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Is anyone else starting to become a bit worried? mod note in first post

Autochange

Bear markets
Fud
Regulation
Wall Street manipulation
The supposed tether ticking time bomb

What are your thoughts? Have you cashed out? Have you been buying the dips?

MOD NOTE:
Its good to see healthy debate and discussion taking place and I am sure every supporter of cryptocurrency and blockchain can agree that the contrarian viewpoint is worthwhile reading, if only to act as an anchor and help prevent investors from getting carried away in an echo chamber of "everything is wonderful, just keep going"

However, there have been a few reported posts recently which I did not action as I wanted to see the thread level out itself rather than start forcing viewpoints and I have been in two minds about that decision.

I'm not going to single any posters out but I'm going to ask that all posters read the forum charter and I want to point out that it was established years ago in the Television forum, that dropping in on a forum to tell the followers of that forums topic (in that case a particular tv show) that it was all crap and only idiots watched it etc etc was the exact definition of being a dick and attempting to troll. I know this because I was the mod of the forum at the time. Now look at the forum charter again.

There is pretty much one rule on this forum : if you cannot discuss in a civil manner, and I mean discuss, not soapbox or attack, then you have absolutely no business posting here and I have no qualms about removing your ability to do so.

This forum is for people that have in interest in cryptocurrencies, blockchain and their application to financial investments. that can be positive or negative but if you really feel the need to start pulling out memes / hiding insults in imaginary hashtags / attacking personalities or just generally being a dick there are other forums you can post in where I will let the local mods determine if it is within the scope of allowable behaviour. Here, it is not.

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JohnnyFlash

Bob24 wrote: »

Agreed.

Also as per previous posts, I think a big issue if there are no strong restrictions on what can be sorted on those blockchains will be who is legally liable for what they contain.

Or in how many can be created. It's now trivially easy to create a coin. The value pool is tiny. There's a post on Medium somewhere that shows that the 2.5 billion of tethers floating round the ecosystem is making up over 90% of the entire trading volume some days. There's absolutely no new money going into crypto, and you'd have to be worried about the likes of coinbase and kraken and other sites that allow you to exchange coins for real money. The liquidity must be taking a battering.

Bob24

breadmond wrote: »

At the end of a day, a blockchain is just a distributed database with some verification built in. The number of use cases is endless but I would rank 'alt money' very low on the list in terms of utility.

Agreed.

Also as per previous posts, I think a big issue if there are no strong restrictions on what can be sorted on those blockchains will be who is legally liable for what they contain.

breadmond

I work for a large multinational tech company who are definitely looking at blockchain for things like inventory management, micro-payment systems and supply chains. All the talk I've seen is around private chains though. From a large company's perspective there is no need to tie their business to a token that they don't control. They will simply develop suitable techs in-house or license the code from someone else. Blockchain clearly has enormous potential but that doesn't mean any existing coin will be worth anything in 5 years time. For all people talk about the value of decentralization and no government control, I don't believe that either is a good enough reason for the average joe to abandon FIAT currency. Unless you're buying drugs or expecting the value to skyrocket, the benefits just aren't there to justify the effort involved.

At the end of a day, a blockchain is just a distributed database with some verification built in. The number of use cases is endless but I would rank 'alt money' very low on the list in terms of utility.

smacl

Anthracite wrote: »

Further to this, if a company actually has a valuable product to sell, why would they not simply create their own currency to use it?

Caveat, points below are based on my own understanding of where we're currently at as a relative newbie to this;

First of all, it won't all be currency and it is a mistake to think of blockchain as such. For example, Acronis have recently added blockchain technology to their backup software for data protection and authenticity purposes. There are an ever increasing number of live applications of blockchain tech in use emerging that aren't financial in nature. These apps are likely to be built on existing solutions and infrastructure such as ETH.

Secondly, they type of currency transactions that blockchain is most likely to excel at in the short term will be micro-transactions. Again these will use existing tech and infrastructure, with IOTA being mooted as a strong candidate here along with ETH and XRP.

It is worth remembering that this technology by and large requires an extensive distributed infrastructure to work, so there is a bit more to rolling your own blockchain than downloading and compiling a few projects from Github. You need either miners or network peers to authenticate transactions, and the easiest way to do this is to piggyback on the likes of ETH.

Anthracite

Autochange wrote: »

Do they need cryptocurrency ? Not necessarily.
IBMs Fabric does not require tokens to operate to use one example.
IBM are also developing micro sized tracking chips similar to vechains business plan.

Further to this, if a company actually has a valuable product to sell, why would they not simply create their own currency to use it?

Autochange

Pick any large company in the world. Google it and add blockchain. They are all interested and exploring using blockchain technology in one form or another. Companies are opening offices for the sole purpose of blockchain technology use and development. Deloitte emea in Dublin for example.

The other 3 of the big 4 financial giants have also publicly announced blockchain development.
Yahoo tried to buy a Japanese crypto exchange.

Do they need cryptocurrency ? Not necessarily.
IBMs Fabric does not require tokens to operate to use one example.
IBM are also developing micro sized tracking chips similar to vechains business plan.

Dades

Dohnjoe wrote: »

A stable coin like DAI is a start, but there's little interest in the crypto community for anything stable (apart from a trading POV) because most of crypto is about speculative gains not stable usage

There's little interest in people putting any money into crypto without the promise of gains. People aren't buying crypto because they're excited about decentralisation or because they want to send instant money to their cousin in Australia.

They buy crypto because some guy in work apparently got rich because he bought Bitcoin last year (except he hodled and that's why he's still in work...)

Dohnjoe

Most of my telegram, whatsapp crypto groups have gone stony silent

All this exciting tech and poof - at the end of the day it's all about the money

Dohnjoe

grindle wrote: »

Wild manipulation of supply at a national or worldwide level by a central entity is something crypto buyer's aren't going to be a fan of, it's basically the system we have now and grants no reward aka incentive for early adoption. We already have the current world's economy (and in the crypto-world Tether) as an indicator of what a shítshow a centralised stablecoin would be. Something like Maker DAI may or may not work, I guess we'll see over time if it's actually beneficial for holders to create the stablecoin.

Wild manipulation exists on the level of the crypto from the very start - people minting their own coins, there are thousands, artificial supply caps, forks, etc

A stable coin like DAI is a start, but there's little interest in the crypto community for anything stable (apart from a trading POV) because most of crypto is about speculative gains not stable usage

lifeandtimes

smacl wrote: »

I'd expect it comes down to intent, and don't see any possibility of any one of the many millions who have innocuously downloaded the content ever getting into any trouble about it. Now that the flag has been raised, I'd similarly expect the next updates to related blockchain processing software will include functionality to remove existing content and filter new notes for spam. FWIW, this is pretty much what the bulk of Windows updates do; search for and eliminate malicious content. It is part and parcel of modern connected computing.

Pretty much this, it will be removed soon enough one way or another.

Its just another story to try and spin crypto and the block chain as a whole as something sinister and illegal but it will be sorted out

smacl

Bob24 wrote: »

Now that we know this content is present, I am not sure we can still clame we are downloading it “inadvertently” when we get a copy of the blockchain. And what matters is how a judge would see it which we’re not quite sure about.

For now it is just a curiosity but if this was to become widespread and widely known, someone would have to be held responsable for the presence of that content and I don’t see how how miners who are key to maintaining and updating the blockchain could escape some type of responsibility.

I guess one question is why allowing to store files in a financial ledger, and a simple fix in this case could be to stop allowing that. But this would just fix crypto currencies and the legal question of who is responsible for the stored content is still a valid one for many other blockchain potential applications.

I'd expect it comes down to intent, and don't see any possibility of any one of the many millions who have innocuously downloaded the content ever getting into any trouble about it. Now that the flag has been raised, I'd similarly expect the next updates to related blockchain processing software will include functionality to remove existing content and filter new notes for spam. FWIW, this is pretty much what the bulk of Windows updates do; search for and eliminate malicious content. It is part and parcel of modern connected computing.

Bob24

smacl wrote: »

Already discussed in detail in another thread, starting from this post onwards. Basically, if you're using the internet and browsing any site with cookies, or use an email client, you're going to inadvertently end up with files which you haven't specifically requested and in extreme cases will be illegal. Nothing particularly unusual with blockchain in this regard, but any blockchain allowing free-form notes will clearly need spam filtering going forward.

Now that we know this content is present, I am not sure we can still clame we are downloading it “inadvertently” when we get a copy of the blockchain. And what matters is how a judge would see it which we’re not quite sure about.

For now it is just a curiosity but if this was to become widespread and widely known, someone would have to be held responsable for the presence of that content and I don’t see how how miners who are key to maintaining and updating the blockchain could escape some type of responsibility.

I guess one question is why allowing to store files in a financial ledger, and a simple fix in this case could be to stop allowing that. But this would just fix crypto currencies and the legal question of who is responsible for the stored content is still a valid one for many other blockchain potential applications.

smacl

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

Is this something we should be worried about? Could anyone holding a copy of the ledger be an unwitting crypto-paedo?

Already discussed in detail in another thread, starting from this post onwards. Basically, if you're using the internet and browsing any site with cookies, or use an email client, you're going to inadvertently end up with files which you haven't specifically requested and in extreme cases will be illegal. Nothing particularly unusual with blockchain in this regard, but any blockchain allowing free-form notes will clearly need spam filtering going forward.

Bob24

garrettod wrote: »

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

...It's terrible that cryptocurrency still seems to be inexorably linked to drugs, crime and kiddy fiddlers. It's difficult to shake the association.....

As long as cryptos are not regulated, they'll continue to be associated with illegal activities imho.

Yes, specifically being anonymous and making it very hard to trace transactions is basically a magnet for illegal activities (to some extend this applies to cash, but cash is less practical for large or remote transactions and while not an expert I assume when you talk large amounts there are some ways to track it).

garrettod

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

...It's terrible that cryptocurrency still seems to be inexorably linked to drugs, crime and kiddy fiddlers. It's difficult to shake the association.....

As long as cryptos are not regulated, they'll continue to be associated with illegal activities imho.

JohnnyFlash

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

https://thebitcoin.pub/t/child-abuse-imagery-found-within-bitcoins-blockchain/35590

Is this something we should be worried about? Could anyone holding a copy of the ledger be an unwitting crypto-paedo?

It's terrible that cryptocurrency still seems to be inexorably linked to drugs, crime and kiddy fiddlers. It's difficult to shake the association.

Although at least Bitcoin seems to be becoming a bit less tainted now that criminals and the child exploitation types seem to be moving exclusively to monero and the likes.

I’ve been studying the crypto space in my spare time for the past few months, Patrick. Fascinating stuff. Some of the ‘scene’ is populated by genuine weirdos who believe that having kiddie porn on the block chain is preferable to government intervention, and that humanity will either come up with a technical solution or self-police. Libertarians they call themselves. Most of the smaller guys just want to make a shed load of money by speculating on magic bean coins. Don’t think they actually think too much about the moral implications of something like this. Some of them don’t appear to think at all!! I’m as thick as two short planks meself, it Jesus, there’s some morons on twitter and reddit and places li,e that.

Pintman Paddy Losty

https://thebitcoin.pub/t/child-abuse-imagery-found-within-bitcoins-blockchain/35590

Researchers from the RWTH Aachen University, Germany found that around 1,600 files were currently stored in bitcoin’s blockchain. Of the files least eight were of sexual content, including one thought to be an image of child abuse and two that contain 274 links to child abuse content, 142 of which link to dark web services.

“Our analysis shows that certain content, eg, illegal pornography, can render the mere possession of a blockchain illegal

Is this something we should be worried about? Could anyone holding a copy of the ledger be an unwitting crypto-paedo?

It's terrible that cryptocurrency still seems to be inexorably linked to drugs, crime and kiddy fiddlers. It's difficult to shake the association.

Although at least Bitcoin seems to be becoming a bit less tainted now that criminals and the child exploitation types seem to be moving exclusively to monero and the likes.

Bob24

grindle wrote: »

Yeah, for governments or for day-trading a stablecoin will be useful, but I don't understand what incentivises the network. Nodes, miners, stakers, whichever - why would they help securing a network they get no gain from? If there isn't any value to be gained they're just wasting resources and doing so as a favour to the government?

This also requires some best-in-class devs wasting their brains working with/for the government for little reward instead of following their own vision and probably trying to disrupt or dismantle whatever inefficiencies that government has introduced or likely depends on in the sense of corruption.

Wild manipulation of supply at a national or worldwide level by a central entity is something crypto buyer's aren't going to be a fan of, it's basically the system we have now and grants no reward aka incentive for early adoption. We already have the current world's economy (and in the crypto-world Tether) as an indicator of what a shítshow a centralised stablecoin would be. Something like Maker DAI may or may not work, I guess we'll see over time if it's actually beneficial for holders to create the stablecoin.

You seem to imply the requirement for stability is mostly associated to governments? But companies and individuals also want stability. Also there needs to a practical and economical model for the network to keep working without a requirement for constant capital inflow and fluctuation to be able to reward the nodes otherwise it is not sustainable in the long term.

And I don't understand why do you call coin creation manipulation of supply? As long as there is a clear rule for how things work and it is being enforced/monitored there is no manipulation.
For exemple bitcoins are already being created out of nothing as part of the mining process and no-one sees this as manipulation. There could be other rules which lead to coin creation in other situations.

grindle wrote: »

I dunno - gold still holds wealth & has utility yet it fluctuates, oil holds wealth, has utility and fluctuates - I don't see much of a difference between a good utility token and oil in terms of supply and demand. If it needs to be used, it gets paid for no matter how stupidly expensive it is. Conversely, if there's lowering of demand or risk of oversupply the price drops and it still gets used.

Physically limited supply is one reason why people don't use gold or oil as a currency and one reason for their value (or even more so oil which also happens to be impractical). Cryptocurrencies are different as there is potentially unlimited supply (you can create coins out of thin air as long as the algorithm allows it, whereas no-one can possibly create gold out of thin air in any circumstance).

smacl

grindle wrote: »

Yeah, for governments or for day-trading a stablecoin will be useful, but I don't understand what incentivises the network. Nodes, miners, stakers, whichever - why would they help securing a network they get no gain from? If there isn't any value to be gained they're just wasting resources and doing so as a favour to the government?

Doesn't tangle attempt to answer that in theory at least, even if the technology is not there yet, where the cost of having transactions processed is processing other transactions. Seems more sensible that dedicating ever increasing resources to mining, which I doubt is sustainable in the long term when crypto really takes off.

ionapaul

lifeandtimes wrote: »

https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/03/26/cryptocurrency-guru-sees-bitcoin-going-up-to-400000/#

Interesting read, says it like it is. Confirms bitcoin could crash at any moment but is 75% confident it will hit 20k again and above

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Is that article not a bit worthless? Just one guy's option, right?

I'm still up on the Bitcoin I bought in October; bought via an ETF that included a decent % in BTC, which it subsequently reduced. Down on the ETH, NANO and Litecoin I bought in early Jan. Don't think I'm gonna sell though, might as well 'let it ride' and see what happens over the coming year.

GreeBo

lifeandtimes wrote: »

The laws of physics apply to everything

What happened in the world outside of crytpos (regulations, banning, promotion, integration) all have an effect on cryptos.

The fear of panic buying or selling doesn't come from nowhere and as such Newtons 3rd law applies in 1 way or another

Not for Quantum they dont. :rolleyes:

lifeandtimes

https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/03/26/cryptocurrency-guru-sees-bitcoin-going-up-to-400000/#

Interesting read, says it like it is. Confirms bitcoin could crash at any moment but is 75% confident it will hit 20k again and above

grindle

Bob24 wrote: »

Creating more coins as more money is put into the ecosystem can easily prevent appreciation - basically “printing” new coins which correspond the the amount of capital coming into the ecosystem.

Yeah, for governments or for day-trading a stablecoin will be useful, but I don't understand what incentivises the network. Nodes, miners, stakers, whichever - why would they help securing a network they get no gain from? If there isn't any value to be gained they're just wasting resources and doing so as a favour to the government?

This also requires some best-in-class devs wasting their brains working with/for the government for little reward instead of following their own vision and probably trying to disrupt or dismantle whatever inefficiencies that government has introduced or likely depends on in the sense of corruption.

Wild manipulation of supply at a national or worldwide level by a central entity is something crypto buyer's aren't going to be a fan of, it's basically the system we have now and grants no reward aka incentive for early adoption. We already have the current world's economy (and in the crypto-world Tether) as an indicator of what a shítshow a centralised stablecoin would be. Something like Maker DAI may or may not work, I guess we'll see over time if it's actually beneficial for holders to create the stablecoin.

Maybe some new model gets envisioned, our cash gets tokenised and it gets secured by Ethereum's network or something - I guess we'll see over the coming years and decades what is or isn't possible. There'd have to be some sort of cash amnesty or invalidation of of cash.

Bob24 wrote: »

Maintaining some type of price stability is actually probably going to be a requirement for any practical use bar being used as a speculative asset. People and companies don’t like trading with an asset which changes value constantly as it makes it very hard to make plans for the future.

People can sell into and transact with some (hopefully decentralised and incentivised) stablecoin if the volatility of RandomAssetCoin puts businesses off accepting it - businesses which accept crypto are generally transferring directly to fiat immediately anyway, they're not really exposed to price fluctuations but can get hit with transfer fees which obviously get high when there's limited scaling - a problem which won't exist in a few years for Ethereum's at least. Who knows how Bitcoin's scaling will work or whether or not Lightning or some other sidechain will become used and usable for the general population? Guessing game there.

I dunno - gold still holds wealth & has utility yet it fluctuates, oil holds wealth, has utility and fluctuates - I don't see much of a difference between a good utility token and oil in terms of supply and demand. If it needs to be used, it gets paid for no matter how stupidly expensive it is. Conversely, if there's lowering of demand or risk of oversupply the price drops and it still gets used.

Bob24

grindle wrote: »

2) I'd like to know how this makes sense. If something gains genuine widespread use (and they're not all out to replace fiat but that is the ideal basic use/application of the technology once it's matured) that will mean vast sums of money will be pumped in to the tune of hundreds of billions or possibly trillions of dollars entering the market per year.
[...]
What mechanism could cause vast sums to enter the market yet somehow stop price appreciation?

Creating more coins as more money is put into the ecosystem can easily prevent appreciation - basically “printing” new coins which correspond the the amount of capital coming into the ecosystem.

It is not like let’s say gold whereby there is both limited supply and a fairly high cost to extract more; creating coins basically costs nothing.

It is also different from stocks whereby if you own 10000 euros in shares and the value of the company is multiplied by 100 because it is successfull, you share are automatically worth 10000000 because you still own the same percentage of the company. Coins are not a share of anything so they are not mechanically linked to the value of that thing as company shares would be.

Maintaining some type of price stability is actually probably going to be a requirement for any practical use bar being used as a speculative asset. People and companies don’t like trading with an asset which changes value constantly as it makes it very hard to make plans for the future.

asteroids over berlin

Feeling quite bullish myself, the tide is turning, positive but ever so important bits of positive news are appearing. Whilst i was expecting the bull run to continue into the new year, i myself got carried away.
On this day last year, Bitcoin was just below $1200, today it is just below $8k, yes it hit 20k+, however there has been even bigger dips (not sure i would call it a correction) in the past. I expect Bitcoin to hit new all time highs this year. Patience people, research and study the markets (inclusive of traditional stock markets), it isn't a game, there are serious projects under development which will come to fruition, if you have invested in decent projects, you will do well. Personally i have been selling some of my premium project coins to amass big amounts in other projects, some a little risky but fortunately i am in a position where i can take a position in some projects outside the top 20 i.e. 0x, icon, lisk, qsp, vertcoin, steem, substrat (i want this to succeed) i have recently accumulated more this week.
I have even ignored the markets completely for the last while.
Ignore the fud and never underestimate bitcoin. Hodl

grindle

Bob24 wrote: »

I am fairly confident the technologies behind those coins will find practical and commercial uses over time. But on the other hand 1) very few of today's coins will survive and it is very hard to know which ones - even bitcoin isn't 100% safe 2) a coin becoming very successful, as in it is widely used and trusted to store and exchange wealth, doesn't mean its value will skyrocket as the socks of a successful company would. On the contrary to be a credible fiat replacement it would need the ability to maintain price stability.

1) True. It's fairly easy to know which ones it shouldn't be. I'd rather not be buying stuff with rare Pepecoins in the future.

2) I'd like to know how this makes sense. If something gains genuine widespread use (and they're not all out to replace fiat but that is the ideal basic use/application of the technology once it's matured) that will mean vast sums of money will be pumped in to the tune of hundreds of billions or possibly trillions of dollars entering the market per year.
Volume, liquidity across the market and price appreciation in the future would dwarf 2017's rise, 2018's crash would be looked back on as yet another cute blip while the market was finding it's feet.
If some project gets even 10% of the way towards replacing fiat it's valuation will hit absurd heights - it's inescapable. Money can't flow in faster than it leaves without an appreciation in value unless it's a stablecoin, people won't have enough of an incentive to push their money into a stablecoin unless the market is crashing - valuations and volatility should stabilise once the amount of money flowing in or out is a tiny wedge in comparison to total cap but that is trillions of dollars away from happening.
What mechanism could cause vast sums to enter the market yet somehow stop price appreciation?

Bob24

Matt Simis wrote: »

A less click baity way of saying the same thing: we are about to roll out of bull**** phase of sticking ".com" on anything and into births of eBay, Amazon, PayPal etc mega corps.

Sounds good.

I am fairly confident the technologies behind those coins will find practical and commercial uses over time. But on the other hand 1) very few of today's coins will survive and it is very hard to know which ones - even bitcoin isn't 100% safe 2) a coin becoming very successful, as in it is widely used and trusted to store and exchange wealth, doesn't mean its value will skyrocket as the socks of a successful company would. On the contrary to be a credible fiat replacement it would need the ability to maintain price stability.

h0neybadger

ZeroThreat wrote: »

I guess the cryptobubble (may as well call it the bitcoin bubble due to its dominance) is bursting, 2017 was just an anomaly before crytpos passing as a fad just like dotcom bubble.

Hopefully your attendance in this forum passes as a fad too. :pac:

lifeandtimes

ZeroThreat wrote: »

I guess the cryptobubble (may as well call it the bitcoin bubble due to its dominance) is bursting, 2017 was just an anomaly before crytpos passing as a fad just like dotcom bubble.

A 3 month graph (I'm assuming that's what that graph is) doesn't constitute a bubble bursting.

Bear markets can last as long as they want, however this "bubble" has been going for nearly 10 years and is based of technology that has real world and everyday use. The facts are crypto is better for people as currency than real cash, no fees, quicker transactions, no limits, complete control of your finances and when people start to see that it will start to take over

Matt Simis

ZeroThreat wrote: »

I guess the cryptobubble (may as well call it the bitcoin bubble due to its dominance) is bursting, 2017 was just an anomaly before crytpos passing as a fad just like dotcom bubble.

A less click baity way of saying the same thing: we are about to roll out of bull**** phase of sticking ".com" on anything and into births of eBay, Amazon, PayPal etc mega corps.

Sounds good.