Bitcoin is still early

[pitt1166]

i was mildly interested in crypto at the height of it all a year or so ago. thought about putting 1% of my portfolio in maybe btc. but it seemed too confusing with hard and cold wallets, various exchanges, all this stuff, so i never bought anything.

it's been educational watching all this.

what is happening now with SBF and FTX is all very interesting, and on some level, pretty predictable.

i don't doubt there is some future utility in blockchain technology and crypto, but picking a winner at this stage seems virtually impossible and similar to picking successful internet stocks in the late 90s. just not feasible for someone with my amateur level of knowledge.

[xraygoggles]

FWIW my original thread started in 5/2020 when BTC was at about $8,700. But nobody listened to me then and the thread got shut down...so I had to start another one in the fall of 2020. So even with this FTX disaster, BTC is still up about 100% since I started the thread.

But the rest of your points are spot on Jaco.

Go back through every post, and I don't think you will find me recommend any poopcoins and the exchanges I have recommended are all still in existence and doing just fine. I still prefer Strike and Swan at this point (although they are having trouble with their pricing the past 2 days). River or Unchained Capital are other options I would consider at this point. In the past I have mentioned Coinbase and Kraken although I'm not a huge fan of either right now. Either way, taking your bitcoins off of the exchange has become painfully obvious at this point for anyone paying attention.

If you have any coins on Crypto.com PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD get them off the exchange. The same is mostly true of Kraken and Coinbase, but Crypto.com would probably be the next ponzi to fall.

Agree with if you have any crypto, you should keep most of it in cold wallet, with some in hot if ur into trading.

But I disagree that Kraken and Coinbase will blow up - they are highly regulated by the US, so it's unlikely they would have a similar type of implosion that FTX just did. Same with Gemini and even FTX.US is okay - both also under US jurisdiction. But the rest of the foreign/Caribbean-based exchanges are not a place I would hold any coins.

[xraygoggles]

If/when Tether collapses, I will be a buyer of a few select projects. At that point, the r/r will be enticing. Fingers crossed.

The funny thing about this whole year of crypto's meltdown is that almost everything has imploded: algo stablecoins; gargantuan exchanges with supposedly ethical executives at the helm; degen hedge funds; prop trading desks; crypto VC firms; publicly traded BTC-mining companies; all crypto currencies; countries (El Salvador - at this point Bukele needs to be ceremoniously tossed up and over - into the volcano, for bankrupting his country by grifting and daytrading BTC on his phone, then tweeting about it).

Everything has self-immolated - except Tether. So far...

[FIREshrink]

FWIW my original thread started in 5/2020 when BTC was at about $8,700. But nobody listened to me then and the thread got shut down...so I had to start another one in the fall of 2020. So even with this FTX disaster, BTC is still up about 100% since I started the thread.

But the rest of your points are spot on Jaco.

Go back through every post, and I don't think you will find me recommend any poopcoins and the exchanges I have recommended are all still in existence and doing just fine. I still prefer Strike and Swan at this point (although they are having trouble with their pricing the past 2 days). River or Unchained Capital are other options I would consider at this point. In the past I have mentioned Coinbase and Kraken although I'm not a huge fan of either right now. Either way, taking your bitcoins off of the exchange has become painfully obvious at this point for anyone paying attention.

If you have any coins on Crypto.com PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD get them off the exchange. The same is mostly true of Kraken and Coinbase, but Crypto.com would probably be the next ponzi to fall.

Obviously speculative assets can go up and down dramatically. that's not really your thesis, though. Your thesis seems to be that "someday" BTC will be a major asset class, a major financial class of its own (currency or otherwise), that demands every responsible investor put ca 10% of their wealth into it; asking the way you've suggested the price could go as high as $1,000,000. You pointedly (and probably wisely) declined to provide a target date for this price action, nor any benchmarks by which we could ever judge your premonition as successful or not. You shouldn't be too surprised when people point out the price of BTC has gone nowhere in two years despite a highly favorable environment of loose global monetary policy, excessive liquidity, worst in forty years inflation, and the most devastating war in Europe since World War II. It raises a legitimate question, if BTC can't thrive in this environment, when can it?

[jacoavlu]

Obviously speculative assets can go up and down dramatically. that's not really your thesis, though. Your thesis seems to be that "someday" BTC will be a major asset class, a major financial class of its own (currency or otherwise), that demands every responsible investor put ca 10% of their wealth into it; asking the way you've suggested the price could go as high as $1,000,000. You pointedly (and probably wisely) declined to provide a target date for this price action, nor any benchmarks by which we could ever judge your premonition as successful or not. You shouldn't be too surprised when people point out the price of BTC has gone nowhere in two years despite a highly favorable environment of loose global monetary policy, excessive liquidity, worst in forty years inflation, and the most devastating war in Europe since World War II. It raises a legitimate question, if BTC can't thrive in this environment, when can it?

The last two years have provided some great examples of the value of being able to separate money from state or other authority. I'm not sure I would agree with the characterization of the last two years as "highly favorable environment" in terms of the USD exchange rate. The fact that 1 bitcoin will cost you $17,400 today is pretty amazing if you ask me. But anyway blocks keep coming every 10 minutes and network hashrate is at an all time high.

[Tim]

And Water/food.

My number one priority would be a happy wife. That involves many many confusing and changing priorities. Today it was one bush and a bag of dirty to plant six more flowers. Tomorrow it with be some fabric, gotta have a generator for the sew crap that she all of the sudden developed a strong desired to up her skills since she owes the effort to honor the memory of a departed soul. BTC would be of absolutely no value to her. Oh I forgot, I need to fix or get fixed a sprinkler valve that is leaking. Her solution was to dig out put in a french drain. Whatever, if a drain keeps her happy, she will take care of the food and water.

[pitt1166]

The funny thing about this whole year of crypto's meltdown is that almost everything has imploded: algo stablecoins; gargantuan exchanges with supposedly ethical executives at the helm; degen hedge funds; prop trading desks; crypto VC firms; publicly traded BTC-mining companies; all crypto currencies; countries (El Salvador - at this point Bukele needs to be ceremoniously tossed up and over - into the volcano, for bankrupting his country by grifting and daytrading BTC on his phone, then tweeting about it).

Everything has self-immolated - except Tether. So far...

Isn't FTX US at risk of imploding as well? seems like there is a big chance FTX US has major problems.

and i could be mistaken, but didnt Tether briefly dip beneath one US dollar value just today? thats not exactly a stable coin. seems fishy.

the entire crypto field seems fishy and on shaky legs. there will be some winners but i have no idea who that would be.

[NapoleanDynamite]

i was mildly interested in crypto at the height of it all a year or so ago. thought about putting 1% of my portfolio in maybe btc. but it seemed too confusing with hard and cold wallets, various exchanges, all this stuff, so i never bought anything.

it's been educational watching all this.

what is happening now with SBF and FTX is all very interesting, and on some level, pretty predictable.

i don't doubt there is some future utility in blockchain technology and crypto, but picking a winner at this stage seems virtually impossible and similar to picking successful internet stocks in the late 90s. just not feasible for someone with my amateur level of knowledge.

Pitt,

I'm glad you are learning and watching. It will help you in the future. But before you get lost in the "blockchain technology" and "crypto" and "picking a winner" talk...Ask yourself what problem is any of this trying to solve?

When you can answer that question, you will realize that there is only one answer to this question. Blockchain and cryptos do not solve the underlying problem that Bitcoin solves. Bitcoin was not the first cryptocurrency to attempt to solve the problem and it obviously hasn't been the last (there have been >20K "cryptos" since). It will just be the first and the last to do it successfully.

Good luck,

[NapoleanDynamite]

My number one priority would be a happy wife. That involves many many confusing and changing priorities. Today it was one bush and a bag of dirty to plant six more flowers. Tomorrow it with be some fabric, gotta have a generator for the sew crap that she all of the sudden developed a strong desired to up her skills since she owes the effort to honor the memory of a departed soul. BTC would be of absolutely no value to her. Oh I forgot, I need to fix or get fixed a sprinkler valve that is leaking. Her solution was to dig out put in a french drain. Whatever, if a drain keeps her happy, she will take care of the food and water.

Happy wife, happy life. Can't argue with that.

[NapoleanDynamite]

Agree with if you have any crypto, you should keep most of it in cold wallet, with some in hot if ur into trading.

But I disagree that Kraken and Coinbase will blow up - they are highly regulated by the US, so it's unlikely they would have a similar type of implosion that FTX just did. Same with Gemini and even FTX.US is okay - both also under US jurisdiction. But the rest of the foreign/Caribbean-based exchanges are not a place I would hold any coins.

Following this FTX blowup, the regulators/govt is likely to strike harder and faster against US exchanges (Coinbase and Kraken would be the first 2). So they may not blow up, but if you think they are not fractionally reserved exchanges then you are kidding yourself. There is no FDIC for this industry. No one will bail you out if you lose a bunch of money on the exchanges.

Of course COIN is publicly traded so they do have to have some transparency, but it didn't stop companies like Enron, Worldcom, or HealthSouth from massively defrauding the public markets.

[NapoleanDynamite]

Obviously speculative assets can go up and down dramatically. that's not really your thesis, though. Your thesis seems to be that "someday" BTC will be a major asset class, a major financial class of its own (currency or otherwise), that demands every responsible investor put ca 10% of their wealth into it; asking the way you've suggested the price could go as high as $1,000,000. You pointedly (and probably wisely) declined to provide a target date for this price action, nor any benchmarks by which we could ever judge your premonition as successful or not. You shouldn't be too surprised when people point out the price of BTC has gone nowhere in two years despite a highly favorable environment of loose global monetary policy, excessive liquidity, worst in forty years inflation, and the most devastating war in Europe since World War II. It raises a legitimate question, if BTC can't thrive in this environment, when can it?

I have never stated that everyone should put 10% of their AA into Bitcoin. I have said that everyone should have at least some part of their AA in Bitcoin (whether 1% or 50%). I still firmly believe that and I'm confident that time will prove me correct.

As for predicting dates, I have been fairly consistent about not predicting dates. The first post was one that I did, but that was more of an attention getter than anything. I strongly believe that Bitcoin will be a giant part of the global macroeconomy in the future. How long will it take to get there? I don't know, but stated in one of the very first posts of the thread that it would be a bumpy ride.

As for benchmarks, I have provided benchmarks. Adoption. I will try and find the post and link it below.

[NapoleanDynamite]

I cannot name a date/time when that will occur. I don't know if WWIII has already started and in the next 5-10 years the entire global financial/power system is totally restructured.

However, I will stop saying it when BTC either fails, or it has been more adopted globally. Right now approx 1-2% of the global population holds/uses Bitcoin. By any definition of adoption/adoption curves, this would still be considered early. I personally think a lot of this adoption will occur over the next 10 years. But I also tend to be very early with my opinions on these things. So who knows...it may take another 20-50 years.

To answer the second question by Tim, I think price will reflect adoption, but I also think that price could go very high very quickly and we could still be early. At 69K people didn't realize how early we were IMO. They still don't. So if it gets to 100K or 1M we could still be early by my definition (less likely at 1M).

There are 7.5 Billion people on the planet (Only about half of those with access to the internet). Rough estimates suggests that there are between 50M and 100M people globally that currently even hold Bitcoin, much less use it. So that leaves about 3.7 (7.5 minus 100M minus those without internet) Billion people to adopt it assuming the other half don't get better internet access over the next 10 years (a bad assumption IMO). When the estimates of the number of people using Bitcoin approaches 1 Billion, or it has failed as a technology I will stop saying we are early. How about that?

"benchmarks" that I was referring to.

[Tim]

I have never stated that everyone should put 10% of their AA into Bitcoin. I have said that everyone should have at least some part of their AA in Bitcoin (whether 1% or 50%). I still firmly believe that and I'm confident that time will prove me correct.

As for predicting dates, I have been fairly consistent about not predicting dates. The first post was one that I did, but that was more of an attention getter than anything. I strongly believe that Bitcoin will be a giant part of the global macroeconomy in the future. How long will it take to get there? I don't know, but stated in one of the very first posts of the thread that it would be a bumpy ride.

As for benchmarks, I have provided benchmarks. Adoption. I will try and find the post and link it below.

Just what is this "giant part of the global macroeconomy in the future" of which you speak?
There are 205 pages so far, so far I have not seen a paragraph that actually describes the value.

[jacoavlu]

Just what is this "giant part of the global macroeconomy in the future" of which you speak?
There are 205 pages so far, so far I have not seen a paragraph that actually describes the value.

permissionless digital transfer of value. No third party required. If you can’t see theres value in that you’re not trying

[Tim]

permissionless digital transfer of value. No third party required. If you can’t see theres value in that you’re not trying

I understand your point. I actual value permissions, especially the potential of a third party not actually having my permission. Recourse is a wonderful feature that has extremely high value.