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Starts with: "The lawless rollercoaster of bitcoin enriches few investors, while many often lose everything." Not true, It is another ATH day for BTC, so liter

Starts with: "The lawless rollercoaster of bitcoin enriches few investors, while many often lose everything." Not true, It is another ATH day for BTC, so literally anyone that bought BTC in the past and held is in the money. "Many often lose everything" is absurd. There isn't anything radical or new discovered here, and is trying to drum up 2021 "Tether FUD". Heard it all before. Hasn't crashed. Works on several more cheap, smartcontract blockchains now than expensive ol' ether in '18. Powers billions in defi, loan and other radical new financial instruments. Few believe that there are literally bank accounts backing this 100% today, and you know what? Who cares? Do I trust an ECDSA signature more than I trust a nameless brick and mortar bank holding some corporate funds. Hell yes. Computational security. Hard laws of math. I'd rather not hold tether in general, but IMHO it is less at risk than funds in bank accounts. I know this might sound strange to you dear reader, but you may not have experienced a time where bank accounts got haircuts, or your bank started freezing your funds. You cannot trust a bank! Be your own bank! Too many folks are holding onto old ideas of what money is, and do not see what it is turning into. While I do not claim that tether itself is non-controversial, its behavior in the cryptomarkets general is non-controversial in that it holds a peg 1:1 with the USD, and is generally fungible and easily converted. Chill on the tether fud, next cycle you will probably be sick of it too.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> Not true, It is another ATH day for BTC, so literally anyone that bought BTC in the past and held is in the money. "Many often lose everything" is absurd. If we all only buy and never sell or spend or use it, the price can only go up! > I'd rather not hold tether in general, but IMHO it is less at risk than funds in bank accounts. That's not even remotely true. Funds in bank accounts are FDIC insured. Tether depends on the liquidity of exchanges to buy your Tethers, which would collapse across the board if problems with Tether were announced. > I know this might sound strange to you dear reader, but you may not have experienced a time where bank accounts got haircuts The linked article literally talks about the haircut that Bitfinex users had to take when they lost money. > Be your own bank! The reality is that people do not want to be their own bank, nor do they want to pay tens of dollars in transaction fees every time they want to make a deposit or withdrawal. They especially don't want to lose all of their money if they forget their password. That's why most retail investors just leave it in an exchange, which acts as their bank. Sure, they could technically withdraw to a Bitcoin mind wallet and walk around with the password in their head, but that's not a great solution for 99% of people out there. Banks are fine.
- rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
  I prefer to think of it as "depreciating fiat currency worth less every year", but sure. FDIC insurance is 250k per account, in the US. Only 323M/7.6B can take advantage of this. Don't forget the USDT liquidity in the defi markets, which is a growing area too: https://defimarketcap.io/protocol/uniswap-v2 https://defimarketcap.io/protocol/uniswap-v2 I think my point is that at this point even the solvency of tether corp is actually irrelevant to the value of their USDT. People believing in it seem to work well enough. Until people no longer believe in it, it will seem to exist. Bitfinex haircut is yet another reason why you don't store money in exchanges. Please stop assuming that people don't want to custody their own funds -- I have spent a great deal of time in the recent months and years convincing folks to install wallets and take custody their funds. Most find it easy and painless. There is a light bulb moment when people realize they are in control of their funds, and nobody can take this away from them. Exchanges are like internet banking, boring in 2021. Money over the internet, however, is really cool. Always stress the importance of backing up the seed phrase, and folk's wont lose access to funds. People like it! Its like a magical incantation to recovery coin anywhere in the universe. Negative interest rates are coming for your dollars. The bank is not your friend.
  - ac29 6y ago
    > I prefer to think of it as "depreciating fiat currency worth less every year", but sure. How is a dollar worth of Tether less impacted by dollar inflation than a dollar in a bank account?
    - rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
      That was more at point for fixed emission currencies like BTC vs fiat USD but running with your interpretation: * bank could start charging negative interest rates * tether could start providing interest yield to holders * banks could start freezing funds * tether could start freezing funds lots of things are possible. Will they happen? Unknown.
nootropicat 6y ago
>It is another ATH day for BTC, so literally anyone that bought BTC in the past and held is in the money. To actually make money you must sell - to someone, higher than you bought. Then that person is in the same situation. Bitcoin is a zero-sum game (negative if mining is taken into account - billions of losses per year) so for every realized profit there's an equal loss somewhere else. While technically just one (formerly extremely rich) person could be the source of profits for everyone else by buying enough btc at ath from every holder, leaving everyone else in profit, the more likely distribution is Pareto with 20% winning and 80% losing.
- rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
  Ahh, I feel that you don't believe bitcoin is money. You don't need to 'sell' it for fiat. What matters is the purchasing parity power. It is money already. I do not agree that it is a zero-sum game. This assumes that it provides no utility outside speculation, and everyone just wants back into USD. As the markets grow, there is less desire to hold depreciating assets like dollars, especially with negative interest rates.
  - CaptainZapp 6y ago
    > You don't need to 'sell' it for fiat. What matters is the purchasing parity power. It is money already. If it would be money I could go into just about every shop and purchase whatever I want for crypto. Which, obviously, I cannot. I don't only believe that crypto currencies are not money, but a huge pyramid scheme, which will result in many, many losers. Some of them having lost their life savings. I'm pretty sure that we vehemently disagree on that. But claiming that crypto is money really stretches the definition of money.
    - rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
      You literally can with payment cards do this today. The largest cryptocurrency exchange released a visa card where you can 'spend crypto'. I hate it when starbucks doesn't take my Krugerrands. What if cryptocurrencies can buy things that fiat currencies can not? Not everything is sold in a physical store. What if /the payment card industry/ converted cryptocurrency to local fiat for you? Right now there are several psuedobank providers that will do this (for years now), but we are talking about the card network themselves doing it themselves. Cryptocurrency does certainly stretch the definition of money. That's why it is exciting. Pyramid schemes are something different, pyramid schemes are about recruiting folks to pay you, and them getting them to repeat the same trick, with money funneling to the top. What you are thinking of is a Ponzi scheme, in which early investors are paid by later investors. Now this is where the definitions get blurred. Most asset classes act this way, and we don't consider SPY a ponzi, nor housing in major cities, nor the USD market itself. I am not trying to recruit, or even encourage you to convert your hard earned funds on magic internet money. But this dismissal of cryptocurrency is injurious to your future wealth.
kamaal 6y ago
>>Not true, It is literally true. People who bought at $50K around this week, have to hope there are people who will buy at $60K, then those people have to hope there are people who will buy at $70K, then $80K, then $90K.... From that perspective this looks like a kind of a Ponzi scheme already. Of course like most Ponzi Schemes the early investors reap massive gains. It's the ones who come later who suffer.
- rawtxapp 6y ago
  By your logic any investment is a ponzi scheme. You buy a stock with the hope that you'll sell it at a higher price later on, etc.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - kamaal 6y ago
    >>You buy a stock with the hope I don't buy anything on hope. I do lots of analysis fundamental and more. I invest only if the company is and will, with, enough metrics to support it will perform in the future. The stock price is backed by the health and growth of the business. The easiest way to to do this is an index fund. Which by some definitions tracks large segments of the economy itself.
    - pushrax 6y ago
      You buy based on maximum expected value for your risk tolerance and then hope you don't end up on the low end of the distribution of outcomes. Example tail outcomes: - Anti-capitalist uprising destroys all records of ownership. - Massive fraud in companies you invest in. - Competitors outside your holdings outcompete and take the market share. It's pretty reasonable to bet that these won't happen at a sufficient scale to affect you, especially with international diversification, but you do also hope they won't. Also, the stock price is backed by people's perception of the health and growth of a business, and by the price and performance of alternative assets. Pricing is hard. Obviously fundamental earning power influences price, but it's not the only or biggest force in price discovery, especially on <10y scales. As we have seen in the past year, expectations of money supply have a drastic nonlinear effect on stock prices across the market. A major (and unlikely) Fed strategy change could halve the market and keep it below ATH for a decade.
FridgeSeal 6y ago
“With enough investment, you too can be a part of the crypto hype train, ready to on-board more people into buying into crypto!”
csomar 6y ago
> Do I trust an ECDSA signature more than I trust a nameless brick and mortar bank holding some corporate funds. Hell yes. Computational security. Hard laws of math. I'd rather not hold tether in general, but IMHO it is less at risk than funds in bank accounts. I know this might sound strange to you dear reader, but you may not have experienced a time where bank accounts got haircuts, or your bank started freezing your funds. You cannot trust a bank! Be your own bank! People have a very short memory. Citizens of Europe/US are generally not concerned because they think their governments will back their promises. Citizens of less fortunate countries do not mind the risk of Tether/Bitcoin because they national central bank is riskier and more corrupt/scammy.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

> Not true, It is another ATH day for BTC, so literally anyone that bought BTC in the past and held is in the money. "Many often lose everything" is absurd. If we all only buy and never sell or spend or use it, the price can only go up! > I'd rather not hold tether in general, but IMHO it is less at risk than funds in bank accounts. That's not even remotely true. Funds in bank accounts are FDIC insured. Tether depends on the liquidity of exchanges to buy your Tethers, which would collapse across the board if problems with Tether were announced. > I know this might sound strange to you dear reader, but you may not have experienced a time where bank accounts got haircuts The linked article literally talks about the haircut that Bitfinex users had to take when they lost money. > Be your own bank! The reality is that people do not want to be their own bank, nor do they want to pay tens of dollars in transaction fees every time they want to make a deposit or withdrawal. They especially don't want to lose all of their money if they forget their password. That's why most retail investors just leave it in an exchange, which acts as their bank. Sure, they could technically withdraw to a Bitcoin mind wallet and walk around with the password in their head, but that's not a great solution for 99% of people out there. Banks are fine.

rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
I prefer to think of it as "depreciating fiat currency worth less every year", but sure. FDIC insurance is 250k per account, in the US. Only 323M/7.6B can take advantage of this. Don't forget the USDT liquidity in the defi markets, which is a growing area too: https://defimarketcap.io/protocol/uniswap-v2 https://defimarketcap.io/protocol/uniswap-v2 I think my point is that at this point even the solvency of tether corp is actually irrelevant to the value of their USDT. People believing in it seem to work well enough. Until people no longer believe in it, it will seem to exist. Bitfinex haircut is yet another reason why you don't store money in exchanges. Please stop assuming that people don't want to custody their own funds -- I have spent a great deal of time in the recent months and years convincing folks to install wallets and take custody their funds. Most find it easy and painless. There is a light bulb moment when people realize they are in control of their funds, and nobody can take this away from them. Exchanges are like internet banking, boring in 2021. Money over the internet, however, is really cool. Always stress the importance of backing up the seed phrase, and folk's wont lose access to funds. People like it! Its like a magical incantation to recovery coin anywhere in the universe. Negative interest rates are coming for your dollars. The bank is not your friend.
- ac29 6y ago
  > I prefer to think of it as "depreciating fiat currency worth less every year", but sure. How is a dollar worth of Tether less impacted by dollar inflation than a dollar in a bank account?
  - rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
    That was more at point for fixed emission currencies like BTC vs fiat USD but running with your interpretation: * bank could start charging negative interest rates * tether could start providing interest yield to holders * banks could start freezing funds * tether could start freezing funds lots of things are possible. Will they happen? Unknown.

nootropicat 6y ago

>It is another ATH day for BTC, so literally anyone that bought BTC in the past and held is in the money. To actually make money you must sell - to someone, higher than you bought. Then that person is in the same situation. Bitcoin is a zero-sum game (negative if mining is taken into account - billions of losses per year) so for every realized profit there's an equal loss somewhere else. While technically just one (formerly extremely rich) person could be the source of profits for everyone else by buying enough btc at ath from every holder, leaving everyone else in profit, the more likely distribution is Pareto with 20% winning and 80% losing.

rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
Ahh, I feel that you don't believe bitcoin is money. You don't need to 'sell' it for fiat. What matters is the purchasing parity power. It is money already. I do not agree that it is a zero-sum game. This assumes that it provides no utility outside speculation, and everyone just wants back into USD. As the markets grow, there is less desire to hold depreciating assets like dollars, especially with negative interest rates.
- CaptainZapp 6y ago
  > You don't need to 'sell' it for fiat. What matters is the purchasing parity power. It is money already. If it would be money I could go into just about every shop and purchase whatever I want for crypto. Which, obviously, I cannot. I don't only believe that crypto currencies are not money, but a huge pyramid scheme, which will result in many, many losers. Some of them having lost their life savings. I'm pretty sure that we vehemently disagree on that. But claiming that crypto is money really stretches the definition of money.
  - rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
    You literally can with payment cards do this today. The largest cryptocurrency exchange released a visa card where you can 'spend crypto'. I hate it when starbucks doesn't take my Krugerrands. What if cryptocurrencies can buy things that fiat currencies can not? Not everything is sold in a physical store. What if /the payment card industry/ converted cryptocurrency to local fiat for you? Right now there are several psuedobank providers that will do this (for years now), but we are talking about the card network themselves doing it themselves. Cryptocurrency does certainly stretch the definition of money. That's why it is exciting. Pyramid schemes are something different, pyramid schemes are about recruiting folks to pay you, and them getting them to repeat the same trick, with money funneling to the top. What you are thinking of is a Ponzi scheme, in which early investors are paid by later investors. Now this is where the definitions get blurred. Most asset classes act this way, and we don't consider SPY a ponzi, nor housing in major cities, nor the USD market itself. I am not trying to recruit, or even encourage you to convert your hard earned funds on magic internet money. But this dismissal of cryptocurrency is injurious to your future wealth.

kamaal 6y ago

>>Not true, It is literally true. People who bought at $50K around this week, have to hope there are people who will buy at $60K, then those people have to hope there are people who will buy at $70K, then $80K, then $90K.... From that perspective this looks like a kind of a Ponzi scheme already. Of course like most Ponzi Schemes the early investors reap massive gains. It's the ones who come later who suffer.

rawtxapp 6y ago
By your logic any investment is a ponzi scheme. You buy a stock with the hope that you'll sell it at a higher price later on, etc.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kamaal 6y ago
  >>You buy a stock with the hope I don't buy anything on hope. I do lots of analysis fundamental and more. I invest only if the company is and will, with, enough metrics to support it will perform in the future. The stock price is backed by the health and growth of the business. The easiest way to to do this is an index fund. Which by some definitions tracks large segments of the economy itself.
  - pushrax 6y ago
    You buy based on maximum expected value for your risk tolerance and then hope you don't end up on the low end of the distribution of outcomes. Example tail outcomes: - Anti-capitalist uprising destroys all records of ownership. - Massive fraud in companies you invest in. - Competitors outside your holdings outcompete and take the market share. It's pretty reasonable to bet that these won't happen at a sufficient scale to affect you, especially with international diversification, but you do also hope they won't. Also, the stock price is backed by people's perception of the health and growth of a business, and by the price and performance of alternative assets. Pricing is hard. Obviously fundamental earning power influences price, but it's not the only or biggest force in price discovery, especially on <10y scales. As we have seen in the past year, expectations of money supply have a drastic nonlinear effect on stock prices across the market. A major (and unlikely) Fed strategy change could halve the market and keep it below ATH for a decade.

FridgeSeal 6y ago

“With enough investment, you too can be a part of the crypto hype train, ready to on-board more people into buying into crypto!”

csomar 6y ago

> Do I trust an ECDSA signature more than I trust a nameless brick and mortar bank holding some corporate funds. Hell yes. Computational security. Hard laws of math. I'd rather not hold tether in general, but IMHO it is less at risk than funds in bank accounts. I know this might sound strange to you dear reader, but you may not have experienced a time where bank accounts got haircuts, or your bank started freezing your funds. You cannot trust a bank! Be your own bank! People have a very short memory. Citizens of Europe/US are generally not concerned because they think their governments will back their promises. Citizens of less fortunate countries do not mind the risk of Tether/Bitcoin because they national central bank is riskier and more corrupt/scammy.