'll test it out next time I want to toss a few more bucks into my account.

[stalefish3169]

Interesting. And you were right. I checked again in the evening and everything was back up. Still. I'll check back next Sunday because there may even be more of a distinction between AM vs PM. However, this is the first time I've seen it bounce back by the afternoon. It usually doesn't recover until Monday or Tuesday.

And yeah, as much as I think I'm onto something, I'm still not confident enough to put my money where my mouth is yet. At least for shuffling stuff around. HOWEVER, it might be worth putting initial funds on Sunday mornings versus later on the week. Maybe? I dunno. I'll test it out next time I want to toss a few more bucks into my account.

Obviously it's your money and everyone's situation is different. But for most people that aren't professional traders, having most of their funds in a hodl position that they dollar cost average into is going to be the best strategy for long-term gains. If you feel like doing a lot of short-term trades, I suggest doing it with a small percentage of your total funds. It's too easy to get rekt. There is an old saying, "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." It's especially true in crypto across short time frames.

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[MontuckyFried]

Obviously it's your money and everyone's situation is different. But for most people that aren't professional traders, having most of their funds in a hodl position that they dollar cost average into is going to be the best strategy for long-term gains. If you feel like doing a lot of short-term trades, I suggest doing it with a small percentage of your total funds. It's too easy to get rekt. There is an old saying, "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." It's especially true in crypto across short time frames.

Great points. Truth is, all I've done is hold from the beginning. Just to be clear though, my ENTIRE crypto portfolio really only consists of a few bucks of monopoly money. If it all went up in smoke tomorrow, I'd be out very little. I really am just treating this as a learning experience until I can learn more and maybe get more confident. It's been a ton of fun to watch the market. Still stoked on my BAT. Up to almost $5 just from using my Brave browser, so that's pretty nifty!!!

[shera]

Here's a deeper dive into the origins of BTC. I haven't studied it yet but it comes from ACM, very legit source.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3132259

"If you have read about bitcoin in the press and have some familiarity with academic research in the field of cryptography, you might reasonably come away with the following impression: Several decades' worth of research on digital cash, beginning with David Chaum,10,12 did not lead to commercial success because it required a centralized, bank-like server controlling the system, and no banks wanted to sign on. Along came bitcoin, a radically different proposal for a decentralized cryptocurrency that did not need the banks, and digital cash finally succeeded. Its inventor, the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, was an academic outsider, and bitcoin bears no resemblance to earlier academic proposals.

This article challenges that view by showing nearly all of the technical components of bitcoin originated in the academic literature of the 1980s and 1990s (see Figure 1). This is not to diminish Nakamoto's achievement but to point out he stood on the shoulders of giants. Indeed, by tracing the origins of the ideas in bitcoin, we can zero in on Nakamoto's true leap of insight—the specific, complex way in which the underlying components are put together. This helps explain why bitcoin took so long to be invented. Readers already familiar with how bitcoin works may gain a deeper understanding from this historical presentation. (For an introduction, see Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies.36) Bitcoin's intellectual history also serves as a case study demonstrating the relationships among academia, outside researchers, and practitioners, and offers lessons on how these groups can benefit from one another."

[pureantigravity]

Here's a deeper dive into the origins of BTC. I haven't studied it yet but it comes from ACM, very legit source.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3132259

"If you have read about bitcoin in the press and have some familiarity with academic research in the field of cryptography, you might reasonably come away with the following impression: Several decades' worth of research on digital cash, beginning with David Chaum,10,12 did not lead to commercial success because it required a centralized, bank-like server controlling the system, and no banks wanted to sign on. Along came bitcoin, a radically different proposal for a decentralized cryptocurrency that did not need the banks, and digital cash finally succeeded. Its inventor, the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, was an academic outsider, and bitcoin bears no resemblance to earlier academic proposals.

This article challenges that view by showing nearly all of the technical components of bitcoin originated in the academic literature of the 1980s and 1990s (see Figure 1). This is not to diminish Nakamoto's achievement but to point out he stood on the shoulders of giants. Indeed, by tracing the origins of the ideas in bitcoin, we can zero in on Nakamoto's true leap of insight—the specific, complex way in which the underlying components are put together. This helps explain why bitcoin took so long to be invented. Readers already familiar with how bitcoin works may gain a deeper understanding from this historical presentation. (For an introduction, see Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies.36) Bitcoin's intellectual history also serves as a case study demonstrating the relationships among academia, outside researchers, and practitioners, and offers lessons on how these groups can benefit from one another."

That's an interesting read. Definitely covers a lot of misconceptions, like blockchains being more secure than databases.

I find it intriguing when he says that "puzzle solutions are twice decoupled from economic value: the amount of work required to produce a block is a floating parameter (proportional to the global mining power), and further, the number of bitcoins issued per block is not fixed either."

I would think that in a mining system, where miners get Bitcoins as reward for solving blocks, that the puzzle solutions are in fact *coupled strongly* since the price of Bitcoin determines the number of miners and their profit making ability in the network. And furthermore, even more coupled (not decoupled) because the reward halves ever 4 years -- thus driving up the scarcity (and hence price) of Bitcoins. Maybe I don't understand his point there but it seems to me the opposite of what he is saying.

Did he mention that double spends are possible with less than 50% of the global mining power? I didn't see it. Indeed, double spends are possible as a matter of chance with diminishing likelihood if you have less than 51% of hashpower. With less than 50% success is not guaranteed. With 51% success is a sure thing. There are also other types of economic attacks.

Network effects also play a role. Miners and Nodes on StarNet get info faster, just fast enough to outpace other lesser connected nodes. So network topography and router attacks are also viable means to create double spends.

The result might be to make Bitcoins worthless - perhaps just long enough for someone to leverage it in regular markets, or cancel some important payments, or throw a competing nations economy into disarray. Not everyone is motivated by money and for a few billion dollars, any superpower would probably do this just to flex and have fun.

As far as his coverage of Proof Of Work, he considers it genius. However, there really aren't any other options other than a global contest to timestamp entries. That's the crux of accurate timestamping in a distributed system. There are other ways but they are not specific enough to guarantee order - several examples are in other proof-of-stake cryptos. Some of them rely on enough nodes being sufficiently up to date, or sufficiently connected. Bitcoin is much more resilient because of the system it uses and the guarantee that the longest chain wins.

Some meme on the interwebs accurately stated, the whole system could have been created with people solving SUDUKOs as proof-of-work and as long as the entries in the suduko were ledger balances, the whole thing would work all the same. Alas, it would be hard to create that many suduko players.

Let's have a look at how the process of hashing and Proof of Work compares to a game of Sudoku. One aspect of Sudoku we probably all agree on is that it needs time to solve. More importantly, we can also agree on the fact that verification is done in a fraction of the time needed to solve it. The last important aspect of a Sudoku is that its complexity - estimated time required to solve it - can be mathematically determined. These three aspects make it a perfect analogy to the consensus algorithm implemented by Bitcoin.

Proof of Work - Sudoku on a planetary scale!
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@sblue/p...lanetary-scale


So, Bitcoin uses the only logical choice if you ignore all environmental and end-game issues. If you consider the endgame issues, then it truly becomes a terrible choice. Firstly, because as the currency gains a foothold and nations use it, they will need to back it with their hashpower to the greatest extent or risk other nations playing with their ledger! Secondly, because it overtly endorses wasted energy as a means of racing to the right conclusion, and rewards it so that as many people do it as possible, to the greatest extent, racing to waste as much energy as possible.

Perhaps that is why Satoshi is unknown. Perhaps he really knew how bad this could go unless another solution was found to replace proof of work and he didn't want to be connected to that outcome if a solution wasn't found. And perhaps that is why other people didn't mention it either - it was simply too absurd for an academic to suggest from an academic point of view of possible valid solutions.

Neat article though - thanks for posting.. He covers a lot and mentions more on his Twitter account about various Bitcoin and crypto issues. Here is a search of his Twitter for "proof of work":
https://twitter.com/search?q=%22proo...t_search_click



On another note, NFTs. So what happens to the ownership if someone loses their private keys and cannot prove their ownership? Does the NFT fall into the public domain without a valid claimant? I..E. Is the "Code Law" in this instance?

[Skidog]

HAHAHAHAHA..just got an ad on a webpage for Paypal offering you to buy Bitcoin through them. Start with $1.00

[shera]

HAHAHAHAHA..just got an ad on a webpage for Paypal offering you to buy Bitcoin through them. Start with $1.00

You know you will not be buying btc, just some shoddy representation of it without the important properties. Same as robinhood.

[Meathelmet]

Crypto currencies pose a direct risk for (example) Chinas climate goals.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22256-3

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...s-nature-study

[Skidog]

You know you will not be buying btc, just some shoddy representation of it without the important properties. Same as robinhood.

the hordes that dont have half a brain and listen to the bitcoin pundits that say its the future sure wont get that.... it'll be "hey i use paypal all the time, why not, I hear i can make some cash"....

[Skidog]

Crypto currencies pose a direct risk for (example) Chinas climate goals.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22256-3

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...s-nature-study

Nothing to see here move along...all the heavy bitcoiners here think Bitcoin will drive future alternative energies. Those that believe different are just old boomers....

[Meathelmet]

Peter Thiel stating that "...Bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.,”"
That'll stabilise things....


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...e?srnd=premium

[shera]

Peter Thiel stating that "...Bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.,”"
That'll stabilise things....


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...e?srnd=premium

Not just China! North Korea, Russia, et al!!!

I have a strong opinion that we (USA) cannot put our head in the sand and have an obligation to control bitcoin. It's a matter of national security.