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Goldman Sachs Is Setting Up a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk
- victor106 9y agoThey typically do this for a few reasons: 1. High net worth clients demanding such products. 2. Obvious FOMO. 3. In case this crypto thing becomes big they don’t want to be criticized. 4. All companies are seeing a nice bump in their share prices with any association to crypto
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoHNWIs are definitely starting to talk about and ask for crypto products. EDIT: I work in the area, not a shill.
- charlesdm 9y agoBest performing asset class over the last few years. Even if it is a bubble, you might as well allocate a few %'s of your portfolio to it if you're wealthy..
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoWell actually that's not what we advise but we're not GS either. >Best performing asset class over the last few years. Previous performance is not a predictor. >Even if it is a bubble, you might as well allocate a few %'s of your portfolio to it if you're wealthy If it's a bubble it's a terrible idea to allocate a few percentage points to it.
- AznHisoka 9y ago"If it's a bubble it's a terrible idea to allocate a few percentage points to it." Why? The word 'bubble' has negative connotations, but the flip side is the only opportunity of a great multiplier on your investment in a short time is during a bubble. Caveat of course, you can lose a lot of money, but that's why you allocate 1% of your portfolio so you can still survive.
- workthrowaway27 9y agoBecause when a bubble bursts money has just been moved around but there's no net increase in wealth. Expected value is close to zero.
- charlesdm 9y agoWhich is why you need to have a clear exit point, not keep your money in forever. Fortunes were made (but also lost) during the dot-com bubble.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoYeah, but now you're trying to time the market. That's... a less than optimal strategy.
- AznHisoka 9y agoOf course, you need to rely on luck in a bubble. There's never any guaranteed returns in anything with a possibility of a high return.
- vkou 9y agoIf Bitcoin were to crash, you wouldn't be able to exit. The exchanges would be overloaded, the price would collapse while you[1] can't trade, and you may also discover that some of the exchanges have stolen your money because they are insolvent. [1] Although some whale customers may be able to. They may win big - or at least, lose less, at your expense.
- refurb 9y agoExactly this. During the subprime crisis, even the big banks couldn't offload their risk. It's crazy to think an amateur investor in Bitcoin is going to be able to "keep the exits clear". By the time you see the downturn those exits are long gone.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoTo expand on this a bit: I recall seeing that, if at the end of each year, you moved your money into the mutual fund that had the highest return during that year, in the next year you would have averaged -40% returns. Negative 40%. Yeah, this isn't a mutual fund. Yeah, it's not directly applicable. But chasing previous returns is a way to lose money, not gain it.
- enraged_camel 9y ago>>If it's a bubble it's a terrible idea to allocate a few percentage points to it. If I had $100 million, I wouldn't have any issues with investing $2-3 million in Bitcoin just for shits and giggles. The idea is that when you have boatloads of money, you don't have to be risk-averse, as the marginal utility of each dollar you have is very low.
- notyourday 9y agoRubbish. The best performing asset class is cocaine. Buy leaves from the growers, process, sell to the red carpet users. Thousands percent every year.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoAfter watching the educational documentary “Breaking Bad”, meth seems a lot more profitable: you can by the inputs legally and all you need to do is some cooking. Getting rid of the logistics of import is surely a money saver.
- cantrip 9y agoThis kind of covers every conceivable case for doing this. If you list enough reasons you're bound to be right on one of them.
- tw1010 9y agoIt's only four items. I appreciated the enumeration.
- philwelch 9y agoIt covers the sober and reasonable cases. I think the main thing this enumeration does is to provide alternatives to the hyperbolic notion of “cryptocurrency/blockchain is taking over the world and even the big investment banks are going in on it”, with either the bullish “this means it’s a real economic revolution” or the bearish “this means we’re at the peak of the bubble and the big banks are losing their minds and threatening the world economy again” subtexts to it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- headmelted 9y agoMostly I think it's 1. A lot of people jump on guys like Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein for calling Bitcoin massively volatile / a bubble / whatever, like they hate cryptocurrencies. They don't care, and they aren't supposed to. Their business is to sell whatever the customer wants to buy, cheaper or easier than they can get it elsewhere - and right now the customer wants to buy Bitcoin. Who cares if the backside falls out of it later?
- 52-6F-62 9y agoDon't forget Jamie Dimon's company is founding their own blockchain for transactions, Quorum. https://www.jpmorgan.com/global/Quorum https://www.jpmorgan.com/global/Quorum
- fitchjo 9y agoFinding a use for the underlying technology supporting bitcoin is very different than saying bitcoin as a fiat currency is worth the value at which it is currently trading.
- 52-6F-62 9y agoUndoubtedly. My comment was only meant to frame that he may have a vested interested in lambasting one implementation of the tech while promoting his own, and that he wasn't merely acting as informed commentator. He can't be merely a skeptic when he's selling his own version to some of the largest banks in the world.
- mulmen 9y agoI'm not a financial expert but I thought the value proposition of Bitcoin is that it is not a fiat currency.
- spenczar5 9y agoThat's a strange thing to say. I think of a "fiat currency" being one which 1. is not backed by a physical good, like gold, and 2. is recognized by a government, so you can pay taxes and fines with it. Why would it be beneficial that you cannot pay your taxes with Bitcoin?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- workthrowaway27 9y agoThey are just making markets, so it's sort of 1 and 2. I say sort of because it means clients want to trade cryptocurrencies. They aren't necessarily high net worth individuals though. My guess is most clients are institutional, though it might be different with people wanting to trade cryptocurrencies. It's FOMO if you think not wanting to lose money to your competitors is FOMO. I'd say it's more just performing one of their job functions. I doubt they care about being criticized and until GS releases Goldman Coin I doubt they're trying to get a share price bump from this.
- twic 9y agoIt's not entirely clear to me whether "making markets" means on exchanges, or over the counter. The term normally means on an exchange; over the counter, you're a dealer rather than a market maker. If it's on exchanges, then it has nothing to do with high net worth clients, or any other kind of client, because they won't be trading with their clients specifically, they'll be trading with other market participants. if it's OTC, then it could be part of a package of services for clients. That would still a bit weird, though, because a bank would normally act as a broker rather than a dealer for its clients - going to the market and finding them the best price, rather than making its own price. I think that their reason is much simpler: they think they can make money doing it. I guess you could call that FOMO. But basically, they think that with their trading instincts, technology, and famously huge brains, they can move their prices around so that they can buy low and sell high without getting, as we say in the trade, their faces ripped off.
- kgwgk 9y agoDealers act as market makers quoting bid and ask prices, don’t they?
- twic 9y agoIt's fundamentally the same thing, yes - showing bid and offer prices at which you will get into risk on your own account. But the term "market maker", in my limited experience, usually means on an exchange, whereas it's "dealer" over the counter. For example, you have swap dealers, but futures market makers.
- indescions_2017 9y agoAlso. This past year to date has evinced all time historical low volatility in major currency crosses. Difficult to make the case based on sheer volume that fiat is being abandoned for crypto. But players hunting for alpha tend to go where the action is: Traders Lament Death of FX Volatility as Torpor Tanks Returns https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-10/traders-lament-death-of-fx-volatility-as-torpor-tanks-returns https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-10/traders-l...
- notyourday 9y agoThis is going to be an end of the current generation of exchanges, and, most likely, future generation of exchanges: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15973721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15973721
- aviv 9y agoSo much for the promised currency / store-of-value that can't be manipulated by banks / governments.
- tootie 9y agoIsn't it mostly being manipulated by drug traffickers and money launderers right now?
- nullbyte 9y agoWow, you're behind the curve, aren't you.
- bsaul 9y agoHm, what are bitcoins used for today ? I was still seriously under the impression that there still wasn’t any serious use, except for illegal activities... ( i’m not talking about eth which found an interesting usages with ICOs, just bitcoins). Edit : i’m also not asking for the list of legal shops that accept bitcoins, i’m wondering about the percentage of officialy legal bitcoin transactions vs the rest.
- dmitrygr 9y agomostly for speculation. Nobody buys anything with bitcoin anymore - takes too long and fees are too high.
- CrystalLangUser 9y agoWhy do you think a public ledger will be the medium for illegal transactions? How exactly do you plan on converting fiat to btc and then paying for transactions? Every step of the way is going to be on the. public. ledger. Forever. Linked to each step along the way. C'mon. BTC is for people who don't want to be at the whim of banks or paypal. Or it was anyways, until the fees became too high and the transaction times became too long. The serious use is with other coins like ETH (powering smart contracts, dApps) and BCH (hard fork of bitcoin from August that doesn't have BTC's current issues). Or altcoins. Raiblocks and XRP have extremely quick confirmation times. All of which have a public ledger by the way. If you want to do illegal activities, you'd probably want to use Monero or NAV, but first you'd have to prove either are truly private.
- johnwheeler 9y agoGreat. Now we’re on the path to making this a systemic risk.
- QAPereo 9y agoOh good, I was worried that the BC bubble bursting wouldn’t have enough negative effects on the economy at large. (/s)
- reefoctopus 9y agoWhy do you think it would have any effect? It’s still a comparatively tiny market.
- malandrew 9y agoThe same could have been asked about the Tulip and Bulb craze.
- Maciek416 9y agoThe tulip boom and bust didn't have much of an effect on the overall Dutch economy. According to this Smithsonian article, the story has been overblown significantly: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-never-was-real-tulip-fever-180964915/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-never-was-real-...
- lern_too_spel 9y agoI don't think anyone is saying the crypto bubble bust will have much of an effect on the economy either.
- QAPereo 9y agoOn its own definitely not, but the same could be said about the assassinstion of Archduke Ferdinand. When the world is a powder keg, it pays to keep track of the matches.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sedtrader 9y agoGoing to need some rules and regulations. Last thing we need are big banks overleveraging on crypto currencies for the excess return. When, not if, this bubble bursts hopefully it doesn't take the whole economy down with it. The whole financial market wants exposure to crypto at this point.
- stuffedBelly 9y agoburst of ICO bubble likely won't take down the whole economy. BTC contracts are high return + extremely high risk, which are typical traits of junk bonds, meaning they won't be treated as investment-grade securities.
- nerdponx 9y agoOK, except we've all heard that one before.
- stuffedBelly 9y agoYou have all heard it for sure. I am just laying out the fact that low-grade securities won't move the market as much as people thought they would. BTC is an exception on popularity given everyone knows about it, but it doesn't change the fact that BTC contracts will never be rated as A/AA/AAA given its ridiculous level of volatility.
- nullbyte 9y agoYou can't regulate cyptocurrencies. That's the beauty of the whole thing.
- pmlnr 9y agoHell you can. For example, you can make exchanges illegal. Done.
- nimchimpsky 9y ago
- 1undo 9y agoWelp pretty much knew this would happen all along. I was hoping crypto would remain independent of banks, but nope. Not long before big banks take over crypto exchanges, develop dark pools, and manipulate it. Not much we can do now
- pmlnr 9y ago> crypto would remain independent of banks Only if you make a crypto that runs on any device, needs tiny amounts of energy and therefore is impossible to take over.
- nimchimpsky 9y agoThat's all of them isn't it?
- defo_nonconvex 9y agoIsn't Coinbase a dark pool? Off-chain transactions seem like order internalization to me...
- idibidiart 9y agoCoinbase.gov
- kregasaurusrex 9y agoI'm sort of surprised there's going to be a regulated secondary market for this, where the newest version of the GOP Tax plan will place a fee on this form of arbitrage[1]. Then again, I did learn today that a hot wallet I had on a crypto-trading website had folded and didn't send me any notice of shutdown; along with the time period of filing a claim having been long passed. Since there's a lot of theft and lack of accountability with these closures, maybe regulation could incentivize better data protection practices and pro-consumer behavior. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-21/tax-free-bitcoin-to-ether-trading-in-u-s-to-end-under-gop-plan https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-21/tax-free-...
- Chardok 9y ago> maybe regulation could incentivize better data protection practices and pro-consumer behavior. Perhaps I am too cynical but given Equifax is still fresh on my mind I really have doubts the US government will do anything but pass laws to make sure they are getting taxes from cryptocurrencies.
- kregasaurusrex 9y agoWhile Equifax is a quasi-governmental company that's privately traded; fully private companies that are regulated in the space are required under the umbrella watch of FINRA/SEC regulations. In the past[1], they have not had any problem with levying 7 figure fines against organizations that are outside of data compliance. Taxing cryptocurrencies will likely push traders who want a greater margin to foreign countries' exchanges; but I see it as a step in the right direction for institutionalizing the practice. I've seen a posts across multiple subreddits where people want to start trading these purely as investment vehicles rather than use the underlying technology. With an influx of ideologies working both with and against one another, a lot of ordinary people can get harmed from the wild-west environment and volatility associated with it. [1]https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-112.html https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-112.html
- dahdum 9y agoIt's not a new fee, IRS gave guidance on this already in 2014. The bill just updates the language more specifically. Believing crypto-crypto trades would be like-kind was always pretty fanciful thinking.
- pmc1 9y agoMy best guess is that the "store-of-value that can't be manipulated by banks" is effectively over. Big banks it seems will take over the trading volume of the big crypto coins and develop their own exchanges.
- nullbyte 9y agoThey may be able to partially manipulate the price, but they can't influence the currency or money supply. That's the beauty of crypto.
- philwelch 9y agoThe price is everything. You don’t need to defeat cryptography to manipulate BTC any more than you need alchemy to manipulate the gold market: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(1869) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(1869)
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoIf they can't influence the money supply, but can influence its price, what difference does it make?
- twohearted 9y agoIf you consider BTC to be the stable currency then it is USD that is crashing.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoIf. I see no reason to consider that, though. You'd have to say that, not only the US dollar, but every paper currency is crashing, along with gold. That seems quite a stretch.
- twohearted 9y agoThat is exactly what the cryptocrazies are stipulating. It's cryptocurrency vs fiat. Seen from the fiat perspective, it's an obvious bubble. But if you're on the cryptocurrency side, it's barely the start of a massive and inevitable shift.
- pjc50 9y agoGuess the end of the run isn't in sight yet.
- bob_theslob646 9y agoWhere there is money to be had , you best believe their will be Goldman Sachs!
- pjc50 9y agoOops: since writing this post bitcoin has fallen by 25%. This is why I've not gone anywhere near investing in it.
- tootie 9y agoCan someone explain this collective mania to me? This is all 100% pure speculative frenzy, right?
- LargeWu 9y agoYes
- junkscience2017 9y agoamateurs like Coinbase might speculate, but pros like GS use the Federal Reserve as their backstop its one of those "heads I win, tails you lose" scenarios...GS will keep the profits but if things go south, their losses can just be taken out of your local school budget
- m777z 9y agoExplain for those not in the know, like me. I thought Goldman repaid their TARP bailout money?
- tootie 9y agoIt is complete baloney and has nothing to do with crypto.
- acchow 9y agoYou're not supposed to bail out the failures in capitalism (i.e. so-called "crony capitalism"). Of course the companies getting billions in government support will win big and easily pay back their loans. If they didn't get TARP bailout, they would fail and better competitors would replace them.
- junkscience2017 9y agoit changes the risk profile when insolvency is not a potential outcome I'm not damning GS...any entity that has officially crossed over into too-big-to-fail should take as many crazy risks as possible...why not?
- 9y ago
- junkscience2017 9y agoBTC to $100k followed a drop to $80 and a public bailout happy trading
- idibidiart 9y agoAnd SEC goes after shady figures, not Goldman
- korbonits 9y agoIf Goldman is doing it... maybe I should finally buy some BitCoin...
- freeflight 9y agoIf Goldman is doing it publicly, then you are already too late to the party.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- toomanybeersies 9y agoTo be fair, people have been saying that you're too late to the bitcoin party since around 2013.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- misterHN 9y agoNew York needs to outlaw bitcoin yesterday or explain to the other 49 states why more financial innovation is in American interests Bitcoin is dangerous, it makes people act stupid. This entails costs to the societies in which bitcoin users live. These costs are born by everyone in the society, not just the stupid bitcoin owners. Bitcoin owners should be treated like traitors who are undermining the Federal Reserve and the American economy. They have to be treated like animals, dangerous animals.
- thess24 9y agoI've seen a few well know prop trading firms that are trading cryptocurrencies as well (Jump, DRW, probably others) and there doesn't seem to be too much talk of that. Goldman lends credibility and pretty much everyone has heard of them, so I get this is bigger news, but to me the more interesting news is in the trading firms. Prop trading firms have no reason not to manipulate the cryptomarkets (it seems legal) and have the capital and knowledge to do so. Or am I missing something and manipulating these markets is illegal?
- zmk_ 9y agoIt is not illegal as the market is not regulated right now. You can actually see manipulation in BTC right now.
- tim333 9y agoI think it might be more accurate to say the laws are not enforced now as the markets are not regulated. That's not the same as legal. I'm not sure market manipulation / insider trading laws are that specific as to which asset you are manipulating as to make crypto ok. There's some talk now about Coinbase insiders trading ahead on bitcoin cash and some debate as to whether they could be done for that. I'd be curious how that plays out.
- coldcode 9y agoAt the barbers today they were all talking about having bought bitcoin recently. When barbers start trading in bitcoin its probably the peak. In 1929 some people started getting out when the shoeshine boys started giving tips.
- ringaroundthetx 9y agothe reason for that saying is because by the time the lowest class of service workers is buying then there is nobody else to buy from them Stocks and commodities spread through society that way, from the most well connected VCs down to the lower class when the price rise makes them feel like they have a chance to get rich after it is shown in their nonfinancial choices of entertainment Bitcoin hasnt gone through society in this route Existing hedge funds, VCs, University endowments and pension funds are legally incapable of buying cryptocurrency They are all forming new LPs with new operating agreements to do so There is no institutional leverage or credit in the cryptocurrency ecosystem There are no derivatives to manage risk yet The lower class will be selling to the institutions soon
- charlesdm 9y agoWhat is interesting here is that it almost seems to be acting like a reverse bubble.
- batmenace 9y agoMost of the institutional 'slow money' like endowments and pension funds will never touch cryptocurrencies, no matter how they are structured. They can't even take positions on FIAT currencies, or even bonds below AA rating. No way are they ever touching cryptos.
- ringaroundthetx 9y ago> No way are they ever touching cryptos. Not what I’m hearing in legal circles Everyone wants exposure, and if they require a new legal structure or a financial derivative they are doing what needs to be done. The pensions will just go through the next hedge fund that buys for them.
- sytelus 9y agoIn gold rush, you want to be person providing services to people chasing gold, instead of being person chasing the gold.
- ttul 9y agoToday, an 80-year old client of a friend's financial services firm wrote: . "Hi. Thank you for your excellent stewardship of my retirement savings all these years. You have helped us change a lot of things, and weather some pretty terrific storms like the Fall of 2008. I am now focused on a higher risk-reward trade off, and will be entrusting my son to invest my assets into the brave new world of crypto currencies. With thanks, please kindly close all of my accounts and begin the process of moving my funds to my son so that he can purchase Bitcoin." I am not kidding. This, folks, is how the world ends.
- user5994461 9y agoCan you transfer money to your son in the US? That should be tax evasion. Where I am from, that order would be totally illegal. ain't happening.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dmurray 9y agoI don't think that is illegal or tax evasion anywhere in the world. Depending on the amount and the jurisdiction and whether the son gains ownership of the funds (rather than just the power to invest them), the firm might have to report this transaction and the son might have to pay for taxes.
- user5994461 9y agoIt is illegal and it is tax evasion in some jurisdictions. 1) Transferring your money directly would allow to avoid inheritance tax. 2) Some jurisdictions have hard limits on what you can "donate" to your children. It can be "low" like 100k per 10 years.
- passiveincomelg 9y agoIn http://alternativlos.org/41/ http://alternativlos.org/41/ they say that GS got big on front running and how all the old tricks work on this new, unregulated market.
- wslh 9y agoI am also thinking about building a cryptocurrency trading desk inside my company, any thoughts about how to recruit in this field? I am mainly finding it difficult to get the right personality traits since there are a lot of shady and non-professional people.
- mulmen 9y agoI honestly can't tell if this is a serious comment.
- wslh 9y agoThis is a very serious comment. I am wondering how to recruit professionals to build a trading desk inside my company where we specialize in secure cryptocurrency applications and are part of some venture funds but just don't do day trading. I am also wondering if your comment is serious of not because it doesn't add anything to the discussion.
- tim333 9y agoMaybe people who have traded currencies/stocks in bank jobs and done a bit of crypto trading as a hobby? Or who have a CFA and have traded crypto. I'm not sure there have been many/any professional crypto trading jobs as the thing is so new but other trading experience would carry over to an extent. I've got some stock experience and have recently started trading crypto a bit and there are lots of oddities with how to do transactions and the like with crypto so you'd want someone with some experience there.
- mulmen 9y agoYeah I really couldn't tell if you were seriously looking for people or just sarcastically playing the part of someone who was. I'm not surprised it's hard to find qualified people because cryptocurrency is huge right now and there are a lot of people who want to be part of it. The fact that things are changing so fast that I can't tell if a comment is serious on HN says something I think.
- totalZero 9y ago
- perseusprime11 9y agoThe guys who run these trading desks make like $5m-$10m per year. I wonder how Goldman plans to compensate the guys running the crypto desk.
- asenna 9y agoWhat's with all the extreme negativity with Bitcoin and its trading price on HN? I've been noticing that in all the BTC related threads recently. Yes, this is possibly getting too large too fast. Yes there is a chance this is a bubble because the barbers and shoeshine boys are talking about it. But there is also a chance that we genuinely are at the beginning of the transition from Fiat currencies to crypto (beginning of the S-curve mass adoption). And given that we live in the digital connected age dealing with a virtual concept, it takes a lot less time for things to catch on and spread like wild fire, as opposed to other transitions in history like snail mail -> Email (which also was not that slow). And if at all that crypto vision does come true, the value of BTC and some of these other top cryptos would be worth a _lot_ more than it is right now. Again, this could go the other way and it could all come crashing down soon and maybe the hype dies down. But I feel a majority of the HN community is just waiting for that to happen which I did not expect.
- nextstep 9y agoSome of the negativity about Bitcoin in particular is around the relative lack of utility of the actual network, and how this usefulness hasn’t grown with the price. Currently, Bitcoin Core (the dominant fork still) has ridiculously large transaction fees (sometimes averaging over $20 for a given day) and transactions can take hours or days. There’s also some contention because Bitcoin Cash (the other fork of Bitcoin) is in a lot of ways closer to the original design of Bitcoin (“peer-to-peer cash”), but is having to fight for the name “Bitcoin”.
- asenna 9y agoI agree, Bitcoin being the largest has a lot of issues with governance and the community not being able to move fast on the scaling issues. I'm not too familiar with the core team's development plans but there's a lot of scaling work and research going on with Ethereum and Litecoin, etc and eventually I'm sure whatever works would flow into Bitcoin as well. I think having the first-mover advantage and name recognition, the network effect that it has right now and the global media's attention, it looks really difficult for a smaller coin with better tech overtaking BTC anytime soon. We've all seen technologies that are more advanced than an established player in a field but a lot of times, that does not matter. That's what I believe at least for the short to mid-term timeline.
- noddy1 9y agohaha. Excellent. Previous crashes = bankers dunking on retail investor rubes Coming cryptoocurrency crash = nerdboi investor rubes dunking on bankers Buy my pretties! Buy!
- idibidiart 9y agoOk, look, it's a pyramid scheme no different than the stock market.... coke heads at Goldman love this sh_t
- MadSudaca 9y agoThere's a cryptocurrency called RaiBlocks that is working to be the best at transfer of value. The protocol uses new cryptocurrency concepts evolved over the years and I believe it can be quite revolutionary. In my opinion, bitcoin is one of the worst cryptocurrencies at the moment, and to be honest I hope to see it die soon. Create a wallet using this site https://raiwallet.com/ https://raiwallet.com/, paste your address here and I'll send you some raiblocks. The transaction time is about ~5 seconds and there are no fees, so it's almost on par with a credit card, except you don't depend on a bank or a credit card company. Also, check out this link to google trends: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=raiblocks https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=raiblocks. You'll see that the country with the most interest in raiblocks is Venezuela, which coincidentally is going through hyperinflation. Bitcoins used to be quite big there as a way of avoiding the loss in value of the national currency, but as the country became poorer and the cryptocurrency networks more congested, the fees became prohibitively expensive. Raiblocks could be a good alternative to cash, or at least help some of the most technically savvy people. What I'm aiming at is, give the technology a chance. As the top poster says, it might be a big bubble, but it might also be a revolutionary technology (or both, just like the internet). EDIT: Sorry folks I have to go so you'll have to wait until I check my account again. Still I'll do my best to keep sending as long as people keep asking.
- iloveluce 9y agoI'll bite your bait. Just made an account, my address is xrb_3zrgt5ocbm6u5xjy8xxy8q918bi5rg7eimu5suywjmgebnwnhy4d63bwohk3 Although this site doesn't seem all that secure
- knieveltech 9y agoOf course they are, and why wouldn't they be? Goldman's entire business model is based on raking dumb investment strategies.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- elephant_burger 9y agoIt's interesting that nobody was screaming bubble and denigrating the price of gold after it kept rising after the GFC. https://goldprice.org/gold-price-chart.html https://goldprice.org/gold-price-chart.html
- zenlikethat 9y agoGold 2008 - 2017: ~100% increase Gold 2016 - 2017: almost no change BTC 2010 - 2017: ~22499899% increase BTC 2016 - 2017: ~1700% increase One seems a bit more bubbly than the other don't you think?
- mccoyspace 9y agoWhen it comes to Bitcoin, I think of Linux as an analogy. When it first emerged, many people questioned it's basic premise: "why is there a new operating system? Everyone uses Windows, or Mac". People didn't know or understand the idea of open source: "Doesn't that just mean people will find bugs and ways to hack it?" "Without a company behind it, how do I know I can trust it in the long term?" At first it's usability sucked. It took forever to get it up and running. It was confusing and hard to learn. It had a small, rabid fan base who kept obsessing about desktop adoption rates and wondering when it would take over. That is all kind of the same vibe as Bitcoin. But just as Linux showed, you don't need a monolithic, centralized entity to back it, it can start slowly and improve over time. "linux on the desktop" basically failed (cue all the linux desktop heads on HH....!) but it completely took over the whole back end of the Internet. Every server runs it. And it then morphed and took over almost all mobile/tablet/smartTV/etc/etc devices. I think something similar could easily happen with Bitcoin. It has securely held Billions of USD equivalents in value for years. The software continues to evolve. Its core technology has morphed into many other formats. And like Linux on the Desktop, maybe the early idea of digital cash will change into another idea, like a settlement layer. who knows? But I remain pretty optimistic about it.
- eitland 9y agoThat's one of the more convincing arguments I've seen. I still hold though that Bitcoin was an early prototype and its value will sooner or later approach zero. I do however think that blockchains and cryptocurrencies are a good idea and here to stay. To build on your example: Linux is here to stay but a number of the old companies, distros and packages are either gone or on life support and newer companies, distros and packages are making our wishes reality.
- anonytrary 9y agoI can't help but agree with this. People can only mine so many coins. Users will prefer blockchains which have lower fees and transaction times, so miners will give priority to those coins. At some point the selling point of Bitcoin will become less and less true. I have rewatched several promotional videos for Bitcoin pre-2015, and most of their claims are false as of late 2017.
- halamadrid 9y ago1. Goldman Sachs going to open trading desk 2. CBOE launches futures 3. CME launches futures 4. Fed sells seized crypto coins from silk road 5. ... The list of things that makes this as genuine as it can be goes on and on. It's a repeat of the 2008-09 crash from subprime loans. Everyone knew what was happening. But they just wanted to make as much money from the situation before getting out. Of course Lehman Brothers didn't get out in time.