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Bitcoin solves this. Sorry I just had to. I think crypto as an investable asset class is finished. SEC is sending a very clear signal here. It’s entirely the c

• olalonde 3y ago
  I feel like I might have heard this before: https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/ https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/
• bitcoin_anon 3y ago
  > Bitcoin solves this. Indeed. Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that the powers have deemed a commodity. The rest are securities.
• agentgumshoe 3y ago
  Imagine if you couldn't buy with or redeem USD (et al) with Bitcoin. That's the only way Bitcoin could 'solve' whatever the issue is. Now let's talk use cases.
• samstave 3y ago
  We should keep a record of all the crypto failures / scams / people dying in weird ways on some sort of blockhain
  • cozzyd 3y ago
    Fuckedcoin?
    • jeremyjh 3y ago
      I'm in.
  • imtringued 3y ago
    The list is too long.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • pavlov 3y ago
    Isn’t that already at web3isgoinggreat.com
  • latchkey 3y ago
    https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
    • samstave 3y ago
      I totally forgot about this! thank you. there are so many really cool sites from the past that i cant recall what they were but i recall the experience, like that one with the gallaxy cluster of all music genres and how each were related, and each node played an sample for that genre... /one handed popsicle typing
• wmf 3y ago
  It wasn't a few bucks IMO. Probably 90% of the value came from scams. If the community had been clean since the beginning the whole "industry" would be a small fraction of the current size.
• ProjectArcturis 3y ago
  It's more the failure of the crypto community over the past 14 years to develop a use for crypto beyond speculation and crime.
  • concordDance 3y ago
    Paying for porn, avoiding your bank randomly freezing your accounts (happened to a friend of mine, heuristics are only right most of the time), sending money to other countries and donating to peaceful protests.
  • lawn 3y ago
    The use case was always there: paying for stuff. Unfortunately it hasn't been a priority for the community and the focus has always been on getting rich, instead of working for infrastructure and adoption. Even Bitcoin itself made this choice.
  • myfirstacchere 3y ago
    [dead]
  • swift532 3y ago
    I know for a fact that normal people use crypto in Venezuela, albeit through apps and Binance. Their currency is crap and USD was outlawed for a while. I got the info first hand recently when a Venezuelan dev colleague visited my country.
  • lelandfe 3y ago
    A friend of mine that works with crypto gaming companies frequently expresses frustration that every game they see is gambling, slightly disguised gambling, or terrible.
    • mrguyorama 3y ago
      Seeing as the only value cryptocurrency can bring to your game is law evasion, that's expected.
    • 3y ago
• mushbino 3y ago
  Companies have been asking for regulation for years. The bad actors are a result of that not happening.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • Eisenstein 3y ago
    I know, right. I asked the SEC to create regulation for my system of using a ledger I created to keep track of numbers that people use to trade for dollars and then back again and then make more of those numbers and trade them for other kinds of numbers and money and then back again and they won't do it. When they asked me what the hell it is I just turn around and ask 'but how do I comply?' and they stonewall me. I don't understand it.
• whatever1 3y ago
  Crypto investing should die. But I would also want to see derivatives die. Like what it even mean to "invest" in QQQ or VIX? This is just gambling (unless you have market inside knowledge).
  • arcticbull 3y ago
    QQQ, like most ETFs, isn't a derivative. You get a share that represents a basket of all of the NASDAQ-100 companies. This tracks the price of the components through creation/redemption mechanism. Authorized participants are able to create QQQ by sending a share of the constituent companies to the trust, and they're able to redeem QQQ for the shares in the trust. In this way participants are able to arbitrage the spread between QQQ and the components and keep the price tracking extremely, extremely closely. It also pays a 0.61% dividend because when the component in the trust pay a dividend it's distributed to QQQ shareholders - the ones who actually own the shares of the companies in the trust. I would argue index investing is far less gambling than stock picking because you're betting on the overall direction of a market segment, in this case tech, as opposed to a specific tech stock. Stock investing, in aggregate, can be viewed as a positive-sum game - the value of your holdings tends to appreciate through the contributions of non-investor participants (company customers buying products -> increase in intrinsic value of the company). VIX on the other hand is a very exotic product, and it's not an investment - it's a hedge, if you can call it that. VIX is a mean-reverting index that spikes up when volatility goes up and drops back down over time, the notional value of which is based on the premium of calls and puts on the S&P 500 over the coming 30 days. It's the derivative of a derivative - a 2nd derivative, if you will. Note that, importantly, you cannot buy a "VIX," there's no such thing. You can buy cash-settled VIX futures where people speculate on the index value on a certain date, and you can buy cash-settled European-style calls or puts (i.e. they cannot be exercised except at expiration, vs American options which can be exercised any time on or before expiration). You can also buy ETFs like VXX and UVXY that use futures and cash positions to attempt to track the index. QQQ and VIX are very different things. [edit] When I say VIX futures aren't an investment, check this out lol. Set the graph in [1] to Max duration. Since 2018 it's lost 96.5% of its value. Heck it's lost just shy of 50% of its value since January 1st. They just continuously reverse-split so the numbers aren't silly. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VXX?p=VXX&.tsrc=fin-srch https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VXX?p=VXX&.tsrc=fin-srch
• lazzlazzlazz 3y ago
  Imagine believing using a centralized exchange is using crypto.
• _8j50 3y ago
  Hard disagree, why can't it exist as a properly regulated security?
  • UncleOxidant 3y ago
    My problem with regulating it is that it will give it veneer of legitimacy. Let it all burn down.
    • _8j50 3y ago
      But why? I feel like for some reason you think betting on the price of orange juice or oil is more legitimate and less scammy. It's a speculative derivative of a virtual commodity/system.
      • UncleOxidant 3y ago
        I think you outlined it right there. Orange juice and oil are actual things. People drink orange juice and burn oil in their cars. "It's a speculative derivative of a virtual commodity/system." Yep
  • Eisenstein 3y ago
    For what reason? Why is it useful economically to turn computer hashes into a system of collectible numbers that exist on a common list?
    • _8j50 3y ago
      Useful? It's gambling, gambling on whatever system is backing the currency, like the bitcoim blockchain or usefulness of anonymity by monero, USD pegged currencies beinf used to avoid needing dollars for international trade,etc.... or maybe people just like to gamble sometimes. No one accused blackjack of being useful to society.
      • Eisenstein 3y ago
        I would argue that blackjack shouldn't be part of our financial system to the point that it needs regulation.
• raincole 3y ago
  Crypto's fate is bound be like those alternative Reddits and Twitters. What kind of users an alternative Reddit attracts? 1. People who don't like Reddit because of privacy concerns or other ideological reasons. 2. People who are banned by Reddit. It turns out group 2 is much larger than group 1 and the community rots. Now what kind of people who cryptos (a.k.a. alternative money) attract? 1. People who don't like banks or the government's monetary policy, and ideologically believe they have to own their own wallets. 2. People who literally cannot safely use normal money, from non-conventional porn artists to scammers and drug dealers. It turns out group 2 is bigger than group 1 and you know the rest of story.
  • cft 3y ago
    Crypto has a viable micropayments for content story, see e.g. https://stacker.news https://stacker.news . An upvote costs a minimum of 1 Satoshi (currently about 0.025¢)
    • imtringued 3y ago
      >This is a special guide, for all those bitcoiners looking to escape from tyranny and go to El Salvador. I guess my definition of tyranny is different...
    • dporter 3y ago
      Imagine paying to upvote content as a consumer. I can see this being popular with brands that are already paying for engagement, but that’s just going to result in the same media landscape we’re already in.
      • mrguyorama 3y ago
        Crypto boosters need to transactionalize absolutely everything and anything because every transaction, by design, incurs a tax to the miner/validator/magic oracle machine owner. Since you become that person by buying lots of physical hardware with real money, or buying lots of <token> with real money, it by design is someone who already has a lot. Crypto is people who see the tax that credit card networks are on all transactions, but their problem with it isn't that it's wealth redistribution from those with bad credit to those with good credit, but rather that they aren't the ones collecting the tax.
• btilly 3y ago
  How did they earn the public's trust? Was it by being trustworthy, or just their scams not yet being publicized?
• glitchc 3y ago
  How do I get some Bitcoin? I can't afford to mine it anymore. What if I want to buy some more? Or sell some of what I have? What can I spend Bitcoin on? What does Bitcoin solve for me?
  • siwatanejo 3y ago
    > How do I get some Bitcoin? There are bitcoin-only exchanges, e.g. Bitaroo. There are also P2P exchanges that don't hold user's funds, like LN2bot (this one is very handy because it supports Lightning, so fees are ridiculously low, and trades very fast for not being a SPOT exchange). > I can't afford to mine it anymore. Right, it's a professional industry now; hobbyists can still do it, but at a loss. > What if I want to buy some more? Or sell some of what I have? See the aforementioned exchanges above, in my first answer. > What can I spend Bitcoin on? Anything, really. For example you can buy flights & book hotels with travala.com. Or buy things in Amazon with a discount thanks to purse.io . > What does Bitcoin solve for me? Not being affected by events like SVB closures (or worse: smaller banks that may not be bailed out[1]); not being affected by QE in the medium-long term (e.g. put your savings in it and forget about for 4 years[2]). [1] If you don't believe it, watch this: https://twitter.com/Stromens/status/1664977520750370816 https://twitter.com/Stromens/status/1664977520750370816 [2] Try to find 2 points in the historic data of a BTCUSD chart, which differ by 4 years, the oldest point is never higher value than the newest point.
    • glitchc 3y ago
      My point is that I'm relying on an exchange to perform most of the functions you say. How do I know those exchanges are any safer than Binance? And Bitcoin absolutely tanked with rising interest rates, just like the equity markets. Can't say it's not responding to QE.
      • siwatanejo 3y ago
        > How do I know those exchanges are any safer than Binance? Did you miss the part where I recommended an exchange that doesn't hold user's funds? > And Bitcoin absolutely tanked with rising interest rates, just like the equity markets. Right, and where's the value of it 4 years after each value-tank event?
• csomar 3y ago
  It’ll be interesting if this kickstarter another crypto bull-run like the chinese mining ban did. It might show some people that the world doesn’t revolve around the US and that it’s institutions are not that infallible.
• TX81Z 3y ago
  I think it was NFTs that pulled the trigger. Pure grift.
• unitg 3y ago
  Bitcoin has outperformed 97% of all S&P 500 companies in 2023. Bitcoin was also the best performing asset of the decade. https://imgur.com/a/7SB3MtL https://imgur.com/a/7SB3MtL FINES BY SEC: Merrill Lynch – $100 million Fine in 2002, Goldman Sachs- $550 million 2010, Eli Lilly & Co. – $1.42 billion 2009, UBS AG – $1.5 billion in 2012, Abbott Laboratories – $1.6 billion in 2012, Siemens $1.9 billion in 2008, HSBC Holdings – $1.9 billion in 2003, Pfizer – $2.3 billion in 2009, Bank of America – $3.6 billion in 2009, JP Morgan Chase – $13 billion in 2013 Did the SEC send a clear message? Are these company's dead? lol.. Are the industries they are in dead?
  • Gazoche 3y ago
    Bitcoin only "outperforms" year-to-date because it massively dropped last year. You could make that table tell the opposite story by adjusting some date ranges. It's like saying tulips outperformed every other assets for a few years in the 1600s.
  • maxbond 3y ago
    (Nevermind, ignore me, consider this a crank comment.) What risk do you think the market has been handsomely compensating Bitcoin investors for over the last year? Genuine question, I don't know the answer, but if the market were pricing in the risk of Bitcoin suddenly going to zero through regulatory action, it might make sense that the price goes up a lot as old investors compensate new investors to exit while the music slows. I feel like people smarter about finance than me who were paying close attention to Bitcoin might gather clues about this hypothesis from watching the order book consistently, so yeah, genuinely asking.
    • lotsofpulp 3y ago
      > if the market were pricing in the risk of Bitcoin suddenly going to zero through regulatory action, it might make sense that the price goes up a lot as old investors compensate new investors to exit while the music slows. I cannot make any sense of this.
      • 3y ago
• censless 3y ago
  [flagged]
• kamaal 3y ago
  >>Bitcoin solves this. Bitcoin also loves this. Lots of people will use the coming fall to make money shorting this. Then eventually as BTC stabilises they will make money going long as well. In short a lot of BTC doomers will celebrate, and BTC mooners will celebrate as well. Except for different reasons.
  • andirk 3y ago
    Gotta love speculation.
• bboygravity 3y ago
  That's like saying that the days of the US dollar are numbered because Bernie Madoff got caught. Makes no sense at all to me.
  • tsimionescu 3y ago
    If Bernie Madoff had been responsible for the vast majority of dollar trading in the world, then people might make those comments when he was shut down. How much of crypto is collectively going through FTX, Binance, and Coinbase? If they are really shut down, especially in a way where it's clear their business model will not be tolerated in the USA (so no one will take their place), how much will that pull down on the whole ecosystem?
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
• thehumanmeat 3y ago
  You know the SEC doesn't regulate the world, right?
• Noughmad 3y ago
  Bitcoin would solve this, if it was actually used (or fit to be used) as intended - people keeping their own wallets and making on-chain transaction. However, because it is so poorly designed, almost nobody does that, and instead store their crypto in exchanges. Which have all the downsides of banks (they can hold your money hostage) but none of the upsides (security and regulation).
  • yuvadam 3y ago
    What aspects of bitcoin do you perceive as being "poorly designed"?
    • Eisenstein 3y ago
      * Deflationary by design * Early adopters disproportionately end up in control of majority of coins (currently 0.03% of wallets own 59% of all bitcoins) * Proof-of-work is wasteful * Chain is very inefficient * Loss of coins with loss of wallet means, for one, that inheriting the coins is not possible unless special precautions are taken which undo a lot of the security * Other libertarian nonsense that shows very naive understanding of economics that I can't think of at the moment
      • amanj41 3y ago
        I would not say it is correct to call BTC deflationary. It is simply not inflationary after the final halving. Since USD is highly inflationary then BTC is "deflationary" w.r.t $1, but the supply of BTC does not shrink. You could argue about people losing their private keys being deflationary, but that's still different from blockchains like Ethereum whose currency is literally burned in small amounts during block creations (and therefore has the chance to be truly deflationary at times). Aside from that your other points are valid.
• drumhead 3y ago
  It's never been a legitimate asset class, it's always been a speculative token, but it hasn't stopped billions being pumped into it by gullible "investors". The only thing that's going to stop the flow of funds is a massive price correction......maybe.