What moves Bitcoin?

[mrfeh]

Do any of you who have actually researched Bitcoin, have any predictions for each quarter of 2020, and beyond ? My son is really into the idea, and has some $$ invested.

It is anybody's guess. Investing in bitcoin is pure speculation.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Kelly my son who follows it closely thinks in the next few years it will be up a lot. However, when it’s high you have to cash out quickly as everyone is trying to and the price can go down quickly.

 

[friar1610]

Not directly on-topic but related....

Upon the recommendation of a local Public Television broadcaster, I just finished listening to a fascinating BBC podcast called "The Missing Cryptoqueen". It's an 8 part series about/ investigation of the Bulgarian woman who created an alternative crypto currency called One Coin, marketed the hell out of it, made billions and has now been missing for 2+ years. It's a multi-level marketed scam which has is still attracting "investors" even though it's been widely discredited. If you work out, walk or jog it's a great companion for a week or 2.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07nkd84/episodes/downloads

 

[P.S.]

What is a currency worth? Cigarettes, wampum, shells, playing cards, gold... most anything can be used as a currency. The value people place on a good or service is revealed as price. Price is the original information economy. ..
So what is a currency worth?
...We live in an age of nationstate fiat mone pire since it is legal, commonplace, and taken to extremes it distorts a
...
Utility is changing from labor to compute. Digital currencies compete much more favorably in this environment. Fiat cash was designed for human commerce inside the nationstate not for algorithms in a stateless internet. This new medium will have a new currency.


ETF's and mutual funds will winnow the herd of individual traders and firms down to a handful, mostly involved with setting up new markets or converting existing markets to blockchain. The value saved will go to the users, and to the firms that create and maintain the markets.

Previous financial revolutions accrued power to the politically connected elites at the center of the empire. They own the printing press, they control the interest rates. Blockchain takes power from the 1% and returns it to the rightful owners. As a more precise conveyor of economic information, the productivity gains from blockchains will accrue to everyone. The direct employment and influence of the finance sector will eventually subside, just like automated farming and robotic manufacturing.

The benefits of a successful replacement to our closed financial ecosystem, via bitcoin or otherwise, can be estimated. The network accrues the value to the users. The currency itself is a placeholder.

India:
Thank you very much for this exceptional post. Clearly a lot of time spent thinking about this, distilled into one summary.
How do you position yourself for this? Trader? May I ask where you analyze firms? I’m assuming you discuss this else where- can you share which forum? TIA so much!!

 

[target2019]

I think Blockchain and Bitcoin gets people's ire up. I know it is frustrating for me to understand as I have pretty much ignored it as development went forward.

I'm reading a book in Kindle Cloud, and the book site is below. I'm only 25% through the the reading part. It requires close attention in my opinion.
https://bubbleorrevolution.com/

 

[Koolau]

I think my typical comment on Bitcoin has been something like: It's like gold but without the gold. YMMV

 

[gauss]

"What moves Bitcoin?"

Same as other things in life: greed and fear.

Often, the fear is in the form of FOMO, which is really greed.

+1
You beat me to it, NW-Bound

And note that fear is the stronger of the two emotions and this is one of the reasons why prices decline at a faster rate than when they increase.


-gauss

 

[target2019]

Son just sent me this link, which I skimmed as the morning pot was brewing:
https://www.fidelitydigitalassets.com/articles/addressing-bitcoin-criticisms

I think the most important part for those who understand nothing about it is the last paragraph, Fidelity's disclaimer.

We've been picking around the edges of https://www.helium.com/ and he bought a hotspot for mining use in Berlin, DE. It's an interesting, practical application of mining and use. Probably of little interest to the older folks in this coffee shop.

 

[indiajust]

India:
Thank you very much for this exceptional post. Clearly a lot of time spent thinking about this, distilled into one summary.
How do you position yourself for this? Trader? May I ask where you analyze firms? I’m assuming you discuss this else where- can you share which forum? TIA so much!!

Initially I was drawn in by the mathematics and the mysterious Satoshi posting, concurrent with financial chaos and too big to fail subsidy program.

I have libertarian leanings as well, and I was trying to understand where on the BS scale to set the slider. I personally find the machinations of the Fed and its private owners much more obscure than bitcoin.

I read Brave New Coin as my primary newsfeed. I live an hour from Keene, so I have access to bitcoin atms and such, as well as the folks who run them.

On a meta level...
What are the odds the very first crypto-currency is a raging success? Not bloody likely. One of my elderly friends used to comment on her youth, something about kissing a few toads to eventually find a prince. I suspect we are still well down on the learning curve.

As a store of value, bitcoin is a success. But the transaction fees are so high that it really has little value as a currency.

I was unwilling to stake currency tokens when that was a fad. I chose to invest in CME because they have the only commercial trading options floor. Primetrust is becoming the default custody client, much like BK (bank ny mellon) is for corporate stocks. Not sure if primetrust is investable to day.

I keep more on my linkedin page, but these folks are great fun to meet in person!

 

[Koolau]

Being the least Bit-Coin educated person here, I'm just wondering if Bit Coin has ever been "counterfeited" or whether would we would ever know? Just askin' so YMMV.

 

[indiajust]

Bitcoin/crypto does see collapse related growth. The bank collapse in 08? in Cyprus was a big crypto bump. Basically every time a nationstate prints money to excess and courts hyper inflation. The rest of the planet gets an example of a risk we rarely talk about, currency destruction. As an asset allocation, it is uniquely uncorrelated to anything else, even gold.

 

[indiajust]

Being the least Bit-Coin educated person here, I'm just wondering if Bit Coin has ever been "counterfeited" or whether would we would ever know? Just askin' so YMMV.

I don't think there are any instances of counterfeiting. Digital theft has been the biggest problem. Securing the asset. Thus the advent of paper receipts and cold storage.

More generally, they describe what you are calling counterfeiting as the double-spend problem.

Many instances of an attack and double-spend lead to a fork of the currency into two versions, ETH famously so.

There are also arguments within the owners/stakeholders that lead to forks and divisions as a normal human consequence.

And there are Me-Too crypto attempts that are little more than scams.

 

[Koolau]

I don't think there are any instances of counterfeiting. Digital theft has been the biggest problem. Securing the asset. Thus the advent of paper receipts and cold storage.

More generally, they describe what you are calling counterfeiting as the double-spend problem.

Many instances of an attack and double-spend lead to a fork of the currency into two versions, ETH famously so.

There are also arguments within the owners/stakeholders that lead to forks and divisions as a normal human consequence.

And there are Me-Too crypto attempts that are little more than scams.

I'm sorry I asked! (Seriously, thanks! I AM learning - a little, anyway.) Aloha

 

[P.S.]

[-][/-]India,

Thanks for your reply. Looks like a great resource to dive deep into the world of blockchain; thank you. I read somewhere that Bitcoin may eventually be a dinosaur when 3.0 is all well and done, like AOL for 1.0. I guess my goal is to possess a meta view. Seems easy to get lost in AA and withdrawal strategies when that could be a terrarium-like mentality.

Also concerned about the Fed’s [-]machinations[/-] effects. Most resources OL lead one either to a hard-stop dead end... or the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, or are they? Just because they sound crazy and far-fetched does not by definition make them false. I’m familiar with reading very black and white texts, basic science stuff. It’s interesting to me, when I read about other stuff, like the above, or finance, business, economy, etc, one has to read almost between the lines. Not what is written, but what is not.

 

[John0019]

Still don't really get it and all, and more recently bitcoin now bouncing around in the 30,000 - 40,000+ range. Crazy I say. But now also getting a few big time investors...still not for me but we shall see I guess.

 

[RVplusDog]

I wouldn’t be surprised to see BTC hit 50k within the next 4 weeks or so. It seems to be more stable as the big companies buy and hold. Square, PayPal, Microstrategy, etc. I expect more corporations to add it to their balance sheets following in MSTR’s now-published open source documentation. Also, Visa’s planned cryptocurrency project/s should increase stability & acceptance.

 

[NYEXPAT]

Well we finally got our answer; It is Elon Musk!
TSLA announced they bought 1.5 BILLION dollars worth of the stuff and sent Bitcoin to a new ATH!

 

[mrfeh]

Well we finally got our answer; It is Elon Musk!
TSLA announced they bought 1.5 BILLION dollars worth of the stuff and sent Bitcoin to a new ATH!

Yes, it jumped instantaneously this morning.

Our crypto investments are worth 10x what we invested. Might finally need to sell a bit soon, to recoup our investment, if nothing else.

 

[RVplusDog]

Yes, it jumped instantaneously this morning.

Our crypto investments are worth 10x what we invested. Might finally need to sell a bit soon, to recoup our investment, if nothing else.

I’ve bought & sold to capture gains as we went along. I am HODL now on BTC, BCH, & ETH.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Well we finally got our answer; It is Elon Musk!
TSLA announced they bought 1.5 BILLION dollars worth of the stuff and sent Bitcoin to a new ATH!

Yep. I had put in a small wager of $1500 last week on the DOGE crypto. I woke up this AM to see that after his Tweet about DOGE and the large purchase, it had gained quite a bit...I had doubled my money in about a week. I took my $1500 profit and left the original $1500 in DOGE.

 

[tenant13]

Yep. I had put in a small wager of $1500 last week on the DOGE crypto. I woke up this AM to see that after his Tweet about DOGE and the large purchase, it had gained quite a bit...I had doubled my money in about a week. I took my $1500 profit and left the original $1500 in DOGE.

Unless you're in on the Dodge joke that Elon is perpetrating ("there's no such thing as intrinsic value, fundamentals don't matter, redditors of the world unite etc.") you should really not keep any money in that coin. Unlike his investment in bitcoin, Musk's Dodge tweets are just there to troll.

 

[pacergal]

awe..imoldernu!
Had to check this thread when I saw his name on my new posts reading.
Got a warm fuzzy feeling, remembering him.

 

[bada bing]

My original bitcoin "investment" just blew past $120K. My basis is just over $400. The funny thing is I am a total bitcoin denier. About 5 years ago I bought 4 bitcoins because an overseas liquor seller was giving a 10% discount on a bottle of scotch I wanted for paying in crypto. I spent an afternoon figuring out how to get the transaction processed and had 2.7BTC left for future transactions. Turns out the bottle I bought for 1.3 BTC is the most expensive bottle I've ever had, currently worth over $60K for the bitcoin I paid.

Crazy

 

[NYEXPAT]

My original bitcoin "investment" just blew past $120K. My basis is just over $400. The funny thing is I am a total bitcoin denier. About 5 years ago I bought 4 bitcoins because an overseas liquor seller was giving a 10% discount on a bottle of scotch I wanted for paying in crypto. I spent an afternoon figuring out how to get the transaction processed and had 2.7BTC left for future transactions. Turns out the bottle I bought for 1.3 BTC is the most expensive bottle I've ever had, currently worth over $60K for the bitcoin I paid.

Crazy

Good story for the Grandkids on why they are so rich!

 

[mickeyd]

This quote from John Oliver sums it up for me:


“Bitcoin is everything that I do not understand about money combined with everything that I do not understand about computers.”