Bitcoin is still early

[NapoleanDynamite]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sec-s...hssrp_catchall

The rules are changing. Even Mark Cuban is ranting. Using enforcement before regulations.

I will be happier when the SEC and the courts start clarifying the "crypto" landscape. Hopefully they can help decrease the frequency of scams. It takes away from what Bitcoin provides. I will stick with Bitcoin. Have not once recommended a "crypto" on this platform or anywhere else. Please don't conflate the two. They are different.

As for Mark Cuban... he has made a lot of great business moves. But he prefers bananas to Bitcoin so I don't consider him a trusted source on the matter: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billyba...h=2e27069a4cce

[Tim]

I will be happier when the SEC and the courts start clarifying the "crypto" landscape. Hopefully they can help decrease the frequency of scams. It takes away from what Bitcoin provides. I will stick with Bitcoin. Have not once recommended a "crypto" on this platform or anywhere else. Please don't conflate the two. They are different.

As for Mark Cuban... he has made a lot of great business moves. But he prefers bananas to Bitcoin so I don't consider him a trusted source on the matter: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billyba...h=2e27069a4cce

I would never consider Cuban a trusted source. Ross Perot drove a great deal. He didn't want the Mav's and publicity. He wanted the land. RP Jr developed N Dallas and the DFW area. Much bigger impact on Dallas than Cuban will be.

[jacoavlu]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sec-says-9-25-assets-055428700.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall

The rules are changing. Even Mark Cuban is ranting. Using enforcement before regulations.

I’m curious what you think this has to do with bitcoin.
If you’ve been paying attention, I have expressed many times that essentially everything in “crypto” is basically an unregistered security, but bitcoin has fundamental differences with all these other things.

[ENT Doc]

Maybe you should go back and read through the entire thread...There is a lot of good learning and you can see how the space has evolved over the past 27 months. But as Satoshi said: "If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry."

Well you and Satoshi can rock and roll.

[Dont_know_mind]

You really nailed it. But I think the problem is Bitcoin bros do not see it as speculative. I know plenty of people who feel that Bitcoin is surely going to be higher at some point in the future. And it isn't just optimism. Because a lot of those same people don't think vtsax will be up.

I think the sizing thing is a serious challenge for a lot of people.
My non-indexed speculative position is 3% of my allocation to listed equities, and listed equities is less than 25% of my net investable assets.
So my speculative position is less than 1% of my investable assets.

I think there is a 95% chance of the uranium investments being a success, but that's a subjective probability and I wouldn't be investing in it if I wasn't "confident".
I think you have to handicap your tendency to overconfidence.

I have a hard limit on myself not to invest more than 1% into spec stuff, as it can and not infrequently does zero.

[xraygoggles]

I think the sizing thing is a serious challenge for a lot of people.
My non-indexed speculative position is 3% of my allocation to listed equities, and listed equities is less than 25% of my net investable assets.
So my speculative position is less than 1% of my investable assets.

I think there is a 95% chance of the uranium investments being a success, but that's a subjective probability and I wouldn't be investing in it if I wasn't "confident".
I think you have to handicap your tendency to overconfidence.

I have a hard limit on myself not to invest more than 1% into spec stuff, as it can and not infrequently does zero.

While your overall point is taken, if you a 95% conviction on that trade, Kelly criteria says you should bet more.

[Dont_know_mind]

While your overall point is taken, if you a 95% conviction on that trade, Kelly criteria says you should bet more.

Although this is technically true, I've always found I overestimated my hit rate with individual speccy stuff. So when I thought I was likely to be 95% right, it was in fact about 55% likely. I had and still have a huge position in something that 10X in a 15 year period, but looking back, that was probably a bit of a fluke. I have an innate bias to invest in things that are recurrently disssapointing with some catalyst. But it was a large degree of luck that I actually put 3X more on that particular play and it panned out.

Nowadays, I let the winners keep rolling, but I don't spend more than 1% of my investable assets on any individual speculative assets that can go to 0. I am happy to go 20% on 2X LETF's on country indexes that could go down 80%. I'm more comfortable holding up to 20% of those as they are more diversified in my mind. As the maximum drawdown is likely to be less (e.g 80% vs 100%), I can allocate more of it in my overall portfolio. I could probably let the Uranium and individual stuff be 2% or even 3%. It's very subjective. I can't imagine I'd start with more than 1% though and if it pans out, it might appreciate to 3-5% of the overall portfolio. Maybe it should be a higher weighting - if it works out, but not if it doesn't...If only we could know if we're going to be right beforehand, I'd go all-in on the stuff I know I'll be right on!

[CordMcNally]

Although this is technically true, I've always found I overestimated my hit rate with individual speccy stuff. So when I thought I was likely to be 95% right, it was in fact about 55% likely.

So, things that you think are a slam dunk end up only being a coin flip?

[xraygoggles]

I have expressed many times that essentially everything in “crypto” is basically an unregistered security, but bitcoin has fundamental differences with all these other things.

Actually, there's currently a new proposal that both bitcoin & ether will be considered commodities and regulated by CFTC.

https://blockworks.co/bitcoin-ether-to-be-regulated-as-commodities-by-cftc-per-new-senate-bill/

It's not too late to start implementing ETH into ur allocation. Not only will it eventually overtake BTC as the largest market cap (mainly b/c it has a bunch of ERC-20 stablecoins), but it has exponentially more developer activity on it.

[jacoavlu]

Actually, there's currently a new proposal that both bitcoin & ether will be considered commodities and regulated by CFTC.

https://blockworks.co/bitcoin-ether-to-be-regulated-as-commodities-by-cftc-per-new-senate-bill/

It's not too late to start implementing ETH into ur allocation. Not only will it eventually overtake BTC as the largest market cap (mainly b/c it has a bunch of ERC-20 stablecoins), but it has exponentially more developer activity on it.

yeah there are arguments that can be made that even though ETH most certainly was a security at the time it was created, that it has evolved to something that no longer meets the typical definition of a security

I'm not interested in investing in ETH.

will be fun to watch how things unfold as starting to hear chatter of ETH miners forking the chain if and when they ever switch to proof of stake

[xraygoggles]

yeah there are arguments that can be made that even though ETH most certainly was a security at the time it was created, that it has evolved to something that no longer meets the typical definition of a security

I'm not interested in investing in ETH.

will be fun to watch how things unfold as starting to hear chatter of ETH miners forking the chain if and when they ever switch to proof of stake

The merge, proof of stake, etc may or may not happen shortly, but it's clear that ETH will not go to zero - sorry not sorry - just stating facts.

I think its clearly evident at this point that Wall Street & the rest of Big Money(TM) are calling the shots, & will have an outsize influence on the narrative of these two coins especially - but also the entire sector altogether.

[jacoavlu]

The merge, proof of stake, etc may or may not happen shortly, but it's clear that ETH will not go to zero - sorry not sorry - just stating facts.

I think its clearly evident at this point that Wall Street & the rest of Big Money(TM) are calling the shots, & will have an outsize influence on the narrative of these two coins especially - but also the entire sector altogether.

don't think I ever said that I thought ETH was going to zero. just not interested in investing in it. for sure it's trying to solve some different problems than bitcoin, and i think there are a lot of other chains that are trying to solve those same problems. stablecoins is a use case that is here to stay but that doesn't really support a high tx fee environment and doesn't need true decentralization, so I don't really see that as long term bullish for ETH. see tether volume on tron as an example

[Dont_know_mind]

So, things that you think are a slam dunk end up only being a coin flip?

I guess there’s the probability based on previous hit rate. Over the last 20 years, that was about 55% when I thought I was 95%. Then there is what the hit rate is with the current decision node. I would say it is better now than when I started so better than 55%. But maybe it isn’t.

55% is much better than a coin toss, but we have to be realistic about our abilities. No one Is right 95% of the time, even though we feel that confident. So I try to handicap my overconfidence. Being realistic, I spend most of my day being a physician so it may well be optimistic thinking I’m 55% rather than 50%. Most of my investing strategy is based on my edge being that I have a stable job rather than having any special ability to predict the future.

[CM]

From the WSJ today:
Tether Says Audit Is Still Months Away as Crypto Market Falters
Many crypto companies lack basic financial guardrails; ‘Tether needs an audit that’s akin to a corporate colonoscopy’

The article is probably behind a paywall so here are some excerpts:

The company has been promising an audit since at least 2017. An audit is “likely months” away, said Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer of Tether Holdings which issues the tether coin that recently carried a market value of $68 billion.

“Things are going slower than…we would like,” Mr. Ardoino said.

Instead of a full audit, Tether, like other leading stablecoins, publishes an “attestation” showing a snapshot of its reserves and liabilities, signed off by its accounting firm.

Audits are typically more thorough than other types of attestation. The attestations for some crypto companies sign off on the numbers provided by the company’s management for a specific date and time without testing the transactions before or after that date. That process can make the reports more vulnerable to being used to paint an unduly rosy picture.

A 2017 attestation of Tether was skewed by its sister company, Bitfinex, transferring $382 million to its bank account, hours before the accountants checked the numbers, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said last year. Tether settled the case with the U.S. regulator without admitting or denying the allegations...

Audits don’t necessarily prevent or even often predict insolvencies. Crypto lender Voyager Digital Ltd. got a clean audit opinion with no “going concern” caveat in the fall, less than a year before its July collapse into bankruptcy.

But audits can help investors understand the risks they are running. Voyager’s audited accounts revealed that the lender had a slim cushion to protect it in the event of a downturn...

Tether reports its assets in broad categories, such as $5.6 billion of “other investments” that it says includes unspecified digital tokens. Mr. Ardoino declined to comment on what these other investments consist of.

Tether is the only major stablecoin to include digital tokens as a significant part of its reserves, said Steven Kelly, a senior research associate at the Yale School of Management...

Crypto lender Celsius Network LLC said on its website it offered investors a “level of transparency that is unmatched in our industry or traditional finance,” courtesy of an “independent and automated audit system.”

Celsius Chief Executive Alex Mashinsky said last year that its system removed “the need for the slow, antiquated process of traditional auditing.”

Celsius filed for bankruptcy last month, disclosing a roughly $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet.

Edit: Here is the link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/tether-...d=hp_lead_pos1

[JBME]

A nice broad overview of who is using Crypto and NFTs. No surprises though:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/08/23/46-of-americans-who-have-invested-in-cryptocurrency-say-its-done-worse-than-expected/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=b3b92224b5-Weekly_2022_08_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-b3b92224b5-400293569