# Is cryptocurrency the greatest market bubble of all time?



## greggles

There are now thousands of cryptocurrencies out there and many have experienced astronomical gains in 2021. The market cap of Bitcoin alone is currently $1.24 trillion dollars.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't have a very good grasp on blockchain technology, but I am struggling to understand how many of these cryptocurrencies could become something that is used by ordinary people on an every day basis; especially when governments are trying to regulate them out of existence or further marginalise them.

So what exactly are these cryptocurrency market capitalisations based on? Here's a list of the top 20 cryptocurrencies as of today:




Even #20 (ALGO) has a market capitalisation of almost $12.2 billion US dollars.  I just don't get it. How could it possibly be worth that much? I have this very strong belief that when the cyptocurrency bubble eventually deflates there isn't going to be much left when the dust settles. We were here before in 1998 and 1999, and again five or six years later as the commodities bull market took hold. All bubbles end, and this one seems to me to be the biggest market bubble of all time.


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## StockyGuy

I wish I could get past my maniacal hatred for this sector.  I've never felt the concept had any real utility.  The vast majority of the "currencies" are way too unstable to be trustworthy for any practical means of regular, everyday exchange.

If it is all (or almost all) a giant family of mutually-validating Ponzi scheme FOMO-driven bubbles from hell, some people will still make the money the losers surrender.  It's tempting to play at trying to  be one of the winners.  However I hate it too much


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## Tyre Kicker

I agree with you greggles… I just don’t get it. 

Looks like a bubble, smells like a bubble etc etc.


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## noirua

Is Bitcoin a bubble?  With one country adopting it as its currency, El Salvador, it looks as if it will be only the first of...  - probably not of many but several. Perhaps the only way out of poverty and worth the risk.
My own feeling, a guess, is that the Bitcoin price will eventually crash to US$250,000 after first reaching above US$800,000.

Do not dive into Bitcoin because of what is written above because it is probably rubbish - there you goes.


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## So_Cynical

Is cryptocurrency the greatest market bubble of all time? Yes absolutely, 500 bucks in BTC a little over decade ago is now worth 36 million,
and its still about as useless then as it is now, fantastic investment but a failure as a currency. The technology behind it (Blockchain) on the other hand is brilliant and has many genuine applications.


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## So_Cynical

Found one thats new to me.

POWR - Power Ledger, this is an Aussie Crypto, (there's just so many of these things), at least this one kind of makes some sense???

Power Ledger (POWR) is an Australian blockchain-based cryptocurrency and energy trading platform that allows for decentralized selling and buying of renewable energy. The platform provides consumers with access to a variety of energy markets around the globe and is meant to be scalable to various energy infrastructures and regulations. The market is based on a dual-token ecosystem operating on two blockchain layers, POWR and Sparkz.






						Powerledger Energy Projects
					

The operating system for new energy markets, Power Ledger is a blockchain enabled software platform for trading renewable energy and environmental commodities.




					www.powerledger.io


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## Smurf1976

greggles said:


> blockchain



A key point to realise is that blockchain is a technology and cryptocurrencies are one use of it but only one.

Blockchain itself is potentially useful even if cryptocurrencies completely disappeared. They're one use of it but that's all they are, one particular use of a technology.

As for whether it's a bubble, well I think it's safe to say that the majority of cryptocurrencies will cease to exist at some point. There's simply far too many of them for them all to end up useful as actual currency for making real transactions.


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## noirua

So_Cynical said:


> Is cryptocurrency the greatest market bubble of all time? Yes absolutely, 500 bucks in BTC a little over decade ago is now worth 36 million,
> and its still about as useless then as it is now, fantastic investment but a failure as a currency. The technology behind it (Blockchain) on the other hand is brilliant and has many genuine applications.



Because Bitcoin in particular is priced in USDs it can't really succeed as a currency.  However, what happens if the worm turns and dollars are priced in Bitcoin.  Go into a shop and you're told this costs 0.0002 Bitcoin and I cant accept USD or AUD as it fluctuates in value too much.


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## Trader X

greggles said:


> All bubbles end, and this one seems to me to be the biggest market bubble of all time.



The key point, all speculative bubbles end in a crash.  FOMO, hype and irrational speculation are driving the crypto markets.  It's made a fortune for some traders who timed their entries and exits but hodlers will get burned by the churn.  Crypto does resemble a casino with the difference being you know the odds in advance in a casino.  Labelling any crypto a currency is only correct in the context they are backed by nothing of value  (excluding stable coins).  The store of value arguments are just farcical.  When the music will stops so will all the hubris and mania around tokens named after dog breeds.


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## So_Cynical

noirua said:


> Because Bitcoin in particular is priced in USDs



Its traded as a pair in USD and many other currency's, not hard linked to anything other than the cost to produce and clear transactions, the cost of Electricity and Graphic chips.


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## finicky

Charlie Munger speaking of crypto:
""I am reminded of the Oscar Wilde quip about fox hunting:
*"The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable"*"


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## basilio

Trader X said:


> The key point, all speculative bubbles end in a crash.  FOMO, hype and irrational speculation are driving the crypto markets.  It's made a fortune for some traders who timed their entries and exits but hodlers will get burned by the churn.  Crypto does resemble a casino with the difference being you know the odds in advance in a casino.  *Labelling any crypto a currency is only correct in the context they are backed by nothing of value  (excluding stable coins).*  The store of value arguments are just farcical.  When the music will stops so will all the hubris and mania around tokens named after dog breeds.



Sadly "stable coins" are just as ephemeral as Crypto currency. The theory is that stable coins are backed with real dollars. In that sense punters buy stable coins and then use them to trade in crypto currency. This is exactly like  buying chips in a casino.

However... *What is all the Chips suddenly became worthless ?*  When you tried to cash them in there was no money in the cashiers office?

I also believe the Crypto craze is diabolical.  I found a couple of stories around the "stable coin" Tether that I posted on the main Crypto currency thread.  IMV it's hair raising.

This a clear and present danger to the whole financial system.  How it's deflated safely - before the grenade goes off- is the Trillion dollar question*.

The question of whether Tether is a fraud, then, matters less than the questions that animate so much crypto trading: Can I make money from it? Is the gamble worth it?

A prominent Tether critic who goes by the pseudonym Bitfinex’ed defined Tether’s profound risk by way of a vivid thought experiment. “I’m going to give you a grenade, and this grenade has a random timer,” he said. “It could be 30 seconds. It could be six months. I’m going to pull the pin. And for every 10 seconds you hold that grenade, I’m going to give you a thousand bucks in cash. How long are you going to hold the grenade for?”*









						There’s a Potential Grenade at the Center of the Crypto Economy
					

The stablecoin Tether appears to be neither stable nor especially tethered.




					slate.com
				



the-tether-scandal-the-biggest-threat-to-the-crypto-ecosystem-23a169003205


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## Trader X

So_Cynical said:


> Its traded as a pair in USD and many other currency's, not hard linked to anything other than the cost to produce and clear transactions, the cost of Electricity and Graphic chips.



Also clearing a transaction is potentially a taxable event when selling crypto and realizing a profit.  If you follow Mike Saylor and other maximalists though, the point is to hodl not sell, in the context of Bitcoin.  So why make a big deal out of an impoverished, dollarized 3rd world country using Bitcoin as legal tender if you should hodl?  Mixed messaging at the very least.


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## greggles

Thanks for the views. Very interesting reading. It's good to know I'm not alone in my views about cryptocurrencies. It is hard to see any real utility in most (if not all) of them, not to mention fundamental value.

So when the time comes, what would be the best way to short cryptocurrencies? My guess is the mania will continue throughout the silly season and into 2022, but it is very likely that sometime next year it will all come crashing down.


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## basilio

greggles said:


> Thanks for the views. Very interesting reading. It's good to know I'm not alone in my views about cryptocurrencies. It is hard to see any real utility in most (if not all) of them, not to mention fundamental value.
> 
> So when the time comes, what would be the best way to short cryptocurrencies? My guess is the mania will continue throughout the silly season and into 2022, but it is very likely that sometime next year it will all come crashing down.



Interesting idea... I wonder who will fund the counter position on a Crypto short ? And would they survive the crash ?

Go back to US 2005-6-7 .  At that stage the biggest game in town was the  property market with tranches of property debt being sold around the world  to institutions wanting to make a dollar on the deal. A very small handful of investors analysed the  US property market and decided it was heading for an all time bust.  The documentary/movie "The Big Short" explores the situation and goes to the heart of the question - "Who are you betting against ? and "Will they pay up when the chips collapse ?"












						The Big Short (film) - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## againsthegrain

The amount of crap and misinformation or perhaps blatant spruking online is worrying and funny.

Once again I like to underline news.com.au is not real media however reaches far.



> “I was in stocks for a while, probably about a year, and they made no where near as much cash as the crypto, the reward wasn’t as good,” he said.
> 
> “I feel like the voltality of stocks was a lot greater compared to bitcoin for instance and your alt coins fluctuate a little bit.”




Mind you this is under "investing" section too.  This article pretty much sums up the crypto game and the motives behind the players who still claim its a "investment" 


full article for a good laugh 









						Aussies plans for unusual Christmas gifts
					

More than a quarter of Aussies plan to buy crypto gifts for loved ones at Christmas this year, according to new research.




					www.news.com.au


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## So_Cynical

Trader X said:


> Also clearing a transaction is potentially a taxable event when selling crypto and realizing a profit.



Sure is - but i meant the cost of transactions ie mining.


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## Value Collector

noirua said:


> Is Bitcoin a bubble?  With one country adopting it as its currency, El Salvador, it looks as if it will be only the first of...  - probably not of many but several. Perhaps the only way out of poverty and worth the risk.
> My own feeling, a guess, is that the Bitcoin price will eventually crash to US$250,000 after first reaching above US$800,000.
> 
> Do not dive into Bitcoin because of what is written above because it is probably rubbish - there you goes.



El Salvador aren’t really using it as a currency, their currency is the US Dollar, they have made Bitcoin “Legal Tender”, but transactions are carried out based on the US dollars.

Eg, prices are all still quoted in US dollars, and if you decide to transact in Bitcoin the price in Bitcoin will be based on whatever the conversion to US dollars is that day.

You can’t really say that Bitcoin is a currency until it is being used as the basis of the transaction.

Eg, until tenants are willing to sign a 12 month lease based on a fixed amount of Bitcoin, or an employer is willing to hirer you for a fixed hourly rate of Bitcoin, it’s not really the currency of the country.

If a 12 month lease was signed based on Bitcoin, there is a good chance either the tenant or the land lord would be screwed over, same with employer/employee relationship, it’s just to volatile to be a real functioning currency.


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## willfairfax89

Bitcoin has a big advantage over other cryptocurrencies and even fiat currencies such as the US dollar or the euro, as it protects against inflation over time. Unlike other currencies, the supply of bitcoin tokens is limited. Therefore, its popularity and price will only increase over time.
The price of bitcoin may experience short-term fluctuations, but in the long-term period, it will only rise.


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## qldfrog

Not an actual crazy fan, but btc handed me a nice profit last fy (declared and taxed here) so a bit biased.
One area of crypto currencies often overlooked is the world wide side.
When paid in USD or other key currency but living in Australia, or any of smaller countries, any foreign exchange is hitting you badly.try to transfer USD here via CBA and be shocked.....
Btc and others allow you to do these fiat conversions for a very basic and small fee, much smaller than available to retail small fry.
Now think of the migrants sending money overseas or small business doing transnational business.this is the way to go.
So as long as not forbidden by local authorities, this has a very useful use and can ...could develop.


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## Value Collector

willfairfax89 said:


> Bitcoin has a big advantage over other cryptocurrencies and even fiat currencies such as the US dollar or the euro, as it protects against inflation over time. Unlike other currencies, the supply of bitcoin tokens is limited. Therefore, its popularity and price will only increase over time.
> The price of bitcoin may experience short-term fluctuations, but in the long-term period, it will only rise.



That is actually a disadvantage,

One of the primary conditions a currency needs is stability, this means it’s needs to have the ability to be managed, fiats achieve this by having central banks that can create dollars and either put more into circulation or withdraw them from circulation.

Bitcoin doesn’t have this ability, so it would always fluctuate wildly with the economic cycles, and could be cornered by groups hoarding it, which would cause interruptions in the business cycle.

“currency” is meant to be a unit of exchange and store of value, it’s not meant to be an investment in itself.

the whole reason that inflation has been built into fiat currency is because we want to protect against deflation which is scarier, and was the cause of the Great Depression, and we want to discourage hoarding of dollars and instead incentivise people to make real investments.


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## basilio

againsthegrain said:


> The amount of crap and misinformation or perhaps blatant spruking online is worrying and funny.
> 
> Once again I like to underline news.com.au is not real media however reaches far.
> 
> 
> 
> Mind you this is under "investing" section too.  This article pretty much sums up the crypto game and the motives behind the players who still claim its a "investment"
> 
> 
> full article for a good laugh
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Aussies plans for unusual Christmas gifts
> 
> 
> More than a quarter of Aussies plan to buy crypto gifts for loved ones at Christmas this year, according to new research.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.news.com.au



What a load of rubbish. So somehow we are supposed to believe that 30-40% of Australians are planning/thinking about giving friends cryptocurrency as a Christmas present ?  
Or perhaps this is just a "seeding" exercise where  some ethicless marketing smarty pants decides to put out a marketing stunt in the hope that they can rope in a some more players.

For example why not just give 10,000 people 100 tokens of a brand new  coin and then  when they are floated boost the price from 20c each to $1 and  make them feel like they have won a jackpot.  Why they might even buy another 100 at a $1 to boost their winnings.

This is just one giant shell game.


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## Value Collector

basilio said:


> What a load of rubbish. So somehow we are supposed to believe that 30-40% of Australians are planning/thinking about giving friends cryptocurrency as a Christmas present ?
> Or perhaps this is just a "seeding" exercise where  some ethicless marketing smarty pants decides to put out a marketing stunt in the hope that they can rope in a some more players.
> 
> For example why not just give 10,000 people 100 tokens of a brand new  coin and then  when they are floated boost the price from 20c each to $1 and  make them feel like they have won a jackpot.  Why they might even buy another 100 at a $1 to boost their winnings.
> 
> This is just one giant shell game.



There is also an article that won’t die, the just put a different celebrities name on it time claiming that the celebrity is investing in Bitcoin and has been on the project talking about,  I have seen the same article multiple times with different peoples names attached, so far it’s been Andrew Forrest, Elon Musk, Chris Hemsworth and Dick Smith.

Each time the article claims that the said celebrity was on the project talking to Walleed about the secrets to their financial success and that it was jumping into Bitcoin without hesitation.


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## greggles

willfairfax89 said:


> Unlike other currencies, the supply of bitcoin tokens is limited. Therefore, its popularity and price will only increase over time.
> The price of bitcoin may experience short-term fluctuations, but in the long-term period, it will only rise.




I don't agree with this proposition. Just because the supply of something is limited, it doesn't follow that its price will continue to rise. You can have a limited supply of something for which there is no demand, making it worthless. The only reason cryptocurrencies have continued to increase in value during 2021 is their perceived value, not their real value.


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## grah33

Bitcoin seems to be another currency just like any other one.  And isn't deflating every year, so solves a serious problem.  And can't be controlled by bad governments, at least directly.
And everybody is using it.  Just depends on whether the powers will stop it altogether, or try to profit from it. We'll see.


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## basilio

grah33 said:


> Bitcoin seems to be another currency just like any other one



Perhaps we should stop right there.  
Bitcoin is not a currency that can be practically used to buy and sell products. The transaction costs for most normal activities are just too high.

For some purposes, mostly illegal, Bitcoin can be used to transfer value anonymously. At this stage it seems to be more of a speculative electronic currency that as effectively spawned  a thousand offspring.


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## StockyGuy

greggles said:


> I don't agree with this proposition. Just because the supply of something is limited, it doesn't follow that its price will continue to rise. You can have a limited supply of something for which there is no demand, making it worthless. The only reason cryptocurrencies have continued to increase in value during 2021 is their perceived value, not their real value.




Some say perception is reality, so if all think like Will then...

But seriously, there's a view that normal fiat currencies are, with no precious metal backing, worthless, just based on confidence and are ultimately smoke and mirrors.

No, USD is back backed by men with guns, by the greatest war machine the world has ever known.  In turn all real fiat currencies are supported by their government(s), military and military alliances.  You can also, if you choose to, hold it in your hand, which is rather nice...it actually exists, it's not just a concept.

Crypto is backed by.......... crickets chirping in the distance, tumbleweeds tumbling on the streets of ghost towns, ya get the picture


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## So_Cynical

qldfrog said:


> Now think of the migrants sending money overseas or small business doing transnational business



Typical cost of this is now about 8 AUD per transaction, so on 1000 bucks, 0.8% + FX margin add another 0.5% so pretty cheap.


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## againsthegrain

basilio said:


> Perhaps we should stop right there.
> Bitcoin is not a currency that can be practically used to buy and sell products. The transaction costs for most normal activities are just too high.
> 
> For some purposes, mostly illegal, Bitcoin can be used to transfer value anonymously. At this stage it seems to be more of a speculative electronic currency that as effectively spawned  a thousand offspring.




Public ledger... less anonymous then actual cash so scratch that off the list


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## Value Collector

grah33 said:


> Bitcoin seems to be another currency just like any other one.  And isn't deflating every year, so solves a serious problem.  And can't be controlled by bad governments, at least directly.
> And everybody is using it.  Just depends on whether the powers will stop it altogether, or try to profit from it. We'll see.



Is anyone signing long term contracts like leases based on fixed amounts of Bitcoin? If not how can it be a currency? It’s more like a commodity.

how would the economy go if people decided the way to get rich was just to hoard the “currency” rather than make actual invesyments


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## Trader X

qldfrog said:


> When paid in USD or other key currency but living in Australia, or any of smaller countries, any foreign exchange is hitting you badly.try to transfer USD here via CBA and be shocked.....



Sounds like you have not heard about Wise.  Transfer funds overseas quite often using them, very low fees, great exchange rates and most transfers take only a matter of hours.  Using banks for this is silly.  No need to use crypto for this kind of transaction unless of course you need to hide identity because of the nature of transaction or the source of funds - a primary use case for crypto.


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## againsthegrain

Trader X said:


> Sounds like you have not heard about Wise.  Transfer funds overseas quite often using them, very low fees, great exchange rates and most transfers take only a matter of hours.  Using banks for this is silly.  No need to use crypto for this kind of transaction unless of course you need to hide identity because of the nature of transaction or the source of funds - a primary use case for crypto.




Sending crypto overseas sounds easy but means that you need to make a account on a local exchange, 100 point id check + report to austrac.

Your relative or friend overseas also needs to verify on a local exchange.

1. there is no anonymity
2. What happens with tax?  In aus converting crypto to fiat automatically triggers a tax event. Yes I am sure you can explain it all to the ato... but then again ato even said they themselves are hunting crypto traders and unpaid tax.

Id much rather wise,  don't have to worry if crypto goes down 10% the next day


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## moXJO

Crypto is sht for transactions. I use it a lot and often have to use bridges to get the fees down. It is however an awesome place to trade. 
Most people would not be able to use it though.
Some Crypto is easy to use, cheap fees. 

I like the space. If Facebook is all in on "meta" then it's only going to grow.


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## moXJO

basilio said:


> Perhaps we should stop right there.
> Bitcoin is not a currency that can be practically used to buy and sell products. The transaction costs for most normal activities are just too high.
> 
> For some purposes, mostly illegal, Bitcoin can be used to transfer value anonymously. At this stage it seems to be more of a speculative electronic currency that as effectively spawned  a thousand offspring.



Actually you can use a credit card. Never tried it myself as it's pretty recent. Bitcoin is not anonymous it's all traceable. Costs are bloody high with gas fees. Unsure about the card fees.






						Crypto.com Visa Card: The only crypto card you need
					

Get up to 5% back on spending paid in crypto. No monthly, annual, or ATM withdrawal fees.




					crypto.com


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## moXJO

I think the main point here is:
Crypto is the greatest trade you all never made.

I think it's stupid. But enough people seem to like it. 
I mean million % returns! You think I’m not spending hours on learning the basics and exploring the space  to try and capture some.

As is, it's a terrible currency. Sucks in multiple ways. But I can sell digital crap and make real money. I'm riding it till it pops.

But I love the space. Some great people and really foreword thinkers.


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## Smurf1976

moXJO said:


> Crypto is the greatest trade you all never made.



Indeed.

There'd be few who don't wish they'd bought in, or bought more, when it was cheap.

As a practical currency though it has a lot of problems, it's far too volatile, but no arguing that fortunes have been made out of it thus far.


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## Value Collector

moXJO said:


> Actually you can use a credit card. Never tried it myself as it's pretty recent. Bitcoin is not anonymous it's all traceable. Costs are bloody high with gas fees. Unsure about the card fees.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Crypto.com Visa Card: The only crypto card you need
> 
> 
> Get up to 5% back on spending paid in crypto. No monthly, annual, or ATM withdrawal fees.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> crypto.com



I wonder if any bank would be bold enough to issue a credit card where the balances were held in bit coin? And not immediately settled into a real currency.

Eg. A purchase is made today for $X Bitcoin, and the bank holds that debt as Bitcoin until it’s paid off by the card holder.

With Bitcoin being so volatile, it could end up being very bad for either the card holder or the card issuer depending on which way Bitcoin price swings.

Until credit cards are operating like that we can’t really say there is Bitcoin “credit cards”


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## moXJO

Smurf1976 said:


> Indeed.
> 
> There'd be few who don't wish they'd bought in, or bought more, when it was cheap.
> 
> As a practical currency though it has a lot of problems, it's far too volatile, but no arguing that fortunes have been made out of it thus far.



Early days I suppose. I never thought bitcoin was any good. The whole space is clunky and full of scams. I mentioned it before that it feels like the internet in the 90s before big business ruined it and look at the behemoths that has spawned. 

All I can say is take notice of this space now. It's setting up for future giants.


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## moXJO

Value Collector said:


> I wonder if any bank would be bold enough to issue a credit card where the balances were held in bit coin? And not immediately settled into a real currency.
> 
> Eg. A purchase is made today for $X Bitcoin, and the bank holds that debt as Bitcoin until it’s paid off by the card holder.
> 
> With Bitcoin being so volatile, it could end up being very bad for either the card holder or the card issuer depending on which way Bitcoin price swings.
> 
> Until credit cards are operating like that we can’t really say there is Bitcoin “credit cards”



From what I understand it's a prepaid card in Australia. I'm not sure what options the Yanks have though.
Sorry but I'm not fully up to speed on it 

Personally I think just the gas fees would kill it.
However if the above was done it would skirt a few tax laws as it's being used to buy goods.
I think we are a long way from that in Australia.


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## Trader X

moXJO said:


> Crypto is the greatest trade you all never made.
> 
> As is, it's a terrible currency. Sucks in multiple ways. But I can sell digital crap and make real money. I'm riding it till it pops.



Crypto profits are about timing the momentum swings, those that hodl now are late to the party.  Know many who bought and sold Bitcoin, none believed crypto mania would drive the price to current levels so they sold.

Referring to crypto as currency is a misnomer, you can only exchange it for currency.  Those who trade the FX markets know that a 1-2% swing in a major currency pair is a big event.  A 10% swing would be an extreme outlier event to say the least, not in the crypto casino.

‘Domino effect’ warning as $200 billion wiped off cryptocurrency market.  This kind of volatility exposes the delusion that crypto can act as a "currency", store of value or reliable medium of exchange.


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## Joules MM1

willfairfax89 said:


> it will only rise.



this is interesting:


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## Value Collector

moXJO said:


> From what I understand it's a prepaid card in Australia. I'm not sure what options the Yanks have though.
> Sorry but I'm not fully up to speed on it
> 
> Personally I think just the gas fees would kill it.
> However if the above was done it would skirt a few tax laws as it's being used to buy goods.
> I think we are a long way from that in Australia.



So more of a debit card than credit card, It probably operates the way some of the cards that tried the same thing with gold worked.

Eg. You have say 1 ounce of gold loaded in the account, and if gold was $2000 for an ounce you could spend $2000, but if gold dropped to $1000 you could only spend $1000.

and as soon as you make a $1000 purchase, $1000 of your gold (or Bitcoin) is sold to settle the transaction, in this case both gold and Bitcoin are being treated as commodities that are instantly sold converted into cash to settle the transaction, the bit coin and gold is not being used as a currency.

——————

It would be an interesting experiment to pay a group group of peoples hourly wage in Bitcoin, and have their credit cards and home loans converted into Bitcoin, and see how their employers go at paying them, and how their banks go at maintaining the loan.

may any given time either their employer paying their wage, or their banks holding their debt would be stressing.


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## moXJO

Trader X said:


> Crypto profits are about timing the momentum swings, those that hodl now are late to the party.  Know many who bought and sold Bitcoin, none believed crypto mania would drive the price to current levels so they sold.
> 
> Referring to crypto as currency is a misnomer, you can only exchange it for currency.  Those who trade the FX markets know that a 1-2% swing in a major currency pair is a big event.  A 10% swing would be an extreme outlier event to say the least, not in the crypto casino.
> 
> ‘Domino effect’ warning as $200 billion wiped off cryptocurrency market.  This kind of volatility exposes the delusion that crypto can act as a "currency", store of value or reliable medium of exchange.



There are coins with supposed utility that were still moving.

I think a guy bought $13000 in shib last August and it was valued at $5.7 billion or something stupid. Obviously you would never see that amount as you would crash the market.  But still hundreds of millions and a lucky trade.

I use "meme enthusiasm" as a get in. Seems like a legit measure in a batsht crazy casino.


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## moXJO

Value Collector said:


> So more of a debit card than credit card, It probably operates the way some of the cards that tried the same thing with gold worked.
> 
> Eg. You have say 1 ounce of gold loaded in the account, and if gold was $2000 for an ounce you could spend $2000, but if gold dropped to $1000 you could only spend $1000.
> 
> and as soon as you make a $1000 purchase, $1000 of your gold (or Bitcoin) is sold to settle the transaction, in this case both gold and Bitcoin are being treated as commodities that are instantly sold converted into cash to settle the transaction, the bit coin and gold is not being used as a currency.
> 
> ——————
> 
> It would be an interesting experiment to pay a group group of peoples hourly wage in Bitcoin, and have their credit cards and home loans converted into Bitcoin, and see how their employers go at paying them, and how their banks go at maintaining the loan.
> 
> may any given time either their employer paying their wage, or their banks holding their debt would be stressing.



Actually you might know the answer to a question. 
Hypothetical:
I start a business and pay myself in gold coins. I think they have $100 for a once and it can supposedly be used as currency. So do I only pay tax if I sell the gold and does the company get to deduct tax from buying the gold at spot?


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## Value Collector

moXJO said:


> Actually you might know the answer to a question.
> Hypothetical:
> I start a business and pay myself in gold coins. I think they have $100 for a once and it can supposedly be used as currency. So do I only pay tax if I sell the gold and does the company get to deduct tax from buying the gold at spot?




I think a possible tax outcome would be as follows.

1, Company buys coins and writes the purchase price off as a cost of business, because it has used the coin to pay you.

2, You declare the face value of the coin ($100) on your personal tax return as income and pay tax on the $100 face value. 

3, when you finally sell the coin for more than $100 face value, you declare a profit on your personal tax return and you pay capital gains tax on the “profit” you made selling your $100 coin for more than its face value.

Of course I am not an accountant, so you would have to check if this is the way it really works, I am not familiar with the rules of doing this.

I guess it could be a way of delaying your taxable income until you sell the coins, you might even save tax if you get the CGT discount, but you might also lose out if the price of gold drops more than the CGT discount.


----------



## moXJO

Value Collector said:


> I think a possible tax outcome would be as follows.
> 
> 1, Company buys coins and writes the purchase price off as a cost of business, because it has used the coin to pay you.
> 
> 2, You declare the face value of the coin ($100) on your tax return and pay tax on the $100.
> 
> 3, when you finally sell the coin for more than $100 you pay capital gains tax on the “profit” you made selling your $100 coin for more than its face value.
> 
> Of course I am not an accountant, so you would have to check if this is the way it works.



Someone must have come up with this idea before. I'd never attempt it as it looks like an automatic Ato a$$f@#king. But I always wondered about it.

Also that if you used it to buy goods and you didn't use the face value but spot price.


----------



## Value Collector

moXJO said:


> Someone must have come up with this idea before. I'd never attempt it as it looks like an automatic Ato a$$f@#king. But I always wondered about it.



Yeah, it would be ballsy, and might not pass the acid test in a court room when you have to explain why you did things that way.

but unless you claim the CGT discount, your aren’t really reducing your tax, you are just delaying it, because eventually you have to sell the coins, and will get a paper capital gain, which might push you into the higher tax bracket, where it might have been better just keeping the profit in the company and paying the company tax rate.


----------



## cynic

moXJO said:


> Someone must have come up with this idea before. I'd never attempt it as it looks like an automatic Ato a$$f@#king. But I always wondered about it.
> 
> Also that if you used it to buy goods and you didn't use the face value but spot price.



I don't have a specific answer, but do you remember a thing called "BarterCard"?

It was used as a medium for trading goods and/or services without the need for fiat currency.

Anyway, from memory the ATO recognised its tax avoidance potential and promptly responded with the introduction of some new rules.


----------



## Trader X

Interesting debate on Kitco between Peter Schiff & Alex Mashinsky on Bitcoin vs Gold.  Mashinsky makes some interesting claims, gold is worthless, Bitcoin is a store of value (because the price has gone up), you should hodl not sell, and Bitcoin has intrinsic value because investors are voting with their dollars, preferring it over other risk assets etc.  On one hand we can't predict the future, but Bitcoin should go higher because of past price performance.  So people continue to place bets at the crypto casino because they think the odds are in their favor, yet they have no idea what their odds or probability of success are.  This will no doubt end badly for most.


----------



## greggles

Trader X said:


> Interesting debate on Kitco between Peter Schiff & Alex Mashinsky on Bitcoin vs Gold.  Mashinsky makes some interesting claims, gold is worthless, Bitcoin is a store of value (because the price has gone up), you should hodl not sell, and Bitcoin has intrinsic value because investors are voting with their dollars, preferring it over other risk assets etc.




Gold is not only used to produce jewellery, but it also has a range of industrial uses. On that basis alone, gold is far from worthless. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is used to buy drugs on the dark web. Does it have another use beside that?


----------



## Value Collector

cynic said:


> I don't have a specific answer, but do you remember a thing called "BarterCard"?
> 
> It was used as a medium for trading goods and/or services without the need for fiat currency.
> 
> Anyway, from memory the ATO recognised its tax avoidance potential and promptly responded with the introduction of some new rules.



Yep, barter card dollars are treated exactly the same as Australian dollars on your tax return.


----------



## Value Collector

greggles said:


> Gold is not only used to produce jewellery, but it also has a range of industrial uses. On that basis alone, gold is far from worthless. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is used to buy drugs on the dark web. Does it have another use beside that?



Yep, the is many areas where gold demand would increase as the price dropped creating a natural floor, for example as a bare minimum gold would never trade for less that copper, because its a better conductor than copper, so would immediately be used as a substitute  for copper should the price ever drop close to the copper price, so it’s definitely not worthless.

However, it is entirely possible that one day Bitcoin drops out of fashion and there is no natural floor to support its price when people lose interest


----------



## againsthegrain

Value Collector said:


> Yep, the is many areas where gold demand would increase as the price dropped creating a natural floor, for example as a bare minimum gold would never trade for less that copper, because its a better conductor than copper, so would immediately be used as a substitute  for copper should the price ever drop close to the copper price, so it’s definitely not worthless.
> 
> However, it is entirely possible that one day Bitcoin drops out of fashion and there is no natural floor to support its price when people lose interest




If we are talking 0 scenarios it is possible for bitcoin to stop,  if everyone switches off the miners and nobody hosts the network your bitcoins are all belong to cyberspace now.  Can't bury in the backyard what you can't physically hold in your hand


----------



## Trader X

Value Collector said:


> It would be an interesting experiment to pay a group group of peoples hourly wage in Bitcoin, and have their credit cards and home loans converted into Bitcoin, and see how their employers go at paying them, and how their banks go at maintaining the loan



This scenario, all prices denominated in Bitcoin, would imply that Bitcoin is acting as digital currency for all financial transactions and not just in your local economy.  In most cases, Bitcoin volatility would demand that you immediately convert your Bitcoin into a more stable currency, reducing the risk of transacting at a loss.

If the purchasing power of your Bitcoin can fall 10 to 20% or more in a 24 hour period relative to say the USD, you have a problem. The overnight carry potentially causing restless nights.  Whereas, if you hold USD, EUR, AUD etc. you can sleep like a baby.  At the completion of a transaction, businesses in El Salvador will likely prefer USD in their bank account, not Bitcoin.  If Elon does not want to price a Tesla or SpaceX excursion in Bitcoin, that should be something to take note of.  

For the chartists here, Bitcoin looks to have formed a double top, if it completes the pattern then $40k Bitcoin is on the horizon.


----------



## moXJO

Quantum computers would probably put an end to bitcoin. Early adopters of the technology would no doubt wreck the space


----------



## Value Collector

Trader X said:


> This scenario, all prices denominated in Bitcoin, would imply that Bitcoin is acting as digital currency for all financial transactions and not just in your local economy.  In most cases, Bitcoin volatility would demand that you immediately convert your Bitcoin into a more stable currency, reducing the risk of transacting at a loss.
> 
> If the purchasing power of your Bitcoin can fall 10 to 20% or more in a 24 hour period relative to say the USD, you have a problem. The overnight carry potentially causing restless nights.  Whereas, if you hold USD, EUR, AUD etc. you can sleep like a baby.  At the completion of a transaction, businesses in El Salvador will likely prefer USD in their bank account, not Bitcoin.  If Elon does not want to price a Tesla or SpaceX excursion in Bitcoin, that should be something to take note of.
> 
> For the chartists here, Bitcoin looks to have formed a double top, if it completes the pattern then $40k Bitcoin is on the horizon.



Yeah that was my point, imagine a worker signing up to earn his wage in $X amount of bit coin per week, one week he could be king of the world and his employer going broke just to pay him, the next week he is in the bread line, begging for some free soup.


----------



## Trader X

Value Collector said:


> Yeah that was my point, imagine a worker signing up to earn his wage in $X amount of bit coin per week, one week he could be king of the world and his employer going broke just to pay him, the next week he is in the bread line, begging for some free soup.



Taxation becomes interesting also, if bitcoin wage/business earnings are taxed nominally regardless of it's equivalent USD conversion rate, you could be on the breadline and be in debt to the tax office as well.


----------



## qldfrog

moXJO said:


> Quantum computers would probably put an end to bitcoin. Early adopters of the technology would no doubt wreck the space



Disagree here, first quantum miner will cream out for a month, might see a surge of sell and so temporary price fall but it is a one off and limit is still there....
More afraid of government intervention, as the west goes the chinese path in term of dictatorship, it means if gov say no, it will be No.
Btc is dead in China already


----------



## againsthegrain

qldfrog said:


> Disagree here, first quantum miner will cream out for a month, might see a surge of sell and so temporary price fall but it is a one off and limit is still there....
> More afraid of government intervention, as the west goes the chinese path in term of dictatorship, it means if gov say no, it will be No.
> Btc is dead in China already




I understand that as quantum computers would put a end to it because brute force attacks on public wallets could find the private key in a short enough time span vs 100s of years for conventional hardware


----------



## qldfrog

againsthegrain said:


> I understand that as quantum computers would put a end to it because brute force attacks on public wallets could find the private key in a short enough time span vs 100s of years for conventional hardware



yes sure that could happen but need to be worth the effort.Cost quantum computer plus power vs gain in a single wallet.
And we are not there yet believe me..


----------



## Trader X

The cost of a cup of coffee in El Salvador in Bitcoin has jumped 14% so far this month.  Digital "currency" in action.


----------



## againsthegrain

Trader X said:


> The cost of a cup of coffee in El Salvador in Bitcoin has jumped 14% so far this month.
> View attachment 133145




adopting bitcoin to battle inflation eh 😂


----------



## qldfrog

againsthegrain said:


> adopting bitcoin to battle inflation eh 😂



The cost of a mulch delivery in Cooroy Qld has jumped $30 to $35 this month.
This is the AUD fighting inflation then $4.5 to $5 coffee cup😁


----------



## Value Collector

basilio said:


> What a load of rubbish. So somehow we are supposed to believe that 30-40% of Australians are planning/thinking about giving friends cryptocurrency as a Christmas present ?
> Or perhaps this is just a "seeding" exercise where  some ethicless marketing smarty pants decides to put out a marketing stunt in the hope that they can rope in a some more players.
> 
> For example why not just give 10,000 people 100 tokens of a brand new  coin and then  when they are floated boost the price from 20c each to $1 and  make them feel like they have won a jackpot.  Why they might even buy another 100 at a $1 to boost their winnings.
> 
> This is just one giant shell game.



This article came from an ad that appeared right hear on Aussie stock forums, it’s another example of a scammer trying to use a celebrity to entice people into their scam.





__





						Simple Ways To Afford Slow Fashion On A Budget
					

Slow fashion is generally not affordable for most consumers. Sustainable, ethical, and eco-friendly fashion is more expensive than fast fashion for many reasons.  Luckily, there are simple ways to buy slow fashion even if you have a limited budget. Just think outside the box to easily afford...




					frejora.com
				




it’s funny how they always seem to use the project, every version of this scam always says a different celebrity was on the project talking about Bitcoin, and that someone is threatening to sue them.


----------



## Joe Blow

Value Collector said:


> This article came from an ad that appeared right hear on Aussie stock forums, it’s another example of a scammer trying to use a celebrity to entice people into their scam.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Simple Ways To Afford Slow Fashion On A Budget
> 
> 
> Slow fashion is generally not affordable for most consumers. Sustainable, ethical, and eco-friendly fashion is more expensive than fast fashion for many reasons.  Luckily, there are simple ways to buy slow fashion even if you have a limited budget. Just think outside the box to easily afford...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> frejora.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> it’s funny how they always seem to use the project, every version of this scam always says a different celebrity was on the project talking about Bitcoin, and that someone is threatening to sue them.




I have blocked the same ad (or variations of it) numerous time and each time I have reported it to Google. But without fail new versions of the ad on new domain names continue to appear. I don't even know if the ones I blocked and reported were suspended or whether the scammers just keep changing domain names as a matter of course. I have seen the same ads appear on a number of large traffic corporate news websites. It seems that nothing (or at the least very little) is ever done to stop it at its origin. This one has also now been blocked, but I am sure it will reappear soon enough on a new domain name.


----------



## Value Collector

Joe Blow said:


> I have blocked the same ad (or variations of it) numerous time and each time I have reported it to Google. But without fail new versions of the ad on new domain names continue to appear. I don't even know if the ones I blocked and reported were suspended or whether the scammers just keep changing domain names as a matter of course. I have seen the same ads appear on a number of large traffic corporate news websites. It seems that nothing (or at the least very little) is ever done to stop it at its origin. This one has also now been blocked, but I am sure it will reappear soon enough on a new domain name.



Yep, I have also seen variations of it on many other sites including News sites, it’s every where it’s always the same thing just slight details about the celebrity get changed, I also have had several friends and family forward me the articles asking me if it’s a good investment, which is scary that they get fooled/excited so easily by this crap.


----------



## againsthegrain

Value Collector said:


> Yep, I have also seen variations of it on many other sites including News sites, it’s every where it’s always the same thing just slight details about the celebrity get changed, I also have had several friends and family forward me the articles asking me if it’s a good investment, which is scary that they get fooled/excited so easily by this crap.




ahh when people say crypto is investment.  Stop right there


----------



## grah33

qldfrog said:


> The cost of a mulch delivery in Cooroy Qld has jumped $30 to $35 this month.
> This is the AUD fighting inflation then $4.5 to $5 coffee cup😁



and then what?  suddenly takes off


----------



## qldfrog

grah33 said:


> and then what?  suddenly takes off



I think, everything is up, go and do shopping and it is crazy  akg tomatoes at aldi at $7...and we are here in full season in qld...
so obviously wages earners will ask pay increase, and they can: plenty of work available around..so employers will have to give more...and so bill more
inflation surge for at least a few years is on IMHO..not that I am happy with that


----------



## Smurf1976

Joe Blow said:


> I have blocked the same ad (or variations of it) numerous time and each time I have reported it to Google. But without fail new versions of the ad on new domain names continue to appear.





Value Collector said:


> Yep, I have also seen variations of it on many other sites including News sites, it’s every where it’s always the same thing just slight details about the celebrity get changed, I also have had several friends and family forward me the articles asking me if it’s a good investment



These two points are themselves screaming "bubble".

When any financial asset becomes mainstream to the point that it's attracting this sort of activity, that of itself is a big warning sign in my view. Such activity occurs near the top not the bottom.


----------



## againsthegrain

Smurf1976 said:


> These two points are themselves screaming "bubble".
> 
> When any financial asset becomes mainstream to the point that it's attracting this sort of activity, that of itself is a big warning sign in my view. Such activity occurs near the top not the bottom.




I was reading on another forum 1 guy saying his realistic target is 400k per bitcoin and already has a list of things he will buy. Mass delusion -> add to the bubble list


----------



## againsthegrain

another crap of the craps to the list,  how is it stock forums can face legal action for giving advice but news.com.au blatantly spruking crap

My fav quote 



> Now she’s teaching the rest of her family how to do it.




Does she sell roulette systems too? 









						Mum quits job after lucky investment
					

A mum who quit her job and invested a $5500 paycheck in cryptocurrency now claims she rakes in as much as $110,000 every trade.




					www.news.com.au


----------



## Trader X

againsthegrain said:


> Does she sell roulette systems too?




"Although Ms Gentry first heard about bitcoin in 2009, she never considered it as a serious investment opportunity."
_Never has been, it's a speculative investment opportunity._

"But the 2020 crash in the mainstream market changed her opinion because she saw how it impacted people"
_The impending crash in the crypto market will no doubt change her opinion again._

Articles recklessly pumping crypto speculation like this are a sign it's time to exit this market.


----------



## basilio

againsthegrain said:


> another crap of the craps to the list,  how is it stock forums can face legal action for giving advice but news.com.au blatantly spruking crap
> 
> My fav quote
> 
> 
> 
> Does she sell roulette systems too?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mum quits job after lucky investment
> 
> 
> A mum who quit her job and invested a $5500 paycheck in cryptocurrency now claims she rakes in as much as $110,000 every trade.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.news.com.au




Would you like to buy a bridge with that as a side ?


----------



## Smurf1976

Trader X said:


> Articles recklessly pumping crypto speculation like this are a sign it's time to exit this market.



Indeed and especially when it's in such an extremely mainstream media outlet as this one.


----------



## joeno

I hold some cryptos from back when i bought a small amount in 2017. But I still don't know what the "product" or growth potential is.

Can someone explain to me what the product is? I hear Ethereum provides a platform for other coins. I hear some are more secure / anonymous than others. Some act as "shares" and profit share. But these self-fulfilling.

If someone can explain how a coin like Bitcoin can generate value for its holders other than "being rare" or "high in demand" or an "alternate store of value" I'd be keen to add to my crypto holdings.


----------



## Trader X

Got this from an analyst I follow today...


Ethereum $US

I often get asked what MM’s feelings are towards the crypto space and I’m always guarded with answers due to my level of understanding and at times disbelief in this new asset class, a perfect case in point has unfolded over the last week as the little known digital token with the name Omicron, which has just over 1000 followers, rose almost 10x before proceeding to tumble by 75% – when a financial instrument can move like this on pure name association it still feels more like a casino as opposed to a serious financial market.

The whole crypto market is a casino and is unlikely to ever be a "serious financial market".


----------



## moXJO

It's a casino that's paying though. One of the dumbest guys I know was ranting how he made money in crypto. Was deadset sprouting youtube gossip about how it was going to move. 

I have a rule after that last crash. If three guys that have no business trading come and preach to me in a week. Or newbs tell me they are going to "get into crypto". I generally sell off holdings.


----------



## frugal.rock

joeno said:


> If someone can explain how a coin like Bitcoin can generate value for its holders other than "being rare" or "high in demand" or an "alternate store of value" I'd be keen to add to my crypto holdings.



I haven't read the whole thread, so this may have been mentioned?
Staking.
Some coins can be "staked" and then you earn a per annum percentage or "reward" on the coins staked.

Currently, I have TRON staked on approximately 6% PA rate.
The reward is deposited daily and is compounding.
Apparently, the only risk is the normal risk of price fluctuation of the crypto, and the reward % is subject to variations as well. 
Staking the coin was simply a matter of pressing a button... to trade the crypto again, I just unstake it by a press of a button.

Not forgetting underlying risks, the process is amazingly simple, probably supports cryptos in general as I imagine rewards are available probably due to DeFi (decentralised finance) and it would now seem illogical to not have your cryptos staked whilst you are holding them.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

frugal.rock said:


> Staking. Some coins can be "staked" and then you earn a per annum percentage or "reward" on the coins staked.
> 
> Currently, I have TRON staked on approximately 6% PA rate. The reward is deposited daily and is compounding.



Sounds TOO good to be true, froogs


frugal.rock said:


> Apparently, the only risk is the normal risk of price fluctuation of the crypto, and the reward % is subject to variations as well.
> Staking the coin was simply a matter of pressing a button... to trade the crypto again, I just unstake it by a press of a button.
> 
> Not forgetting underlying risks, the process is amazingly simple, probably supports cryptos in general as I imagine rewards are available probably due to DeFi (decentralised finance) and it would now seem illogical to not have your cryptos staked whilst you are holding them.



Apparently !


----------



## over9k

moXJO said:


> It's a casino that's paying though. One of the dumbest guys I know was ranting how he made money in crypto. Was deadset sprouting youtube gossip about how it was going to move.
> 
> I have a rule after that last crash. If three guys that have no business trading come and preach to me in a week. Or newbs tell me they are going to "get into crypto". I generally sell off holdings.






Normally your strategy is a sound one, but the normal rules have not applied since about Feb of 2020.


----------



## frugal.rock

Dona Ferentes said:


> Sounds TOO good to be true, froogs



How so?
Getting 5.8% PA return on an "asset" that can go "poof" into a cloud of dust at any second doesn't sound TOO good to be true at all !

RPY is return per year (PA)
The crypto broker I use (Swyftx) currently only offers staking on these below. The RPY is shown for each.






So, it's real, but,
"do ya feel lucky punk?
Well do ya?"



Dona Ferentes said:


> Apparently !



I'm not sure if I like the tone of your exclamation?😅

I don't think I need to explain all the risks associated with crypto's... bottom line is total loss.

The point was, if you ARE going to hold a crypto, it may as well be staked... if it can be. 🐙

Will ad that one may have noticed that the larger market cap cryptos have smaller returns than the lesser knowns.  (TRON, SOLANA, CARDANO are the examples from the above screenshots of larger market cap cryptos)


----------



## Tyre Kicker

So I’m going to ask the question…

How da f**# can any of those returns be met???


----------



## frugal.rock

I let the fools do some talking...









						What Does Staking Mean in Crypto? | The Motley Fool
					

Learn the ins and outs of staking in crypto, what it is, how it works, the benefits, and the risks.




					www.fool.com


----------



## Trader X

joeno said:


> Can someone explain to me what the product is?



It's easier to summarize what crypto is not.  It's not a reliable store of value, viable medium of exchange, safe haven asset, unit of account or currency.  If you cut through the hype around decentralized finance, the network effect, fixed supply (in the case of Bitcoin) and myriad of other proposed use cases for crypto, it's almost entirely a speculative, high risk asset class with no fundamentals to justify its incredible market capitalization.  Crypto trades more like a tech startup that's raising capital for a product idea that gives it some kind of unique edge, burning through that capital while trading at a loss with its stock price soaring in anticipation of the product hype becoming reality.  I think of the crypto market as a transfer of wealth from the naïve to pump and dumb merchants spinning up new cryptos by the thousands to fleece greedy speculators with a road to riches mentality.  It's a tradable hyper-bubble but definitely not an asset class to HODL including Bitcoin.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

frugal.rock said:


> How so?
> Getting 5.8% PA return on an "asset" that can go "poof" into a cloud of dust at any second doesn't sound TOO good to be true at all !
> 
> So, it's real, but, "do ya feel lucky punk? Well do ya?"
> 
> I'm not sure if I like the tone of your exclamation?😅
> 
> I don't think I need to explain all the risks associated with crypto's... bottom line is total loss.
> 
> The point was, if you ARE going to hold a crypto, it may as well be staked... if it can be.



You've lost me, all I'm reading is a contradictory set of conjectures

I'll absquatulate from the exchange


----------



## moXJO

Tyre Kicker said:


> So I’m going to ask the question…
> 
> How da f**# can any of those returns be met???



My understanding is they are used to validate transactions on the block.

So some coins use POW and others POS. So you mine a coin on POW and forge a coin with POS.


----------



## moXJO

Crypto has been in a "bubble" for about a decade. So long as people can trade it, it will continue to be in one.


----------



## frugal.rock

Tyre Kicker said:


> How da f**# can any of those returns be met???



The returns are paid in the crypto staked, so to be clear, it's a PA figure of crypto only. 
As said by Mo, proof of stake POS rewards. 

If someone comes up with some app that lets you pay for things, just like any typical daily transaction, then I think crypto has a great chance of moving out of the bubble domain.
There's a lot more fingers in the crypto pie than there was two years ago, some big names.

It will be interesting to see the public backlash at governments legislating crypto. 
Or is legislation only going to change the traceability, for taxation purposes?
Dunno. Wait and see on that.


----------



## Trader X

frugal.rock said:


> It will be interesting to see the public backlash at governments legislating crypto.
> Or is legislation only going to change the traceability, for taxation purposes?



One of the more insidious aspects of crypto tech is how it gave central banks and governments a blueprint for implementing MMT, increase surveillance and manipulate money supply by implementing their our digital currency.  China's intolerance for crypto competition with their digital yuan is likely to be replicated by other governments to some extent.  At the very least, expect much more regulatory oversight of crypto prior to the introduction of central bank issued digital currencies.  Crypto legal tender is a harbinger of a dark future for privacy, government surveillance and personal liberties.  A case of being careful what you wish for.


----------



## divs4ever

i see cryptos  as a medium of exchange (  like a bank cheque , cash , including foreign currency  ,  and similar )

 so are cryptos in a bubble ( which implies people accumulating them ) or are they becoming a more popular method of exchange  ( either is possible , and currently both probable )


----------



## divs4ever

Trader X said:


> One of the more insidious aspects of crypto tech is how it gave central banks and governments a blueprint for implementing MMT, increase surveillance and manipulate money supply by implementing their our digital currency.  China's intolerance for crypto competition with their digital yuan is likely to be replicated by other governments to some extent.  At the very least, expect much more regulatory oversight of crypto prior to the introduction of central bank issued digital currencies.  Crypto legal tender is a harbinger of a dark future for privacy, government surveillance and personal liberties.  A case of being careful what you wish for.



 i agree , and precisely why i have avoided  the crypto space  ( i don't actually hate crypto , only worry about control-freak governments )


----------



## Joules MM1




----------



## Joules MM1




----------



## joeno

frugal.rock said:


> I haven't read the whole thread, so this may have been mentioned?
> Staking.
> Some coins can be "staked" and then you earn a per annum percentage or "reward" on the coins staked.
> 
> Currently, I have TRON staked on approximately 6% PA rate.
> The reward is deposited daily and is compounding.
> Apparently, the only risk is the normal risk of price fluctuation of the crypto, and the reward % is subject to variations as well.
> Staking the coin was simply a matter of pressing a button... to trade the crypto again, I just unstake it by a press of a button.
> 
> Not forgetting underlying risks, the process is amazingly simple, probably supports cryptos in general as I imagine rewards are available probably due to DeFi (decentralised finance) and it would now seem illogical to not have your cryptos staked whilst you are holding them.




My understanding staking is like owning shares. So for example i share in the profits of binancecoin because the company itself makes money off of charging its members fees.

So why not buy shares? If coins can provide 6% PA in perpetuity - that means it must be generating some sort of value worth that gross amount. I am not sure any coin is able to do that outside of  - once again - gambling on crypto popularity.


----------



## basilio

frugal.rock said:


> Currently, I have TRON staked on approximately 6% PA rate.
> The reward is deposited daily and is compounding.




Ah that sounds familiar  Welcome to PIPS People in Profit.

Back in 2003-4 the biggest scam in the investment world was PIPS.   It was the biggest of the* High Yield Investment Programs *At that stage there were scores of  these  little Ponzi schemes which tried to seduce punters with the promise of rapidly increasing profits . You could make money in these scheme if you got in and out very quickly. Very few people did.

Bryan Marsden, the architect of PIPS, built a bold new plan which promised to revolutionise the world, create abundance for all and solve world hunger, poverty, Climate change, environmental catastrophe  with his super duper investment program.  Just sign up and invest. There were people who realised it was a total scam and attempted to blow the  whistle. The first reference is one such person. If you read nothing else that article is excelent value.

He also promised a return of 2% a *DAY* on your PIPS account and you could see the money accumulating before your eyes. 

It was incredibly successful but clearly the  multitude of  crypto currency coinage has eclipsed even his take. 





__





						PIPS - The unofficial FAQ (update 13) - Thinkfn
					






					www.thinkfn.com
				







__





						SitNews - PIPS: Ponzi Scam by David G. Hanger
					





					www.sitnews.us
				











						PIPs PureInvestor Scam - Fraud Guides
					

PIPs PureInvestor claims that investors can make 2% a day on their investment but it's nothing but a classic Ponzi Scheme. That's right, PIPs is a scam.




					www.fraudguides.com
				







__





						High-yield investment program - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## basilio

Trader X said:


> It's easier to summarize what crypto is not.  It's not a reliable store of value, viable medium of exchange, safe haven asset, unit of account or currency.  If you cut through the hype around decentralized finance, the network effect, fixed supply (in the case of Bitcoin) and myriad of other proposed use cases for crypto, it's almost entirely a speculative, high risk asset class with no fundamentals to justify its incredible market capitalization.  Crypto trades more like a tech startup that's raising capital for a product idea that gives it some kind of unique edge, burning through that capital while trading at a loss with its stock price soaring in anticipation of the product hype becoming reality.  I think of the crypto market as a transfer of wealth from the naïve to pump and dumb merchants spinning up new cryptos by the thousands to fleece greedy speculators with a road to riches mentality.  It's a tradable hyper-bubble but definitely not an asset class to HODL including Bitcoin.





Post of the  Year Nomination. Trader X.  Worth repeating.


----------



## basilio

Squid Game crypto token collapses in apparent scam​Published
2 November




	

		
			
		

		
	
Image source, Netflix
*A digital token inspired by the popular South Korean Netflix series Squid Game has lost almost all of its value as it was revealed to be an apparent scam.*
Squid, which marketed itself as a "play-to-earn cryptocurrency", had seen its price soar in recent days - surging by thousands of per cent.
However, as the BBC reported, it was criticised for not allowing people to resell their tokens.
This kind of scam is commonly called a "rug pull" by crypto investors.
This happens when the promoter of a digital token draws in buyers, stops trading activity and makes off with the money raised from sales.
Squid's developers have made off with an estimated $3.38m (£2.48m), according to technology website Gizmodo.

"Play-to-earn" cryptocurrency is where people buy tokens to use in online games and can earn more tokens which can later be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies or national currencies.

Squid Game cryptocurrency rockets in value
Chinese viewers slam 'copycat' Squid Game show
Last Tuesday, Squid was trading at just 1 cent. In less than a week its price had jumped to over $2,856.
Its value has now plummeted by 99.99%, said cryptocurrency data website









						Squid Game crypto token collapses in apparent scam
					

Inspired by the hugely popular Netflix series Squid Game, the tokens had rocketed in value.



					www.bbc.com
				












						Squid Game cryptocurrency rockets in first few days of trading
					

The popular Netflix show has now spawned a cryptocurrency - and it's soaring.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## Faramir

Sorry if the following points have been covered already.

First): _Nothing like CFDs_
I vaguely remember a time when CFDs were all the rage but I avoided them because I was already making mistakes with normal investing. CFDs would compound my stuff ups even more.

Now it’s crypto. I think it might make CFDs look like a kitten???

Second): _A work associate_
Last Friday I met someone (in hospitality/club) who was a manager (or 2IC). He told me that he and Chloe were finishing up on that day to do crypto full time. “It is the future ..... it’s not too late yet to join in but time is running out”. It surprised me because I never thought he would be an “investing“ type of person. Maybe lockdown made him consider this desperate measure? At least there will be hospitality jobs available if he ever changes his mind.

Third): _A Young Friend_
A young 18 year old who I have known for a while told me one or two of his friends were quitting their apprenticeships to do crypto full time. His parents are making him finish his HSC next year. Then he will do one year apprenticeship before following his friends’ career path. I seriously wanted to warn him. I only said it’s risky and it’s something I don’t understand. Hopefully crypto will crash before he makes that decision to join his friends.

Fourth): _Junk Emails_
My franchisor boss has done stupid things on the internet (like looking at pr0n) and infected our servers (and our work email addresses). Monitoring the massive amount of junk emails I delete daily, Bit Coin, crypto, etc comes and goes in waves. My simple theory: junk emails peaks after crypto peaks. Junk emails drops off after a massive drop and is replaced by the usual ED solutions, free sex and other normal junk emails instead of crypto junk emails. Then the cycle of crypto junk emails starts again.

Fifth): _Skill Set_
Maybe my thinking is just completely wrong and I have the wrong skills. No wonder it’s all going over my head. If I knew how click TikTok, be an influencer of Instagram, get lots of likes on Facebook, etc. These clicking and swiping skills will give a decent foundation to tackle crypto trading? Isn’t it as easy as downloading an app and start tapping away?
(I am sorry to say that getting lots of likes on ASF ain’t going to cut it 🤣)

Well, what do I know? Crypto may go up forever and I have missed out on a lifetime opportunity?


----------



## Smurf1976

Faramir said:


> He told me that he and Chloe were finishing up on that day to do crypto full time. “It is the future .....



As someone who remembers it well, this all just sounds so much like late 1999 with people quitting their jobs and day trading tech stocks at home.

That did not end at all well for most.


----------



## qldfrog

It will not be ling before  "free" crypto currencies become Illegal to be replaced by gov or big corp ones
https://www.news.com.au/finance/mon...s/news-story/8085455e8e778fbdea5826e349f7d78c
To orotect you .if course


----------



## basilio

ABC has a detailed  outstanding story on the way 3 different people were scammed through crypto currency operators.

They had taken good care  to verify the credentials of their advisors -  but they lost their money just the same.  The Federal police believe $100m has been scammed this year alone.

Cryptocurrency scams targeting Australians as scammers bank more than $100 million​By consumer affairs reporter Amy Bainbridge and the Specialist Reporting Team's Lucy Kent
Posted 6h ago6 hours ago, updated 1h ago1 hours ago


 Three families, three separate crypto scams. (ABC News)
Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article

They're three families, all from different parts of Australia.

They have vastly different backgrounds and financial situations.

But one common thread binds them: they have all been embroiled in scams involving cryptocurrency, the decentralised digital currency.
These scams have crippled their futures, with hundreds of thousands of dollars funnelled into the hands of cybercriminals, and lost forever.

Australian Federal Police say cryptocurrency scams have "exploded" during the pandemic, with new figures from the Australian consumer watchdog showing a 172 per cent increase in losses between January and November this year, totalling $109 million.

What is cryptocurrency?​
Cryptocurrency, or "crypto", is decentralised "digital money"
There are more than 10,000 cryptocurrencies in use around the world
The Australian Tax Office estimates up to 600,000 Australians have invested in "crypto-assets"
Some cryptocurrencies have exploded it value over the past two years  
The technology has been praised for its portability, inflation resistance and transparency
But criticisms centre on its exchange rate volatility and its susceptibility to illegal activity and scams









						Emma and Hugo were saving for a house deposit. Then they tried to invest in cryptocurrency and lost it all
					

Australian police say cryptocurrency scams have "exploded" during the pandemic. These three families were sucked in.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## joeno

Faramir said:


> Well, what do I know? Crypto may go up forever and I have missed out on a lifetime opportunity?




I own some cryptos. I am not a hater. It is very possible things we do not "yet understand" can become huge. Just like 1999 if you invested in Amazon, Microsoft at the lofty huge valuations you would still be VERY positive in the long term.

However in the short-medium term there are limits to how big an asset class can become before it can be classified as "without a doubt" insanely over-valued where anyone sensible should start shorting and buying put options with pretty much 100% success (if they can afford the margin calls).

This would be 1/3 of the market capitalization of the US which is $30 trillion. No way any single unproven, company or asset class can reach $10T (1/3 of the entire market cap, = to entire world capitalization of Gold) and stay there. Without having years and years of proven solid predictable financial performance.

Cryptos were around $3T. That means cryptos would only need to increase by 300% (very easy given the volatility of cryptos) before it becomes so insanely overvalued that there is no possible sustainable upside. It would be a case of people offering to buy your flower with their house.


----------



## ducati916

LOL.



jog on
duc


----------



## over9k

joeno said:


> I own some cryptos. I am not a hater. It is very possible things we do not "yet understand" can become huge. Just like 1999 if you invested in Amazon, Microsoft at the lofty huge valuations you would still be VERY positive in the long term.
> 
> However in the short-medium term there are limits to how big an asset class can become before it can be classified as "without a doubt" insanely over-valued where anyone sensible should start shorting and buying put options with pretty much 100% success (if they can afford the margin calls).
> 
> This would be 1/3 of the market capitalization of the US which is $30 trillion. No way any single unproven, company or asset class can reach $10T (1/3 of the entire market cap, = to entire world capitalization of Gold) and stay there. Without having years and years of proven solid predictable financial performance.
> 
> Cryptos were around $3T. That means cryptos would only need to increase by 300% (very easy given the volatility of cryptos) before it becomes so insanely overvalued that there is no possible sustainable upside. It would be a case of people offering to buy your flower with their house.



I think you're half correct here joeno. 


The analogy I use with the .com boom/bust is the internet - there was (is) the internet itself, and then there was (is) internet based companies. 

In the .com bust, no shortage of companies were pump & dumps that people lost entire life savings on. Those companies vanished after people lost everything. 

But the internet itself is bigger than ever and quite clearly not going away. 

So the way I think of it is that cryptocurrency is like the internet and each individual currency is like one of the endless internet-based companies. 

So like with the .com boom when people just heard ".com" and threw money at it without a 2nd thought we now get people hearing that something's some type of cryptocurrency and just throwing money at it without hesitation. 

Some cryptocurrencies are total pump & dumps/bubbles, just like a lot of former .com's. But cryptocurrency as a sector is a winner, just like internet-based was. 


So all you need to do is buy some of the amazon/microsoft/apple/google/etc of cryptocurrencies and you're golden.


----------



## wayneL

I'm old, and though I am playing in the cryptocurrency space, I don't really understand how they have any value at all.

Gold maybe a pretty rock but in the end, there it is, and you can hold a God damned an ounce of gold in your hand.

It has a cost of production and a tangible result.

Bitcoin certainly has a cost of production but it doesn't have a tangible result.

Cryptos really only have value so long as enough people say they have value. That may be the same with almost everything.

Additionally they only survive so long as electricity survives.

If the ccp lets off a nuke in the stratosphere and takes out our whole electromagnetic system, crypto is f***ed.

But if that happens I still may have those ounces of gold and silver buried in the backyard.

Therefore I say that cryptos only exist by the good crace our technological system being up and running.

That could disappear rapidly.


----------



## divs4ever

Treasurer moves to regulate cryptocurrency

https://thebull.com.au/treasurer-moves-to-regulate-cryptocurrency/

can't have non-government crooks operating a currency scam , can we ??


----------



## joeno

over9k said:


> So the way I think of it is that cryptocurrency is like the internet and each individual currency is like one of the endless internet-based companies.




In late 90s I went on the internet and played games, researched for my homework, listened to music, looked for cheats for video games, downloaded video games, talked to my friends on AOL messenger. Adults were buying stuff on the internet already.

Let me know which coins allow you do cool stuff like the internet did and I'll buy those.

I feel like cryptos could become even BIGGER if governments across the world are exposed and become more corrupt, AND the people rise up against them. If we let governments rule us as they do today they'll hinder the ability of cryptos to upend the monetary and financial system.

They also need to build a mechanism in Bitcoin to FAIRLY distribute its coins to the population. This would involve people who have hoarded 100/1000s of bitcoins to lose out and be VERY VERY pissed.

I can't think of any other way. All other roads lead to cryptos being kind of a joke asset until they advance the technology to prove actual uses outside transactional use.


----------



## over9k

joeno said:


> In late 90s I went on the internet and played games, researched for my homework, listened to music, looked for cheats for video games, downloaded video games, talked to my friends on AOL messenger. Adults were buying stuff on the internet already.
> 
> Let me know which coins allow you do cool stuff like the internet did and I'll buy those.
> 
> I feel like cryptos could become even BIGGER if governments across the world are exposed and become more corrupt, AND the people rise up against them. If we let governments rule us as they do today they'll hinder the ability of cryptos to upend the monetary and financial system.
> 
> They also need to build a mechanism in Bitcoin to FAIRLY distribute its coins to the population. This would involve people who have hoarded 100/1000s of bitcoins to lose out and be VERY VERY pissed.
> 
> I can't think of any other way. All other roads lead to cryptos being kind of a joke asset until they advance the technology to prove actual uses outside transactional use.



So you're saying the actual intrinsic value of crypto is no different to various precious metals, gems etc? 

Because they're still bought as stores of value even now.


----------



## Smurf1976

joeno said:


> Just like 1999 if you invested in Amazon, Microsoft at the lofty huge valuations you would still be VERY positive in the long term.



I'm seeing many similarities to 1999 with all this.

Only yesterday I saw an article in the mainstream media which said 17% of Australians now own crypto and a further 13% intend to buy. That's 30% of the population - take out children, elderly people with no interest in investing in anything other than a superannuation fund, people without any money to invest in the first place etc and a huge % of those who potentially could buy have either already done so or are about to.

Then last night I read the comments on a YouTube video which literally said that Warren Buffet has lost the plot, is outdated, doesn't get modern technology etc and should be investing in cryptos instead. Buffet being featured in the video.

That last point is almost exactly what was being said 22 years ago apart from the detail of dot com stocks versus cryptos and the platform used to express the view. It's the same thing though - people were saying Buffet's lost the plot etc and doesn't get it back then right before the crash. He got it alright.....

All seems rather toppy to me and very much like 1999 but as with anything, getting the precise timing right is hard.

Perhaps I should buy a new car? I did in fact buy a new car on the exact day of the March 2000 market top. Pure coincidence of course but still. If you spot me in any car showrooms then might be a good time to bail out....


----------



## joeno

Smurf1976 said:


> I'm seeing many similarities to 1999 with all this.




Cryptos are competing with Gold, not with technology stocks. At least right now - who knows what the future holds in store.

Problem with this is cryptos are unstable and created based on the assumption they will replace fiat currency. i.e. the USD.

Sure they're great in 3rd world country where local currency sucks and they can't buy dollars. But most 3rd world countries are poor and producing little to support the value of cryptos.

So let me know when the US government, federal reserve and CIA are fine with a bunch of internet dudes subverting and replacing the US dollar. As I said cryptos will go up when there is a coup-d'etat. Not business as usual.


----------



## greggles

joeno said:


> Cryptos are competing with Gold, not with technology stocks. At least right now - who knows what the future holds in store.




I think Smurf is suggesting that the current hysteria and bubble market conditions surrounding crypto was last observed in the late 1990s when we had the dot com boom. I agree with him.


----------



## sptrawler

wayneL said:


> I'm old, and though I am playing in the cryptocurrency space, I don't really understand how they have any value at all.
> 
> Gold maybe a pretty rock but in the end, there it is, and you can hold a God damned an ounce of gold in your hand.
> 
> It has a cost of production and a tangible result.
> 
> Bitcoin certainly has a cost of production but it doesn't have a tangible result.
> 
> Cryptos really only have value so long as enough people say they have value. That may be the same with almost everything.
> 
> Additionally they only survive so long as electricity survives.
> 
> If the ccp lets off a nuke in the stratosphere and takes out our whole electromagnetic system, crypto is f***ed.
> 
> But if that happens I still may have those ounces of gold and silver buried in the backyard.
> 
> Therefore I say that cryptos only exist by the good crace our technological system being up and running.
> 
> That could disappear rapidly.



The other thing is a currency is only of value if it is legal tender, like if I photocopy a $100 note it is just a bit of paper, whereas gold and material assets have some retained value in the fact, as you say that you can hold onto it or swap it for something else of value, make it into jewelry etc, what do you actually have with a piece of a bitcoin? A bit of a number?

if the Governments of the World decide to go digital and generate their own digital currencies that are in someway totalized on a world register that has its own encryption, how would these privately generated and ledgered coins be legal tender?

My guess is they all become worthless,  I think the people who designed it have just done a lot of the R&D for the Goverments, but they've made plenty of money from it also, so kudos to them.


----------



## Smurf1976

greggles said:


> I think Smurf is suggesting that the current hysteria and bubble market conditions surrounding crypto was last observed in the late 1990s when we had the dot com boom.



That's my point yes.

Different thing involved but the similarities are striking. It's like hearing a band cover a song that you remember from years ago. Some differences in style but it's the same song, the lyrics are identical.

Back then there was mass public involvement in the markets and enthusiasm over a new technology, people were quitting their jobs to day trade and the likes of Warren Buffett were being labelled as "past it" for not jumping on board. The asset in question was frequently in the mainstream non-financial news such was the degree of public involvement.

That's exactly what's happening now, it's all there word for word. Different band but it's the same song.


----------



## joeno

Smurf1976 said:


> That's my point yes.
> 
> Different thing involved but the similarities are striking. It's like hearing a band cover a song that you remember from years ago. Some differences in style but it's the same song, the lyrics are identical.




1999 everyone i knew at school used computers and the internet and loved what was on there. Whether the tech stocks were going down and up was irrelevant. It was a great, fun, useful technology. In 1999.

I don't get where crypto are going overall. And i don't know anyone who uses any single crypto for any purpose other than gambling on the price movements.

Yeah smart people are working on cryptos. That i do get. But are they improving the technology for practical revolutionary application? Or do they realise the technology itself is extremely limited and spend their genius on creating scam cryptos with funny sounding names and then advertising it for easy $$$ gains? I don't know. You guys tell me.


----------



## over9k

joeno said:


> 1999 everyone i knew at school used computers and the internet and loved what was on there. Whether the tech stocks were going down and up was irrelevant. It was a great, fun, useful technology. In 1999.
> 
> I don't get where crypto are going overall. And i don't know anyone who uses any single crypto for any purpose other than gambling on the price movements.
> 
> Yeah smart people are working on cryptos. That i do get. But are they improving the technology for practical revolutionary application? Or do they realise the technology itself is extremely limited and spend their genius on creating scam cryptos with funny sounding names and then advertising it for easy $$$ gains? I don't know. You guys tell me.



They're trying to get out from under the thumb of the petrodollar. Doubly so when it's being printed out the wahzoo.


----------



## Trader X

sptrawler said:


> My guess is they all become worthless, I think the people who designed it have just done a lot of the R&D for the Governments, but they've made plenty of money from it also, so kudos to them.



Not only have crypto developers given governments/central banks a proof of concept for future digital currency introduction, they have laid the foundation for it's acceptance and ironically lead to inevitable restrictions, regulation or outright bans on their competition to legal tender digital fiat.  More than this, governments monitoring China's success with the digital yuan, will use crypto as a means of surveillance, control and currency manipulation to an extent current crypto advocates should be wary of.  

Crypto trading is a zero sum game, some have made fortunes by being early but it only takes a few whales to head for the exit to bring the crypto market crashing down.  Musk and Tesla demonstrated this quite well. You can be certain the whales will exit first and leave millions of stunned Satoshi hodlers screaming for authorities to intervene.  Will all competing crypto become worthless, perhaps not but it's hard to imagine the survivors will trade at anywhere near current levels.


----------



## over9k

Trader X said:


> Not only have crypto developers given governments/central banks a proof of concept for future digital currency introduction, they have laid the foundation for it's acceptance and ironically lead to inevitable restrictions, regulation or outright bans on their competition to legal tender digital fiat.  More than this, governments monitoring China's success with the digital yuan, will use crypto as a means of surveillance, control and currency manipulation to an extent current crypto advocates should be wary of.
> 
> Crypto trading is a zero sum game, some have made fortunes by being early but it only takes a few whales to head for the exit to bring the crypto market crashing down.  Musk and Tesla demonstrated this quite well. You can be certain the whales will exit first and leave millions of stunned Satoshi hodlers screaming for authorities to intervene.  Will all competing crypto become worthless, perhaps not but it's hard to imagine the survivors will trade at anywhere near current levels.



Hello 1999, how are we doing?


----------



## over9k

On that note, I wonder if we'll see a Y2K for crypto? 

You know, someone's found a fatal flaw with that's a ticking time bomb that will bring the whole system to its knees that all the engineers missed blah blah blah?


----------



## over9k

Cross-post:


Aaaaaand the inflation data is in:




Equity futures gone nuts everywhere about 0.5% in response, banks the best, everything's green as this was already priced in (because of course it was, you'd have to be an idiot not to think we were going to see numbers like this) but the best place to be with inflation is of course crypto, and most of that has run about twice as much as equities:




I have posted crypto's correlation to inflation about a thousand times for a reason. I have made solid bank tonight. If you aren't making crypto plays you are a fool at this point.

This is a *40 year high* for inflation and it is NOT going to be transitory. 

If I thought this inflation was going to subside, I'd agree with @Trader X, but because I don't, I don't.


----------



## over9k

Side by side:




You have to run 3x etf's to get the leverage necessary to use equities to match crypto's movements on the right kind of news. That is how much better a play crypto is right now. 3x.


----------



## Trader X

over9k said:


> I have posted crypto's correlation to inflation about a thousand times for a reason. I have made solid bank tonight. If you aren't making crypto plays you are a fool at this point.
> 
> This is a *40 year high* for inflation and it is NOT going to be transitory.



Never suggested that crypto is not a tradeable asset, quite the contrary, it's volatility can be traded successfully and many have made bank doing it.  But of course your winning trades are others losing trades.  Doesn't really matter what the long term future of crypto is to a day, news or swing trader.  Long term, the future of crypto is as central bank digital currency.  Contrary to the hopes of crypto maximalists, central banks hate competition for good reasons and will seek to suppress it as China has done.

Agree that inflation is not transitory. As for the assertion that crypto is an inflation hedge, I am having great difficulty aligning that claim with the chart below. With inflation even higher than the downward biased official figures, why is the premier digital asset, Bitcoin, down 26% and counting in a month of record inflation reporting by virtually every media platform on the planet?  Perhaps because it's not really an inflation hedge? Begs the question, are those who bought Bitcoin at $60K+ feeling comfortable they hold an inflation proof asset?

The 80% of holders that never sell their Satoshi stash thinking it's an inflation hedge and road to riches will be the losers in the end, the short term traders and pump and dumpers are the smart money now.


----------



## over9k

Trader X said:


> Never suggested that crypto is not a tradeable asset, quite the contrary, it's volatility can be traded successfully and many have made bank doing it.  But of course your winning trades are others losing trades.  Doesn't really matter what the long term future of crypto is to a day, news or swing trader.  Long term, the future of crypto is as central bank digital currency.  Contrary to the hopes of crypto maximalists, central banks hate competition for good reasons and will seek to suppress it as China has done.
> 
> Agree that inflation is not transitory. As for the assertion that crypto is an inflation hedge, I am having great difficulty aligning that claim with the chart below. With inflation even higher than the downward biased official figures, why is the premier digital asset, Bitcoin, down 26% and counting in a month of record inflation reporting by virtually every media platform on the planet?  Perhaps because it's not really an inflation hedge? Begs the question, are those who bought Bitcoin at $60K+ feeling comfortable they hold an inflation proof asset?
> 
> The 80% of holders that never sell their Satoshi stash thinking it's an inflation hedge and road to riches will be the losers in the end, the short term traders and pump and dumpers are the smart money now.
> 
> View attachment 134100



Depends what's already priced in, but you've also cherrypicked a three week period. No correlations are perfect. In this case, even worse numbers were already priced in.








Run your chart out a bit and you'll see quite a different picture. Last night, bond yields actually DROPPED on the 6.8% numbers news because the market had priced in an even worse number. Hence why the nasdaq ran the hardest of the major indices as being big tech heavy it's thus most sensitive to p/e and therefore interest rates.

NDX futures are the highest even now.


----------



## Trader X

over9k said:


> Run your chart out a bit and you'll see quite a different picture. Last night, bond yields actually DROPPED on the 6.8% numbers news because the market had priced in an even worse number. Hence why the nasdaq ran the hardest of the major indices as being big tech heavy it's thus most sensitive to p/e and therefore interest rates.



Given the extreme price volatility of Bitcoin over this last year, the unreliability, inaccuracy and managed bias of official inflation figures and the fact BTC traded sideways the previous three years before exploding upward, it's difficult to reconcile your top chart with actual BTC price history.  The 5 year BTC chart below is more closely correlated with tech stocks like Tesla or some of the meme stocks over this time series.  The obvious difference being that the FAANGs, Tesla etc. are profitable enterprises creating real products and services while crypto is more akin to the tech stocks of the late 90s that were never profitable, essentially worthless entities trading at sky high prices based on pure speculation.  We all know how that era ended and crypto speculation is likely to be the same history repeating itself in another guise.


----------



## over9k

It's like you can't even see the charts I posted. I mean I literally posted bitcoin's volatility tracking the 10 year treasury to show why bitcoin's been so volatile and you responded as if you didn't even see it.

There's always mania with the new "thing". What you're saying is exactly what was being said about amazon etc 20+ years ago. This was correct about a lot of the "etc's". It was not correct about amazon, which is my entire point.

At no point have I said that all crypto's are a good idea, in fact I've made quite a point of stating that they aren't, and I've also made a point of saying not all internet companies were in 1999 either.

But the internet itself *was*, hence why we have companies like google, microsoft etc now despite the massive bust. Take and apply to crypto and as I keep saying, sort the wheat from the chaff.

Dogecoin is not bitcoin same as pets.com is not amazon.com.


And honestly, if you think any of the old rules since before the pandemic crash still apply then I'm not really sure what to say to you. If you (or anyone else) don't realise that we're now living in an entirely different market and everything before the crash of march last year no longer applies then there's really nothing else I can say.

There is a reason why I never run any chart out to the half decade point or whatever. In fact, the only time I do is precisely when I'm showing just how different a market we are now in.


----------



## Trader X

over9k said:


> There's always mania with the new "thing". What you're saying is exactly what was being said about amazon etc 20+ years ago. This was correct about a lot of the "etc's". It was not correct about amazon, which is my entire point.



Comparing Bitcoin or any other crypto to Amazon, Microsoft, Google etc. in any sense is a false equivalence perpetuated particularly within the Bitcoin community by the likes of Mike Saylor, Mark Moss, Anthony Pompliano etc.  Bitcoin is an application of blockchain technology, not a technology company selling products and services for profit.  Bitcoin has no intrinsic value as a product or service, nor does it act as currency for financial transactions.  Any use of Bitcoin to transact would necessitate immediate conversion to a stable fiat currency like the USD to limit the financial risk of holding Bitcoin for any length of time. But then you should never sell your Bitcoin so why transact.

Bitcoin is the premier digital asset by market cap primarily because hodlers have been convinced the hyperbole of promoters (with a vested interest) is true and its price will go to the moon and make them rich, not because any of the actual applications of the technology itself (that few understand at all) will ever increase its intrinsic value.  It's a mania for this reason, not because it's the next Amazon or Google and never will be.

We are revisiting another historic manifestation of exploiting human greed, a manic event that has happened before in the past. Crypto investing is a fad that has caught on due to FOMO and hype just as internet stocks were in the late 90's before they crashed.  If you can't see that then there's really nothing else I can say.


----------



## over9k

Trader X said:


> Comparing Bitcoin or any other crypto to Amazon, Microsoft, Google etc. in any sense is a false equivalence perpetuated particularly within the Bitcoin community by the likes of Mike Saylor, Mark Moss, Anthony Pompliano etc.  Bitcoin is an application of blockchain technology, not a technology company selling products and services for profit.  Bitcoin has no intrinsic value as a product or service, nor does it act as currency for financial transactions.  Any use of Bitcoin to transact would necessitate immediate conversion to a stable fiat currency like the USD to limit the financial risk of holding Bitcoin for any length of time. But then you should never sell your Bitcoin so why transact.
> 
> Bitcoin is the premier digital asset by market cap primarily because hodlers have been convinced the hyperbole of promoters (with a vested interest) is true and its price will go to the moon and make them rich, not because any of the actual applications of the technology itself (that few understand at all) will ever increase its intrinsic value.  It's a mania for this reason, not because it's the next Amazon or Google and never will be.
> 
> We are revisiting another historic manifestation of exploiting human greed, a manic event that has happened before in the past. Crypto investing is a fad that has caught on due to FOMO and hype just as internet stocks were in the late 90's before they crashed.  If you can't see that then there's really nothing else I can say.



Cope


----------



## moXJO

Trader X said:


> Comparing Bitcoin or any other crypto to Amazon, Microsoft, Google etc. in any sense is a false equivalence perpetuated particularly within the Bitcoin community by the likes of Mike Saylor, Mark Moss, Anthony Pompliano etc.  Bitcoin is an application of blockchain technology, not a technology company selling products and services for profit.  Bitcoin has no intrinsic value as a product or service, nor does it act as currency for financial transactions.  Any use of Bitcoin to transact would necessitate immediate conversion to a stable fiat currency like the USD to limit the financial risk of holding Bitcoin for any length of time. But then you should never sell your Bitcoin so why transact.
> 
> Bitcoin is the premier digital asset by market cap primarily because hodlers have been convinced the hyperbole of promoters (with a vested interest) is true and its price will go to the moon and make them rich, not because any of the actual applications of the technology itself (that few understand at all) will ever increase its intrinsic value.  It's a mania for this reason, not because it's the next Amazon or Google and never will be.
> 
> We are revisiting another historic manifestation of exploiting human greed, a manic event that has happened before in the past. Crypto investing is a fad that has caught on due to FOMO and hype just as internet stocks were in the late 90's before they crashed.  If you can't see that then there's really nothing else I can say.



 These coins also represent ecosystems that are expanding. Both with eth, sol and a myriad of others. 






						90+ #Ethereum Apps You Can Use Right Now
					

Need work? Buying art? Licensing music? Getting a loan? There’s an Ethereum dapp for that.




					consensys.net
				




They go beyond that of just "store of wealth".
 So you are actually wrong about the comparison. 

I've communicated with a lot of people in the space and it is not going away. From the sounds of it, you have a very shallow understanding of what is trying to be achieved. It's very early days. 

That's not to say we won't see a crash or coins disappear. Regulation will stifle the space. But it is basically being touted as the new "web". And it does feel that way in many regards. I was a user of the internet when it first launched and the crypto space has the same feel.

The space is over a decade old. It's hardly a flash in the pan "fad"


----------



## moXJO

Since 2010 bitcoin returns 99331348.192%

335.394% yearly returns.

So everyone had 12 years (or even 7 years of high profits) to spend 1 month to learn the ins and outs of the space.

Hands up who did 

If not: why at least from an investors curiosity perspective?


----------



## basilio

While enough  new people  "believe" and part with the readies to keep the crypto market going the prices will stay buoyant. Just like tulips really.

Another  current perspective on the game.

Cryptocurrency bubble risks exposed by Bitcoin's recent slide​By business editor Ian Verrender
Posted 2h ago2 hours ago


  Bitcoin investors who bought at the start of the year would be up around 70 per cent in US dollars, but those who bought near the peak later this year are down around 25 per cent.(Unsplash: Executium)
Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article


They seem to be almost everywhere. Cool looking hipsters livin' the dream after amassing a fortune in the world of crypto.
Social media sites are overflowing with them. Even old school glossy magazines, barely clinging to life, have dialled in with tales tall and not so true of the fabulous riches to be earned in the ether.

There's no doubt they exist. Those that either got in early or built financial structures that facilitate trades which, none like to admit, replicate old style banks and broking houses, have socked away unimaginable riches.

But what of the hoi polloi? How many newly arrived crypto traders, just for example, lost their life savings last weekend, when bitcoin and the crypto universe plummeted?

Just like pokie addicts and those who frequent the track, the wins are talked up while the losses often are forgotten.

The allure may be the same; the chance to strike it rich, big time. But, unlike ordinary gamblers, many crypto devotees have embraced what they believe is the future of finance with a kind of religious zealotry that insulates them from reality.

Launched in 2009, Bitcoin was supposed to liberate ordinary citizens from the shackles of government and nation; an alternative, independent and truly global financial system.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.



 Bitcoin explained: Everything you need to know about the crypto craze(David Chau)

More than a decade later, however, and the faithful can't, or refuse to, recognise the ultimate irony. Instead of overthrowing traditional currencies, bitcoin and its 10,000 or so imitators are still priced in them.

The devotees, even the famous and fabulously rich, measure their wealth not in BTC but in greenbacks, yen, pounds, euro and Aussie dollars.









						Cryptocurrencies on a knife edge: Is this the slow decline of Bitcoin?
					

While cryptocurrency millionaires allegedly abound, the real future for digital currencies looks far more conventional and state-controlled, writes Ian Verrender.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## moXJO

basilio said:


> While enough  new people  "believe" and part with the readies to keep the crypto market going the prices will stay buoyant. Just like tulips really.
> 
> Another  current perspective on the game.
> 
> Cryptocurrency bubble risks exposed by Bitcoin's recent slide​By business editor Ian Verrender
> Posted 2h ago2 hours ago
> View attachment 134180
> 
> Bitcoin investors who bought at the start of the year would be up around 70 per cent in US dollars, but those who bought near the peak later this year are down around 25 per cent.



Stay in the shallow end boys.


----------



## Trader X

moXJO said:


> These coins also represent ecosystems that are expanding.



Such "ecosystems" are only sustained by confidence in the claims made by self-interested promoters, with laser eyes in their images, about the future of Bitcoin. Ecosystems need to be self-sustaining or they collapse and Crypto is not a self-sustaining financial ecosystem.

Let's imagine a dialogue with a typical 20 something with little or no investing experience or knowledge (the vast majority no doubt) who puts all his spare change into a Satoshi stash, call him Dennis Denuto.

So Dennis, you've made some paper profits buying Bitcoin, can you answer a few questions for me...

*What's your trading plan?*
  A) What's a trading plan?
*What strategy do you use to decide when to buy and sell?*
  A) I buy as much as I can because it always goes up eventually, it's already up 99331348% and is going to a million. Also maxed out my credit card buying more.
*Why do you think it's going to a million?*
  A) Because it's just like Tesla, Apple and Amazon, it's new technology and everyone I know is buying it. Also, Mike Saylor says so.
*What do you know about Blockchain tech and Bitcoin's value add proposition?*
  A)  Umm, well I can exchange my dollars for Bitcoin and make money by never selling
*Do you care then if Bitcoin is really not a store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account, or acting as digital currency?*
  A) Not really, why would I?
*Have you heard of Dogecoin and Shibu Inu?*
  A) Yes, put some money in them also but sadly my holdings are in the dog house, down 70% this week.
*So how would you describe the future of crypto currency?
*A) It's the future of the internet, it's the vibe, it's Mabo

Genuinely no offense intended to anyone, but the blind faith exhibited in the future of crypto by millions of novice speculators should be a cause of concern.


----------



## moXJO

Trader X said:


> Such "ecosystems" are only sustained by confidence in the claims made by self-interested promoters, with laser eyes in their images, about the future of Bitcoin. Ecosystems need to be self-sustaining or they collapse and Crypto is not a self-sustaining financial ecosystem.
> 
> Let's imagine a dialogue with a typical 20 something with little or no investing experience or knowledge (the vast majority no doubt) who puts all his spare change into a Satoshi stash, call him Dennis Denuto.
> 
> So Dennis, you've made some paper profits buying Bitcoin, can you answer a few questions for me...
> 
> *What's your trading plan?*
> A) What's a trading plan?
> *What strategy do you use to decide when to buy and sell?*
> A) I buy as much as I can because it always goes up eventually, it's already up 99331348% and is going to a million. Also maxed out my credit card buying more.
> *Why do you think it's going to a million?*
> A) Because it's just like Tesla, Apple and Amazon, it's new technology and everyone I know is buying it. Also, Mike Saylor says so.
> *What do you know about Blockchain tech and Bitcoin's value add proposition?*
> A)  Umm, well I can exchange my dollars for Bitcoin and make money by never selling
> *Do you care then if Bitcoin is really not a store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account, or acting as digital currency?*
> A) Not really, why would I?
> *Have you heard of Dogecoin and Shibu Inu?*
> A) Yes, put some money in them also but sadly my holdings are in the dog house, down 70% this week.
> *So how would you describe the future of crypto currency?
> *A) It's the future of the internet, it's the vibe, it's Mabo
> 
> Genuinely no offense intended to anyone, but the blind faith exhibited in the future of crypto by millions of novice speculators should be a cause of concern.



You mean the same speculators that have always been there from tulips onwards. Whom drive up your % returns (as you should be able to spot an opportunity)?

You don't have to "believe" in its sustainability to trade it. 

What's your argument.
Crypto is risky?

All the people I've seen take major losses cried but accepted it. It's the nature of the space. You would have to be really dumb to not know the risks. Meme coins are lottery tickets. Others are made viable from in game utility. Anything can pump or dump at any time. And as far as I'm concerned it's a pain in the ar5e to use. 

But I'll trade caterpillars if I can make a profit.
What the hell are you doing?
Standing back for a decade saying "It's not sustainable, it's going to crash". That to me is worse. Why wouldn't I want to learn the basics of the space with the returns on offer. 

I get your point. But doesn't everyone already know that crypto is basically a casino for many.


----------



## qldfrog

moXJO said:


> Since 2010 bitcoin returns 99331348.192%
> 
> 335.394% yearly returns.
> 
> So everyone had 12 years (or even 7 years of high profits) to spend 1 month to learn the ins and outs of the space.
> 
> Hands up who did
> 
> If not: why at least from an investors curiosity perspective?



Cryptos: a personal history
I started with paper wallet etherium and bitcoin, then thought I should put a few $ there
Then too busy to try to save the world (babys) and 2 years later, prevented to save babies and no $;
 woke up after looking at the price of BTC, bought a few ethernum, and few btc bits I think..was too expensive @  8k AUD or something LOL;
then flying across continents for new venture and thought hum should buy 3 or 4 BTC..well, by the time I was able to actually buy-> could get 1 not 3 for that amount of $;
So yes i looked at the tech, but yes i missed most of the gains;
I think overall cryptos netted me around $60k, taxed, so less in the pocket and still some gambled now but not much: I am personally scared of governments..aka China move reproduced here.
anyway..these gains cover parts of my systems losses


----------



## over9k

There's no point that's been made here about crypto that couldn't be made about precious gems, and yet, last I checked, diamonds were still worth serious money.


----------



## moXJO

over9k said:


> There's no point that's been made here about crypto that couldn't be made about precious gems, and yet, last I checked, diamonds were still worth serious money.



I think a study was done (or something) and Lego was one of the strongest performers for returns.
Serious niche fundamental analysis needed.


----------



## over9k

moXJO said:


> I think a study was done (or something) and Lego was one of the strongest performers for returns.
> Serious niche fundamental analysis needed.



Hilarious as that is, my point is that confidence is confidence. Precious gems lack any intrinsic value (are for the most part utterly useless) unless someone else will pay money for them too and yet how long has that kind of stuff been valuable, millennia now? 

Saying "it's not backed by anything" is not an argument.


----------



## moXJO

over9k said:


> Hilarious as that is, my point is that confidence is confidence. Precious gems lack any intrinsic value (are for the most part utterly useless) unless someone else will pay money for them too and yet how long has that kind of stuff been valuable, millennia now?
> 
> Saying "it's not backed by anything" is not an argument.



I know. I just really wanted to throw that Lego fact out there.


----------



## qldfrog

The way things are going in Oz, storing a bit of diesel, flour bags and cans and you will easily beat the share market in the next 6 months,  tax free, or stockpile and resell both uel and generators so that people can power their computer to try to sell their cryptos for a feed? 
Purposely provocative...


----------



## againsthegrain

qldfrog said:


> The way things are going in Oz, storing a bit of diesel, flour bags and cans and you will easily beat the share market in the next 6 months,  tax free, or stockpile and resell both uel and generators so that people can power their computer to try to sell their cryptos for a feed?
> Purposely provocative...




That would make you a pest and feeding on other people's misery and pain. Just buy some RE and do the same and you will be a hard worker and smart investor instead


----------



## qldfrog

againsthegrain said:


> That would make you a pest and feeding on other people's misery and pain. Just buy some RE and do the same and you will be a hard worker and smart investor instead



Can i do both?


----------



## againsthegrain

qldfrog said:


> Can i do both?




Shure shure, you can do anything its a  free country and  capitalism


----------



## Trader X

moXJO said:


> But I'll trade caterpillars if I can make a profit.
> What the hell are you doing?
> Standing back for a decade saying "It's not sustainable, it's going to crash". That to me is worse. Why wouldn't I want to learn the basics of the space with the returns on offer.



Should I have speculated in a Bitcoin position 10 years ago, no doubt.  Should I or anyone else speculate in it now is a more relevant question.  When I invest, I like to understand the underlying value proposition and business model in addition to price movement. Take Tesla as one example, on the surface it's primarily an EV company yet it's their energy business that has the greatest profit potential going forward.  So no, I don't invest in unsustainable business models, meme stocks or ramped startups etc. even when the price is rising due to irrational exuberance.  Therefore, I don't speculate at the crypto casino even after many hours of listening to its greatest spin doctors try a sell me on the forecast that all roads lead to Bitcoin as a proxy for fiat currency so hodl and never sell because, among other claims, it's an inflation hedge and store of value???

Looking at how crypto is trading now is very indicative of the high risk tech space in general, any hint of interest rate rises is a risk off event for their stratospheric prices.  With Bitcoin now down 32% from its high of 10 November and inflation soaring, I think it's safe to conclude that it's not an inflation hedge.  What "returns on offer" remain in crypto remains to be seen, at the moment those returns look negative.


----------



## moXJO

Trader X said:


> Should I have speculated in a Bitcoin position 10 years ago, no doubt.  Should I or anyone else speculate in it now is a more relevant question.  When I invest, I like to understand the underlying value proposition and business model in addition to price movement. Take Tesla as one example, on the surface it's primarily an EV company yet it's their energy business that has the greatest profit potential going forward.  So no, I don't invest in unsustainable business models, meme stocks or ramped startups etc. even when the price is rising due to irrational exuberance.  Therefore, I don't speculate at the crypto casino even after many hours of listening to its greatest spin doctors try a sell me on the forecast that all roads lead to Bitcoin as a proxy for fiat currency so hodl and never sell because, among other claims, it's an inflation hedge and store of value???
> 
> Looking at how crypto is trading now is very indicative of the high risk tech space in general, any hint of interest rate rises is a risk off event for their stratospheric prices.  With Bitcoin now down 32% from its high of 10 November and inflation soaring, I think it's safe to conclude that it's not an inflation hedge.  What "returns on offer" remain in crypto remains to be seen, at the moment those returns look negative.



Forget crypto a new product has entered the investment space:
US reality star makes $70,000 selling her farts in jars​








						Reality star makes $70k selling her farts in jars
					

Thanks to the internet the ways you can make money are pretty much limitless these days — as one US reality star has learnt after making more than $70,000 for selling an, ahem, interesting personal product.




					www.news.com.au


----------



## over9k

moXJO said:


> Forget crypto a new product has entered the investment space:
> US reality star makes $70,000 selling her farts in jars​
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Reality star makes $70k selling her farts in jars
> 
> 
> Thanks to the internet the ways you can make money are pretty much limitless these days — as one US reality star has learnt after making more than $70,000 for selling an, ahem, interesting personal product.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.news.com.au



I see your farts and raise you bath water:









						Who is paying $30 for 'gamer girl' Belle Delphine's bath water?
					

Delphine, 19, a social media star with an enormous global following, was mocked for the sale – but it sold out quickly




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## moXJO

I wonder what they put down as "occupation" or "Business description". 

I see that: isellfarts.com domain name isn't registered yet. 
I could be early on this trend.


----------



## over9k

moXJO said:


> I wonder what they put down as "occupation" or "Business description".
> 
> I see that: isellfarts.com domain name isn't registered yet.
> I could be early on this trend.



Registering a domain name and charging someone else a fortune to use it? 

You're about 25 years too late there moxy


----------



## moXJO

over9k said:


> Registering a domain name and charging someone else a fortune to use it?
> 
> You're about 25 years too late there moxy



I meant moving into the "celebrity air" business.  Only A list or above.


----------



## againsthegrain

moXJO said:


> I meant moving into the "celebrity air" business.  Only A list or above.




Get into the counterfeit farts niche before chinese start doing it


----------



## moXJO

againsthegrain said:


> Get into the counterfeit farts niche before chinese start doing it



Memes are so prolific and powerful these days that I'd probably end up with a multimillion dollar business.


----------



## moXJO

Anyway before traderx lowered the bar by making me talk about flatulence based business, I was going to mention most trading is the same greed/fear cycle for most chartists. Fundamentals and value based investing as of late seems to have gone out the door.

Except the excellent value of isellfarts.com!
It's a true 10bagger in the jar at only $3k


----------



## againsthegrain

moXJO said:


> Anyway before traderx lowered the bar by making me talk about flatulence based business, I was going to mention most trading is the same greed/fear cycle for most chartists. Fundamentals and value based investing as of late seems to have gone out the door.
> 
> Except the excellent value of isellfarts.com!
> It's a true 10bagger in the jar at only $3k




Yeah and I like to look into the future,  if farts are a boom maybe should move straight onto selling turds


----------



## qldfrog

againsthegrain said:


> Yeah and I like to look into the future,  if farts are a boom maybe should move straight onto selling turds



I think this is a pretty well established business on the asx with many on offer


----------



## moXJO

againsthegrain said:


> Yeah and I like to look into the future,  if farts are a boom maybe should move straight onto selling turds



Forward thinking at its best. Unfortunately the government seems to be doing it for free.


----------



## over9k

Anyone buy yesterday or did you do nothing because "it has to be the end this time"?


----------



## over9k

Move along, nothing to see here.


----------



## joeno

I have some cryptos. i am too scared to sell cause it might go up 10x and I'll regret it for life. Too scared to buy more as there is no logical basis to it's spectular rise in the last year - other than people saving too much money in quarantine. No underlying product. $3 trillion as a "store of value". Wait... i thought a store of value is supposed to preserve wealth? So what happens *if* bitcoin goes down 90% (compared to fiat AND everything else). Only a good store of value when it goes up? But utterly useless if it goes down? So in other words - not a good store of value.

bitcoin could reasonably replace gold and fiat if perhaps 0.5% new coins can be mined every year for eternity. But because there is a hard limit - it encourages hoarding.


----------



## wayneL

A bit of grist for the mill


----------



## greggles

wayneL said:


> A bit of grist for the mill





I'm no fan of cryptocurrencies, but it's interesting the way that the powers that be (high profile corporate types, politicians, bureaucrats, and now institutions) continue to undermine cryptocurrencies, particular Bitcoin, in an ongoing attempt to remove confidence and spook the crypto market. This isn't being done for the benefit of the crypto HODLers; the anti-crypto crowd would, I'm sure, love to see all those heavily invested in cypto lose their shirts in a crash. That would help their agenda no end.

I'm sceptical of cryptocurrencies, but I'm just as sceptical of the anti-crypto crowd who are simply trying to maintain the status quo for their own benefit. If ever there was a case of self interest disguised as altruism, this is it.


----------



## wayneL

greggles said:


> I'm no fan of cryptocurrencies, but it's interesting the way that the powers that be (high profile corporate types, politicians, bureaucrats, and now institutions) continue to undermine cryptocurrencies, particular Bitcoin, in an ongoing attempt to remove confidence and spook the crypto market. This isn't being done for the benefit of the crypto HODLers; the anti-crypto crowd would, I'm sure, love to see all those heavily invested in cypto lose their shirts in a crash. That would help their agenda no end.
> 
> I'm sceptical of cryptocurrencies, but I'm just as sceptical of the anti-crypto crowd who are simply trying to maintain the status quo for their own benefit. If ever there was a case of self interest disguised as altruism, this is it.



Agreed. It's kind of why I posted that, to get some discussion on the very points you have made.


----------



## Trader X

greggles said:


> I'm no fan of cryptocurrencies, but it's interesting the way that the powers that be (high profile corporate types, politicians, bureaucrats, and now institutions) continue to undermine cryptocurrencies, particular Bitcoin, in an ongoing attempt to remove confidence and spook the crypto market.



Tend to agree with the BOE that anyone speculating in crypto should be prepared to lose, if not everything, then most of their funds.  I don't agree though that Bitcoin is potentially worthless, just not worth anywhere near the price it's trading at.  More troubling for crypto speculators is the hidden messaging from such a powerful financial institution.  Does it signal tighter regulatory oversight is coming or something even more drastic being considered behind the boardroom doors of the world's largest financial institutions and central banks?


----------



## StockyGuy

Trader X said:


> Tend to agree with the BOE that anyone speculating in crypto should be prepared to lose, if not everything, then most of their funds.  I don't agree though that Bitcoin is potentially worthless, just not worth anywhere near the price it's trading at.  More troubling for crypto speculators is the hidden messaging from such a powerful financial institution.  Does it signal tighter regulatory oversight is coming or something even more drastic being considered behind the boardroom doors of the world's largest financial institutions and central banks?




Yep, fair warning has been given.  As if the China and India crypto "warnings" weren't enough.  I assume anyone with ears to hear who's made serious money (never have to work again sort of money) in these Ponzi/pyramid  scheme devil spawn contraptions has by now safely moved away enough profit to proper assets, or even just a real currency, such that they're all good either way, come what may, to their crypto play (sorry for the rhyme).


----------



## basilio

*Making money out of thin air.  Go Meta!!*


A millennial NFT investor made nearly $100,000 in 6 months with a virtual car repair shop and a bank in a gaming metaverse that isn't even live yet​ 



Camomile Shumba
                       Dec. 19, 2021, 07:45 AM                    


A snapshot from The Sandbox virtual metaverse
The Sandbox


37-year old Robert Doyle made $97,344.15 in six months with virtual assets based in Polka City. 
Polka City investors earn money with non-fungible tokens that represent land, businesses, and other assets. 
The metaverse world has boomed since Facebook's name change to Meta.
*Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell**.*
The metaverse has grown astronomically over the past few weeks, with people spending millions of dollars on virtual land. Investors like 37-year old Robert Doyle are already making money out of those assets.

Doyle owns a virtual car-repair shop and a bank in a metaverse that isn't even fully live yet and he's made almost $100,000 in six months, according to crypto wallets shown to Insider.

Polka City, where Doyle's virtual property sits, is a metaverse gaming platform that launched in 2021. Players can buy non-fungible tokens that represent virtual taxis, gas stations, billboards and even motorcycles. They then earn weekly interest paid in the platform's native token. 









						A millennial NFT investor made nearly $100,000 in 6 months with a virtual car repair shop and a bank in a gaming metaverse that isn't even live yet
					

37-year old Robert Doyle made almost $100,000 in 6 months by owning virtual assets in Polka City.




					markets.businessinsider.com


----------



## Trader X

Why the world’s first bitcoin city is a disaster in the making​His bitcoin experiment has largely failed but El Salvador’s fast-talking president says the answer is more bitcoin.

_"Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s experiment in making bitcoin an official national currency alongside the US dollar, which has been the currency since 2001, has not gone well. But when a con artist’s grift starts to fall apart, he knows to move onto the next one fast. The same goes for fast-talking presidents.

*More than 91 percent of Salvadorans want dollars, not bitcoins*. The official Chivo payment system was unreliable at launch in September—the kiss of death for a new system. Users joined for the $US30 sign-up bonus, spent it or cashed it out, then did not use Chivo again.

The system completely failed to check new users’ photos, relying solely on their national identity card number and date of birth; massive identity fraud to steal sign-up bonuses ensued. Bitcoin’s ridiculously volatile price was appreciated only by aspiring day traders.

Large street protests against compulsory bitcoin implementation continued through October. The government stopped promoting Chivo on radio, TV, and social media. Chivo buses and vans were seen with plastic taped over the company’s logo."_

A disaster is unfolding in impoverished El Salvador where it's citizens are being used as guinea pigs by a whacky quasi dictator betting the country's future on the forced adoption of crypto "currency"  as legal tender in a dollarized economy.  Hailed, lauded and facilitated by Bitcoin maximalists (desperate to see this long odds experiment succeed) as a bold move and example to follow, this has to be one of the crueler monetary hoaxes perpetrated at the level of a sovereign country.  No doubt when this experiment fails, the Bitcoin community will blame the failure on everything other than Bitcoin's unsuitability as legal tender (a use for which it was never intended).


----------



## moXJO

basilio said:


> *Making money out of thin air.  Go Meta!!*
> 
> 
> A millennial NFT investor made nearly $100,000 in 6 months with a virtual car repair shop and a bank in a gaming metaverse that isn't even live yet​
> View attachment 134577
> 
> 
> Camomile Shumba
> Dec. 19, 2021, 07:45 AM
> 
> 
> A snapshot from The Sandbox virtual metaverse
> The Sandbox
> 
> 
> 37-year old Robert Doyle made $97,344.15 in six months with virtual assets based in Polka City.
> Polka City investors earn money with non-fungible tokens that represent land, businesses, and other assets.
> The metaverse world has boomed since Facebook's name change to Meta.
> *Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell**.*
> The metaverse has grown astronomically over the past few weeks, with people spending millions of dollars on virtual land. Investors like 37-year old Robert Doyle are already making money out of those assets.
> 
> Doyle owns a virtual car-repair shop and a bank in a metaverse that isn't even fully live yet and he's made almost $100,000 in six months, according to crypto wallets shown to Insider.
> 
> Polka City, where Doyle's virtual property sits, is a metaverse gaming platform that launched in 2021. Players can buy non-fungible tokens that represent virtual taxis, gas stations, billboards and even motorcycles. They then earn weekly interest paid in the platform's native token.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A millennial NFT investor made nearly $100,000 in 6 months with a virtual car repair shop and a bank in a gaming metaverse that isn't even live yet
> 
> 
> 37-year old Robert Doyle made almost $100,000 in 6 months by owning virtual assets in Polka City.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> markets.businessinsider.com



Early adopters generally make the money. Games often lose steam once they get mainstreamed.


----------



## bluekelah

IMHO Cryptocurrencies aren't worth much really, though the platforms they run on can be useful. However due to unregulated nature its best used for money laundering and other dodgy money transfers. And if they get regulated, then they lose most of their function as you dont really have "private ownership" of the asset anymore since gov can track it and tax it.

Any token on any platform can just easily be replaced by a digital USD, u just have to rename the token to USD. Even coles or woolies or qantas rewards points can be run on a blockchain type platform and become cryptos and be traded on the exchanges and even have futures trading on them. Would that increase their price? yes probably. but would it make them anymore useful or valuable? probably not...

Since NFTs/Crypto doesnt have much mainstream use in commerce yet, their value is really tied to how much easy credit/speculation is out there in the market. It is easy to observe every time the FED tightens like its tapering since mid-Nov, all the risky money flows out of crypto first really, then  stocks. So you can expect as rate rises, Cryptos will crashes....

The software companies behind the cryptos are actually like unregulated banks.govs creating their own fiat currency. Just look at Bitcoin, it already has a few forks as founders and members disagree on how they wanna run the "company"


----------



## orr

'A modest proposal'  One of the all time greatest satirical pieces ever written, was accepteted as the title intended by many of the British parliment of the day.
In the Satirical great tradition Trey Parker and Matt Stone work their craft... "Crypto-Curious" .
To live and walk the earth with these giants is an honour.
'


----------



## basilio

orr said:


> 'A modest proposal'  One of the all time greatest satirical pieces ever written, was accepteted as the title intended by many of the British parliment of the day.
> In the Satirical great tradition Trey Parker and Matt Stone work their craft... "Crypto-Curious" .
> To live and walk the earth with these giants is an honour.
> '




Is this the clip that came with your post Orr.


----------



## orr

That's most of it Bas ... The Victor Chaos origin story .... If you haven't seen it already, does the set up.


----------



## basilio

One of the main stays of Crypto trading is the use of  stable coins as an intermediate currency.  Tether is one of major stable coins. It has issued $78Billion of coinage allegedly backed up by US dollars. But who is counting ?

Is Tether a $48 billion scam?​https://medium.com/@sreverre?source=post_page-----4e8af1bedf76-----------------------------------


Stéphane Reverre
Follow

Apr 20 · 6 min read
Well….



For those who follow the Tether story, there’s been a recent development worth mentioning: the publication of an audit of Tether reserves by a third-party. The statement is available for download on their front page. Tether does have a page with a statement of account (here), but as it is unaudited and uncertified it is not worth much.

There’s been a lot of discussion about whether Tether is a scam of gigantic proportion, but overall those suspicions have had little effect on the rhythm of issuance, reaching today almost $48 bln judging by the latest official figures on coinmarket cap. The immediate and intuitive reaction to this figure is that it’s too big to be anything but real. How could one possibly get away with a scheme of that magnitude?

Unfortunately, it has happened in the past: Madoff (estimated losses $18 bln), Parmalat (when the scandal broke $4 bln were missing), Wirecard ($1.9 bln missing), Enron ($40 bln bankrupcy case following a corporate Ponzi scheme for more than 10 years, during which Enron was celebrated as one of the most innovative US companies). No, size is no guarantee of legitimacy or righteousness.









						Is Tether a $48 billion scam?
					

Well….




					medium.datadriveninvestor.com


----------



## willfairfax89

Cryptocurrency has a direct impact on the pricing of gadgets.
Payback periods for most NVIDIA models have exceeded 20 months, and RTX 3000 cards without LHR under current conditions will return on investment for more than 22 months. The AMD Radeon RX 5000/6000 graphics cards perform slightly better which will return on investment in 19 months. However, due to the plans of the Ethereum Foundation, miners will not have so much time to return their investments, because the transition to Ethereum 2.0 may happen in the next 4-6 months. All this makes the purchase of new farms an extremely hopeless activity and can positively affect the prices and availability of graphics adapters in 2022.


----------



## Trader X

willfairfax89 said:


> Cryptocurrency has a direct impact on the pricing of gadgets.



Expanding on this, crypto (Bitcoin in particular) consumes vast amounts of energy (greater than entire countries) to validate transactions on the blockchain and generates enormous e-waste and greenhouse gas emissions in the process.  Considering Bitcoin has no intrinsic value, very limited utility and primarily hoarded because its "scarcity" has an insane price attached to it, the enormous waste from such human folly is an economic and ecological tragedy.  Musk is the only whale (via Tesla) who has shown any real initiative to call out such waste and drag a reluctant Bitcoin community into a discussion of such issues.  All talk and little action is the likely outcome.


----------



## over9k

Trader X said:


> Expanding on this, crypto (Bitcoin in particular) consumes vast amounts of energy (greater than entire countries) to validate transactions on the blockchain and generates enormous e-waste and greenhouse gas emissions in the process.  Considering Bitcoin has no intrinsic value, very limited utility and primarily hoarded because its "scarcity" has an insane price attached to it, the enormous waste from such human folly is an economic and ecological tragedy.  Musk is the only whale (via Tesla) who has shown any real initiative to call out such waste and drag a reluctant Bitcoin community into a discussion of such issues.  All talk and little action is the likely outcome.



Musk used it as an excuse to manipulate the market.


----------



## Sean K

Has it started to happen, or is gold a better store of value?

Hopes of Bitcoin becoming credible slump with it's price
The OZ
By Simon Nixon

One of the boldest claims advanced to justify the remarkable rise in the value of bitcoin towards the end of last year was that the digital currency was set to rival gold as a long-term store of value.

Indeed, Goldman Sachs even cited these supposed inflation-proof qualities as justification for its eye-catching prediction at the end of last year that bitcoin could hit $US100,000 ($140,000) over the next five years. The investment bank noted that the cryptocurrency already accounted for 20 per cent of what it called the “store of value” market, comprising gold and bitcoin, and suggested that this could rise above 50 per cent.

That prediction has not survived its first contact with economic reality. As the world’s big economies grapple with the highest inflation in decades, the price of bitcoin has tumbled. It stands at $US37,563, more than 40 per cent below its November peak. Meanwhile, the price of gold is broadly unchanged since the start of the year, suggesting that bitcoin’s share of the “store of value” market is down to about 10 per cent.

It turns out that far from trading like gold, bitcoin has more in common with technology stocks, which similarly soared when central banks flooded markets with cheap money but have sunk at the first hint of a rate rise.

Indeed, the crypto boom has carried all the hallmarks of a bubble. The number of digital currencies has exploded in recent years, rising from 6000 to more than 11,000 last year. At its peak, the combined market capitalisation of the crypto universe was an estimated $US2.6 trillion.


----------



## Garpal Gumnut

Sean K said:


> Has it started to happen, or is gold a better store of value?
> 
> Hopes of Bitcoin becoming credible slump with it's price
> The OZ
> By Simon Nixon
> 
> One of the boldest claims advanced to justify the remarkable rise in the value of bitcoin towards the end of last year was that the digital currency was set to rival gold as a long-term store of value.
> 
> Indeed, Goldman Sachs even cited these supposed inflation-proof qualities as justification for its eye-catching prediction at the end of last year that bitcoin could hit $US100,000 ($140,000) over the next five years. The investment bank noted that the cryptocurrency already accounted for 20 per cent of what it called the “store of value” market, comprising gold and bitcoin, and suggested that this could rise above 50 per cent.
> 
> That prediction has not survived its first contact with economic reality. As the world’s big economies grapple with the highest inflation in decades, the price of bitcoin has tumbled. It stands at $US37,563, more than 40 per cent below its November peak. Meanwhile, the price of gold is broadly unchanged since the start of the year, suggesting that bitcoin’s share of the “store of value” market is down to about 10 per cent.
> 
> It turns out that far from trading like gold, bitcoin has more in common with technology stocks, which similarly soared when central banks flooded markets with cheap money but have sunk at the first hint of a rate rise.
> 
> Indeed, the crypto boom has carried all the hallmarks of a bubble. The number of digital currencies has exploded in recent years, rising from 6000 to more than 11,000 last year. At its peak, the combined market capitalisation of the crypto universe was an estimated $US2.6 trillion.



Thanks @Sean K . Just an update on the BTC : GOLD conversion chart.

This illustrates your point. This is now the only BTC chart I follow, found on duckduckgo by inputting XE BTC GOLD. 

BTC is seen to be losing value to gold. 1 bitcoin buys just 20 oz gold. In Nov. 21 it bought 37. 

Crypto is behaving less like a store of value and more like a tulip. 

Where is it's value in a crisis, what can one do with it...?






gg


----------



## Sean K

Garpal Gumnut said:


> Thanks @Sean K . Just an update on the BTC : GOLD conversion chart.
> 
> This illustrates your point. This is now the only BTC chart I follow, found on duckduckgo by inputting XE BTC GOLD.
> 
> BTC is seen to be losing value to gold. 1 bitcoin buys just 20 oz gold. In Nov. 21 it bought 37.
> 
> Crypto is behaving less like a store of value and more like a tulip.
> 
> Where is it's value in a crisis, what can one do with it...?
> 
> View attachment 137002
> 
> 
> 
> 
> gg




Seems tulip-like, but is it too early days to say? The short term volatility makes me think it's very speculative. PMs have gone though peaks and troughs too though, I suppose. All the market is speculation on future value to some degree. Hence pe ratios. There's tech stocks on 150% pe's in the US at the moment...


----------



## Trader X

Sean K said:


> All the market is speculation on future value to some degree. Hence pe ratios. There's tech stocks on 150% pe's in the US at the moment...



Evidence that value and price are disconnected more now than at anytime in history perhaps especially in crypto land?  How would someone establish a future value for Bitcoin or any other alt coin, there is nothing on which you can base a future valuation, no interest, no earnings, no intrinsic value etc. Crypto acts primarily as a proxy for holding/storing fiat currency instead of traditional banking.  Yet somehow a ridiculous price exists for say Bitcoin that is almost entirely based on assumptions around a higher future price that must come to fruition because of engineered scarcity and imagined superior utility!  Crypto "investing" is more than just speculation, it's an online casino where bets are being placed but you have no idea about the odds of winning.  Calling it gambling then is a misnomer, it's a transfer of wealth from the naïve to the crypto shills.


----------



## basilio

This story makes sense in so many ways.

Bitcoin paradise? Briton creates ‘crypto utopia’ in South Pacific​Anthony Welch and partner try to woo cryptocurrency investors to regulation-free island on Vanuatu archipelago


Vanuatu is a South Pacific Ocean nation made up of approximately 80 islands. Photograph: Westend61/Getty Images



Rupert Neate Wealth correspondent

@RupertNeate
Sat 12 Feb 2022 18.00 AEDT

For the past 12 years Anthony Welch and his partner Theresa have been living a Robinson Crusoe life alone on a South Pacific island mostly untouched by humanity.
Welch, a retired British property investor, hopes the tranquility will soon be shattered by 21,000 cryptocurrency investors he is trying to convince to move to his island and form a regulation-free “crypto utopia”.

Under Welch’s plan, the 3,000 square metre (32,000 sq ft) island (!!?) , (actually it's 800 acres. See video)  which is part of the Vanuatu archipelago between Australia and Fiji, would be transformed from 90% undisturbed rainforest into a “sustainable smart city”, filled with multistorey apartment blocks and offices for cryptocurrency investors from around the world.









						Bitcoin paradise? Briton creates ‘crypto utopia’ in South Pacific
					

Cryptocurrency investors invited to join Anthony Welch and his partner on the regulation-free island on the Vanuatu archipelago




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Trader X

For those who follow the NFL Super Bowl (now being dubbed the "Crypto Bowl"), there are many millions being spent on crypto advertising for this event.  It will be interesting to see if this generates the desired pump and dump event many whales, crypto exchanges and promotors are betting on to turn the tide of the downtrend.  One of the greatest con jobs in human history hijacks a major sporting event...
https://www.wired.com/story/crypto-super-bowl/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...g-super-bowl-by-giving-away-millions-bitcoin/


----------



## Smurf1976

Trader X said:


> there are many millions being spent on crypto advertising for this event.



Just an observation but in the course of normal use of the internet, reading serious content online and so on something is really standing out.

Whenever the subject at hand is hijacked by comments that are in no way related, at a rough estimate 75% of the time the nature of that hijack is "you should buy cryptocurrencies". That crops up in all sorts of places, even serious ones like engineering or scientific things through to totally non-serious YouTube videos in the comments. If someone hijacks then the vast majority of the time they're pushing crypto's.

My assumption is that's not part of any coordinated effort but simply that there's rather a lot of people who are totally enamoured with the whole thing and think they're doing everyone a favour by telling them about this "can't go wrong" opportunity.

That alone is extremely bubble-like in nature.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> Under Welch’s plan, the 3,000 square metre (32,000 sq ft) island (!!?) , (actually it's 800 acres. See video) which is part of the Vanuatu archipelago between Australia and Fiji, would be transformed from 90% undisturbed rainforest into a “sustainable smart city”, filled with multistorey apartment blocks and offices for cryptocurrency investors from around the world.



So in other words it's sort-of a paradise now and they plan to turn it into something much like the CBD of countless cities worldwide aka the opposite of a paradise.


----------



## basilio

Smurf1976 said:


> So in other words it's sort-of a paradise now and they plan to turn it into something much like the CBD of countless cities worldwide aka the opposite of a paradise.




Indeeedd..Yep turn paradise into a parking lot.

It's utterly and totally insane.  But that seems to mean much in the virtual world.

Perhaps they should recreate the island on the Metaverse and develop all the properties virtually.  Then crypto investors can take the final steps of virtualisating themselves into a Brave New World


----------



## frugal.rock

My thinking surrounding crypto has been largely that it's a "nothing universe" but still a trading opportunity situation, albeit highly risky.
Up until lately, it was looking and perceived to be at risk of government legislation.
Whilst there still is risk of some legislations, it becoming clearly apparent in the US and AU's, that the government's don't really have an issue with crypto, they just want to work out how to control it with taxation and traceability.
At the end of the day, it would be political suicide to get rid of it, heck, from the largest financial institutions down to politicians children, plenty of people now own some crypto.
I'm afraid to say it, but no longer is the overall concept of crypto, a bubble. It's here to stay. It's going mainstream ... get used to it.

Now it comes down to what is reliable and what you can trust; as trading platforms, actual crypto's used, security and insurance surrounding theft etc

Not condoning it still, but it's here to stay. The pithy coins will still cause grief to plenty of people. 
The scum of the crypto world should be dealt with though, imo.
Sto p the rugpulls etc


----------



## basilio

basilio said:


> One of the main stays of Crypto trading is the use of  stable coins as an intermediate currency.  Tether is one of major stable coins. It has issued $78Billion of coinage allegedly backed up by US dollars. But who is counting ?
> 
> Is Tether a $48 billion scam?​https://medium.com/@sreverre?source=post_page-----4e8af1bedf76-----------------------------------
> View attachment 134836
> 
> Stéphane Reverre
> Follow
> 
> Apr 20 · 6 min read
> Well….
> 
> View attachment 134837
> 
> For those who follow the Tether story, there’s been a recent development worth mentioning: the publication of an audit of Tether reserves by a third-party. The statement is available for download on their front page. Tether does have a page with a statement of account (here), but as it is unaudited and uncertified it is not worth much.
> 
> There’s been a lot of discussion about whether Tether is a scam of gigantic proportion, but overall those suspicions have had little effect on the rhythm of issuance, reaching today almost $48 bln judging by the latest official figures on coinmarket cap. The immediate and intuitive reaction to this figure is that it’s too big to be anything but real. How could one possibly get away with a scheme of that magnitude?
> 
> Unfortunately, it has happened in the past: Madoff (estimated losses $18 bln), Parmalat (when the scandal broke $4 bln were missing), Wirecard ($1.9 bln missing), Enron ($40 bln bankrupcy case following a corporate Ponzi scheme for more than 10 years, during which Enron was celebrated as one of the most innovative US companies). No, size is no guarantee of legitimacy or righteousness.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Is Tether a $48 billion scam?
> 
> 
> Well….
> 
> 
> 
> 
> medium.datadriveninvestor.com




Last year i posted this story which analysed whether the stable coin Tether had any legitimacy as a trusted crypto medium of exchange. 
Tether and Terra and other similar "stable coins" are  the poker chips people use to trade in crypto.  Turn your dollars into chips and play.

But if the house chips lose their value the game is over.

I noticed that the stable coin Terra has collapsed.  Tether has also been under extreme pressure. 


Crypto crash: Stablecoin collapse sends tokens tumbling​*By Joe Tidy*
Cyber reporter 

Published
15 hours ago
comments
Comments



Image source, NurPhoto
*Crypto-currency markets are being rocked after a popular token lost 99% of its value, dragging down a so-called "stablecoin" with it.*
The Terra Luna token fell from a high of $118 (£96), last month, to $0.09 on Thursday.
The collapse had a knock-on effect on a linked token, TerraUSD, which is normally stable.
And spooked investors are now pulling out of major crypto-currencies, sending markets plummeting.
The companies behind stablecoins try to ensure they remain in parity with assets such as the US dollar - with one token equalling $1, for example.
*But on Thursday TerraUSD fell to $0.4 according to the trading website Coin Market Cap.*

Tether, the most popular stablecoin, also fell off its US dollar peg - to an all-time low of $0.95.









						Crypto crash: Stablecoin collapse sends tokens tumbling
					

The sudden demise of TerraUSD sends other crypto-coins into a downward spiral.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## Dona Ferentes

Terra’s price has collapsed from its US$1 peg with the USD to a low of US27c. Source: CoinMarketCap  CoinMarketCap


----------



## Dona Ferentes

TerraUSD’s market cap has been slashed from $US18.8 billion to $US4.75 billion. CoinMarketCap


----------



## Dona Ferentes

TetherUSD also had its USD peg broken, tumbling down to US95c CoinMarketCap


----------



## againsthegrain

got a message from swyftx they putting terra trading on hold due to no liquidity, I'd hate to be holding that bag


----------



## Tyre Kicker

Dona Ferentes said:


> View attachment 141586
> 
> TerraUSD’s market cap has been slashed from $US18.8 billion to $US4.75 billion. CoinMarketCap




Excuse my ignorance, nativity and general lack of care towards almost anything crypto related Aussie Stock Forumites but…

… something worth nothing somehow had a market cap of 18 billion and is collapsing.

I’m shocked.

Not.


----------



## basilio

Apparently the crash of Luna and Terra has been assisted with some very smart (evil) trading practices. Check out the details at the end of the story

Any new billionaires  on ASF want to put up their hand ?

The question is whether these practices could be brought to bear against  major shares in the traditional stock market ?

'Evil genius' may have caused Terra and Luna cryptocurrencies to crash in a 'death spiral'​By business reporter David Chau
Posted 9h ago9 hours ago, updated 28m ago28 minutes ago


 A plunge in cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, has been exacerbated by the Luna and Terra stablecoin crash.(Reuters: Florence Lo)
Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article



It's been a stressful week for those who own bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, as they watched billions of dollars get wiped off the value of their assets.
Key points:​
Terra (UST) is a stablecoin, which is meant to be worth $US1
Its value is backed by a "sister" token called Luna
Luna's value plunged 99pc, causing some investors to lose their life savings









						'Evil genius' may have caused Terra and Luna cryptocurrencies to crash in a 'death spiral'
					

The devastating effects of the crash of crypto "stablecoins" Terra and Luna are being felt by many but their crash may have been orchestrated in one massive piece of ethically questionable trading.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## moXJO

In depth look of the incident:


----------



## moXJO

Apparently $55 billion market cap was evaporated. 
It's on par with Enron


----------



## Knobby22

moXJO said:


> Apparently $55 billion market cap was evaporated.
> It's on par with Enron



It had a 55 bil. cap! That's amazing.


----------



## greggles

"One in nine Australians bought crypto in the past year"



> Max Moulder is doing whatever he can to make ends meet.
> 
> He's taken a shot at being an Uber driver.
> 
> He's drawing on his life-long trade of cutting and selling gemstones.
> 
> But odd jobs are not earning him enough to keep up with the growing cost of living.
> 
> "I've done gemstone cutting and trading for a long, long time — since I was 10 years old — that's not paid off for me," he said.
> 
> "It's very difficult doing Uber driving with the cost of petrol. That's not working. And I can't do cabinet making anymore. So I'm running out of options really."
> 
> *In his mind, there's just one option left: to invest in crypto.*












						Why crypto is like kryptonite according to some of the world's biggest investors
					

Bitcoin came to life in 2008 as the financial system was imploding. Now that utopian vision is under fire, and everyone is asking: Will a new era of regulation kill or strengthen cryptocurrencies?




					www.abc.net.au
				




Regulation, at least in Australia, is inevitable given what has happened in the crypto space in the last few months. It is effectively like betting at a casino as Max's story above makes clear. Most of those throwing money at crypto have no idea of the risks they are taking on. Until the dust settles, I think watching from the sidelines is the sensible approach.


----------



## Tyre Kicker

Really, last throw at the stumps is all in on crypto. 

Humans have become extremely dumb.


----------



## basilio

The Crypto crash has destroyed * $2Trillion *of  "value" to date and bankrupted untold numbers of people. This story offers an insight into  some of these situations.
The contacts could be useful for any friends who have taken a bit hit.

They couldn’t even scream any more. They were just sobbing’: the amateur investors ruined by the crypto crash​


‘You fall into this La-La land of thinking: I’m going to make it.’ Illustration: Scott Balmer/The Guardian
Fuelled by hype and hysteria, the market in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies went from an obscure niche to a $3tn industry. Then the house of cards collapsed



Sirin Kale
Tue 12 Jul 2022 06.00 BST

In the gloom of an 18th-century drawing room at the private rehab clinic Castle Craig, near Peebles in the Scottish Borders, Roy, a 29-year-old victim of the global cryptocurrency crash, tells me his story. It is a dazzling summer’s day, but here the mood is sombre. Roy shifts uncomfortably in his chair as he begins.

It all started in February 2021, with a radio advert for Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency promoted by Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla. Intrigued, *Roy started Googling, eventually using his credit card to make an initial investment of €2,500 (£2,200) in a range of cryptocurrencies. The value of Roy’s portfolio climbed to €8,000, then €100,000, then €525,000.* Roy had entered the market during an adrenalised bull run, meaning an extended period of price growth. A combination of Covid stimulus packages, low interest rates and an unprecedented level of enthusiasm for cryptocurrency among furloughed workers meant the bull was careering out of sight.

Roy started spending all his time watching YouTube videos and speaking to other cryptocurrency enthusiasts in private groups on the messaging app Telegram. He had been treated for cocaine and alcohol addiction twice, but by 2021 he was sober and working as an addiction counsellor, although he was on sick leave as a result of panic attacks brought on by childhood trauma. He soon relapsed. By day, he checked his cryptocurrency wallets every 10 seconds; by night, he set alarms to go off on the hour. He began fantasising about a life free of financial constraints, in which he would never have to work. “I thought I was on top of the world,” Roy says. “Nobody could tell me anything. Money would fix every single problem I faced from now on.”


> I always thought the next project would bring me back up again and I’d cash out before it crashed



Roy
Then the cryptocurrency market crashed. The price of bitcoin fell from £42,000 in May 2021 to £23,000 by the end of June. It rallied to an all-time high of £48,000 in November, before diving to £26,000 at the end of January. Since then, it has been in near-continuous freefall. At the time of writing, bitcoin is hovering at £17,000. “It felt like I had lost my life,” says Roy. “Because I had invested everything in crypto. I had built every dream I had on there. So, when it came crashing down, my whole life came crashing down.”

Desperate, Roy made a string of bad bets. *The value of his portfolio dwindled to €20,000, then €3,000.* “It got so out of control because I saw all my chances to live a better life fading away,” he says. “So I became really desperate and eventually just completely isolated. I didn’t want to see anybody, because I thought I was a failure.”









						‘They couldn’t even scream any more. They were just sobbing’: the amateur investors ruined by the crypto crash
					

Fuelled by hype and hysteria, the market in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies went from an obscure niche to a $3tn industry. Then the house of cards collapsed




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## henrietta

The art of trading …….. knowing when to sell. Doesn’t matter when you buy.
I still haven‘t learned !!
Cheers
J


----------



## 3 hound

I don't see how crypto is any better or worse than any other form of gambling.


----------



## Smurf1976

basilio said:


> The Crypto crash has destroyed * $2Trillion *of "value" to date and bankrupted untold numbers of people. This story offers an insight into some of these situations.
> The contacts could be useful for any friends who have taken a bit hit.



Sounds rather like the year 2000 with the tech stocks bust. 

All the same "it's different this time" stories and so on were around and it seems to have ended the same way.


----------



## Trader X

For those wondering what's keeping Bitcoin's price from cratering further...

Cryptoverse: Shrimps and whales keep bitcoin afloat​While the miners are dumping, the shrimps are buying, hope springs eternal for the hodlers at the crypto casino.


----------



## qldfrog

3 hound said:


> I don't see how crypto is any better or worse than any other form of gambling.



The odds are better than powerball still...


----------



## dyna

greggles said:


> "One in nine Australians bought crypto in the past year"



Yeah, the ATO estimates 2 million Aussie Crypto bunnies have blown $ 20 Billion, that was drawn out of perfectly sensible bank accounts last year, and floated off down the river of no return.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

dyna said:


> Yeah, the ATO estimates 2 million Aussie Crypto bunnies have blown $ 20 Billion, that was drawn out of perfectly sensible bank accounts last year, and floated off down the river of no return.



Or perfectly dangerous lines of coke credit .


----------



## Trader X

dyna said:


> the ATO estimates 2 million Aussie Crypto bunnies have blown $ 20 Billion, that was drawn out of perfectly sensible bank accounts last year, and floated off down the river of no return.



From $25 billion to $167 million: How a major crypto lender collapsed and dragged many investors down with it​_"Also in the fine print of Celsius’ terms and conditions is a warning that in the event of bankruptcy, “any Eligible Digital Assets used in the Earn Service or as collateral under the Borrow Service may not be recoverable” and that customers “may not have any legal remedies or rights in connection with Celsius’ obligations.”_

In light of this and all the other scams and collapses in the crypto space, the fact that "crypto bunnies" are still putting down bets at the crypto casino seems to defy all reason.  But then one must consider that gambling is an addiction and there is no industry watchdog regulating this space, for now.  In the meantime, cryptoland is still an oasis for fraud, deception and theft.


----------



## moXJO

dyna said:


> Yeah, the ATO estimates 2 million Aussie Crypto bunnies have blown $ 20 Billion, that was drawn out of perfectly sensible bank accounts last year, and floated off down the river of no return.



Some of that floated into my pocket. God I love crypto.


----------



## moXJO

I was checking out some of the nft communities and was surprised they are building strong. It's all taken a hit to the prices obviously. But there's a lot of newer members.

I was surprised. Doesn't look dead just yet.


----------



## frugal.rock

moXJO said:


> I was surprised. Doesn't look dead just yet.



Bit like my last dose of gastroenteritis then, eh? 


😹


----------



## Craton

The bubble of all bubbles?
Sure looks like it now. Very interesting prediction from Warren Buffett may back in 2018.



> Buffett has long been against cryptocurrencies. He told CNBC in 2018 that “they will come to a bad ending” and said that Berkshire Hathaway will “never have a position in them.”




From: Yahoo Finance 15 Jun 2022.



> What would world's most famous investor say to those who might be thinking of firing up their investment apps and buying Bitcoin at a bargain price.
> 
> Buffett has made his share of extremely cutting remarks about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency over the years: “I don't have any Bitcoin. I don't own any cryptocurrency, I never will,” he told _CNBC_ in 2020.
> 
> It’s “probably rat poison squared,” Buffett once said.


----------



## Sharkman

i've punted a little bit in crypto, about half in BTC, a quarter in ETH and the rest in various little sh#tcoins, totaling around 0.25% of my overall investment capital at this point. i do agree that it's basically gambling, hence the use of the word "punted" rather than "invested".

but it's demonstrated in the past that it is quite capable of bouncing back 5x, 10x or even more after an 80% fall, so i don't think there's too much harm having a bit of a punt, and am continuing to trickle more in slowly, trusting in my discipline to stop once i've committed 1% of my overall capital to it.

sure, there's a chance it ultimately flames out and goes to zero, but even if it does, if you restrict it to a tiny % of your capital and don't go crazy overboard like putting your life savings into Terra or Celsius as some people apparently did, it should be fine.


----------



## qldfrog

Sharkman said:


> i've punted a little bit in crypto, about half in BTC, a quarter in ETH and the rest in various little sh#tcoins, totaling around 0.25% of my overall investment capital at this point. i do agree that it's basically gambling, hence the use of the word "punted" rather than "invested".
> 
> but it's demonstrated in the past that it is quite capable of bouncing back 5x, 10x or even more after an 80% fall, so i don't think there's too much harm having a bit of a punt, and am continuing to trickle more in slowly, trusting in my discipline to stop once i've committed 1% of my overall capital to it.
> 
> sure, there's a chance it ultimately flames out and goes to zero, but even if it does, if you restrict it to a tiny % of your capital and don't go crazy overboard like putting your life savings into Terra or Celsius as some people apparently did, it should be fine.



Well nearly 1k of profit last FY, much better than my losses on the market.
I would gamble a bit more as well 
If Fiats goes to the proverbial, people will panic and go everywhere..crypto might orofit..
But nothing significant in term of investment for me either


----------



## Sharkman

qldfrog said:


> Well nearly 1k of profit last FY, much better than my losses on the market.
> I would gamble a bit more as well
> If Fiats goes to the proverbial, people will panic and go everywhere..crypto might orofit..
> But nothing significant in term of investment for me either




i'm the opposite, well in the red on my crypto at the moment, since i only just started getting into it during the last FY, but my fiat was actually slightly up on the year (at least in AUD terms), as i have a significant international weighting and AUD has been hammered in 2021-22.

but the plan i set out for myself before even putting a cent into crypto was always to drip feed at most 1% of total capital into crypto over 2 years or so, given that it tends to operate in 4 year cycles due to the halvening, so being in the red right now doesn't bother me. hopefully the coins bought (and mined) over the next 12 months will show some nice profits if crypto explodes upwards again (as it has done following previous halvenings), but if they don't, i'm at peace with the decisions i made.

also on the lookout for tiny PoW sh#tcoins that might be worth mining for a few days, the ones that are worth like 0.01 of a cent. basically treating it as a lottery ticket. by the time these sh#tcoins get listed on an exchange (if they even get that far) they'll probably be a few cents already. to participate in that first big jump they have to be mined rather than bought. and if it dies out, it's only cost me a few $ of electricity (well, that plus the value of a different coin i could've been mining instead, but that's an opportunity cost not a direct cost), not a bad bet if i can find one that i think might have potential.


----------



## Trader X

Bitcoin Now Braced For A ‘Black Swan’ Shock As Mt. Gox Prepares To Repay 142K BTC​The magic pudding that is Bitcoin and its South Sea Bubble price is about to be tested by a Mt. Gox dump event.  How much of this repatriated BTC will actually be churned as opposed to hodled?  Time will tell but as the Tesla dump (they have now unloaded 75% of their BTC), Celsius and Luna events demonstrated, the price of BTC is not so resilient.  The shorts are on notice, should be some interesting price action on the horizon.


----------



## Telamelo

In addition to BTC & ETH .. another crypto I really like as believe it's a very promising worthwhile project is Chainlink (Link) from having watched various YouTube video's & followed Chainlink throughout social media.

P.S. Not investment/trading advice per say so please DYOR


----------



## Telamelo

Sharkman said:


> i've punted a little bit in crypto, about half in BTC, a quarter in ETH and the rest in various little sh#tcoins, totaling around 0.25% of my overall investment capital at this point. i do agree that it's basically gambling, hence the use of the word "punted" rather than "invested".
> 
> but it's demonstrated in the past that it is quite capable of bouncing back 5x, 10x or even more after an 80% fall, so i don't think there's too much harm having a bit of a punt, and am continuing to trickle more in slowly, trusting in my discipline to stop once i've committed 1% of my overall capital to it.
> 
> sure, there's a chance it ultimately flames out and goes to zero, but even if it does, if you restrict it to a tiny % of your capital and don't go crazy overboard like putting your life savings into Terra or Celsius as some people apparently did, it should be fine.



The wonderful technology of blockchain is here to stay as is being widely accepted/incorporated as we speak by many large institution's. 

Blockchain is being adopted mainstream and so quality crypto project's will thrive unlike many that will fall away/disappear in time. I believe the likes of say BTC, ETH & Link will still be around & flourish in the year's ahead imo


----------



## Sharkman

Telamelo said:


> The wonderful technology of blockchain is here to stay as is being widely accepted/incorporated as we speak by many large institution's.
> 
> Blockchain is being adopted mainstream and so quality crypto project's will thrive unlike many that will fall away/disappear in time. I believe the likes of say BTC, ETH & Link will still be around & flourish in the year's ahead imo




chainlink is one of my minor crypto holdings as well (in post #209 by sh#tcoin i meant anything that isn't BTC or ETH, rather than a coin that's almost worthless... i probably should've used the term "altcoin" there instead. i was definitely referring to actual sh#tcoins in post #211 though!)

it's around 4-5% (out of the 0.25% of total capital i currently have in crypto), will probably maintain it around that weighting as i slowly grow my crypto portfolio up to 1% of total capital.

will it be around to flourish in years ahead? BTC and ETH probably, LINK and other smaller altcoins i'm not so sure. in this climate i think it makes sense to go top heavy into BTC and ETH with only minor positions in alts. i'm going 50% BTC / 25% ETH / 25% alts myself. and if i do find any sh#tcoins to mine as rank longshots, i probably won't include them in the weighting, i'll just mine them straight into a self-custody wallet for a few days, then leave them sitting there and hope for a nice surprise in a couple of years.


----------



## frugal.rock

"A year on, El Salvador's bitcoin experiment is stumbling"









						A year on, El Salvador's bitcoin experiment is stumbling By Reuters
					

A year on, El Salvador's bitcoin experiment is stumbling




					au.investing.com


----------



## ducati916

The big gains in crypto are gone for the moment.

The reason they are gone is:





Now of course you have the additional risk that they end up at zero.

A 'safer' speculation based on the length of the history and the valuation and that there is an intrinsic value, ie. industrial demand combined with an investment demand is:




Silver, the poor man's gold, is and always has been money proper.

jog on
duc


----------



## moXJO

Our dollar is looking like a shtcoin.


----------



## Trader X

El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law — one year on, with the World’s Coolest Dictator​_"How’s bitcoin going, a year later?_

_There’s almost no use of bitcoin as currency. The official Chivo Wallet is hardly used, and they never did get it working properly. Businesses have taken down their “we accept bitcoin” signs._
_There’s almost no use of bitcoin for remittances._
_Hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds have gone up in smoke — which is as if the US spent hundreds of billions — with nothing to show for it._
_Crypto crashed. As well as screwing over local bitcoin holders, this halved the face value of the government bitcoin reserve._
_El Salvador can’t borrow internationally. The IMF won’t talk to them while bitcoin is in place. The price of Salvadoran sovereign debt has fallen through the floor, as has El Salvador’s credit rating._
_The Bitcoin Volcano Bonds supposedly had $1.5 billion of buyer interest lined up — then Russia invaded Ukraine, and those buyers vanished._
_Ground has not been broken for Bitcoin City. I’m pretty sure it never will._
_A bunch of American so-called libertarians got flown around the country in military helicopters, though. Military escorts are the true meaning of liberty — for a few people."_
How can Bitcoin shills and evangelists possibly call this anything other than a failed experiment and financial disaster for an impoverished country?


----------



## greggles

When I posted this thread almost exactly 12 months ago Bitcoin was over US$65,000. Now it is approximately US$16,000. The bubble is in the process of deflating just as I suspected it would.

I'm not one of those people who thinks that all cryptocurrencies will go to zero. Some will survive and thrive the way some tech companies did when the dot com bubble burst over 20 years ago. Ultimately the ones that will survive and grow again will need to have a very compelling use case, cutting edge blockchain technology and visionary management. Phoenixes will rise from the ashes and I believe that there are still fortunes to be made in crypto - yes, yet again - as the few diamonds in the rough eventually emerge from the carnage and continue to push on.

I believe that decentralised finance will be the crypto sector that eventually makes good in a big way as long as it can successfully navigate any government regulation. I don't know about NFTs, gaming and Metaverse, so I won't comment.

As for the bubble deflating I still think we have further to fall, but the bottom will likely be reached in 2023. There's blood in the streets, but no capitulation as yet. I continue to watch with a great deal of interest from the sidelines.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

A week* in the (truncated) life of a crypto exchange


Nov 2News breaks that FTX token FTT makes up a huge portion of quant firm Alameda’s balance sheetNov 7Binance CEO says he will sell $US580m in FTT tokens, irked by crossover of Sam Bankman-Fried owned businessesAlameda CEO says she will buy FTT at $US22, Bankman-Fried tries to calm markets saying “assets are fine”.Nov 8Investors panic and begin selling FTT, trying to get assets out of FTX. FTT falls 14%, bitcoin falls 5%, ETH falls 6%Nov 9Traders struggle to withdraw FTT from exchange, almost all bitcoin is withdrawn. FTX halts withdrawals. FTT falls close to 0.Nov 10Binance makes undisclosed offer for entire FTX exchange, which is accepted (subject to due diligence).Bankman-Fried wealth plummets $US16bn in four daysNov 11Binance rescinds takeover offer after seeing the books. Says “issues are beyond our control or ability to help”.SEC confirms ongoing investigations into FTX and AlamedaNov 12Bahamas authorities freeze FTX assets, open investigationFTX Australia placed in administration




> *Non-existent custody rules* mean crypto exchanges can take their “deposits” anywhere they like. Unfortunately for the likes of Celsius and Bankman-Fried’s FTX, there is no government backstop to save the day.




* _10 days, but probably felt like a lifetime_


----------



## greggles

The effects of the FTX collapse have still not been fully felt in the cryptoverse. It is still early days, and I'm sure there is a lot more to be revealed as investigations continue. 

How can the government not intervene and regulate further now? The dream of all those idealistic cryptonauts about a currency free from government interference is going to come crashing down because of the greed of some big players in the industry.

First LUNA, now FTX. Who will be next?


----------



## basilio

Always a place for a scam or a con. If anyone played in the field they needed to be aware this was a giant shell game and that taking a profit and leaving early was the only certain way of staying in the black.

The collapse of FTX crystallizes the smokes and mirrors of this game. Ian Verrender outlines it in brutal detail.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11...-sam-bankman-fried-and-ftx-billions/101648914


----------



## The Triangle

greggles said:


> The effects of the FTX collapse have still not been fully felt in the cryptoverse. It is still early days, and I'm sure there is a lot more to be revealed as investigations continue.
> 
> How can the government not intervene and regulate further now? The dream of all those idealistic cryptonauts about a currency free from government interference is going to come crashing down because of the greed of some big players in the industry.
> 
> First LUNA, now FTX. Who will be next?



Why should the government regulate a scam?

How much crypto money went into financing candidates in the 2022 US election?  A lot.  

How much crypto money has gone into Aussie politics? We'll probably never know.


----------



## Trader X

basilio said:


> Always a place for a scam or a con. If anyone played in the field they needed to be aware this was a giant shell game and that taking a profit and leaving early was the only certain way of staying in the black.
> 
> The collapse of FTX crystallizes the smokes and mirrors of this game. Ian Verrender outlines it in brutal detail.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11...-sam-bankman-fried-and-ftx-billions/101648914



Good recap of a collapsing artificial edifice.  Tend to disagree with this quote though with respect to FTX...

_"It also has signaled the end of perhaps one of the most ludicrous financial booms in history, the great crypto kleptomania."_

Ludicrous boom for sure but rather than theft it's better described as the great wealth transfer from the naïve to opportunists, whales, pump and dump merchants and con artists.  The end is near, only a fraction of these digital tokens are likely to survive.  The smart speculators bailed out a year ago while the hodlers are left holding a bag of practically worthless tokens.

All the hyperbole and sensational price forecasts duped millions into thinking that these tokens were going to make them rich. The hubris now is about reflecting on past performance to encourage the true believers that dematerialized gold will still be their financial salvation.  It was always hopium and wishful thinking.


----------



## greggles

The Triangle said:


> Why should the government regulate a scam?
> 
> How much crypto money went into financing candidates in the 2022 US election?  A lot.
> 
> How much crypto money has gone into Aussie politics? We'll probably never know.




Is cryptocurrency itself a scam or is the industry infected by scammers?

If it's the former then yes, it should be shut down. If it is a scam then I would ask why it hasn't been shut down yet. Bitcoin has been around for more than decade. There are crypto ETFs and managed funds investing in crypto. It has made huge inroads into the mainstream and I doubt it will be regulated out of existence now.

If it's the latter than the scammers need to be driven out of the industry. But good luck with that. Scammers exist in plague proportion in the mainstream of financial services too. The real answer to this problem is regulation, and my feeling is this is the path the government will trod for two primary reasons:

1. There is now too much at stake to eliminate cryptocurrency entirely.
2. The government would like to profit from the industry, and more regulation is the best means to achieve that end.


----------



## Trader X

greggles said:


> Is cryptocurrency itself a scam or is the industry infected by scammers?



If not all, many crypto projects are just conjured scams trying to capitalize on crypto mania.  Ironically, SBF described how this scam works (applicable to FTT)...


----------



## Value Collector

basilio said:


> If anyone played in the field they needed to be aware this was a giant shell game and that taking a profit and leaving early was the only certain way of staying in the black.




Yep, so many people have been enticed into crypto because of the early adopters flashing cash, Lamborghinis and high end life styles on social media.

But it’s an interesting thought to realise that Bitcoin and the other cryptos have never ever produced a single cent of earnings or income, So every single dollar you see spent on Lamborghinis by the people that have made capital gains in crypto has been provided by the other people investing their hard earned money.

The only way to pull out profits from crypto is to have other people putting in real hard earned cash, and the only way that second wave of people makes money is if a third wave pump even more in.

It’s not like a company that generates profits, or a piece of real estate that earns rent, there is no underlying asset generating the value that the owners can extract, it’s all just funded by more investors putting money in, it’s basically no different to a pyramid scheme or Ponzi scheme.


----------



## Value Collector

greggles said:


> The effects of the FTX collapse have still not been fully felt in the cryptoverse. It is still early days, and I'm sure there is a lot more to be revealed as investigations continue.
> 
> How can the government not intervene and regulate further now? The dream of all those idealistic cryptonauts about a currency free from government interference is going to come crashing down because of the greed of some big players in the industry.
> 
> First LUNA, now FTX. Who will be next?




The saddest part is that so many people have wasted their time and money thinking they were “Investing” when they were really just gambling.

Unfortunately a lot of these people are going to come out the other side of this experience cynical and disheartened with the concept of investing, and will probably shy away from making any investments in the future, even the real ones.


----------



## Value Collector

greggles said:


> Is cryptocurrency itself a scam or is the industry infected by scammers?
> 
> If it's the former then yes, it should be shut down. If it is a scam then I would ask why it hasn't been shut down yet. Bitcoin has been around for more than decade. There are crypto ETFs and managed funds investing in crypto. It has made huge inroads into the mainstream and I doubt it will be regulated out of existence now.
> 
> If it's the latter than the scammers need to be driven out of the industry. But good luck with that. Scammers exist in plague proportion in the mainstream of financial services too. The real answer to this problem is regulation, and my feeling is this is the path the government will trod for two primary reasons:
> 
> 1. There is now too much at stake to eliminate cryptocurrency entirely.
> 2. The government would like to profit from the industry, and more regulation is the best means to achieve that end.



It’s a bit like saying “are tulip bulbs a scam”, well the answer is of course they aren’t. But when a large chunk of society starts to believe that the road to riches is to buy tulip bulbs pumping up their price to the moon I guess you can describe the people hyping it up a scammers.

There is nothing wrong with owning some tulip bulbs or even bit coin, but both were hyped up as a road to easy wealth and both are worth next to nothing in reality.

How much would bitcoin be worth if you took out all the people buying it that just wanted to make money, and left the only people in the Bitcoin market those that want to use it as a currency? I think it would be worth very little, and that’s it’s true value, everything else is froth.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

too true to all of the above. I never felt tempted.

at least with tulips, you could end up with a bulb.!


----------



## Craton

Dona Ferentes said:


> too true to all of the above. I never felt tempted.
> 
> at least with tulips, you could end up with a bulb.!



Lol, a bulb at worst and a pretty flower at best.

I looked at crypto mining in the early days and the numbers didn't add up i.e., electrical cost of running the miner versus the "pay off", so nah to that.
Then the hackers started pinching crypto wallets, so a big nah to that too.

Have ya luck if you've made money from crypto... commiserations if you've lucked out.


----------



## Captain_Chaza

I have always thought This was a Brilliant Pyramid Scheme
and that the last one holding "LOSES!"


----------



## Sean K

Yikes!!


----------



## Smurf1976

Value Collector said:


> The only way to pull out profits from crypto is to have other people putting in real hard earned cash, and the only way that second wave of people makes money is if a third wave pump even more in.



Which is basically the actual definition of a pyramid scheme.

Crypto currency as a concept could work sure, from a technical perspective it’s doable, but it’s not a means to create wealth. Nothing’s actually being produced here indeed it’s arguably the most pointless use of large amounts of electricity anyone’s ever come up with.


----------



## Sharkman

i do agree that it's essentially gambling (hence my deliberate use of the word punted rather than invested in an earlier post), but i'm not averse to making speculative bets _with a small % of capital_, and crypto is just about the highest beta asset (or "asset" if you prefer) out there. i don't see an issue with having a bit of a punt, provided that it's money one can afford to lose and that one is well aware of the possibility that it could all go to zero. not all that different to a penny dreadful really.

only got into it at the start of this year, however one thing i quickly learned was the importance of self-custody. you can't trust any of these centralised entities to keep your assets safe and the FTX debacle has only driven home that point. deposit exactly however much you want to buy, make the transaction and quickly get your coins off the exchange and onto your self-custodial wallet before it's too late.

i haven't been buying on exchanges for a while though, just doing a bit of speculative mining on smaller alts for now. post-merge the fiat value of all alts is less than the cost of the electricity to mine them, but the mined coins go straight into your self-custodial wallet, no need to risk messing around with an exchange. and with the super high beta of the smaller alts, those could go 10x, 20x, maybe even 100x or more when the cycle eventually turns and the broader economy goes back into risk-on mode. people were mining ETH at a loss back in 2018 and 2019 too, in speculation that it would one day rise again.

yeah they may well all go to zero, i accept that, but at this point my crypto adventure has soaked up well under 1% of my overall capital, so i'm not particularly worried about it. i like building and tinkering with PCs anyway, been building my own PCs since i was a teenager, so if nothing else i have derived some enjoyment out of tweaking it to find the best balance between hashrate, power draw, and thermals/fan speed for a few algos i've tried so far.


----------



## greggles

Sean K said:


> Yikes!!
> 
> View attachment 149246




This is the real danger for crypto right now, a domino effect due to a collapse in confidence. What has happened with FTX is so damaging it has caused lots of people to start turning crypto into hard currency. As this drives prices down, more people will follow suit and things could easily spiral out of control.

A domino effect of insolvencies in the crypto space could result as some companies collapse due to a liquidity crisis and interlinked speculative leveraged positions. I have heard that it is common in the cypto space to have loans collateralised by crypto coins. As prices continue to fall, lenders are going to be calling in loans to avoid being the last one standing when the music stops.

We may have a house of cards moment approaching if panic sets in.


----------



## Sharkman

greggles said:


> We may have a house of cards moment approaching if panic sets in.




i wasn't following the scene back then, but from what i've read, everyone was saying the same thing after Mt Gox, yet it's gone on to make all time highs, followed by a winter, followed by even greater all time highs.

i wouldn't mind a bit of a cleanout and reset though, particularly in the mining scene, the network difficulty has been ridiculously high across the board ever since the merge. if people become disillusioned and drop out, that means more yield for the rest of us.

the industry is still very much in its infancy, there's going to be growing pains like these. but those growing pains should bring about iterative refinements and improvements to processes/practices as people learn what does and doesn't work, making it more stable and functional over time. that's the hope anyway. whether it eventuates or not, who knows. that's why i only wanted to commit 1% of capital tops, but i did want some exposure for the huge potential if they can get it right. massive if though.


----------



## Trader X

Sharkman said:


> i do agree that it's essentially gambling (hence my deliberate use of the word punted rather than invested in an earlier post)



The difference being legal gambling is regulated and the odds of winning in each type of game are known.  When you speculate on crypto, it's all about price movement/momentum on those unregulated exchanges, there is no underlying business generating revenue or asset possessing intrinsic value.  A bit like trading currency pairs on Forex exchanges except it's real "currency" and those trading it successfully are skilled leveraged risk managers (perhaps no more than 5% of all FX traders).


----------



## Sean K

greggles said:


> This is the real danger for crypto right now, a domino effect due to a collapse in confidence. What has happened with FTX is so damaging it has caused lots of people to start turning crypto into hard currency. As this drives prices down, more people will follow suit and things could easily spiral out of control.
> 
> A domino effect of insolvencies in the crypto space could result as some companies collapse due to a liquidity crisis and interlinked speculative leveraged positions. I have heard that it is common in the cypto space to have loans collateralised by crypto coins. As prices continue to fall, lenders are going to be calling in loans to avoid being the last one standing when the music stops.
> 
> We may have a house of cards moment approaching if panic sets in.




Could have wider repercussions in some regions like Latin America who seemed to have invested heavily. El Salvador might be in trouble.


----------



## Captain_Chaza

Trader X said:


> The difference being legal gambling is regulated and the odds of winning in each type of game are known.  When you speculate on crypto, it's all about price movement/momentum on those unregulated exchanges, there is no underlying business generating revenue or asset possessing intrinsic value.  A bit like trading currency pairs on Forex exchanges except it's real "currency" and those trading it successfully are skilled leveraged risk managers (perhaps no more than 5% of all FX traders).



It's also like Buying BHP 30 years ago


----------



## Craton

Captain_Chaza said:


> It's also like Buying BHP 30 years ago



Hey, I resemble that remark.


----------



## Sharkman

Trader X said:


> The difference being legal gambling is regulated and the odds of winning in each type of game are known.  When you speculate on crypto, it's all about price movement/momentum on those unregulated exchanges, there is no underlying business generating revenue or asset possessing intrinsic value.  A bit like trading currency pairs on Forex exchanges except it's real "currency" and those trading it successfully are skilled leveraged risk managers (perhaps no more than 5% of all FX traders).




except it does have value, just only in certain rare niches at the moment. the vendor i bought most of my PC components from (a large US company) was perfectly willing to accept BTC (and a few other coins, even DOGE) in exchange for those PC components, which do have intrinsic value. they're running a business, they wouldn't just give me those components for something that's worthless, so clearly they do think it has value.


----------



## Captain_Chaza

Sharkman said:


> except it does have value, just only in certain rare niches at the moment. the vendor i bought most of my PC components from (a large US company) was perfectly willing to accept BTC (and a few other coins, even DOGE) in exchange for those PC components, which do have intrinsic value. they're running a business, they wouldn't just give me those components for something that's worthless, so clearly they do think it has value.



*I don't!*
Have you tried Amway and Tupperware?
*IMHO  A well written  Chain-Letter works the Best of All*


----------



## Tyre Kicker

Captain_Chaza said:


> I have always thought This was a Brilliant Pyramid Scheme
> and that the last one holding "LOSES!"
> View attachment 149245




Was my thoughts early on and nothing has changed since.

Pulled in the suckers and the social media addicted gen (who live their lives through their phone) with sheer saturation of crypto adds, fads and lingo.

It’s amusing to me when people who truly believe (for some inexplicable reason) they were going to buy houses, cars, boats, travel the world, retire etc before they were 30.

Lol.

And some are still drinking the koolaid.

True value of Bitcoin is only $16K or so further downward.


----------



## Trader X

Sharkman said:


> except it does have value, just only in certain rare niches at the moment. the vendor i bought most of my PC components from (a large US company) was perfectly willing to accept BTC (and a few other coins, even DOGE) in exchange for those PC components, which do have intrinsic value. they're running a business, they wouldn't just give me those components for something that's worthless, so clearly they do think it has value.



Price and value are quite different things. Crypto has a price, that price is represented by a local fiat currency and converted into that currency to complete the transaction for the business entity.  As most businesses well understand you don't keep BTC in your treasury or on your balance sheet, far too volatile in price for that.  For the sake of getting a sale, transacting in crypto has a holding risk that necessitates rapid conversion to local fiat (USD in your example).  For low margin sales like PC components, accepting BTC means your profit margin can literally evaporate and turn into a loss within minutes.


----------



## sptrawler

I would guess the big problem for crypto at the moment, will be the herd heading for the exits.
A bit like a run on the banks, except the banks can tap the RBA the Govt and international markets to prop them up, it will be interesting to see if the crypto slide halts or accelerates.


----------



## divs4ever

Sharkman said:


> except it does have value, just only in certain rare niches at the moment. the vendor i bought most of my PC components from (a large US company) was perfectly willing to accept BTC (and a few other coins, even DOGE) in exchange for those PC components, which do have intrinsic value. they're running a business, they wouldn't just give me those components for something that's worthless, so clearly they do think it has value.



 indeed a valid point , but then the other widely accepted  currency  is a fiat currency ( which is backed by government promises .. they don't even promise to pay in gold or silver in recent times )

 interesting times


----------



## Value Collector

Sharkman said:


> except it does have value, just only in certain rare niches at the moment. the vendor i bought most of my PC components from (a large US company) was perfectly willing to accept BTC (and a few other coins, even DOGE) in exchange for those PC components, which do have intrinsic value. they're running a business, they wouldn't just give me those components for something that's worthless, so clearly they do think it has value.



That doesn't mean that the coin has value, it just means the person accepting it believes it does, they can be wrong.
I imagine in the height of the tulip craze people would have shaped tulips for product too.


----------



## Value Collector

divs4ever said:


> indeed a valid point , but then the other widely accepted  currency  is a fiat currency ( which is backed by government promises .. they don't even promise to pay in gold or silver in recent times )
> 
> interesting times



even people that say they accept Bitcoin still are actually basing their prices on the fiat currency, for example if the bitcoin price halved over night their bitcoin prices would change, so its not really a currency they are accepting, its more like a commodity.


----------



## InsvestoBoy

Sharkman said:


> except it does have value, just only in certain rare niches at the moment. the vendor i bought most of my PC components from (a large US company) was perfectly willing to accept BTC (and a few other coins, even DOGE) in exchange for those PC components, which do have intrinsic value. they're running a business, they wouldn't just give me those components for something that's worthless, so clearly they do think it has value.




Is this really what happened?

More likely your vendor was using a payment gateway that automates the process of receiving any cryptocurrency and converting it to USD, giving customers who wish to to pay in cryptocurrency with the vendor able to remain agnostic on the merits or lack thereof of whichever cryptocurrency they "accept".

In any case the vendor can't pay suppliers, employees, taxes etc in whatever cryptocurrency, so they wouldn't retain it on their balance sheet even if they did accept it directly.

One might argue they could retain their after tax profits on balance sheet in cryptocurrency form, but I doubt any business owner is stupid enough to do such a thing.


----------



## Garpal Gumnut

Everytime I see the title of this thread appearing under "what's new" I feel like shouting out YES.

So tonight I will.

Q. Is cryptocurrency the greatest market bubble of all time?​
*A. YES*

gg


----------



## Tyre Kicker

Definitely


----------



## divs4ever

Value Collector said:


> even people that say they accept Bitcoin still are actually basing their prices on the fiat currency, for example if the bitcoin price halved over night their bitcoin prices would change, so its not really a currency they are accepting, its more like a commodity.



 i didn't dabble in cryptos  , but sometimes have been swapping my fiat into  durable ( storeable ) commodities 

 i can see governments trying to clamp down on cryptos  as they  are competition to their own ponzi scheme ( the fiat currencies )
 interesting times ahead  ( at least you can store cryptos in a 'cold wallet ' try doing that with CBDCs )


----------



## Sharkman

divs4ever said:


> indeed a valid point , but then the other widely accepted  currency  is a fiat currency ( which is backed by government promises .. they don't even promise to pay in gold or silver in recent times )
> 
> interesting times




yes that's what i was getting at, the value of fiat is in its near universal acceptance as a means to obtain the goods and services that have utility to a person. as you say, it's not physically backed by anything and has no intrinsic value either. i was only pointing out that i could have used BTC in the same way (granted, in a niche situation) ie. as a means to obtain some goods that i wanted. what the company does with the BTC afterwards is their own business, i don't know whether they swapped it out for fiat straight after or not. they may well have kept part of it on their books as a long term play. but the fact remains that i could have used BTC to obtain physical assets that have utility to me, had i wished to do so.



Value Collector said:


> That doesn't mean that the coin has value, it just means the person accepting it believes it does, they can be wrong.




the same could be said for fiat too, it's just been around for much longer and so has (a lot) more people who are willing to believe it does. though that may not necessarily be true in some nations.


----------



## Value Collector

Sharkman said:


> the same could be said for fiat too, it's just been around for much longer and so has (a lot) more people who are willing to believe it does. though that may not necessarily be true in some nations.




Thats why I said this back in post 230 

*"How much would bitcoin be worth if you took out all the people buying it that just wanted to make money, and left the only people in the Bitcoin market those that want to use it as a currency?"*

If bitcoin was actually just being used as a genuine currency, it would be a different story, but its not actually being used as a genuine currency. So even as a currency at the moment it has next to no value. 

I think we could all agree that even fiat currency has no value in itself, its simply a token we use to record and carry out transactions, its like an IOU, its coins and paper themselves have little value, as you can see in the many debunked currencies that exist, any one that said the way to riches was to store currency is not thinking straight.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

Brisbane-based crypto exchange Digital Surge has* frozen withdrawals*, pointing to its exposure to bankrupt global player FTX.

Digital Surge, which is a six-year-old company, revealed its vulnerability to Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed trading platform in an email to customers.


> _“Digital Surge does hold some limited exposure to FTX_, “_Since hearing the news, we have worked hard to best understand the situation as it relates to our users_.”




Dan Rutter, the co-founder and CEO, recently said the company was _*targeting self-managed super funds*_ through its “Earn” product, which supposedly offers investors annual returns of *up to* *23 per cent*.

_- too good to be true!_


----------



## The Triangle

Dona Ferentes said:


> Brisbane-based crypto exchange Digital Surge has* frozen withdrawals*, pointing to its exposure to bankrupt global player FTX.
> 
> Digital Surge, which is a six-year-old company, revealed its vulnerability to Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed trading platform in an email to customers.
> 
> 
> Dan Rutter, the co-founder and CEO, recently said the company was _*targeting self-managed super funds*_ through its “Earn” product, which supposedly offers investors annual returns of *up to* *23 per cent*.
> 
> _- too good to be true!_



The fear we should all have is crypto 'dealers' paying/bribing investment managers in untraceable crypto coin to invest our super $$$ in their dodgy crypto Ponzi schemes.   






						Warning: Self-managed super funds and crypto investments  | ASIC
					






					asic.gov.au


----------



## Trader X

Value Collector said:


> If bitcoin was actually just being used as a genuine currency, it would be a different story, but its not actually being used as a genuine currency. So even as a currency at the moment it has next to no value.
> 
> I think we could all agree that even fiat currency has no value in itself, its simply a token we use to record and carry out transactions, its like an IOU, its coins and paper themselves have little value, as you can see in the many debunked currencies that exist, any one that said the way to riches was to store currency is not thinking straight.



Only the most diehard bitcoiners are still pushing the currency use case for Bitcoin, even though it's unsuitable for this purpose as the El Salvador experiment has clearly demonstrated.

In fact, maximalists like Saylor and Breedlove advise never to sell using the scarcity argument as their reasoning for why BTC's price will eventually go to the moon.  Their hypothesis is that, as fiat money supply continues to grow along with monetary debasement, the fixed number of Bitcoins must translate to a rising price in terms of fiat.  Many grandiose assumptions are built into this hypothesis that are very unlikely to happen.  At -75% over the last 12 months in terms of valueless fiat, BTC can't be lauded as an inflation hedge or store of value.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

FTX : insolvency expert John Ray ... said in a recent bankruptcy filing:

“I have over 40 years of legal and restructuring experience. I have been the Chief Restructuring Officer or Chief Executive Officer in several of the largest corporate failures in history. I have supervised situations involving allegations of criminal activity and malfeasance (Enron). I have supervised situations involving novel financial structures (Enron and Residential Capital) and cross-border asset recovery and maximization (Nortel and Overseas Shipholding). Nearly every situation in which I have been involved has been characterized by defects of some sort in internal controls, regulatory compliance, human resources, and systems integrity.

“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here. From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated, and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.”

The more you dig into this the more you are amazed at the lack of adult supervision. SBF and his executive team took customer money and “lent” it to Alameda Research (effectively themselves), and then tried to trade their way to profits, lending themselves massive amounts of money along the way. Read this note from _Forbes_.

“FTX bankruptcy filings released Thursday revealed that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, his cofounder Gary Wang and two other executives received a total of $4.1 billion in loans from his Alameda Research trading firm.

“Of that total, $1 billion went to Bankman-Fried in the form of a personal loan, while $2.3 billion went to an entity he controls, Paper Bird (Bankman-Fried has told _Forbes_ that he owns 75% of the entity, with Wang owning the rest)—so that’s another nearly $1.73 billion at Bankman-Fried’s disposal. FTX’s Director of Engineering Nishad Singh got his own loan of $543 million, while Ryan Salame, the co-CEO of FTX’s Digital Markets subsidiary, received a $55 million personal loan.

“The obvious question: Where did all that money go? There are two principal areas we know about so far: political donations and personal investments


----------



## JohnDe

Pretty much sounds like most crypto's - _"The emerging picture suggests FTX wasn’t simply felled by a rival, or undone by a bad trade or the relentless fall this year in the value of cryptocurrencies. Instead, it had long been a chaotic mess."_



> Sam Bankman-Fried’s $US32 billion crypto-trading empire collapsed in an incandescent bankruptcy last week, prompting irate customers, crypto acolytes and Silicon Valley bigwigs to ask how something that seemed so promising could have imploded so fast.
> 
> The emerging picture suggests FTX wasn’t simply felled by a rival, or undone by a bad trade or the relentless fall this year in the value of cryptocurrencies. Instead, it had long been a chaotic mess. From its earliest days, the firm was an unruly agglomeration of corporate entities, customer assets and Mr Bankman-Fried himself, according to court papers, company balance sheets shown to bankers and interviews with employees and investors. No one could say exactly what belonged to whom. Prosecutors are now investigating its collapse.
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried’s companies had neither accounting nor functioning human-resources departments, according to a filing in federal court by the executive brought in to shepherd FTX through bankruptcy. Corporate money was used to buy real estate, but records weren’t kept. There wasn’t even a roster of employees, to say nothing of the terms of their employment. Bankruptcy filings say one entity’s outstanding loans include at least $US1 billion to Mr Bankman-Fried personally and $US543 million to a top lieutenant.
> 
> The lives of the people who ran FTX and its related companies were similarly blurred. Ten of them lived and worked together in a $30 million penthouse at an upscale resort in the Bahamas. The hours were punishing, and the lines between work and play were hard to discern. Romantic relationships among Mr Bankman-Fried’s upper echelon were common, as was use of stimulants, according to former employees.
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried, 30 years old, kept a hectic schedule, toggling between six screens and getting by on a few hours of sleep a day. He was at times romantically involved with Caroline Ellison, the 28-year-old CEO of his trading firm, Alameda Research, according to former employees.
> 
> “Nothing like regular amphetamine use to make you appreciate how dumb a lot of normal, non-medicated human experience is,” Ms Ellison once tweeted. A lawyer for Ms Ellison declined to comment.
> 
> To the outside world, Mr Bankman-Fried was the mayor of cryptoland, the man charged with convincing lawmakers, investors and enthusiasts that he’d built a new kind of finance. He urged Congress and regulators to approve his model for crypto trading. On his cryptocurrency trading exchange, FTX, positions and risk were cross-checked by computers, and algorithms would react within milliseconds to protect bad trades from spilling over to hurt other customers, he said. On Twitter, he admonished competitors for practices he called unsafe.
> 
> But behind the scenes, Mr Bankman-Fried was taking huge risks himself. Though he said publicly that Alameda was just a regular user on the exchange, the firm ran up a bill of $US8 billion buying stakes in startups, trading on credit that no other user could get. Much of that money, much of which belonged to FTX’s customers, is likely gone.
> 
> FTX’s swift collapse - it went from paragon to bankrupt in just over a week - has renewed questions about crypto’s viability, its unregulated status and how so many well-heeled investors could have been misled for so long. Investors have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into digital currencies in recent years. Staid financial institutions were finally getting in on the action, too.
> 
> The executive tapped to guide Mr Bankman-Fried’s companies through bankruptcy said the state of FTX’s affairs was the biggest mess he had seen in a decadeslong career that includes unwinding the accounting scandal that was Enron Corp. In a court filing he said many of the firm’s records of its digital assets seemed to be missing or incomplete; in many cases, he was unable to locate relevant bank accounts.
> 
> In last week’s bankruptcy papers, a Kenya-based money-transfer company was listed as an FTX entity. That surprised its CEO, Elizabeth Rossiello.
> 
> In a 2021 financial report, FTX said it had agreed to buy her company for about $US220 million. FTX never did. There was no agreement, at any price, said Ms. Rossiello. “We were going to be their exclusive partner in Africa,” she said, nothing more.
> 
> “From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented,” John J. Ray III said in court papers.
> 
> A full accounting of what went wrong at FTX is likely months away, but a reconstruction of what the firm did and how its executives operated makes plain its public image - a team of brilliant quants bringing a sophisticated, digital approach to risk - was a mirage.
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried has blamed the misuse of customer funds on sloppy record-keeping and a flood of unexpected customer withdrawals.
> 
> “I’m sorry. That’s the biggest thing,” he tweeted Nov. 10. “I f - ed up, and should have done better.”
> 
> Golden boy
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried’s combination of bravado and humility captivated crypto bros and the Davos set. Investors poured billions into the firm run by the mop-headed “League of Legends” fan who wore ratty T-shirts and slept on a beanbag chair. He was raised on the Stanford University campus by two well-known professors, fluent in the language of the highly educated.
> 
> FTX, unlike most young startups, seemed to be turning a tidy profit taking a cut of billions of dollars in daily crypto trades. Mr Bankman-Fried wasn’t like the other crypto founders. He said he was amassing a fortune for the sole purpose of giving it away, part of a movement known as effective altruism. He lobbied lawmakers to tame the wily crypto market.
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried’s businesses appeared to be pillars of stability. FTX was seemingly flush with cash after having raised about $US2 billion from investors such as Sequoia Capital and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
> 
> Yet late last year, the company started calling Bahamian banks with an unusual offer: Deposit your cash in FTX’s crypto-lending platform in exchange for interest of as much as 12%, according to bankers.
> 
> Then, in May, the crypto market crashed, taking down several crypto firms. Mr Bankman-Fried played the role of white knight.
> 
> FTX and Alameda, the trading firm, extended hundreds of millions of dollars in credit to prop up one struggling lender, BlockFi, and made an unsuccessful bid to keep lender Voyager Digital out of bankruptcy.
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried’s heroics drew comparisons to John Pierpont Morgan’s private bailouts that helped end the Panic of 1907.
> 
> “There really was significant and irresponsible risk that was taken on by some of the smaller names that are running into problems,” he told The Wall Street Journal in July.
> 
> No boundaries
> 
> Behind the scenes, Alameda the trading firm and FTX the exchange were far more entangled than outsiders realized.
> 
> One potential investor was concerned about the seeming lack of barriers between the two firms. Alex Pack first met Mr Bankman-Fried in December 2018 in the Cafe Gray Deluxe on the 49th floor of Hong Kong’s Upper House hotel.
> 
> Then a managing partner with Dragonfly Capital, a crypto-focused venture firm, Mr Pack was considering an investment in Alameda. He was captivated by the disheveled founder, who shuffled in 20 minutes late for the meeting, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt.
> 
> A monthslong due-diligence process turned up an April 2018 trading error that cost Alameda more than $US10 million. Dragonfly only learned about the loss after chatting with Alameda’s traders; the financials the firm supplied didn’t go back far enough to reveal it, Mr Pack said. Mr Bankman-Fried seemed nonchalant when asked about the loss, Mr Pack said. “We were like, this is some pretty reckless risk-taking,” said Mr Pack, now a managing partner with Hack VC.
> 
> The talks fell apart when Mr Bankman-Fried revealed that Alameda was working on the crypto exchange that would become FTX - but only wanted Dragonfly’s money for Alameda, not for the new project. “Alameda and FTX were tied at the hip,” Mr Pack said. “Proposing to use our money, if we were to invest, to finance his new business to the detriment of the business we were investing in - that left a pretty sour taste in our mouths,” he said.
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried often said Alameda played by the same rules as any other trader on FTX. “There are no parties that have privileged access,” he told the Journal in July.
> 
> He had long extolled the virtues of FTX’s “risk engine,” a system that monitored traders’ bets across a dizzying array of cryptocurrencies. If someone’s bet was going bad, the system would demand more collateral. If the trader didn’t top up their account in time, FTX could liquidate the trader’s assets.
> 
> Yet Alameda, according to bankruptcy-court documents, had a “secret exemption” that allowed it to avoid liquidations in certain circumstances. The documents didn’t spell out details of the exemption.
> 
> Alameda’s special status allowed it to effectively rack up an $US8 billion bill with FTX. Much of that money was spent buying stakes in startups and obscure digital currencies that couldn’t easily be sold to raise cash, according to a financial document prepared by FTX dated Nov. 7 that was viewed by the Journal.
> 
> Alameda spent $US1.1 billion buying stakes in Genesis Digital Assets between August 2021 and April 2022, the document shows. Bitcoin mining companies such as Genesis Digital have plunged in value in recent months.
> 
> Alameda also invested in Anthropic, an artificial-intelligence startup founded last year by devotees of the effective-altruism movement. Anthropic said in a press release that Mr Bankman-Fried and some senior colleagues at FTX had led a $US580 million investment round in the company. Documents say the investment was actually made with company money.
> 
> In addition, Alameda invested in venture-capital funds that backed FTX, including $US200 million in two funds run by Sequoia Capital and $US20 million in a Paradigm-run fund, according to the document.
> 
> Before they collapsed, Alameda and FTX valued their venture and crypto investments at more than $US5 billion, all told, the document said.
> 
> What’s an FTT worth?
> 
> The fates of Mr Bankman-Fried’s trading firm and exchange were intertwined in another big way. Alameda was highly dependent on its holdings of FTT, a cryptocurrency that FTX launched in 2019, according to the financial document viewed by the Journal.
> 
> Humans have ascribed value to objects for eons. A dollar bill is just a piece of paper, after all. But its value comes from traditions and agreements, laws and practices formed over hundreds of years. Cryptocurrencies compress that into the stroke of a key: Make a cryptographic token with some code, give it a name, and get someone to believe it’s worth $US10. If you hold a hundred thousand of these tokens, you now have an asset worth a million dollars - in theory.
> 
> Crypto investors saw the FTT token as similar to shares of FTX, and its value soared as FTX grew into one of the world’s biggest digital-currency exchanges.
> 
> Alameda holds the lion’s share of FTT in existence. Before it collapsed, Alameda had marked the value of its FTT at $US5.5 billion, according to the document.
> 
> The tokens provided Alameda with a sort of superpower: The firm could post its stash of FTT as collateral and borrow other coins to fund its trading strategies.
> 
> The strategy had one big flaw: If the price of FTT crashed, Alameda’s money spigot would dry up.
> 
> The document also listed holdings of $US5 billion of serum and $US1.7 billion of solana, tokens that were sometimes called “Sam coins” because of Mr Bankman-Fried’s role in promoting them. Alameda created serum in 2020 while solana was launched by a startup that was backed by Alameda. FTX listed the tokens on its exchange, giving them credibility among crypto investors and helping to boost their price, while Alameda counted their value toward the assets on its balance sheet.
> 
> One of Mr Bankman-Fried’s most vaunted deals helped keep his own ship from sinking. Going into the summer, BlockFi held hundreds of millions of dollars worth of FTT as collateral for loans, according to people familiar with the matter. If the lender failed, the liquidation of those tokens would have crashed FTT. FTX extended a $US400 million revolving credit facility to BlockFi that kept the lender afloat.
> 
> “BlockFi was not aware of or involved with any improper business conduct done by FTX or its counterparties,” a spokeswoman said.
> 
> On June 6, as a wave of layoffs rippled through the crypto industry, Mr Bankman-Fried tweeted that FTX would “keep growing as others cut jobs.” Later that month, FTX laid off around 20 people, mostly in the Bahamas, people familiar with the matter said, without public notice. FTX required some to sign nondisclosure agreements, they said.
> 
> Game lovers
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried had got his start at Jane Street, a high-tech trading firm, after leaving the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For fun, he and some colleagues played games that tested their intellects, such as Bughouse chess, a fast version of the game played by four players on two boards.
> 
> He founded Alameda in 2017 and FTX two years later. The exchange specialized in exotic investments like perpetual futures, leveraged tokens and options. Such markets, which U.S. regulators keep off-limits to Americans, allow traders to make huge, debt-fueled bets.
> 
> After a stint in Hong Kong, Mr Bankman-Fried and FTX made their home in the Bahamas, moving in 2021 to take advantage of the island country’s crypto-friendly regulatory regime.
> 
> On the archipelago’s New Providence island, an 80-square-mile oasis that feels to its financial elite like a small club, FTX landed with a splash, according to people on the island. The company rapidly acquired high-end real estate.
> 
> Locals said they were excited to be part of what felt like a new wave of industry. The Bahamian prime minister, Philip Davis, hoped FTX would help center his country as a nexus of the crypto world, he said in several public speeches. When given the chance to buy FTX equity earlier this year, one Bahamian FTX worker said employees spent thousands of dollars each on shares.
> 
> FTX laid out tens of millions of dollars on residences to turn part of the waterfront resort into an extension of FTX, according to people familiar with the matter. The resort kept a restaurant open 24 hours a day with FTX employees in mind, the people said.
> 
> Fundraising prowess In 2021, Silicon Valley was in a full crypto craze. Coinbase Global Inc.’s direct listing gave the company a blockbuster $US65 billion market capitalization after its first day of trading. Venture capitalists poured more than $US9 billion into crypto and blockchain startups in the first half of 2021, according to PitchBook, nearly triple what they invested in all of 2020.
> 
> FTX never really had the red-ink phase common to startups. The exchange generated an operating profit of $US14.4 million on revenue of $US89.9 million in 2020, its first full year in business, according to financial statements reviewed by the Journal. Mr Ray, the executive charged with seeing FTX through its bankruptcy, in court papers said he has doubts about the company’s past financial statements.
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried was able to dictate the terms of any deal, people familiar with the matter said. One investment firm that Mr Bankman-Fried pitched was told it had less than a week to decide whether the firm was in, one of the people said. When the firm asked to see more information about FTX’s balance sheet, the startup declined to provide it, that person said.
> 
> Potential investors said Mr Bankman-Fried appeared uninterested compared to the typical founder scrounging for money. He frequently deferred to another executive, Ramnik Arora, and moved on to other tasks.
> 
> On a call pitching Sequoia Capital, the firm that has backed some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley, Mr Bankman-Fried was simultaneously playing the video game “League of Legends,” according to an article Sequoia published on its website about FTX in September that it has since removed.
> 
> In all, dozens of investors plowed around $US2 billion into his firm in just seven months, flocking as a herd to bet on one of the world’s hottest startups.
> 
> Big spending Mr Bankman-Fried was giving multimillion-dollar donations to Democratic politicians and to fund a variety of causes, including combating climate change and curing tropical diseases. He plunged deeper into the effective-altruism movement.
> 
> FTX spent big to attract new customers. The company last year agreed to pay $US135 million over 19 years to emblazon the basketball arena where the Miami Heat play with its logo.
> 
> The deal seemed to vault FTX into an upper echelon of corporate America. Additional sponsorships followed, with a Formula One racing team, a prestigious chess tournament, esports organizations and other NBA teams.
> 
> Its advertisements featured sports stars including Tom Brady and Stephen Curry. The message in most was that it wasn’t important to understand crypto to join the frenzy, just the FTX app.
> 
> In one commercial, retired Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz is watching a game on television when he receives a phone call.
> 
> “You’re getting into crypto? With FTX? Steph and Tom are in?” Mr Ortiz says. “Oh I’m in, bro.”
> 
> Cracks emerge
> 
> This year’s crypto meltdown put a chill on Silicon Valley. But Mr Bankman-Fried needed more money. He wanted another $US1 billion to buy beaten-down crypto startups and consolidate his control over the industry.
> 
> He painted a grandiose vision to potential investors, floating the idea of acquiring Robinhood Markets Inc., according to two investors who spoke to Mr Bankman-Fried.
> 
> But he struck out in Silicon Valley. Mr Bankman-Fried turned to Middle East sovereign-wealth funds rich with oil money. At the Saudi Future Investment Initiative last month, he met with officials from the Public Investment Fund and pitched them on the company. From there he flew to Abu Dhabi, looking for an investment from the emirate’s wealth funds.
> 
> He came home empty-handed.
> 
> The first cracks appeared in Mr Bankman-Fried’s empire on November 2, when crypto website CoinDesk published an article with details from a leaked copy of Alameda’s financials. It revealed that the trading firm’s balance sheet was puffed up with billions of dollars worth of FTT and various “Sam coins.” Alameda’s Ms. Ellison tweeted that the leaked balance sheet reflected only “a subset of our corporate entities,” but the damage had been done.
> 
> The CoinDesk report drew the attention of Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire head of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. Binance was a significant holder of FTT, with more than $US500 million of the token.
> 
> On November 6, Mr Zhao tweeted that Binance would sell its FTT holdings, a move that threatened to crash the price. Although many observers chalked up the move to his long-simmering rivalry with Mr Bankman-Fried, Mr Zhao said he was protecting Binance from the risks of holding an illiquid token.
> 
> Ms Ellison tweeted that her firm would “happily” buy the entire pile of FTT tokens at $US22 per coin. Binance contacted her about the offer but never heard back, a person familiar with the matter said.
> 
> In a few tweets Mr Zhao had ignited a run on FTX. On Sunday, Nov. 7, the crypto exchange was slammed with some $US5 billion worth of withdrawals.
> 
> If FTX had managed customer funds as traditional brokerages do, it would have kept them separate from other parts of its businesses.
> 
> But FTX had loaned billions of dollars worth of customer funds to Alameda to cover its liabilities, people familiar with the matter said.
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried has disputed reports that FTX intentionally loaned customer funds to Alameda. In a text exchange published by Vox on Wednesday, he blamed “messy accounting,” adding: “I didn’t realize [the] full size of it until a few weeks ago.” The hidden loans turned the flood of withdrawals into a deathblow. Mr Bankman-Fried wrote in a tweet on Nov. 7, which has since been deleted, that “FTX is fine. Assets are fine.” Behind the scenes he was scrambling to find a deep-pocketed investor to plug the hole. He approached rival crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken, according to people familiar with the talks, but those discussions went nowhere.
> 
> He was forced to turn to his nemesis: Binance.
> 
> The evening of Nov. 7, Mr Zhao was in his office in Dubai editing notes for his upcoming speech at a conference of global leaders in Bali when he received a message from Mr Bankman-Fried over Signal, an encrypted messaging app, a person familiar with the matter said. The FTX CEO congratulated his rival and described Binance as the perfect buyer for FTX, the person said.
> 
> On the morning of Nov. 8, Mr Bankman-Fried sent a message to his team. He apologized for the chaos and thanked them for their efforts.
> 
> “It was clear the game was over,” says Nathaniel Whittemore, who was a senior marketing specialist at FTX.
> 
> That morning, Binance announced a non-binding deal to acquire FTX. The news shocked investors who had believed in Mr Bankman-Fried’s vision and stunned his employees, the vast majority of whom had no idea of FTX’s problems.
> 
> As Binance executives pored over FTX’s books, they were confronted with a confusing mess, a person familiar with the matter said. Moreover, the hole that needed to be plugged was growing: FTX first put it at $US2 billion, then $US5 billion, then finally more than $US8 billion, the person said.
> 
> Many of FTX’s lawyers quit while the talks were under way, part of a broader exodus of employees from the company, according to people familiar with the matter.
> 
> On Nov. 9, Mr Bankman-Fried messaged Binance to ask for an update: “Hey all, we are still extremely excited to work on this with you guys. We are obviously seeing a lot of public pieces coming out claiming leaks but obviously we don’t know if that is real. We would love to get clarity from you guys about this.” Three minutes later, Mr Zhao wrote back to the FTX chief. “Sam, I’m sorry,” he said, “we won’t be able to continue this deal. Way too many issues. CZ.”
> 
> Fallout
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried hustled to raise money from other investors, who pressed him on what happened to the customer funds. In one call on Nov. 9, he told prospective investors that FTX had taken in $US16 billion of customer assets denominated in various cryptocurrencies and loaned more than half of it to Alameda.
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried searched for words. “There was a... a... a... let’s call it ballpark $US8-ish-billion of um um um margin position size and it was quickly going to get to the point where we are not gonna have enough liquid assets to meet withdrawals,” he told the prospective investors, according to a recording of the call heard by the Journal.
> 
> In a Nov. 9 video meeting with Alameda employees, Ms. Ellison, the CEO, apologized and said that she had disappointed the staff, according to a person familiar with the matter.
> 
> Ms. Ellison said she, Mr Bankman-Fried and two other FTX executives knew about the decision to send customer funds to Alameda, people familiar with the matter said.
> 
> Stunned by the revelations, many Alameda employees quit the next day, according to people familiar with the matter.
> 
> With her large-framed glasses, Ms. Ellison was known to be sociable with those who shared similar interests, one former colleague said. But she tended to turn quiet during high-pressure trading situations, the person said, and could get bulldozed by louder and more outwardly confident peers, especially Mr Bankman-Fried.
> 
> On Nov. 10, the Journal reported that FTX had used customer funds to prop up Alameda. The crypto community was turning sharply against the FTX chief, who was being called “Scam Bankrun-Fraud” on social media.
> 
> “I’m really trying to control my rage,” Kraken CEO Jesse Powell tweeted. “This isn’t about aiming high and missing. This is about recklessness, greed, self-interest, hubris, sociopathic behavior that causes a person to risk all the hard-won progress this industry has earned over a decade, for their own personal gain.” The next day, FTX filed for bankruptcy.
> 
> Its collapse has shaken the crypto world. BlockFi halted withdrawals on Nov. 10 and is preparing to file for bankruptcy. Crypto lender Genesis, which paused withdrawals on Nov. 16, said in a tweet it has hired advisers and is exploring all options.
> 
> FTX hired a Bahamian security firm to guard FTX headquarters shortly before the collapse. After the news, the majority of non-local FTX employees left the island. The security guards said they found themselves protecting nearly vacant buildings.
> 
> Mr Bankman-Fried and a skeleton crew of remaining employees spent the past weekend trying to raise funds to plug FTX’s $US8 billion hole and repay customers.
> 
> Before the company collapsed, FTX staffers frequented Island Brothers, an upscale French bistro a stone’s throw from the company’s headquarters, restaurant employees said. The owner got to know Mr Bankman-Fried’s father, Stanford tax-law scholar Joseph Bankman, during his visits to Nassau to spend time with his son.
> 
> Last week, FTX’s downfall brought Mr Bankman to Island Brothers in a somber mood. After a few pleasantries, the restaurant owner said, Mr Bankman broke down in tears.
> 
> _— Vicky Ge Huang, Gregory Zuckerman, Paul Vigna, Eliot Brown, Peter Rudegeair, Berber Jin, Elaine Yu, Rachel Louise Ensign, Ben Cohen, Shane Shifflett, Coulter Jones, Julie Steinberg, Rory Jones, Jonathan Weil, Justin Baer, Hannah Miao, Gina Heeb, Ryan Dezember, Dave Michaels contributed to this article._


----------



## Belli

I honestly know nothing about crypto.  However, I hold some tulip bulbs ready for the time they make a comeback.


----------



## So_Cynical

Question - is all crypto going to zero?


----------



## Trader X

So_Cynical said:


> Question - is all crypto going to zero?



Seems likely only a small number of these projects will survive long term.  As for Bitcoin (the "premier asset" in this space), CBDC will play a significant role in the future price and fungibility of Bitcoin.  Another possible future outcome is the emergence of a gold-backed stable coin, functioning as a widely adopted real digital currency and store of value, will eventually supplant all others and render the remainder fringe assets.


----------



## Tyre Kicker

So_Cynical said:


> Question - is all crypto going to zero?




May not be a popular response but… yes, I hope so.


----------



## So_Cynical

Trader X said:


> Another possible future outcome is the emergence of a gold-backed stable coin, functioning as a widely adopted real digital currency and store of value, will eventually supplant all others and render the remainder fringe assets.




Cant figure why this hasn't already happened, i though of it 3 or 4 years ago.

My concept.

Gold and silver are reasonably easy to identify in all common forms as they have specific weights per volume, so easy for people to deposit gold and silver (physical) with/at branches and be given in exchange PMT - Precious Metal Tokens equivalent to the value of physical deposits based on 1 token per gram of silver equivalent ($1.01 AUD ATM). Then use a Proof of stake blockchain to keep track of everything and keep a distributed and central ledger.

I reckon 5 million to get things started would be enough, beginning with a depository in NZ or Aust then expanding to 6 or 7 strategically located around the world, at a basic level people could deposit via post or courier sending small ingots or coin, all tokens would be backed by real gold and silver held in multiple friendly jurisdictions, all verifiable and auditable.

A real digital token backed by real assets.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

So_Cynical said:


> Question - is all crypto going to zero?



Utility seems rather diminished if storing it and not being able to trust the exchange is the current state of play.


----------



## So_Cynical

Tyre Kicker said:


> May not be a popular response but… yes, I hope so.



Hope so? i asked the question because i very much doubt many will and i dont think any genuine analysis could come to the conclusion that its all over for all crypto thus almost certainly a substantial opportunity is approaching.


----------



## Tyre Kicker

I’m sure there will still be plenty of fools that put their money into something so unstable and… worth nothing.


----------



## Telamelo

Meanwhile crypto token SONM just gained +3661% !!! in less than 24hrs lol


----------



## The Triangle

So_Cynical said:


> Cant figure why this hasn't already happened, i though of it 3 or 4 years ago.
> 
> My concept.
> 
> Gold and silver are reasonably easy to identify in all common forms as they have specific weights per volume, so easy for people to deposit gold and silver (physical) with/at branches and be given in exchange PMT - Precious Metal Tokens equivalent to the value of physical deposits based on 1 token per gram of silver equivalent ($1.01 AUD ATM). Then use a Proof of stake blockchain to keep track of everything and keep a distributed and central ledger.
> 
> I reckon 5 million to get things started would be enough, beginning with a depository in NZ or Aust then expanding to 6 or 7 strategically located around the world, at a basic level people could deposit via post or courier sending small ingots or coin, all tokens would be backed by real gold and silver held in multiple friendly jurisdictions, all verifiable and auditable.
> 
> A real digital token backed by real assets.



It's an idea, but what is the purpose of this?  You send in your 10 oz of physical gold and end up with a gold-crypro-token-key-number that says you have 10 oz of gold - which presumably you can use in to buy a cup of coffee with some app, then buy a 1-week cruise to Alaska, or pay your electricity bills. or maybe do nothing and sit on the cryptogold.

But someone has to build that app, and someone has to store that gold physically, and someone has to own the computer(s) which record those transactions to now say you have 9.32 oz of gold.   So, we hope some coked up 2 and 20 fund managers give a bunch of MIT kids your superannuation savings to build a company that manages all of this.   Well, if the fund managers don't continue to put in your hard saved money then this company that 'manages' the gold coin needs to get money from somewhere else to pay their fees, to keep the app working, etc. etc, hopefully from advertising - so each time you buy a coffee or book a cruise you have to watch 2 x 15 second videos, and if you don't want to do that then you're going to have to give them a tiny fraction of your gold  maybe 0.01oz per 1.00oz deposited or x% of your gold each time do spend it.    I dunno, doesn't exactly sound very interesting or sustainable to me.   

And what happens if the gold in friendly jurisdictions gets stolen?  what is a friendly jurisdiction?  Also, gold backed anything is as dead and gone as is doing a rain dance or sacrificing virgins to appease the gods.


----------



## divs4ever

InsvestoBoy said:


> Is this really what happened?
> 
> More likely your vendor was using a payment gateway that automates the process of receiving any cryptocurrency and converting it to USD, giving customers who wish to to pay in cryptocurrency with the vendor able to remain agnostic on the merits or lack thereof of whichever cryptocurrency they "accept".
> 
> In any case the vendor can't pay suppliers, employees, taxes etc in whatever cryptocurrency, so they wouldn't retain it on their balance sheet even if they did accept it directly.
> 
> One might argue they could retain their after tax profits on balance sheet in cryptocurrency form, but I doubt any business owner is stupid enough to do such a thing.



 then let me introduce you to Alameda and FTX ( this is NOT a recommendation ) , they even added leverage to the mix


----------



## divs4ever

The Triangle said:


> It's an idea, but what is the purpose of this?  You send in your 10 oz of physical gold and end up with a gold-crypro-token-key-number that says you have 10 oz of gold - which presumably you can use in to buy a cup of coffee with some app, then buy a 1-week cruise to Alaska, or pay your electricity bills. or maybe do nothing and sit on the cryptogold.
> 
> But someone has to build that app, and someone has to store that gold physically, and someone has to own the computer(s) which record those transactions to now say you have 9.32 oz of gold.   So, we hope some coked up 2 and 20 fund managers give a bunch of MIT kids your superannuation savings to build a company that manages all of this.   Well, if the fund managers don't continue to put in your hard saved money then this company that 'manages' the gold coin needs to get money from somewhere else to pay their fees, to keep the app working, etc. etc, hopefully from advertising - so each time you buy a coffee or book a cruise you have to watch 2 x 15 second videos, and if you don't want to do that then you're going to have to give them a tiny fraction of your gold  maybe 0.01oz per 1.00oz deposited or x% of your gold each time do spend it.    I dunno, doesn't exactly sound very interesting or sustainable to me.
> 
> And what happens if the gold in friendly jurisdictions gets stolen?  what is a friendly jurisdiction?  Also, gold backed anything is as dead and gone as is doing a rain dance or sacrificing virgins to appease the gods.



 there is only ONE friendly jurisdiction  , but you would have to ask GG   for better ideas about that


----------



## Garpal Gumnut

This about sums Crypto up for me. 

Although I've never bought any, just going on what's happening with it atm. 



> You ever get ill at ease? said Rawlins.
> About what?
> I dont know. About anything. Just ill at ease.
> Sometimes. If you're someplace you aint supposed to be I guess you'd be ill at ease. Should be anyways.
> Well suppose you were ill at ease and didnt know why. Would that mean that you might be someplace you wasnt supposed to be and didnt know it? — *Cormac McCarthy*




gg


----------



## Value Collector

JohnDe said:


> Pretty much sounds like most crypto's - _"The emerging picture suggests FTX wasn’t simply felled by a rival, or undone by a bad trade or the relentless fall this year in the value of cryptocurrencies. Instead, it had long been a chaotic mess."_



Sounds like it was run nearly as well as Stratton Oakmont hahaha


----------



## Value Collector

So_Cynical said:


> Cant figure why this hasn't already happened, i though of it 3 or 4 years ago.
> 
> My concept.
> 
> Gold and silver are reasonably easy to identify in all common forms as they have specific weights per volume, so easy for people to deposit gold and silver (physical) with/at branches and be given in exchange PMT - Precious Metal Tokens equivalent to the value of physical deposits based on 1 token per gram of silver equivalent ($1.01 AUD ATM). Then use a Proof of stake blockchain to keep track of everything and keep a distributed and central ledger.
> 
> I reckon 5 million to get things started would be enough, beginning with a depository in NZ or Aust then expanding to 6 or 7 strategically located around the world, at a basic level people could deposit via post or courier sending small ingots or coin, all tokens would be backed by real gold and silver held in multiple friendly jurisdictions, all verifiable and auditable.
> 
> A real digital token backed by real assets.



Who pays for the frictional costs of storing and protecting the gold/silver and the transport etc.


----------



## Value Collector

So_Cynical said:


> Question - is all crypto going to zero?



Eventually I believe it will be very close to zero, at least compared to what it trades at today, they don’t seem to have any real world value or purpose.

There will be digital currencies in the future, but not these silly little ones like Bitcoin that aren’t real currencies anyway.


----------



## Trader X

Value Collector said:


> Who pays for the frictional costs of storing and protecting the gold/silver and the transport etc.











						What is a gold-backed token and how does it work?
					

Gold-backed tokens are getting increasingly popular as a more accessible alternative to investing in physical gold.




					cointelegraph.com


----------



## Knobby22

Trader X said:


> What is a gold-backed token and how does it work?
> 
> 
> Gold-backed tokens are getting increasingly popular as a more accessible alternative to investing in physical gold.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> cointelegraph.com



Useful for the black market.


----------



## frugal.rock

Re FTX, I can't wait for the movie 😅. 

Could be the best one yet trading related, from the story so far.


----------



## Dona Ferentes

frugal.rock said:


> Re FTX, I can't wait for the movie 😅.



the lead villain, although likely loved by his mother, is an ugly brute; who would want to play that role?


----------



## So_Cynical

The Triangle said:


> It's an idea, but what is the purpose of this?  You send in your 10 oz of physical gold and end up with a gold-crypro-token-key-number that says you have 10 oz of gold - which presumably you can use in to buy a cup of coffee with some app, then buy a 1-week cruise to Alaska, or pay your electricity bills. or maybe do nothing and sit on the cryptogold.



What's the purpose? thats a good question.

More broadly - Why are there currently 13,235 different crypto tokens with a market cap of 869 Billion USD?

Why do some people collect physical silver?  My neighbour has 8 cats - Why? Some people go on holiday to North Korea - why?
Elon paid 44 billion for Twitter - thats nuts - why do that?, why build rockets and plan to go to Mars - its irrational, its all irrational.


----------



## Value Collector

Trader X said:


> What is a gold-backed token and how does it work?
> 
> 
> Gold-backed tokens are getting increasingly popular as a more accessible alternative to investing in physical gold.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> cointelegraph.com



That didn’t actually answer my question.

Which was how would the frictional costs of the system described by so cynical be paid.

Also, I guess I can add to that how is the long term viability of these gold back coins you linked maintained, because surely if they are backed by gold that gold requires a certain fixed monthly cost to store.

It’s a genuine question I have, eg how does their business model cover the cost of providing the coins and storing the gold?


----------



## Value Collector

So_Cynical said:


> What's the purpose? thats a good question.
> 
> More broadly - Why are there currently 13,235 different crypto tokens with a market cap of 869 Billion USD?
> 
> Why do some people collect physical silver?  My neighbour has 8 cats - Why? Some people go on holiday to North Korea - why?
> Elon paid 44 billion for Twitter - thats nuts - why do that?, why build rockets and plan to go to Mars - its irrational, its all irrational.



The 13,235 different cryptos exist because people are speculating on them trying to get rich quick, but of course this doesn’t imply that any of them have any real long term value.

Silver is a real commodity with a real use, so had some value even if you took the speculators away.

Pets and holidays have real world positives outcomes.

Twitter has a chance of being a real business producing real cashflow and paying dividends.

What do the crypto’s do for their holders outside of hoping a bigger idiot comes along to pay more?


----------



## Value Collector

Dona Ferentes said:


> the lead villain, although likely loved by his mother, is an ugly brute; who would want to play that role?



Probably one of the Baldwins.


----------



## Trader X

Value Collector said:


> That didn’t actually answer my question.
> 
> Which was how would the frictional costs of the system described by so cynical be paid.
> 
> Also, I guess I can add to that how is the long term viability of these gold back coins you linked maintained, because surely if they are backed by gold that gold requires a certain fixed monthly cost to store.
> 
> It’s a genuine question I have, eg how does their business model cover the cost of providing the coins and storing the gold?



The presumption must be that any frictional and storage costs would be assessed proportionally to the stable coin holder in some manner. I am unaware of the specifics of how this would be done. I will be more interested in such details once a gold-backed stable coin project gains momentum, recognition and broad acceptance as sound digital money and a real store of value.


----------



## Value Collector

Trader X said:


> I will be more interested in such details once a gold-backed stable coin project gains momentum, recognition and broad acceptance as sound digital money and a real store of value.



I think I would prefer one of the many other stores of value that also produce income, rather than being a net cost to me.

I can see the small benefit of having a "store of value" as insurance against calamity that exists mainly digitally that I can log in and access any where in the world, but as soon as you tie this "store of value" to a lump of gold sitting in a location some where, we lose part of its insurance value in that it can be lost to governments, theft or corruption in times of war etc when we would need it the most.

I kinda feel like chasing a digital store of value is a bit like chasing a dream of designing a perpetual motion machine, it's just not going to work. As soon as you try and build in gold backing etc to legitimise it you begin to lose the parts of the digital currency dream that were attractive in the first place.

As I have said before digital currencies will work, but they will be fiat style ones backed by reserve banks and designed to be actual currencies, not these speculative things.


----------



## Trader X

Value Collector said:


> I think I would prefer one of the many other stores of value that also produce income, rather than being a net cost to me.



Gold ownership either requires self-custody (free, but not risk free) or a trusted custodian for a fee.  Real digital gold requires a trusted custodial model.  A store of value implies retention of purchasing power relative to debased fiat and low volatility.  Returning to a gold standard today would likely necessitate a blockchain based solution.  



Value Collector said:


> as soon as you tie this "store of value" to a lump of gold sitting in a location some where, we lose part of its insurance value in that it can be lost to governments, theft or corruption in times of war etc when we would need it the most.



This is true of any asset not in self-custody.  Even then, anything you own can be confiscated or rendered useless/valueless by governments whether in your direct possession or not.



Value Collector said:


> As I have said before digital currencies will work, but they will be fiat style ones backed by reserve banks and designed to be actual currencies, not these speculative things.



Agree that CBDC will dominate.  A gold backed CBDC, essentially returning to a gold standard, would be ideal but seems unlikely.  If, as some have suggested, a "great financial reset" event occurs and ushers in a new gold standard, I would expect that to be implemented via blockchain.


----------



## Value Collector

Trader X said:


> 1. Gold ownership either requires self-custody (free, but not risk free) or a trusted custodian for a fee.  Real digital gold requires a trusted custodial model.  A store of value implies retention of purchasing power relative to debased fiat and low volatility.  Returning to a gold standard today would likely necessitate a blockchain based solution.
> 
> 
> 2. This is true of any asset not in self-custody.  Even then, anything you own can be confiscated or rendered useless/valueless by governments whether in your direct possession or not.
> 
> 
> 3. Agree that CBDC will dominate.  A gold backed CBDC, essentially returning to a gold standard, would be ideal but seems unlikely.  If, as some have suggested, a "great financial reset" event occurs and ushers in a new gold standard, I would expect that to be implemented via blockchain.



1. Yep I have an understanding of what a store of value is, As I said I prefer stores of value that also generate income, for example quality pieces of industrial real estate, on long 30 year leases.

2. Yep, as I said even digital currency can't take away risk with out the currency itself being worthless

3. gold backing a currency that you actually want to use as a national currency is a terrible idea, you need to be able to expand and contract the currency as the economy grows, and you don't want it open to speculation and cornering. You also want a little bit of inflation to avoid deflation and encourage people to make real investments rather than just hoarding currency.


----------



## Tyre Kicker

Value Collector said:


> The 13,235 different cryptos exist because people are speculating on them trying to get rich quick, but of course this doesn’t imply that any of them have any real long term value.
> 
> Silver is a real commodity with a real use, so had some value even if you took the speculators away.
> 
> Pets and holidays have real world positives outcomes.
> 
> Twitter has a chance of being a real business producing real cashflow and paying dividends.
> 
> What do the crypto’s do for their holders outside of hoping a bigger idiot comes along to pay more?




Mail on the head.

And there are plenty of idiots to throw their money at something worth nothing.


----------



## Craton

HashFlare's Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin charged over four-year cryptocurrency pyramid scheme​From the article:


> Police in Estonia have arrested two men accused of a $US575 million ($870 million) cryptocurrency fraud, United States authorities confirm.





> An indictment that was unsealed in the US District Court in Seattle contains charges against Estonian citizens Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin, both aged 37, with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
> 
> Four other people living in Estonia, Belarus and Switzerland were also charged, but their identities have not been released.
> 
> Prosecutors said that, from 2015 to 2019, the suspects tricked hundreds of thousands of people into buying contracts for a cryptocurrency mining service called HashFlare and investing in a virtual currency bank called Polybius Bank.
> 
> In reality, the businesses operated as pyramid schemes, prosecutors said.
> 
> The men are accused of using shell companies to launder the fraud proceeds and to purchase real estate and luxury cars.
> 
> According to the US Justice Department, the men are in custody in Estonia pending extradition to the US.


----------



## basilio

It is clear that the Crypto House of Cards is unravelling.  The knock on effects of the FTX collapse and now the Genesis crisis will only continue.

My question would be how this collapse will impact on the mainstream financial systems ?









						Genesis Trading Warns of Possible Bankruptcy as Post-FTX Fundraising Falters: Report - Decrypt
					

Having earlier suspended lending services, the crypto giant may be the latest victim of 'crypto contagion.'




					decrypt.co


----------



## rcw1

basilio said:


> ...
> 
> My question would be how this collapse will impact on the mainstream financial systems ?
> 
> ...



Good evening basilio,
People that got burnt over this mess will be hurting for some time and there will be a follow-on effect.  Ultimately the steam roller will keep moving forward.  Anything in its way, well... 

Kind regards
rcw1


----------



## basilio

On the wider investment front there is some heavy recalculation of value and risk as interest rates rise.
This analysis from Satyajit Das explores that issue.









						'Populist anger' drove the crypto craze and bust, but Satyajit Das says there's a bigger threat hiding in plain sight
					

One of the few financiers who sounded a warning bell before the global financial crisis believes today's cryptocurrency "meltdown" was predictable, and that "nobody is taking much notice" of a broader financial market problem.




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## basilio

This analysis   looks at FTX's collapse against the history of similar swindles.

The ad that Larry David did for FTX ?  Priceless..









						Breakingviews - FTX flop evokes history’s great financial swindles
					

Sam Bankman-Fried claims to be more interested in gaming than literature. Not long ago the founder of FTX, the failed cryptocurrency exchange, declared: “I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think, if you wrote a book, you...




					www.reuters.com


----------



## Craton

From the company that was called National Cash Register and now called NCR Corporation. Crypto/stable coins are more than likely here to stay.

Embracing Crypto:


> What’s the current global outlook for crypto?​
> There has been a surge of interest in cryptocurrency from consumers to businesses to regulators over the last several years. Much of this stems from increasing communications and clarity from regulators, which in turn gives businesses the comfort to launch their crypto products in their respective markets. In the US, both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have put out new guidance and enforcement actions. The Senate has held numerous hearings on crypto regulation. While there is no global licensing system for cryptocurrency, there is a continued pattern of positive or no regulation for most countries. Additionally, countries like El Salvador have even adopted bitcoin to be legal tender alongside the US Dollar.
> 
> How has the crypto market evolved in recent years?​
> 
> 
> There has been a surge in emerging use cases outside of the main “store of value” value proposition. Cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and stablecoins like USD Coin or USD Tether continue to see strong adoption. Ethereum has provided a springboard for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications that allow for consumers to become direct participants in activities previously limited to banks and other third parties (e.g. lending, payment processing, etc.) and partaking in the higher risk/reward that comes with that. Stablecoins, for instance, allow individuals and businesses to make direct payments and move funds across borders instantly 24/7 outside traditional bank hours and holidays without a third party.
> 
> What does this mean for financial institutions?​
> 
> 
> This presents both a risk and an opportunity for financial institutions (FIs). Consumers have indicated their desire for new and innovative solutions to generate returns in today’s macroeconomic environment. Inflation is high and consumers are increasingly looking to seek out products and services that can help generate outsized returns accordingly. If traditional FIs do not offer this, consumers are moving their funds to brokers and service providers that do. One top 20 bank has seen outflows of hundreds of millions of dollars to cryptocurrency exchanges last year alone.
> That said, FIs are trusted providers and consumers have indicated many would prefer their FIs add these additional services like the ability to buy/sell bitcoin instead of figuring out how to manage all that on their own. By adding crypto capabilities to their offerings, FIs can satisfy customer demand, add fast growing innovative products while sharing in the fee revenue opportunity.
> 
> What are the key considerations for FIs in building their crypto strategy – and where are most on this journey?​
> 
> 
> FIs first need to decide where cryptocurrency is on the demand spectrum and what services their customers are interested in to determine the correct prioritization. This can be done actively by talking to customers, commissioning surveys and passively by analyzing bank outflows.
> FIs then need to decide how much and what areas of the crypto business activity they want to perform themselves - partner vs. build and buy/sell/hold vs. DeFi lending/staking, etc. As cryptocurrency is still new for most FIs and not their main offering, many will prefer to partner with reputable and established cryptocurrency providers and lean on their regulatory, licensing, and reporting programs instead of building the same from scratch.
> The FIs may want to engage with their respective regulators depending on how they are chartered and provide notice of their intended offering.
> For most FIs, it is only a matter of when as it relates to crypto offerings. Consumers across all geographies and demographics want access to the rapidly growing cryptocurrency ecosystem. It is clear that cryptocurrency is not going away, so the decision is more if an FI prefers to be a leader or is content with being a follower in the space.
> Where do we see the future of crypto?​Thirteen years since the invention of Bitcoin, it is clear that cryptocurrencies are here to stay. While there will always be cryptocurrency specific companies, most companies will incorporate crypto into their business in one way or another, often behind the scenes. From offering seamless ways to obtain exposure to the latest tokens through to cheaper, faster payments and managing global treasuries and foreign currency exchange, cryptocurrencies can offer a better way for individuals and businesses to transact leading to higher customer satisfaction and retention.



...and this:
Origins of Stablecoins. Stability instead of volatility


> Stablecoins are one of the largest use cases for blockchain technology. Stablecoins are a class of cryptocurrencies that attempt to offer price stability by being backed by selected collateral or managed by an automated set of rules known as algorithm. There are four types of stablecoins:
> 1.     *Fiat stablecoins*: collateralized by fiat currency(s) held in a bank account
> 2.     *Commodity stablecoins*: collateralized by commodity(s), such as gold or oil
> 3.     *Cryptocurrency stablecoins*: collateralized by one or more cryptocurrencies
> 4.     *Non-collateralized stablecoins*: an algorithm based off supply and demand principles to maintain stable prices at all times
> So, what are the origins of stablecoins? Back when the cryptocurrency industry first started, traders looking to purchase cryptocurrencies would use bank transfers to move fiat currencies between their bank accounts and cryptocurrency exchanges. This transfer process took several business days to complete, thus decreasing opportunities to trade in the markets. This friction led to the creation of Stablecoins. The first stablecoin was created in July 2014 by Bitshares called BitUSD with the goal of providing an easy and fast on/off ramp within cryptocurrency exchanges for trading. BitUSD was later collateralized by cryptocurrencies, thus causing the price to fluctuate which led to losing its parity to $USD in 2018. There have been several stablecoins created since BitUSD, with the largest stablecoins by market cap (as of October 2022) being Tether, USD Coin, Binance USD, and DAI. The increase in number of stablecoin projects has led to dramatic growth in total stablecoin market capitalization from $5.6 billion in January 2020 to $181.76 billion in April 2022. However, this drastic growth has come with a few major setbacks for the market.
> *The downfall of Terra*
> Let's take a look at Terra. Terra is a protocol that uses a swap algorithm to peg stablecoins to three fiat currencies. Before the downfall in May 2022, Terra used the cryptocurrency Luna as collateral for each of the Terra stablecoins. Luna’s market capitalization dropped from $18.6 billion on May 9th 2022 to less than $1 billion by May 19th 2022. This drop was caused by an individual selling $285 million worth of Terra’s stablecoins called Terra USD (also known as UST), which led to triggering UST to lose its US Dollar parity. UST then continued decreasing in value, causing Terra to sell the protocol’s bitcoin holdings to preserve Luna’s price. The overall cryptocurrency market ramifications of this event are drastic with several large holders of UST losing their money, billions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin being sold off on the open market (which was then amplified by other macroeconomic market conditions), and over leveraged cryptocurrency positions.
> The Terra example not only fuels fear in the market but its also become a poster child for individuals to create misinformed statements that stablecoins are risky. However, much of this misconception stems from the shock of the volume of loss, and only pertains to one of 200+ stablecoins. Several of these other stablecoin issuers, such as USDC, are pegged 1:1 with the US Dollar and undergo treasury audits from external accounting firms. Not only are audited fiat stablecoins less risky than other stablecoins, they also have several global benefits:
> 1.     Fiat stablecoins allow individuals around the world to have access to several currencies such as the Euro and Dollar. This is crucial for the millions of people under high inflation and/or currency collapse pressures.
> 2.     Fiat stablecoins allow two parties to send cross-border transactions for a fraction of current costs using the traditional correspondent banking system. The remittance process is explained on this blog post.
> 3.     Stablecoins offer the opportunity for users to receive higher APY in a stablecoin yield account than a traditional savings account. The United States national APY average for a savings account is 0.16% (October 2022). Stablecoin yield varies per exchange ranging from 0.15% APY to 7% APY for USDC.
> *Global Regulation*
> Regulators around the world are actively creating governing frameworks to account for stablecoins. Senator Cynthia Lummis, also known as ‘Crypto Queen’, from Wyoming has led the regulatory conversations for cryptocurrencies in the United States. Senators Lummis, Toomey, Portman, Warner and Sinema proposed an amendment to the Infrastructure Bill in August 2021 to encompass digital asset regulatory clarity.
> Legislation efforts are also underway in the European Union. The EU agreed on the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation at the end of June. Although the final text is still to be published, MiCA may require stablecoin issuers to build up capital and liquidity reserves and should establish a cap of 200 million euros in transactions per day. The push for increased stablecoin oversight by governments has received mixed opinions, but at the heart of the debate, regulatory clarity will provide guiderails for innovation within the industry.
> *Where do we go from here?*
> The future of fiat stablecoins is very promising due to their uses cases of no-barrier access to global currencies, high yield savings accounts, and remittance technology with low fees. These world-changing use cases along with increased global regulatory clarity will drive continued innovation in the stablecoin market. We predict the stablecoin market will continue growing in the coming years and look forward to integrating the technology.


----------



## wayneL

Kathy Wood of ARKK fund is sticking by her prediction of $1000000 Bitcoin by 2030.

This does not fill me with confidence.


----------



## The Triangle

Lotta videos out there on the whole FTX collapse.  But this is a good interview from CNBC of Terry Duffy who is the guy that is in charge of the CME - which is actually a legitimate exchange.   He was one of the very few who months and months ago called out Sam-Bankman Freid but no one listened to him.  There are also clips of this guy testifying before congress and effectively being ridiculed by Silicon Valley politicians.  He takes a lot of shots at swamp in this interview.  

I'd move back to the US and vote for this go to be president any day.   He has effectively accused (at least asked the question) congress and Washington regulators of being paid off by SBF.


----------



## finicky

Almudda, FTX, FTT
All about *the cult *in clean easy bites, no jargon, from a savvy young Australian. I still don't get it, don't care nither.


----------



## greggles

The next domino falls. BlockFi files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with US$1 billion in assets and US$10  billion in liabilities.









						Crypto firm BlockFi files for bankruptcy after FTX collapse
					

BlockFi filed for bankruptcy, the latest crypto firm to collapse after crypto exchange FTX’s rapid downfall.




					www.smh.com.au


----------



## basilio

More fallout in Australia from the FTX crash.

FTX collapse sends shockwaves through other Australian businesses​Withdrawals now suspended at the Brisbane-based cryptocurrency exchange Digital Surge for more than a week

Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates
Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast



Close to 30,000 customers in Australia are believed to be affected by the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Photograph: Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

Josh Taylor

@joshgnosis
Tue 29 Nov 2022 15.52 AEDTLast modified on Tue 29 Nov 2022 15.56 AEDT


The collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX continues to reverberate in Australia with customer withdrawals suspended at the Brisbane-based exchange Digital Surge for more than a week.
Close to 30,000 customers in Australia are believed to have been caught up in the collapse of FTX this month, but the flow-on effects are now being felt by other businesses.

Digital Surge – which allows customers to invest in cryptocurrency in Australia through multiple methods, including through their self-managed super funds – advised customers last week it was suspending deposits and withdrawals after the “greatly upsetting” news of FTX going into administration.









						FTX collapse sends shockwaves through other Australian businesses
					

Withdrawals now suspended at the Brisbane-based cryptocurrency exchange Digital Surge for more than a week




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## greggles

Having withdrawls suspended is not good news for crypto generally. When withdrawls for anything are restricted, that creates one thing: fear. Specifically, fear that those affected will not be able to withdraw their currency, and that their capital will eventually be worth nothing. This fear will lead to mass withdrawls when they again become available, because "anything is better than nothing".

I still believe that the real fallout from the FTX collapse is yet to be felt. What happened there is, by all accounts, so scandalous and damaging that the ramifications will be severe and broadly felt. My gut feeling is that December is going to be a bad month for crypto.


----------



## Sharkman

greggles said:


> Having withdrawls suspended is not good news for crypto generally. When withdrawls for anything are restricted, that creates one thing: fear. Specifically, fear that those affected will not be able to withdraw their currency, and that their capital will eventually be worth nothing. This fear will lead to mass withdrawls when they again become available, because "anything is better than nothing".
> 
> I still believe that the real fallout from the FTX collapse is yet to be felt. What happened there is, by all accounts, so scandalous and damaging that the ramifications will be severe and broadly felt. My gut feeling is that December is going to be a bad month for crypto.




in the short term it's not good news, but longer term i think it's a healthy thing. crypto was originally founded upon the ethos of decentralisation and self-custody, it's been slowly drifting away from that due to emergence of all these centralised entities and all the fancy marketing they've spewed out. with the bad actors slowly being weeded out and trust in centralised entities diminishing, that should push the community back to the core ethos. if it takes further falls in the market to get there, then so be it.

i've seen some articles/videos recently that claim on-chain analytics show the amount of crypto held on exchanges is dropping rapidly, but they are not being swapped back to fiat, they are being withdrawn to self-custodial wallets. i have neither the time nor expertise to verify this myself, but if true, that would suggest the return to the core ethos is already well underway. the question is though, will people remember this when the next bull market eventually comes around, and new centralised entities spring up with all their marketing spiel again?


----------



## So_Cynical

Sharkman said:


> in the short term it's not good news, but longer term i think it's a healthy thing. crypto was originally founded upon the ethos of decentralisation and self-custody, it's been slowly drifting away from that due to emergence of all these centralised entities and all the fancy marketing they've spewed out. with the bad actors slowly being weeded out and trust in centralised entities diminishing, that should push the community back to the core ethos. if it takes further falls in the market to get there, then so be it.
> 
> i've seen some articles/videos recently that claim on-chain analytics show the amount of crypto held on exchanges is dropping rapidly, but they are not being swapped back to fiat, they are being withdrawn to self-custodial wallets.




The rise of interest bearing deposits never really made any sense to me, clearly the deposit takers were simply using the funds to punt and FTX looks to have been a significant punter.


----------



## moXJO

All this "end of crypto" talk. Everyone must have forgotten all the other crypto winters. 

Crypto is the most massive returns, or losses you are likely to see in your lifetime. It's all based on two of the most powerful forces in the world (Fear and Greed)  and will eventually see something spring from the dust. 

Anyone who thinks it's an investment has rocks in their head. Same with anyone that keeps large holdings in an online brokerage.
It's a casino full of scammers and the majority of people are too dumb to play. It's value is zero. Treat it as such.

For any technical/ share traders its bloody nirvana. The returns alone are like nothing you will ever see again. I hope it isn't over just yet. But I do believe it will be a long winter.

While money is contracting its easy to bag crypto. But it's just all part of the cycle where you move to the next thing until the money circles back.


----------



## Sharkman

So_Cynical said:


> The rise of interest bearing deposits never really made any sense to me, clearly the deposit takers were simply using the funds to punt and FTX looks to have been a significant punter.




it's even worse than that, not only were they punting using customer funds, they were also taking out fiat loans that were collateralised by tokens, many of which were tokens _that they created themselves _(CEL for Celsius, FTT for FTX etc). since those tokens were highly illiquid, it didn't take much (Binance selling their FTT stake for eg) to cause the price to drop sharply, sending people running for the exits, pushing the price down further, which triggered margin calls, causing the whole thing to come crashing down.

this is not the fault of the system itself, which was founded on decentralisation and self-custody, as i wrote above. it's the fault of bad/greedy centralised entities within that system, and i think a lot of people in general aren't differentiating between the two, instead they equate the failure of Celsius, FTX etc. as the failure of the entire ecosystem. i'm not saying the whole ecosystem won't fail, it may well all come down eventually, that's why i'm only allocating at most 1% of total capital to crypto, but failure of bad actors within the system isn't the same thing as failure of the system itself.


----------



## Trader X

Sharkman said:


> this is not the fault of the system itself, which was founded on decentralisation and self-custody, as i wrote above. it's the fault of bad/greedy centralised entities within that system, and i think a lot of people in general aren't differentiating between the two, instead they equate the failure of Celsius, FTX etc. as the failure of the entire ecosystem.



Except that interaction with crypto exchanges or brokers (not peer to peer) is necessary to buy and sell say Bitcoin, then you initiate a transfer to your cold wallet for self-custody.  So engagement with centralized entities is necessary to buy/sell Bitcoin or convert to fiat.  The aversion to using self-custodial wallets is understandable to some degree.  Stories of forgotten passwords and lost wallets (like the guy in Wales who offered to pay the local council to excavate the local landfill tip to recover his hard drive and $100 million in Bitcoin) etc. is enough for many to preference holding crypto on exchanges.


----------



## Sharkman

Trader X said:


> Except that interaction with crypto exchanges or brokers (not peer to peer) is necessary to buy and sell say Bitcoin, then you initiate a transfer to your cold wallet for self-custody.  So engagement with centralized entities is necessary to buy/sell Bitcoin or convert to fiat.  The aversion to using self-custodial wallets is understandable to some degree.  Stories of forgotten passwords and lost wallets (like the guy in Wales who offered to pay the local council to excavate the local landfill tip to recover his hard drive and $100 million in Bitcoin) etc. is enough for many to preference holding crypto on exchanges.




have to minimise exposure to counterparty risk by depositing the fiat, executing the trade and immediately getting it off the exchange onto a self-custodial wallet, so unless the entity happens to collapse in that small window, it should be fairly safe. it can be on-ramped small parcels at a time, as unlike tradfi, usually there's no minimum brokerage, it's a straight percentage. it's leaving it on there for extended periods of time that dramatically ups the risk.

some people are already getting part of their salaries paid out in BTC, presumably straight into self-custodial wallets, eg.









						Meet the chief executive of an ASX-listed company who receives 5% of her salary in bitcoin
					

Alongside the usual tranches of cash, property, and intangible assets, the balance sheet of ASX-listed DigitalX features one highly unusual addition: 216 bitcoin.




					www.smh.com.au
				




self-custody also means self-responsibility, can't avoid that. but these days such stories of self-custody mishaps are getting drowned out by stories of people losing their life savings because they left it all on a centralised entity which collapsed (and i would agree that is an utterly stupid thing to do), so there does seem to be a renewed push towards self-custody once more.

in any case both sets of stories serve a useful purpose - how does that quote go? it's good to learn from your mistakes, but it's better to learn from somebody else's? i'm aware it was said by someone who's staunchly anti-crypto, but it applies nonetheless. crypto is still in its infancy, there's much left to be learned as it matures.


----------



## moXJO

Kucoin offering 299% apr on bitcoin? Wtf

Kucoin either has an error or its the next to fold.


----------



## mullokintyre

Fear not, the bottom for Crypto is in.
The worlds most watched and most frequently wrong finance expert, Jim Cramer, has urged people to get out of Crypto because its not too late.
FromCNBC


> CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday told investors that they still have time to sell their cryptocurrency holdings.
> “You can’t just beat yourself up and say, ‘hey, it’s too late to sell.’ The truth is, it’s never too late to sell an awful position, and that’s what you have if you own these so-called digital assets,” he said.
> 
> The collapse of FTX, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange that was worth $32 billion at its peak, has thrown the crypto space under intense scrutiny and spurred mounting losses in a market that has seen digital assets get pummeled by the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes.
> 
> Cramer, who has warned against staying in speculative assets while the Fed continues to tighten the economy, reiterated his argument and said that investors shouldn’t be fooled by some coins’ inflated market capitalization.
> He added that he expects more marginal names including XRP, dogecoin, Cardano and Polygon to fall much further, possibly to zero.
> “Tether, a so-called stablecoin that’s supposed to be kinda-sorta pegged to the dollar, still has a $65 billion market cap,” he said, adding, “There’s still a whole industry of crypto boosters trying desperately to keep all of these things up in the air — not too different from what happened with bad stocks during the dotcom collapse.”



So the contrarian in me would suggest its time to get into it.
Nah, just won't happen.
Mick


----------



## noirua

Just 8% of Americans have a positive view of crypto: CNBC survey
					

CNBC’s All-America Economic Survey suggests that only 8% of Americans have a positive view of cryptocurrency currently, compared to 19% recorded in March.




					cointelegraph.com
				



The survey also indicated that a fair amount of crypto investors are turning sour on the asset class,too, as 42% of such respondents indicated to have a “somewhat or very negative view” of crypto.


----------



## rcw1

Good morning 
Reported last night (08/12/22) through News Corp Media: 

Australian cryptocurrency exchange Digital Surge has collapsed into administration, with its 30,000 Aussie customers unable to trade or withdraw money.
The trading platform, set up in 2017, allowed customers to access more than 300 different digital currencies before its collapse.

KordaMentha Restructuring has been appointed as administrators and is working on a rescue package.  
The directors of Digital Surge, based in Brisbane, will spend $1million of their own money on a repayment plan that aims to refund every customer what they are owed, the Australian Financial Review reported.

The bitcoin exchange froze trading last month after global competitor FTX went under, wiping the balances of all customers.

The $32 billion cryptocurrency exchange filed for bankruptcy amid bombshell revelations that the platform was poorly managed and little more than a Ponzi scheme.

FTX’s epic fall from grace has sent shockwaves around the cryptocurrency world.

Digital Surge had been using the FTX platform for some of its trading.

Another Australian crypto exchange, Swyftx, was forced to lay off 35 per cent of its staff in a second round of brutal cuts earlier this week. 

The Brisbane-based company announced to employees late on Monday that 90 of them would be packing up their desks for good.  
Swyftx’s joint CEOs, Alex Harper and Angus Goldman, informed workers of the “difficult decision” at a company-wide town hall and released a statement after.

Mr Harper blamed the mass sackings directly on the FTX collapse, including at Swyftx.

According to ASIC documents filed last week, Swyftx’s profit has declined 23 per cent. At the same time, however, they did see a 55 per cent increase in trade volumes.

Swyftx, which announced a $1.5 billion merger with online share trading platform Superhero in June, admitted it had expanded too quickly.

“The truth is that Swyftx grew too fast,” Mr Harper conceded.

KordaMentha’s Scott Langdon said he was very pleased with the cooperative and collaborative approach taken by the directors to understand Digital Surge’s financial position.

He also advised Digital Surge customers their funds were the administrators’ highest priority.

“We fully appreciate the uncertainty the voluntary administration will create. We will proactively and regularly communicate with customers to ensure they are fully informed on the progress of the administration,” he said.

The directors have commenced working with stakeholders to prepare a rescue package. The administrators anticipate this will be in the form of a deed of company arrangement (DOCA), which all creditors will have an opportunity to consider in due course.


----------



## moXJO

How long till the ftx drama becomes a movie


----------



## Craton

FWIW. Locally, last night at the recently opened OTR servo I noted the advert accepting crypto payments.

Google Fu reveals OTR
World first - OTR offers in-store Cryptocurrency Payments​


----------



## Trader X

Craton said:


> FWIW. Locally, last night at the recently opened OTR servo I noted the advert accepting crypto payments.
> 
> Google Fu reveals OTR
> World first - OTR offers in-store Cryptocurrency Payments​




_There is significant interest in having the ability to make and receive payments directly in cryptocurrency, with 55% of both merchants and consumers saying they want to transact in cryptocurrency

*But why?  Just whip out your phone and use ApplePay or a credit card.  The only reason to hold crypto is because, using whatever hopeful logic, one believes it's going to increase in price.*
_
_Both merchants and consumers prefer to transact in Bitcoin and Ethereum but there is significant demand for an Australian dollar stablecoin

*But why? If you transact in crypto you potentially create a taxable event and the mantra now is hodl and never sell anyway*
_
_Both merchants and consumers (32% and 35%, respectively) would like to have the option of transacting online and in-store, but consumers are more focused on online

*But why? You have so many secure options to buy online without using crypto*
_
_One third of merchants say they are or will be ready within a year to transact in cryptocurrencies, and 60% within three years

*But why? Presumably one more option using crypto as an intermediary to transact will increase sales?*
_
_The lack of regulation, price volatility, and to a lesser extent, uncertainty about the tax implications, remain barriers to wider adoption of cryptocurrency transactions_
_*Volatility, entirely on the downside. How many FTT tokens do you need now to buy a cup of coffee? With the vast majority of crypto "investors" drowning in red ink and their tokens going to zero at the speed of light, such a facility is unlikely to resuscitate the crypto corpse.*_


----------



## Smurf1976

A service station accepting crypto for what are a routine, relatively low value transactions. OK, I can see the point if it gets them more customers - whatever sells fuel and things from the shop makes them money.

What did come to my attention though is this bit:



> More than 1 million Australians currently own cryptocurrencies*** at an average individual value of more than $20,000​



​So there's over $20 _billion_ worth in the hands of Australians?

So in round figures about 1% of GDP. Not massive but not totally insignificant either. In the event of an outright crypto collapse, there'd be at least some impact on the real economy wouldn't there?


----------



## Trader X

Smurf1976 said:


> A service station accepting crypto for what are a routine, relatively low value transactions. OK, I can see the point if it gets them more customers - whatever sells fuel and things from the shop makes them money.



Doing business with Crypto.com entails significant business risk, CEO Kris Marszalek has a shady past...
Crypto.com CEO has history of red flags including bankruptcy and quick exits​


Smurf1976 said:


> So there's over $20 _billion_ worth in the hands of Australians?
> 
> So in round figures about 1% of GDP. Not massive but not totally insignificant either. In the event of an outright crypto collapse, there'd be at least some impact on the real economy wouldn't there?



So, presuming such figures are roughly correct, that figure 12 months ago would have been close to $60 billion.  That's already a lot of paper wealth destruction for 2022.


----------



## Sharkman

Smurf1976 said:


> So there's over $20 _billion_ worth in the hands of Australians?




seems realistic to me. the total market cap of crypto is around 1.25T (AUD) at the moment, so 20B would be about 1.6%. that would be within the ballpark of Aust's nominal GDP as a % of world nominal GDP, and Aust is somewhere in the middle relative to the rest of the world in terms of crypto adoption amongst the population.


----------



## Garpal Gumnut

Trader X said:


> _There is significant interest in having the ability to make and receive payments directly in cryptocurrency, with 55% of both merchants and consumers saying they want to transact in cryptocurrency
> 
> *But why?  Just whip out your phone and use ApplePay or a credit card.  The only reason to hold crypto is because, using whatever hopeful logic, one believes it's going to increase in price.*
> _
> _Both merchants and consumers prefer to transact in Bitcoin and Ethereum but there is significant demand for an Australian dollar stablecoin
> 
> *But why? If you transact in crypto you potentially create a taxable event and the mantra now is hodl and never sell anyway*
> _
> _Both merchants and consumers (32% and 35%, respectively) would like to have the option of transacting online and in-store, but consumers are more focused on online
> 
> *But why? You have so many secure options to buy online without using crypto*
> _
> _One third of merchants say they are or will be ready within a year to transact in cryptocurrencies, and 60% within three years
> 
> *But why? Presumably one more option using crypto as an intermediary to transact will increase sales?*
> _
> _The lack of regulation, price volatility, and to a lesser extent, uncertainty about the tax implications, remain barriers to wider adoption of cryptocurrency transactions_
> _*Volatility, entirely on the downside. How many FTT tokens do you need now to buy a cup of coffee? With the vast majority of crypto "investors" drowning in red ink and their tokens going to zero at the speed of light, such a facility is unlikely to resuscitate the crypto corpse.*_



The only references I could find on OTR Convenience Stores search on duckduckgo was a website which was of little value in finding stores or what is sold there and a court case where they were found guilty of under and not paying workers. 









						Convenience store ordered to pay $65,000 over 'deliberate exploitation' of worker
					

An Adelaide magistrate slams convenience store chain OTR, finding a culture of unpaid work after an employee was systematically underpaid and docked wages for meal breaks that did not occur.




					www.abc.net.au
				




I'll pass on shopping there. 

I don't hold crypto, but if they do take it, it does not bode well for crypto unless they have significantly cleaned up their act. 

The other point I'd make is that if one were in need of 2 litres of milk at 3am and were fortunate enough to find an OTR store what percentage is taken by Datamesh and the store for the transaction from Crypto.com who seem involved as well. 

And how much would be taken for Coke... or Pepsi for that matter. 

gg


----------



## Value Collector

Smurf1976 said:


> A service station accepting crypto for what are a routine, relatively low value transactions. OK, I can see the point if it gets them more customers - whatever sells fuel and things from the shop makes them money.
> 
> What did come to my attention though is this bit:
> 
> 
> ​So there's over $20 _billion_ worth in the hands of Australians?
> 
> So in round figures about 1% of GDP. Not massive but not totally insignificant either. In the event of an outright crypto collapse, there'd be at least some impact on the real economy wouldn't there?



So $20k on average per person but I would think it’s mainly people under 45 years old.

That kinda makes me said that we have so many young people wasting their productive years “investing” in this rubbish instead of getting into real productive assets.


----------



## Trader X

Value Collector said:


> That kinda makes me said that we have so many young people wasting their productive years “investing” in this rubbish instead of getting into real productive assets.



It's a generational mindset that rapidly gravitates to the latest popular tech craze with the additional lure of quick riches.  Talking with many of my tech colleagues, I was surprised how many were into or had been into crypto mining and jumped into crypto "assets" as if it was free money to be had for the taking.  No deep thought or analysis required, just rapid action to jump onto the crypto wave and ride it to instant wealth.  Whip out your mobile, press buy on the FTX exchange and watch the money roll in.  Just that easy and for a short while it was.

Those of us who questioned how these digital tokens could possibly be so highly valued and collectible and dared to challenge the glowing crypto narratives were mocked as out of touch boomers destined to stay poor.  There is no real substitute for acquired knowledge and experience, this usually leads to making wiser choices in life especially when it comes to how you should invest your money.  Unfortunately for millions of these newbie crypto "investors", they've learned a valuable lesson at great personal expense.


----------



## Value Collector

Trader X said:


> It's a generational mindset that rapidly gravitates to the latest popular tech craze with the additional lure of quick riches.  Talking with many of my tech colleagues, I was surprised how many were into or had been into crypto mining and jumped into crypto "assets" as if it was free money to be had for the taking.  No deep thought or analysis required, just rapid action to jump onto the crypto wave and ride it to instant wealth.  Whip out your mobile, press buy on the FTX exchange and watch the money roll in.  Just that easy and for short while it was.
> 
> Those of us who questioned how these digital tokens could possibly be so highly valued and collectible and dared to challenge the glowing crypto narratives were mocked as out of touch boomers destined to stay poor.  There is no real substitute for acquired knowledge and experience, this usually leads to making wiser choices in life especially when it comes to how you should invest your money.  Unfortunately for millions of these newbie crypto "investors", they've learned a valuable lesson at great personal expense.



I was literally laying in my easy chair on the patio enjoying the afternoon and reading the last chapter/epilogue in “The rise and fall of Allan Bond” which was printed in 1990 ( which I recently bought at a second hand shop for $4) and I picked up the phone to check the forum and saw your post.

This paragraph describing the 80’s I was reading shows that people going crazy is not a new thing, but in the end people that drift away from investing in true value will always end up blowing up.


----------



## Garpal Gumnut

Trader X said:


> It's a generational mindset that rapidly gravitates to the latest popular tech craze with the additional lure of quick riches.  Talking with many of my tech colleagues, I was surprised how many were into or had been into crypto mining and jumped into crypto "assets" as if it was free money to be had for the taking.  No deep thought or analysis required, just rapid action to jump onto the crypto wave and ride it to instant wealth.  Whip out your mobile, press buy on the FTX exchange and watch the money roll in.  Just that easy and for short while it was.
> 
> Those of us who questioned how these digital tokens could possibly be so highly valued and collectible and dared to challenge the glowing crypto narratives were mocked as out of touch boomers destined to stay poor.  There is no real substitute for acquired knowledge and experience, this usually leads to making wiser choices in life especially when it comes to how you should invest your money.  Unfortunately for millions of these newbie crypto "investors", they've learned a valuable lesson at great personal expense.



I feel like a colour blind onlooker during the great Tulip bubble. 

I just wish that Crypto would crash quickly to free up money for young investors to get involved in value markets. 

gg


----------



## Craton

@Garpal Gumnut et al.
OTR is/was primarily in Sth Aust but as of Oct 2019 announcement, expanding into NSW and VIC.

OTR is part of Peregrine Corporation which is a South Australian group of private companies and associated entities fully owned by the Shahin family.
Hmm.. wonder how their crypto holdings are holding out?


----------



## Garpal Gumnut

Craton said:


> @Garpal Gumnut et al.
> OTR is/was primarily in Sth Aust but as of Oct 2019 announcement, expanding into NSW and VIC.
> 
> OTR is part of Peregrine Corporation which is a South Australian group of private companies and associated entities fully owned by the Shahin family.
> Hmm.. wonder how their crypto holdings are holding out?



From the Peregrine website. 




I haven't gotten to their Missionary Position yet.

gg


----------



## Smurf1976

Craton said:


> OTR is/was primarily in Sth Aust



It's quite dominant in the retail petrol / diesel business.

Drive around Adelaide, find a random service station and the chance it's an OTR is substantial, there's a lot of them, they're a major operator.

Noting that they seem to have two modes of operation. Sites branded OTR with a small sign on the pump "fuels supplied by BP" and others which are BP branded, presumably a franchise arrangement, with the OTR sign on the shop.


----------



## noirua

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in Bahamas
					

Sam Bankman-Fried, the embattled former CEO of cryptocurrency giant FTX, has been arrested in the Bahamas, the Bahamas Attorney General's Office said.




					abcnews.go.com


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## Craton

I'm laughing at the absolute absurdity that continually allows these type of people to scam money from unregulated "schemes".
I also laugh that greedy get-rich-quick "investors" are oh-so gullible and hence, the cycle will forever repeat.
Quite sad really.


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## Sean K

Another good day for crypto.


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## Trader X

December 2022 Newsletter: The World’s Money Problem​
Some interesting insights on crypto in this newsletter, the standout passage for me being...

_"... the fortunes of the founders and early investors of the startup are usually tied in a significant way to the underlying fundamentals of the business that they built and financed. The company needs some revenue, some use-case, and to go through some degree of due diligence. They have to spend years building a company that either another company wants to buy, or that gets big enough and sticks around long enough to go public, with all of the necessary disclosures.

In the crypto world, it has been different. Founders and early investors can create a project, sell the coins publicly (generally to accredited investors or overseas to avoid public securities laws now, ever since there was a crackdown in domestic public initial coin offerings), work on it for a year or two or three, market it heavily, get it listed on a crypto exchange, and then dump the hyped-up coins (which likely are unregistered securities) on public retail speculators with exaggerated or outright false claims about the project’s level of decentralization and utility.

*In other words, the founders and early investors can separate their own profits from the actual success of the project’s fundamentals. They don’t need to spend the better part of a decade building a business that is good enough for another business to want to acquire it, or that can go through the SEC’s process for entering public markets. They can just create hype and dump their coins on the retail public, for the sake of fast exit liquidity*."_

This model describes all but 3 crypto projects according to Alden.


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## Garpal Gumnut

LOL

66 BTC just went through at $16666 dropping by $66. 

The Chinese cousins must be getting ready for another blood bath tonight. 

gg


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## Trader X

Garpal Gumnut said:


> LOL
> 
> 66 BTC just went through at $16666 dropping by $66.
> 
> The Chinese cousins must be getting ready for another blood bath tonight.
> 
> gg



And at the moment it costs $3000 USD more to mine a Bitcoin than purchase one!


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## Value Collector

This example is how I see crypto.

Imagine you have a company like BHP, it currently has billions of dollars of assets, that are generating billions of dollars on behalf of its share holders, and it pays billions of dollars in dividends to shareholders, and reinvests some earnings back in building more assets to generate more returns in the future.

So we know that the net worth of all of BHP’s shares combined is in the Billions of dollars, so they trade in the market for a decent price reflecting the markets estimate of that value.

But, 

Imagine if BHP sold all its mines and all of its assets, paid a huge final dividend to its shareholders of all the remaining cash and fired all its staff, closed its offices etc, disbanded its board.

Now each BHP share would be an empty shell with no assets, no cash, no staff, no offices etc etc. it’s just a piece of paper. 

It would have no way of returning any real value its share holders ever again, so it’s shares would be rightly worth $0 per share.

But, this empty shell BHP share is basically what a bit coin is, people that try and tell you that crypto like bit coin have a value are basically saying that the empty bhp share has value, and we should all keep trading and buying it to get rich, because in the future some one else will by the at bhp share off you for a profit.

It you think it would be crazy to hold empty BHP shares, you should be able to see that the cryptos are exactly that, empty shells that can’t produce any value on their own. 

Shares have value because they represent ownership interests in underlying assets or atleast a potential underlying asset in the case of startups. 

Cryptos don’t have any underlying value, all they have is their hype value.


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## Craton

Great analogy VC and it's that non-existent asset backing or govt/bank guarantee that's the big issue. Unless the so-called stablecoin backing the underlying crypto coin has real asset backing (not just "pegged") well 'nuff said.


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## Trader X

Value Collector said:


> Cryptos don’t have any underlying value, all they have is their hype value.



Keeping in mind that one of the many narratives around Bitcoin is that it has no central issuer so is not a security.  Maximalists argue that Bitcoin does not fall into the "crypto" category for this reason to differentiate and disassociate Bitcoin from other projects.  I concede there is a use case for Bitcoin in non-dollarized countries where there is rampaging inflation and currency debasement (assuming you can even convert your local fiat currency into sats). However, in countries like the U.S. and Australia, hoarding a highly speculative and volatile "digital asset" like Bitcoin as opposed to investing in other hard assets is financially reckless.


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## Value Collector

Trader X said:


> Keeping in mind that one of the many narratives around Bitcoin is that it has no central issuer so is not a security.  Maximalists argue that Bitcoin does not fall into the "crypto" category for this reason to differentiate and disassociate Bitcoin from other projects.  I concede there is a use case for Bitcoin in non-dollarized countries where there is rampaging inflation and currency debasement (assuming you can even convert your local fiat currency into sats). However, in countries like the U.S. and Australia, hoarding a highly speculative and volatile "digital asset" like Bitcoin as opposed to investing in other hard assets is financially reckless.



Even in those countries with rampaging inflation, unless you are worried about war or political trouble, holding some realestate is probably better than crypto.

Or if you are worried about even real assets in that destabilised nation, getting your wealth out and into a global share index or some other international investment would be my aim.


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## investtrader

Another crypto scam - copied from Washington Post

More than half a million people who deposited money with collapsed crypto lender Celsius Network have been dealt a major blow to their hopes of recovering their funds, with the judge in the company’s bankruptcy case ruling that the money belongs to Celsius and not to the depositors.


The judge, Martin Glenn, found that Celsius’s terms of use — the lengthy contracts that many websites publish but few consumers read — meant “the cryptocurrency assets became Celsius’s property.”

And this was 6.2billion USD down to the drain


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## mullokintyre

All is not lost  crypto afficonadoes, Amazon comes to the rescue.
Jeff Bezos is about to unleash the AM2023X, Amazons all singing all dancing cryptocurrency.
Check it out at coin market news 
What could possibly go wrong.
Mick


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