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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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Dades

Comprehensive crypto tax thread this way.

Can this thread please be interesting again?

MIN2511

Dades wrote: »

Comprehensive crypto tax thread this way.

Can this thread please be interesting again?

I dunno, with the market down it's kinda hard to be *interesting* or motivated. On the plus side, I haven't logged into reddit, blockfolio and even boards in weeks!

Pintman Paddy Losty

Anyone following the story from Poland of at least €270m seized from a bank account and shell company linked to Bitfinex? It seems to be money laundered for Colombian drug cartels? Very strange story. Don't know what to believe...

Anyone able to make sense of it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/8ad509/polish_authorities_has_seized_almost_400_mln_eur/

JohnnyFlash

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

Anyone following the story from Poland of at least €270m seized from a bank account and shell company linked to Bitfinex? It seems to be money laundered for Colombian drug cartels? Very strange story. Don't know what to believe...

Anyone able to make sense of it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/8ad509/polish_authorities_has_seized_almost_400_mln_eur/

The Bitfinexed reddit account has deleted all their comments, and hasn’t tweeted in 3 days. Linked? The plot thickens around bitfinex and Tether…

Pintman Paddy Losty

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

The Bitfinexed reddit account has deleted all their comments, and hasn’t tweeted in 3 days. Linked? The plot thickens around bitfinex and Tether…

Maybe tether is actually backed 1:1 with USD. It just happens to be dirty Colombian drug money in a ginormous money laundering operation??

JohnnyFlash

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

Maybe tether is actually backed 1:1 with USD. It just happens to be dirty Colombian drug money in a ginormous money laundering operation??

https://mobile.twitter.com/CasPiancey/status/982652894959644672/photo/1

Someone is desperately washing their tethers into dollars on kraken. Binance are also sending huge volumes of tether back to bitfinex.

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/#markets

24 hour volume is greater than all tethers in circulation. Something fishy is happening. :eek:

Whelo79

Oh look, here comes Paddy and Johnny hand in hand as usual to compliment each others posts!

JohnnyFlash

Whelo79 wrote: »

Oh look, here comes Paddy and Johnny hand in hand as usual to compliment each others posts!

I’m perfectly entitled to post here, so put me on ignore if what I’m saying is so objectionable to you. The biggest bitcoin exchange is reported to be associated with South American drug gang money laundering operations, and no one wants to talk about it. Same thing over on r/cryptocurrency. Everything gets labelled as FUD, and any dissenting voices are dismissed as trolls and ‘salty nocoiners’.

This has the potential to be a huge story, and is worthy of discussion. I’ve been taking up the DYOR mantra, and believe Bitfinex/Tether are a criminal organisation manipulating the price of cryptocurrency so they can liquidate positions, and cash out to fiat for their shady clients.

Pintman Paddy Losty

This is potentially one of the biggest and most interesting stories relating to cryptocurrencies ever but ostriches around here have no interest in even looking in to it.

Autochange

Is there an option to delete a thread you started?

Autochange

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

I’m perfectly entitled to post here, so put me on ignore if what I’m saying is so objectionable to you. The biggest bitcoin exchange is reported to be associated with South American drug gang money laundering operations, and no one wants to talk about it. Same thing over on r/cryptocurrency. Everything gets labelled as FUD, and any dissenting voices are dismissed as trolls and ‘salty nocoiners’.

This has the potential to be a huge story, and is worthy of discussion. I’ve been taking up the DYOR mantra, and believe Bitfinex/Tether are a criminal organisation manipulating the price of cryptocurrency so they can liquidate positions, and cash out to fiat for their shady clients.

Im willing to listen. Can you link us some sites which helped you come to this conclusion

Pintman Paddy Losty

Autochange wrote: »

Is there an option to delete a thread you started?

You started this thread back in January.

The advice fell broadly in to two camps. Sell and HODL. 3 months later and I think it's clear which advice was correct.

You need to hear critical opinions when you're investing. If you only listen to crypto enthusiasts then you'll suffer from the echo chamber effect and end up with a portfolio of hundreds of altcoins worth Jack sh1t.

Pintman Paddy Losty

Autochange wrote: »

Im willing to listen. Can you link us some sites which helped you come to this conclusion

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/cointelegraph.com/news/unconfirmed-polish-prosecutors-seize-400-mln-amid-allegations-bitfinex-is-implicated-in-fraud/amp

Autochange

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/cointelegraph.com/news/unconfirmed-polish-prosecutors-seize-400-mln-amid-allegations-bitfinex-is-implicated-in-fraud/amp

That crowd is like taking your world news from reading the Sun

Pintman Paddy Losty

Autochange wrote: »

That crowd is like taking your world news from reading the Sun

There's many articles with the same story. That was just the first one i linked to.

Bitfinex definitely set up an account with that bank in November using a Panama based she'll company and a CEO for hire.

Polish media yesterday reported that the government agencies raided the same bank and seized €270m belonging to accounts of a Panama company with links to a large crypto exchange due to the funds being related to drug trafficking and money laundering.

It could be fake news. It could be unrelated to Bitfinex. I don't know for sure. But I know it all sounds dodgy as hell.

This is all seperate to the whole situation with tether where it's clear as day that from November to February an incomprehensible large amount of tether currency was created out of thin air and then used to buy people's Bitcoin.

Now maybe I'm reading too deep and making connections where there are none, but it seems to me like bitfinex are involved in fraud and money laundering to a massive degree.

It's possible the whole tether experiment was just a method where huge sums of cash could be washed through the system.

We shall see.

smacl

I think it is worth taking a slightly longer term view of what is happening in the crypto marketplace. I've been looking at ETH/EUR here as it is a pair that I happen to use, but the graphs for BTC, LTC and ETH against USD are broadly similar. What I see is slow steady growth on a low base line with a number bumps sitting on that base line. It doesn't look like much to worry about from where I'm sitting, even though my mid December buy-in does have me currently looking at a loss. There is no reason to assume that there won't be further regular bumps along the way. Still planning on investing further over the coming months. FWIW, I'm looking to invest further on the basis of the slope of the base line, so plan to see if that slope holds for the next couple of months and then buy back in if it does.

smacl

Dades wrote: »

Comprehensive crypto tax thread this way.

Can this thread please be interesting again?

Mea culpa, too easily distracted

lifeandtimes

Whelo79 wrote: »

Oh look, here comes Paddy and Johnny hand in hand as usual to compliment each others posts!

Like a new couple finishing each other's sentences.

Would be cute if they weren't the same person

KilOit

2 very odd individuals, they both seem to have a personal vendetta against Crypto.

Don't get me wrong, i read negative news on Crypto at times and it's healthy to take the good and the bad but these 2 posters are different breed. They don't seem to have known about Crypto since before the huge bull run at Dec/Jan so either they bought high and sold low and are out of Crypto for good and want to take out their anger at the community still invested or they are just annoyed they missed out a year ago when everything was still cheap.

Any twitter posts or other links they put up are people or organizations that only talk negative about Crypto and are generally from a background that stands to lose big time if Crypto takes off in a meaningful way like banks and financial institutions.

lifeandtimes

KilOit wrote: »

2 very odd individuals, they both seem to have a personal vendetta against Crypto.

Don't get me wrong, i read negative news on Crypto at times and it's healthy to take the good and the bad but these 2 posters are different breed. They don't seem to have known about Crypto since before the huge bull run at Dec/Jan so either they bought high and sold low and are out of Crypto for good and want to take out their anger at the community still invested or they are just annoyed they missed out a year ago when everything was still cheap.

Any twitter posts or other links they put up are people or organizations that only talk negative about Crypto and are generally from a background that stands to lose big time if Crypto takes off in a meaningful way like banks and financial institutions.

Couldn't agree more.

All input, positive and negative is appreciated but these 2/1 are just out for the death of crypto and want everyone to get out too. I'd be more inclined to listen to them if they/he ever said anything positive about it other than the blockchain is a good idea but all I hear is "magic beans this" and "tether That" so it's just comes across as white noise now.

el diablo

smacl wrote: »

Interesting article here which suggests that if you're self-assessing you can consolidate profits and losses for crypto-currency over a year, even as an individual.

If you have made an investment in Bitcoin which resulted in a loss, and in the same year, made a separate investment in Etherum which resulted in a gain, you can use your loss from the Bitcoin to offset the gain you made from Etherum.

Losses can also be used against capital gain made in later years.

No idea how accurate this article is, but it would seem to disagree strongly with points made by some previous posters on this thread.

Probably not very accurate. They can't even spell Ethereum correctly.

dickface

smacl wrote: »

I think it is worth taking a slightly longer term view of what is happening in the crypto marketplace. I've been looking at ETH/EUR here as it is a pair that I happen to use, but the graphs for BTC, LTC and ETH against USD are broadly similar. What I see is slow steady growth on a low base line with a number bumps sitting on that base line. It doesn't look like much to worry about from where I'm sitting, even though my mid December buy-in does have me currently looking at a loss. There is no reason to assume that there won't be further regular bumps along the way. Still planning on investing further over the coming months. FWIW, I'm looking to invest further on the basis of the slope of the base line, so plan to see if that slope holds for the next couple of months and then buy back in if it does.

So slow steady growth because you decided to draw a straight line through several bottoms hit in the past year, that dictates where you put your money?

Some further comedy in this twitter post: https://twitter.com/squawkfox/status/982618809612763136

lifeandtimes

dickface wrote: »

So slow steady growth because you decided to draw a straight line through several bottoms hit in the past year, that dictates where you put your money?

Some further comedy in this twitter post: https://twitter.com/squawkfox/status/982618809612763136

The sarcasm isnt warranted

The image and information is factually correct and is pretty much how most business predict their next quarterly/yearly earnings based in previous information so maybe next time have a bit more of a positive input than a negative and not even funny put down

Also your name is pretty accurate

dickface

lifeandtimes wrote: »

The sarcasm isnt warranted

The image and information is factually correct and is pretty much how most business predict their next quarterly/yearly earnings based in previous information so maybe next time have a bit more of a positive input than a negative and not even funny put down

Also your name is pretty accurate

ooh i forgot that is how businesses predict their quarters, a single graph with price on one axis and date on another. Yep they don't predict it using any other information.

JohnnyFlash

lifeandtimes wrote: »

Couldn't agree more.

All input, positive and negative is appreciated but these 2/1 are just out for the death of crypto and want everyone to get out too. I'd be more inclined to listen to them if they/he ever said anything positive about it other than the blockchain is a good idea but all I hear is "magic beans this" and "tether That" so it's just comes across as white noise now.

Bitcoin is an ecological disaster in a world that desperately needs to face climate change head on, not contribute to it.

Bitcoin is useless as a decentralised store of value. Estimates vary, but a small number of exchanges, mining pools, and whales own a disproportionate number of the coins.

It’s terrible as a method of payment.

The rise is market cap of the entire cryptocurrency space ties in with the inflated price of bitcoin, which rose in value as more magical tethers were printed.

Almost every ico is a scam, and a way of you giving them eth bought with real money so they can give you coins they generated by changing a variable in the eth source code.

Blockchain technology has been around 10 years, and has never found any real adoption outside buying drugs, child porn, money laundering , and speculating on its future price. There’s almost not a single viable usecase for it that can’t be done better with a distributed DB and p2p technology.

The whole area is full of shysters, conmen and shills.

Most people will never make any money from crypto. In fact they will lose money. They aren’t investing, they are gambling in a market that is completely stacked against them as they don’t have access to the same information as those who disproportionately control the market is n their own favour.

Bitfinex and Tether are the enormous elephants in the room. Binance is dodgy as well to be honest.

There’s very little liquidity in the market at the moment. Coinbase is one of the only methods of turning coins back into fiat. I can only presume more people are withdrawing into fiat than the other way round at the moment. I’d worry around to be liquidity of the fiat ramps and gateways.

Once again, really really really bad for the environment. Blockchain is the equivalent of deciding to reintroduce leaded petrol back into cars.

JohnnyFlash

dickface wrote: »

ooh i forgot that is how businesses predict their quarters, a single graph with price on one axis and date on another. Yep they don't predict it using any other information.

You can also use twitter announcements from Chinese guys hinting at a partnership with Alibaba as a way of making shrewd ‘investments’.

smacl

dickface wrote: »

So slow steady growth because you decided to draw a straight line through several bottoms hit in the past year, that dictates where you put your money?

Not really, Dickface. See a line, extrapolate to a point in the future, compare the predicted value from extrapolation with the actual value, repeat a few times, if the prediction holds, consider acting on it. A best fit line on the same data actually gives far more positive results, but taking the conservative result tends to make more sense. Or of course you could read the ramblings of various FUD merchants on threads such as this, but the funny thing is they seem to only crow post on a downward trend. Why is that do you think? Or perhaps rather than feeble sarcasm you could enlighten us with your own thoughts on the state of the crypto market.

smacl

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Bitcoin is an ecological disaster...

Strawman much Johnny? The fact that large scale crytpo mining is a waste of resources and environmentally unfriendly, which I'd agree it currently is, has very little bearing on its value or financial viability. Cars represent a far bigger waste of resources and threat to the environment the that doesn't stop the automotive industry being viable now does it?

JohnnyFlash

smacl wrote: »

Strawman much Johnny? The fact that large scale crytpo mining is a waste of resources and environmentally unfriendly, which I'd agree it currently is, has very little bearing on its value or financial viability. Cars represent a far bigger waste of resources and threat to the environment the that doesn't stop the automotive industry being viable now does it?

Cars have utility. And even then we are constantly encouraging public transport and a move away from the combustion engine. Tech is moving forward, not backwards. Bitcoin doesn’t have Utility to be honest, only as a speculative asset. It’s rubbish as a payment method, isnt very anonymous, is extremely centralized around 3 or 4 large mining pools, has really poor end-user security (send to the wrong address and it’s gone for ever etc). This is after 10 years of development?

makeorbrake

The ecological thing is nonsense Johnny. You started off being an ass but some of your more recent posts have merit... particularly in relation to Tether/Bitfinex.

I think it's useful to get the contrarian view but there does seem to be a resentment with regard to crypto....which makes me wonder - why the interest in crypto to begin with?