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A couple of my friends in SF who are always at the forefront of these type of tech things (got into ETH @ $50) and made a killing are piling into BCH. Seems cheap as it is better than BTC (basically the more advanced version, faster, able to handle transactions better 8 MB per block vs 1 MB per block on BTC - it is only up ~500% unlike the 1,000%+ rallies of most of its peers.
I think I've proven over the last few months to have absolutely zero insight into the INVESTING aspect of cryptocurrencies. But after getting absolutely penetrated trading cryptocurrency, I suppose my opinion is as valid as others. So my take:
Cryptocurrencies MAY recover, but I don't think they should recover. I think what South Korea and China have demonstrated is that cryptocurrency is predicated on a lie--the lie that the currency is free from government intervention or regulation. If this already wasn't clear, it is demonstrably true now--cryptocurrency very much can be touched by government regulation/intervention. We've also seen many public reports now of how, paradoxically, the blockchain makes it EASIER for government to track its proverbial prey--it's actually fairly hard to mask crime on the blockchain since every transaction is recorded for all time. It's not exactly a "decentralized" government-free platform when the trading platforms are subject to search warrants.
You're also seeing some weakness in the practicality of cryptocurrency as its practicality is vulnerable to acceptance (or lack thereof) by financial institutions.
I think when you actually look at cryptocurrency with a sober mind, it becomes clear that it is a completely and utterly worthless asset predicated upon lies. And not small lies, but fundamental lies. Will values recover? Maybe. Should values recover? No, they shouldn't and maybe they won't, I don't know. Perhaps enough people now have recognized cryptocurrency for what it is--a lie.
trash
hodl
I mean, I'm sure there are a good number of people who will continue to crush it in crypto investing, but for me if I don't believe in an asset class I just can't invest (or, in my case, continue to invest). Because if I don't believe in the underlying asset then I can't mentally force myself to hold in downturns. Real estate, on the other hand, I have never missed on a deal, partially because I believe in and understand the underlying mechanism that causes prices to rise and fall, so my investing is calculated. Crytpo is just gambling--you're gambling on price movements rather than investing in the asset's underlying principles; intelligent people, at this juncture, understand that crypto's underlying premise is intellectually bankrupt. It's not decentralized and it's not free from the government (if anything, it's MORE vulnerable to the gov't than the USD).
If the premise of cryptocurrency is wrong then what exactly are we investing in?
This. I'm waiting to see how the next couple months shakes up, and if levels go back to what they were for certain coins, I'm going to cash out.
And if not?...you're left with your dick in your hand?
Not trying to be facetious, just wonderin'
LOL it's almost like you've never heard of Monero, NAV Coin, Particl or the countless other privacy coins. Either you're very ignorant to what is actually going on in the crypto space or you're being disingenuous
Setting aside the personal attacks, I'd argue that, paradoxically, the more privacy features built into a currency the more of a target it will become by government regulators as the currency gains wider use. Yes, there are things in the dark web that can escape the regulators, but for a currency to ever gain legitimacy and widespread use it will have to operate in a manner that won't get it shut down by the government. In other words, my position is that cryptocurrencies will become a victim of their own success.
How do you convert it into fiat currency? You are going to pay for your fucking electricity bills with Monero?
The NSA hacked Monero and is taking all actions to hack all privacy coins.
Your argument relies on the assumption that the value of this space comes from its decentralization from the government, forgetting so much of the other value-add from crypto: the value that comes from being able to transport money from one point to another quickly, and especially across international borders, and, with one coin in mind, the ability to transact or send money without fees. Also, cryptocurrency is working towards decentralization from a third party, not just the government. There are a lot of projects whose decentralization cuts out a lot of costs, because the technology cuts out the middleman and allows for a trust-less system.
I do agree with what you're saying about the decentralization aspect being a little overrated, since the only people that can truly escape the eye of the government's scrutiny, if overseas exchanges end up having more verification requirements, which might be sometime soon, are miners, especially of privacy coins, and only until they decide to cash out for fiat.
To answer the original question, I would buy the dip with what you can afford to lose. It looks like we could stay in a bear market for awhile, but I'm confident in the long-term. I've just been day trading the last couple weeks, trying to add to my stack.
I completely reject this premise on its face. No cryptocurrency that enjoys ubiquitous use will remain free of transaction costs in the future. What exists today is not necessarily indicative of what will exist tomorrow.
Completely and utterly irrelevant. All the government has to do is declare a currency illegal or a trading platform illegal and its use will decline markedly. It doesn't matter if it's centralized or not or who it's centralized from. If the government (in a large, stable country) doesn't recognize the legality of a currency or a platform then it has no future.
This thread can be summarized by 2 groups of people:
Right now, the price movement is purely off speculations. Lots of shitcoins are in the top 50 market cap because of hype and marketing. But this is to be expected since the development of the tech is still very early in stage. We haven't even gotten to the point of adopting the tech. But once the infrastructure is in place, and the utility is realized, the speculations will be corrected.
The libertarian-leaning cryptocurrency community tends to be wary of attention from regulators. But Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo won over cryptocurrency advocates with his comments at a congressional hearing last week.
“It strikes me that we owe it to this new generation to respect their enthusiasm about virtual currencies with a thoughtful and balanced response, not a dismissive one,” Giancarlo told a panel of Senate Banking Committee members on Tuesday.
The caveat here is that Bitcoin was created post-2008 financial crisis when the veil was lifted on the banking sector and the fact that it had gambled away your money. Leave it for one more crisis to occur and we shall see where cryptocurrencies stand when the public truly loses faith in their financial system.
cryptoassets*
The currency use case may not work out. it does seem obvious that bitcoin has a use as digital gold , but who knows
But, there is a reason that the smartest VCs in the world are spending significant $ and time in the space. There are big opps for tokenization/digitization of assets and transactions. Too early to tell what will win out, but you are foolish to think it is a lie.
if anyone had bought BCH at the time of my post they would have been up ~30%+ today
Absolutely buy the dip! Its a no brainer for me, Cope straight LC all the way!
Haven’t posted on crypto in a while;
The state of the crypto market, as dictated by bitcoin, would be just about “at value” would be worth right now. We saw mass hysteria when BTC futures were released, right after seeing Bitcoin Core come out of its most concerted corporate take-over effort in the defeat of SegWit2X. Bitcoin is not going anywhere, anytime soon. It’s the ultimate antidisestablishmentarist asset available for purchase and if you haven’t noticed yet, we’re kind of going through a bit of a populist movement globally. It is a true store of wealth with added technical benefits that no Swiss Bank could replicate when it comes to hiding funds.
As for every other coin in the cryptosphere, they are 99% trash from a technical, utility and use-case point of view. When you’re playing the other 99% of technology, you’re playing surface level hype indicators. “How good is the marketing”, “OMG they have a stacked dev team”, “Holy shit, I haven’t seen this use case addressed by block chain yet”. None of this legs for evaluating the longevity a business; it’s all bullshit.
You’ve got to evaluate the utility model and do you see that model beating out competing products in that same market space. For instance, at what price point would I actually use STORJ or SIA over DropBox, Google Drive or MegaUpload? But we’re not even close to that point yet to where STORJ or SIA can compete for that because their utility tokens are priced to high to make the business model feasible.
From a technical standpoint, does the use-case make sense? Why the fuck do I need a 18th privacy coin? How many Ethereum public blockchain platforms clones can there be? Last I counted it was 5. Theyre just going to dethrone AWS, IBM and Google Cloud without the billions of dollars these companies have spent to develop entire platforms on their infrastructure. Not gonna happen.
All I’m trying to say is that a lot of this isn’t real, and I don’t want you guys going out there and losing your ass in ALT coin trades. Stay conservative unless you really know what you’re doing when it comes to crypto.
Great post with logic behind it. What are your thoughts on XRP being used for international money movement? That’s the only other crypto that’s stuck out to me as possibly useful.
Really quickly - It will never happen.
Ripple Labs has a beautiful piece of technology called "interledger". This little piece of technology enables settlement transactions between all other banks which have also purchased the interledger edge router. This enables transactions with greater speed, embedded logic, immutability and finality than traditional processes all while cutting out traditional financial clearing houses.
Here's the thing though: you are not required to use XRP when you use the interledger protocol. You can use fictional checks and balances. You can use fiat currencies. You can put any type of asset on their interledger protocol. But if you're a bank, why would you denominate your global settlement process with with XRP which is held by a private company? Banks would have to first pay for the asset with fees associated and then they are subjected to volatility brought on by public speculation to retail investors?
Banks and specifically, SWIFT, is ripping all the technical innovation from Ripple Labs and building a comparable "interledger". If anyone is going to create a crypto currency that will be adopted by banks for global settlement, it will be contrived through a major banking consortium. Not Ripple Labs.
Could you expand a little bit on how it's a true store of wealth? I understand that it has a finite supply and consequently is a deflationary asset. However it's price is extremely volatile and I'm having trouble imagining a scenario where it wouldn't be.
Even once the remaining supply of Bitcoins decreases along the asymptote to very close to 0 it's still going to be impacted by the POSSIBILITY of government intervention alone. There is government intervention in fiat (via the money supply), but not anywhere near the extent of what they COULD do to crypto currency.
If we look at different currencies as competing products, government's can essentially block/regulate their competition away. It doesn't matter weather or not they actually do this so much so as it will always be a threat. The government's own currency (fiat) is not exposed to this risk in the same way.
Edit: Genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on this as I do think there is a legitimate need to find a true store of wealth.
You articulated similar thoughts/concerns to mine way better than I did.
My position about a true store of wealth sounds like I'm defending the "man," but wealth storage has always been about what people accept as legitimate. Right now, there are a number of very powerful and stable governments that back up their currency at the barrel of a literal gun (or tank, or aircraft carrier). One could argue that land is a true store of wealth, but really, land ownership is only as good as the government that recognizes private property rights and will continue to recognize private property rights.
I would compare Bitcoin to Venezuela. Right now, Bitcoin has more legitimacy in the marketplace than the "strong bolivar" even though Bitcoin is backed by nothing and the bolivar is backed by the Venezuelan military. Well, nobody considers the Venezuelan government to be legitimate and the promise of a BTC trading platform algorithm has more credibility. In other words, in my view, a true store of wealth is only as credible as the authority figure that backs it up.
What's wrong with buying good ol' fashioned gold?
It's tough to tell if we have started a recovery, or if we're in a bull trap. If you look at the blow-off this same time of year in 2014, the 70% decline we just saw would correlate with an upcoming year long bear market.
FUD continues with China, but I don't think their efforts will have any real impact stopping Chinese from buying/trading crypto. The SEC and CFTC Senate hearing this week was viewed as very optimistic. The US has no plans to ban crypto/blockchain, but did warn against ICO's, which most American's aren't able to participate in these days anyway. The market grew substantially in 2017 with the number of startups popping up, and I expect 2018 to see similar growth.
If Segwit and Lightning Network see mass adoption in 2018, that would definitely speed up transactions with bitcoin and silence a bunch of "too slow, too expensive" arguments. It will be interesting to see if ETH can break itself away from BTC this year. There's also lots of talk of the larger exchanges adding more USD parings. We should also see decentralized exchanges come online this year. Definitely looking forward to that.
I'm still 5x from my initial investment, but I'll be watching closely for signs of a long-term bear market. For now I'm still holding.
It just takes one lawsuit from someone (or a class of people) who got completely f*cked to bring the whole thing down in the U.S. I tried starting a real estate investment platform but ran into a brick wall with the SEC. There is no intellectually credible argument for why Coinbase should be treated differently with regard to securities regulation than Fundrise. None at all. If not for securities law, you'd see ubiquitous platforms for real estate. Instead, it's barely a billion dollar market, hardly a rounding error in the industry.
All it takes is for someone at the SEC to write a clarification letter about BTC, et al to destroy the whole thing.
What are you referring to when you say "the whole thing"? Bitcoin?
seems like there is some sort of bounty out right now for BCH of .25 BTC to complete a dev project due Sunday night? Anybody have any info on this and potential impacts it may have on price movement?
I think most people on this site have a pretty biased view of cryptocurrencies and don't really understand how they work, the technology behind them, or the uses that they serve. I do believe the majority of the market is useless, but for coins like BTC, ETH, NEO, BCH, and DRGN, these coins have great uses and are very usable. Of course I believe the market will go back up and that people will continue to adopt cryptocurrencies. If nothing else, the sheer competition in technologies behind cryptocurrencies, platforms, and blockchain projects will allow for great innovation.
Tell me why I would use NEO or DRGN over ETH, ever? These are shittier versions of ETH with almost zero adoption.
You might have a smidge of an argument with BCH, but it's technical fundamentals are also terrible. It's a pump vehicle for Bitmain & Company.
You don't really understand how they work or the technology behind them.
I'm too familiar with the technological aspect of NEO or DRGN but there are inherent flaws with ETH.
up 35% on BCH
should've bought the dip :(
up 40%
up 50% from my initial recommendation to buy
damn it is constantly rising, should've got one
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