Bitcoin is still early

[jacoavlu]

I do. Many random questions:
1) I’ve read that when Saylor and MSTR purchased over $5B in Bitcoin the price barely moved. This seems partly explained by the way he enacted the purchase - many many small lots over time - but still, how did $5B of buys over a relatively short time frame not drive up the price?
2) What happens in / as we approach 2140 and the mining ends completely? I realize this is very far in the future, but if Bitcoin purports to be the future of money, and people believe in the long-term success of Bitcoin, then I think it makes sense to think about the end-game.
3) Based on my reading and listening, one of the deep risks to Bitcoin is a coordinated attack by many powerful Western nations. What would that even look like?
4) Numerous resources talk about four year cycles that are driven in part by the halving events. But if those halving events are known well in advance… shouldn’t the market price them in and smooth out the effects of the actual halvings themselves?

1) pretty sure MSTR didn't buy $5B at any one time. more like a tenth of that. there's actually a little white paper / case study that you can read put out by MSTR and or coinbase about that initial large purchase and how they executed it

2) all guesses. the block subsidy will go away but transaction fees do not. best guess is tx fees will steadily increase which incentivizes miners to continue validating blocks (this is what secures the network) to earn the tx fees. those fees in future will likely be too high for typical spending transactions. so on chain tx will only be for large moves. analagous to moving gold bars from one vault to another. small and personal tx would presumably mostly be on layer 2 solutions, like lightning today where I could send you $100 instantly right now for like a penny.

3) it would seem at this point that a 51% attack is impossible. it would require millions of asics, which are already in short supply, a huge amount of infrastructure, and a massive coordination in secret. and it's not as if, if someone could even control 51% of the hash power, they instantly win. it requires a sustained maintenance of that hash over time and would probably take more like 70%+ of the has power. and even in the event of an attack, the network could conceivably fork.

4) who knows. "the halving was priced in" is a running joke. such talk should only be for entertainment purposes. buy and hold long term, I don't really care one way or the other.

[Panscan]

permissionless, money for enemies

the trouble with bitcoin taking over payments though is when stuff goes wrong there's no one to call which gives people pause. its basically between payer and payee if there is any dispute

certainly btc payment is a hundred times better if you have ever had to send a wire, and another hundred times if that an international wire

the last international wire i sent took over a week before recipient had spendable funds. payment by btc would have been instant and in about an hour (six block confirmations) you have "final settlement"

but banks could just fix instant settlement. You don’t inherently need crypto to do that. I hear you for stuff like that it would be beneficial though how often are people internationally sending money that needs to be settled instantly ? It’s sort of a non issue and one banks could easily handle internally. They just don’t.

Again as someone who owns a crap ton of Btc and other crypto( as I know you love this distinction).

[Panscan]

I’m actually really happy you brought this up. There’s so many industries that can benefit from BTC and crypto in general

Porn is one of them. Remember a few months back when Only Fans said they would no longer allow porn on their site because one of their payment processors didn’t want to be involved with that industry? They eventually back tracked but you know what could have solved that issue? Crypto

What about the recreational marijuana industry in the Us? Legal in many states, illegal federally which means they can’t use the traditional banking system. You know what could help them? Crypto

Don’t get me started on healthcare.

Crypto isn’t the solution to everything but it can definitely solve a lot of problems. The fact that crypto is only starting to get involved in those industries means we are still early. If you haven’t bought your first fraction of a BTC yet, you still can, lots of upside left, we’re still early. Likely early majority in the tech adoption curve, still early

Please tell me how crypto helps healthcare. I feel ill just reading that possibility. Just what we need in our already tremendously screwed up healthcare system, it priced in a highly speculated, volatile asset.

[jacoavlu]

but banks could just fix instant settlement. You don’t inherently need crypto to do that.

agreed, theoretically yes they could. (I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for this of course)

but that's also why "instant permissionless payments" isn't enough of a value proposition to warrant long term investment in the asset, even as great as such feature is

the thing that banks can't fix though, is the fact that the current monetary standard USD will continue to be inflated

a fixed and known monetary policy not controlled by a central authority is the true value proposition

[billy]

Anyone else feel bitcoin goes like this:

Younger generation - "Bitcoin is the new everything you old people are out of touch and don't no crap"
Older generation- "Bitcoin is useless and these young whipper-snappers don't know crap"

I feel like it s perpetual state of watching someone have an argument with their parents and with their kids at the same time....

not discrediting bitcoin here but Just maybe, a lot of people are speculating without facts both ways....

You forgot to add:
YG- Everyone who doesnt own at least a little crytpo is dumb and arrogant, will never meet their life goals- HODL!
OG- Everyone who owns even just a little crypto (1-5%) is wasting their money, will never meet their life goals- watch when it all catastrophically fails

There is a middle ground, and there is sitting crypto out. Both are acceptable if it meets your goals. Just like some people only own real estate and no stocks (stocks-that's gambling!), and others only own stocks and no real estate (RE- too much work! tenants, plumbing eww). Choosing one or the other doesn't make someone dumb. For some reason MANY crypto backers forget there are many roads to dublin, or maybe just the loudest ones. Same for crypto haters.

Re: bank transfers- This is really where I see the most use for crypto. Most banks are too tied up with regulations to allow instant large international transfers on both ends. Reminds me of how difficult it was to transfer USD to Argentina's currency and back in 2011. IF more regulation comes down the road on crytpo, it'll be interesting to see how it affects the transfer process. For instance BTC wont help you send money to someone to use in China, Egypt or Bolivia.

Yeah I used BTC/crypto interchangeably here. Just too lazy to go back and change them but you know what I mean.

[CordMcNally]

Please tell me how crypto helps healthcare. I feel ill just reading that possibility. Just what we need in our already tremendously screwed up healthcare system, it priced in a highly speculated, volatile asset.

I don’t necessarily think crypto is a solution on the horizon for any of the things they mentioned. Keeping track of every transaction plus any gains/losses for taxes would be such a headache.

[Nysoz]

But if it's ever just classified as a currency then there's no taxes for gains/losses so that would be one less issue. It would just be spending.

[jacoavlu]

I don’t necessarily think crypto is a solution on the horizon for any of the things they mentioned. Keeping track of every transaction plus any gains/losses for taxes would be such a headache.

if you don't admit that bitcoin is a massive function gain for international remittances then you're not engaging honestly. a cursory look into the El Salvador situation can demostrate this. Some large percent of El Salvador economy is international remittances - people sending money to their family / friends in El Salvador

the traditional means is Western Union and the like. high fees eroding the funds received. locals have to travel to the physical branch which may be some distance away, to pick up physical cash. creates a target for criminals. many of these locals don't have bank accounts

now their citizens can download an app on their phone and receive USD instantly from literally anyone anywhere in the world for essentially zero fee. they can choose to hold bitcoin, or USD, they don't have to be exposed to bitcoin price fluctuation if they don't want to. they can go get physical cash from a bitcoin ATM if they want. or spend the USD or the bitcoin from their app at local merchants.

how is that not a real solution?

[jacoavlu]

a good way to frame any of this analysis is, what problem is being solved? if there isn't a good answer (real problem) then you're in the realm of gambling / pure speculation

for instance, doge and the like aren't solving a problem, at least none that I'm aware of.

[Panscan]

if you don't admit that bitcoin is a massive function gain for international remittances then you're not engaging honestly. a cursory look into the El Salvador situation can demostrate this. Some large percent of El Salvador economy is international remittances - people sending money to their family / friends in El Salvador

the traditional means is Western Union and the like. high fees eroding the funds received. locals have to travel to the physical branch which may be some distance away, to pick up physical cash. creates a target for criminals. many of these locals don't have bank accounts

now their citizens can download an app on their phone and receive USD instantly from literally anyone anywhere in the world for essentially zero fee. they can choose to hold bitcoin, or USD, they don't have to be exposed to bitcoin price fluctuation if they don't want to. they can go get physical cash from a bitcoin ATM if they want. or spend the USD or the bitcoin from their app at local merchants.

how is that not a real solution?

But similar to the settlement I don’t see how you need crypto or Btc to fix this. Banks could just stop trying to nickle and dime international txn. I don’t know why they don’t stop now or improve their fees similar to what vanguard did to competing mutual fund companies.

I appreciate how crypto can reduce fees ( though networks like ethereum are frankly jokes and perform extremely poorly with fees , loss of fees even if transaction fails, slow transaction times , etc I could go on for days) but I just think with a lot of this stuff you don’t need cryto do it , but hopefully at minimum it provides the impetus for banks to rethink or be competitive.

[billy]

a good way to frame any of this analysis is, what problem is being solved? if there isn't a good answer (real problem) then you're in the realm of gambling / pure speculation

for instance, doge and the like aren't solving a problem, at least none that I'm aware of.

specifically for healthcare (and I know it wasn't you who brought it up)- what problem can BTC/crypto fix?

[jacoavlu]

specifically for healthcare (and I know it wasn't you who brought it up)- what problem can BTC/crypto fix?

lol, nothing I'm aware of. someone else said that.

[jacoavlu]

But similar to the settlement I don’t see how you need crypto or Btc to fix this. Banks could just stop trying to nickle and dime international txn. I don’t know why they don’t stop now or improve their fees similar to what vanguard did to competing mutual fund companies.

I appreciate how crypto can reduce fees ( though networks like ethereum are frankly jokes and perform extremely poorly with fees , loss of fees even if transaction fails, slow transaction times , etc I could go on for days) but I just think with a lot of this stuff you don’t need cryto do it , but hopefully at minimum it provides the impetus for banks to rethink or be competitive.

actually, banks can't fix this. bitcoin is uniquely a digital bearer asset. it can be instantly transferred without permission to someone else and then that someone else actually possesses the native asset and that transaction cannot be reversed

banks literally cannot do this with dollars or any other fiat currency. nothing else can do this. hard stop.

[CordMcNally]

if you don't admit that bitcoin is a massive function gain for international remittances then you're not engaging honestly. a cursory look into the El Salvador situation can demostrate this. Some large percent of El Salvador economy is international remittances - people sending money to their family / friends in El Salvador

the traditional means is Western Union and the like. high fees eroding the funds received. locals have to travel to the physical branch which may be some distance away, to pick up physical cash. creates a target for criminals. many of these locals don't have bank accounts

now their citizens can download an app on their phone and receive USD instantly from literally anyone anywhere in the world for essentially zero fee. they can choose to hold bitcoin, or USD, they don't have to be exposed to bitcoin price fluctuation if they don't want to. they can go get physical cash from a bitcoin ATM if they want. or spend the USD or the bitcoin from their app at local merchants.

how is that not a real solution?

They mentioned porn, marijuana, and healthcare all presumably inside the US as they didn't mention otherwise so I think we're talking about two separate things here.

[jacoavlu]

They mentioned porn, marijuana, and healthcare all presumably inside the US as they didn't mention otherwise so I think we're talking about two separate things here.

ok

with regards to businesses accepting payment in btc, it actually can be a step improvement versus traditional systems because again, settlement is essentially instant which is only otherwise possible with physical cash.

and businesses can accept bitcoin as payment with instant conversion to USD. they don't have to have exposure to btc price fluctuation and they don't have to worry about btc price gain or loss and taxable capital gain or loss because of fluctuation.