Is anyone else starting to become a bit excited?

Kickstart1.3 wrote: »

The John DeLorean of our day.
No I'll keep my cash away from Ethereum. It's had its day during the token boom of 2017, which was about all it was good for if that was even a good thing.

BAT, OmiseGo, Maker, etc - 90% plus of the top blockchain projects are based on Eth. It's largely been the go-to for industry, banking, stock exchanges for their BC and DLT development

Has quite a few issues currently, but those are constantly being worked on, we have Casper V2, Sharding, better scaling, etc coming

Price-wise, it's still 1400% up on just over 2 years ago - it was much higher, but the ICO craze in 2017 has led to severe dumping. I certainly wouldn't discount it yet.

Kickstart1.3 wrote: »

No its not up 1400% from 2 years ago. You would have to go back to nearly day 100 for that type of return.

My mistake 1000% on 2 years 2 months approx

Its way overvalued like all cryptos bar Bitcoin which has it's only use case as a store of wealth

Undervalued, overvalued - doesn't mean much in a market where value is almost entirely psychological and asset value can't be calculated

I would argue that BTC's store of value isn't much of a use case since that value is so highly speculative

Kickstart1.3 wrote: »

I believe that Bitcoins store of value is a great use case.
All the Alts are total speculation. I used to follow all the hype of the alt-coins but in reality they have little or no use at the moment. Most are way over-valued beyond belief, many of them will go to zero. Most will be replaced by other Alts from new and old developers who milk the speculation market for what its worth.

Bitcoin is Digital Gold plain and simple

Would disagree. Gold actually has a use (in everything from cameras to spacecraft)

Bitcoin doesn't have much use apart from being a speculative digital trading token. As a store of value it's pretty useless due to it's value - you would never put your life savings into it due to the high risk and insurance for BTC is rare (possibly non-existent)

So it's good for trading/speculation not much else. Very similar to most alts, just slightly less insanely volatile than them

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Would disagree. Gold actually has a use (in everything from cameras to spacecraft)

It does have a use - but that use in proportion to its 'store of value' aspect is not as significant.

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Bitcoin doesn't have much use apart from being a speculative digital trading token. As a store of value it's pretty useless due to it's value - you would never put your life savings into it due to the high risk and insurance for BTC is rare (possibly non-existent)

So it's good for trading/speculation not much else. Very similar to most alts, just slightly less insanely volatile than them

Bitcoin has portability and ease of storage. It has scarcity as does gold (so long as asteroid mining doesn't pan out).

On volatility, believe it or not, it has already seen a reduction in volatility over its history. Of course, it will need to see a much greater reduction in volatility to become a sound store of value. However, if the market cap extends out, that's not impossible.

makeorbrake wrote: »

Bitcoin has portability and ease of storage. It has scarcity as does gold (so long as asteroid mining doesn't pan out).

Artificial scarcity - like thousands of other cryptos

On volatility, believe it or not, it has already seen a reduction in volatility over its history. Of course, it will need to see a much greater reduction in volatility to become a sound store of value. However, if the market cap extends out, that's not impossible.

True, volatility has decreased from the early days, but it's potential is still insane, 15% in 30 mins is not to be sniffed at

In collateral terms it's would be rated below penny stocks, international regulation could annihilate it's secondary market value. The "don't put in more than you can afford to lose" tells us enough about it's volatility and future risk

Not bashing it, have held it for a long time, but purely as a high risk speculative investment - calling a spade a spade

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Artificial scarcity - like thousands of other cryptos

Artificial scarcity - agreed. Like other cryptos - in theory, yes. However, as a project its so much further down the road. The cap *could* be lifted. However, I think that's highly unlikely - and if consensus were to be achieved in doing that, it would be finished.

Dohnjoe wrote: »

True, volatility has decreased from the early days, but it's potential is still insane, 15% in 30 mins is not to be sniffed at

In collateral terms it's would be rated below penny stocks, international regulation could annihilate it's secondary market value. The "don't put in more than you can afford to lose" tells us enough about it's volatility and future risk

Not bashing it, have held it for a long time, but purely as a high risk speculative investment - calling a spade a spade

I can't disagree with any of that. In its present form, it's not a decent store of value. I just believe that its not out of the question that over time - and with an expansion of its market capitalisation - that it can achieve that accolade.

makeorbrake wrote: »

Bitcoin has portability and ease of storage.

In a way it is an advantage over gold as it makes it easier to buy and store, so as an asset it is more convenient to handle.

But when you are looking at a store of value of last resort such as gold, being a physical asset which you can touch, store anyway you want it (including burry it in a field or whatever you fancy), and which is carries its own value is also a key point which IMO means a crypto can never fully replace gold. Carrying its own value is especially important I think: if I hold a gold bar in my hands my wealth is right there in that object which doesn’t rely on anything else I can’t control. If I am holding a cold storage device with bitcoin keys, the object itself is worth nothing and relies on the fact that electricity, internet, and the bitcoin network will be available at the time I will want to retrieve the wealth i stored in that object. Those are a lot of things I can’t control (and obviously it is very unlikely for them to become unavailable in the short term, but keeping in mind we are talking store of value *of last resort* any external dependency is a liability versus gold).

makeorbrake wrote: »

It has scarcity as does gold (so long as asteroid mining doesn't pan out).

I know as you said in a previous post it wouldn’t make sense to alter bitcoin’s software scarcity at this stage, but it is technically possible, and we don’t know what might happen in the future. Whereas (at least currently) it is not technically possible to alter gold’s scarcity as it relies on the laws of physics and the limits of science and technology.

So again yes bitcoin has artificial scarcity, but at least at this stage I wouldn’t consider it as “strong” as gold’s actual physical scarcity.


Having said all that I’m not saying bitcoin or another crypto can’t become a decent store of value. But I would be careful calling it the new gold as I don’t think it could deliver some of the benefits gold does.

Addison Fancy Macrame wrote: »

+500 since thread started. Fairly excited. Any 10% drops I'll keep accumulating.

Nice overnight gains indeed. Looks like BTC is back to this year’s ATH again.

Addison Fancy Macrame wrote: »

Also ETH finally started making a run in the past 30 minutes, overdue.

Still hoping for more <$100, it's where most of my savings go.

Another push upwards last night. BTC now getting close to the level where it had seemed to stabilise before a sudden abrupt fall earlier this year. And while crypto is very much off the mainstream media compared to the all times high, volumes actually seem significantly higher.

FIdelity soon, Bakkt, possibly an ETF approval in the next year or two, and of course if BTC hits 10k in the next year or two, lots of headlines

I think Fidelity is far bigger than people realise. Also things like Revolut - if a bull run does happen, with big taps and access like that, it could be mental

Agreed on the Revolut and jumping on the bandwagon as I was one of them
I dumped my Revolut Euros(not a lot but enough) into BTC the first or second week of December last which was almost at bottom
The plan now is to just leave it sit there long term

makeorbrake wrote: »

Binance will accumulate funds to recover from the hack in 47 days. Price of BTC hardly affected.

Trying to solve the hacking issue is very difficult. I'd like to see things completely nailed down but its going to take quite some time to get ahead of that - if ever.

Decentralised exchanges are a potential solution. Then again, the centralised systems in banks, market infrastructure and stock exchanges aren't getting constantly breached and hacked like this

The "libertarian" nature of crypto is constantly making a slamdunk case against itself

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Then again, the centralised systems in banks, market infrastructure and stock exchanges aren't getting constantly breached and hacked like this

Banks lost $17 Billion to fraudsters in 2017. It's just that there are far fewer spectaculars like there are in the crypto space. The nature of crypto means its much easier to spirit away.

Dohnjoe wrote:

The "libertarian" nature of crypto is constantly making a slamdunk case against itself

Perhaps, but if it wasnt for the decentralised nature of it - I would never have been interested in the first place.
If there was consensus, they could theoretically recover the $40 million - but again, if they do that, they lose the whole core concept of decentralised crypto.

makeorbrake wrote: »

Banks lost $17 Billion to fraudsters in 2017. It's just that there are far fewer spectaculars like there are in the crypto space. The nature of crypto means its much easier to spirit away.

Absolutely, but fraud is different. In terms of direct security here, crypto exchanges are bloody awful in comparison to modern financial systems.

makeorbrake wrote: »

I hope you're right - as we now have cross over from wall street. If the strength and depth of expertise from that conventional financial world can shore up crypto custody, all the better for the space.

It's being worked on in the background, major market infrastructure and banks have side projects to provide crypto/digital asset custody in the future

None of them are keen to be left behind if a raft of new digital financial instruments (e.g. JPM coin) takes off. It's also interlinked with the development of potential next-gen replacement systems e.g. blockchain based new issues, systems incorporating smart contracts and distributed ledger and so on

Addison Fancy Macrame wrote: »

BTC at 6061. Plough on or dump is the question. Expecting it to dump, so will probably keep going up. Just picked up some now.

Don’t know where we’re heading, but there is no denying the last 3 months have been pretty bullish: 3 months ago BTC was 3000 euros and today it is 5400.

Also as far as I can tell the rally is clearly lead by BTC and not by altcoins (some altcoins are shining here and there, but it’s usually temporary and BTC dominance seems to be constantly on the rise - 57.3% as I write this). I personally think it is a good think as I hope for some type consolidation whereby most alt-coins disappear and the crypto landscape becomes a bit more clear).