This is what I thought about Bitcoin back when it was still under $100.

 

The vast majority of the sheeple in western democracies have little need for crypto at the moment, although governments and banks are making it more and more attractive by the day - try paying $15,000 cash for a car, or sending that amount to anyone across a border. Everyone looks at you like you are a criminal. Indeed the entire financial education is slanted to that goal - that people with cash should be treated with suspicion.

In Argentina, where the currency is unstable, and movements of money in and out is controlled, restricted and unreliable, an alternative method of value transfer is a Godsend. There are shops in Argentina accepting crypto right now, today. This is short cutting through the banking and government bureaucracy and legislation.

And if you use DASH or Bitcoin cash, its almost instant. Bitcoin itself has become much faster. (And immediately you can see the transaction lodged and pending, even if it takes a few minutes to confirm).

In the USA, the idea of moving 10,000 into another currency, sending it, and then the recipient transferring out of crypto into fiat is awkward.
In Argentina, it is becoming the only way to do it. (And of course it is not just Argentina. )

As this method of value transfer increases in use, the users will start to keep more and more in the crypto, rather than immediately returning to fiat. Especially in unstable currency environments.

At the moment, if I were to sell a watch in Crypto, I set the price in USD, then the buyer pays the crpyto amount at that minute. As the transfer is almost instant, I can immediately move the crypto back into fiat if I choose - the market would have to be much wilder than it is today to be detrimental to the transaction. Bear in mind, that the buyer and seller can be in different jurisdictions, across borders, and have no compliance issues, and work in different fiat. So I can sell to someone in China, and get the money in minutes.

The big change will happen when prices are set in crypto, and proceeds are kept it in crypto. That is when fiat backed governments will react. But I think it will be too late.

For those of us lucky to live in a western democracy, we currently have (mostly) freedom of speech, and (sort of) freedom of movement. Imagine living in a controlled environment where the rulers know all your movements, communications, and control your assets. With a press of a button they can freeze a fiat account, or suspend your travel document. Why would they do that? Because they dont like what you say, they dont like where you send your money, or who you meet with. By the way, I just described the USA.

All bank accounts, while nominally allocated to account holders, contain money not owned by the account holders. It is owned by the government who issued it.

If you think the money in your account is yours, try spending it.
If you give it all to your daughter, you are taxed.
If you take it all out in cash, well you cannot.
If you want to send it all to a friend in Mexico, you cannot.
And if you do something the governments feel is contrary to some rules, they will freeze it.

So I say again. The money in your account is not yours to do with as you please.

I do not know where we are heading, but when it all starts changing, its going to go so fast our heads will spin.

 

Interesting conversation so far. I for one agree that we still haven't scratched the surface of what blockchain is capable of. I do think a lot of people are riding on the hype chain though and trying to apply it where existing technologies provide a better solution already. I think are applications for it coming within the watch world though, a distributed public ledger makes a lot of sense, especially if it can be tied to a particular object and tracked all the way from production. I've read about a company that at least said they were attempting it, but I don't think it ever went anywhere and happened before last year's big ICO boom.

I for one have decided to dip my toes into the waters and try it out on at least one watch sale. Any revolutionaries on OF wanting to jump in as well, go for it!

 

You need to watch this a few times to pick up on every joke. Brilliant!!

 

Mining Cryptocurrency on 65+ iPhones...

 

Bitcoin is now $3500 and seems to be finding stable support in the ~$3000-$4000 range.

This doesn't invalidate the many points made about the staying power of blockchain technology. But I thought it was still worth noting, given that it has dropped nearly 75% since the last post on this thread on May 7th (when it was $9200).

People are now starting to talk about bitcoin in the past tense as having been a bubble that has since popped.

Given that this was actually an insightful thread, and one which helped me understand bitcoin in a better way than journalists put it, I'd love to hear what members thoughts are on the topic these days.

 

As I said exactly one year ago...
Fairy dust.

 

The technology still has its place, but the brand may or may not survive. Big financial institutions or governments will have an easier time selling this than the underground... even though that sort of defeats the purpose...

 

Bitcoin is just surviving on emotion now.

 

The concept doesn't bother me, but the reality is a bit scary compared to stable western currencies. There's risk, and it feels a lot like speculation, at least to me. But bitcoin could seem as stable as the greenback compared to some sketchier currencies. Someday it will probably be the way of the world, but I'm going to stay on the sideline for now. Currency arbitrage is generally not supposed to be the most lucrative thing in your portfolio. Nor the riskiest.

 

As if we don't already have enough problems with energy consumption, now we have "miners" turning electricity (often highly subsidized) into cryptocurrency, and justifying it by saying that it's still a relatively small fraction of the world's energy use (although clearly the system is designed to require systematically increasing amounts of energy/computational power per currency unit as time passes).

It troubles me to think that there is one group of people working hard to truly create something real and new (i.e. advanced renewable/sustainable energy technologies) to preserve the environment for future generations, and another group of people wasting that additional electricity by converting it into fake money as fast as they possibly can. This feels very parasitic to me.

Perhaps this will sort itself out naturally, since the current decline in the value of cryptocurrency is making mining unprofitable. If transaction fees were implemented, users would be forced to understand that the transactions actually do have a real cost instead of pretending that they are free. Even with a fee structure, blockchain transactions will still be very energy intensive, but at least there will be an incentive to minimize energy use and computational power to keep the fees low, instead of feeding an absurd arms race between industrial bitcoin mining operations.

 

Well said. And it is an ugly dynamic.

But extraction of wealth has historically always come at a cost paid by the earth. It’s just the extraction has never been quite so accessible and transparent – something I suspect supporters of crypto would laud as a feature and not a bug.

 

Wouldn't bet on a stable support in this range



Six months chart of Dollar - Bitcoin

For half a year we had a support line at 6000...

But we'll see...

Just be careful with your investements

 

Last Xmas time Bitcoin made an all time high. It was the talk of the town, all everyone was chatting about at their Xmas lunches. Retail clients piled in. This Xmas with the current stock rout I wouldn't be surprised if we reach the low for the foreseeable future...

 

Blockchain and Bitcoin are essentially separate discussions. As to the latter, good luck with stability in the foreseeable future.



I certainly agree with some of @Spacefruit 's concerns about fiat currencies, banking system, and decreasing freedoms, etc. But as a hedge against the growing uncertainties, I'll take a form of insurance that has been remarkably effective for thousands of years, is incredibly durable, has intrinsic value, and is deeply embedded in the psyches of humans worldwide.

 

Nothing can ever replace the miracle of a once existing star billions of years before earth formed and then bang! we were showered by heavy metals that gave us gold and other precious metals we consider a commodity.. That can never be replaced . Of course it is embedded within our desires as we all come from stardust

 

Aye???.... So??? D'you mean Alvin is our Dad?.....

 

Lol

 

Ugh, Bitcoin. All I know is that I purchased one at 14k USD in Nov of last year all hyped up. Reached 19K USD by mid Dec of last year and I was stubborn. Didn't sell even though I should have. Currently trading at 3.5K

That is why I never venture outside of my comfort zone i-e conservative mutual funds. I just am not smart enough for the cryptos. I will hold onto mine for now - in it for the long term I guess. My mind won't let me take a $11k loss, lol.

As for the OP's query, I probably won't. Not for any other reason but just because I want to sit and wait and hope it goes back up.