Cryptocurrency thread

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

4 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Your example is not showing a volatile USD tho. Of course some shithole country with a currency no one wants is going to have a high volatility but like I said originally, that is literally the opposite of what the function of a currency is to be.

The reason you want bitcoin is bc you think it is going to gain value. If you knew the future and in 5 years bitcoin was going to be $5 you would'nt want that shit for payment for your work. 

The function of a currency is to NOT be volatile. If a currency is volatile that means it's being mismanaged and will be replace by something that is stable. 

Again, I'd like an example to which the USD is volatile, or the EUR, or JPY or any other major currency in the world that isn't some shithole country. I'm sure Venezuelans would rather get paid in bitcoin or bananas than their fiat but that is a strawman example and a thus a flawed argument. 

Well, I wouldn't go as far as to say Venezuela is a shithole country, some people on this forum are probably from there.

Volatility can only be expressed as a function of another currency. USD as a function of CAD isn't volatile, USD as a function of JPY isn't volatile but USD as a function of many, many other currencies (like Bolivar) is very volatile.

BTC as a function of ETH isn't volatile. BTC as a function of ADA isn't volatile but BTC as a function of many, many other currencies (like USD) is very volatile.

These 2 are exactly the same, you don't get to choose which currencies you compare it against.

[guillavoie | 1,210]

37 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

BTC as a function of ETH isn't volatile.

30 last days, ETH = Low 0.035 BTC - High 0.052 BTC,

Looks kinda volatile to me, no?

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

ETH is up to $3150 this morning. I really shouldn't have sold the 5 ETH I had 6 months ago when it hit $600.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

2 hours ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

ETH is up to $3150 this morning. I really shouldn't have sold the 5 ETH I had 6 months ago when it hit $600.

No doubt a feedback loop related to the news of the Etherium founder becoming the first "crypto billionaire".

[Gloves | 11,789]

I'm up $22 real money dollars, woo!

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

20 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

These 2 are exactly the same, you don't get to choose which currencies you compare it against.

What matters is fluctuations in purchasing power.

BTC is WILDLY VOLATILE on a basis of purchasing power.

USD (or any other major currencies from developed nations) is far less so.

 

Will BTC have a long-term trend up that preserve purchasing power against inflation, on average?  Maybe, who knows. But if it gains real value (i.e. increased purchasing power over time) then it potentially fails as a currency because of a deflationary spiral.

Will the USD gradually loser purchasing power to inflation? Yes, by definition of modern monetary policy.  It does this on purpose and is how you avoid a deflationary spiral.

 

But along the way to some future point, 20 years away, the USD is going to have a relatively steady time getting there (with spot fluctuations in specific commodities based on real supply and demand changes), but the BTC (at least based on it's history) certainly seems more likely to have significant volatility along the way (i.e. higher volatility in any meaningful traditional usage of the term).

Edited May 3, 2021 by arch_8ngel

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

4 hours ago, Gloves said:

I'm up $22 real money dollars, woo!

Don't let all that wealth change you! 

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

6 hours ago, arch_8ngel said:

What matters is fluctuations in purchasing power.

BTC is WILDLY VOLATILE on a basis of purchasing power.

USD (or any other major currencies from developed nations) is far less so.

 

Will BTC have a long-term trend up that preserve purchasing power against inflation, on average?  Maybe, who knows. But if it gains real value (i.e. increased purchasing power over time) then it potentially fails as a currency because of a deflationary spiral.

Will the USD gradually loser purchasing power to inflation? Yes, by definition of modern monetary policy.  It does this on purpose and is how you avoid a deflationary spiral.

 

But along the way to some future point, 20 years away, the USD is going to have a relatively steady time getting there (with spot fluctuations in specific commodities based on real supply and demand changes), but the BTC (at least based on it's history) certainly seems more likely to have significant volatility along the way (i.e. higher volatility in any meaningful traditional usage of the term).

Not true. In 2008, CAD was worth more than USD because the USD as a currency tanked in value and became pretty volatile against CAD, JPY and even more so, against gold.

My initial point that I wrote on the previous page was this:

"Fiat is also extremely volatile if you express it as a function of something else but if you view it as its own standalone currency, then it isn't volatile at all. Its purchasing power doesn't change."

You're arguing FOR my point because I'm saying that right now it might be volatile against USD but that will change if we stop comparing it to USD and make it its own currency. If a car dealership sells a car for 0.5 Bitcoin instead of $30,000 USD worth of Bitcoin, then it will lose all volatility. That was my initial point, we need to stop comparing it to a fiat currency that has been spiralling into the toilet for 88 years. Of course a currency with a finite supply will never match up with a currency that literally is bring printed 24 hours a day and borrowed with interest.

And that's why Bearcat wrote that 1 BTC = 1 BTC because he recognized my point that we just need to compare BTC to itself and that's it.

We need to replace fiat currency with something else and we needed to do it 50 years ago. We already have digital currency because only about 3% of the US money supply is physical anyway so just about everything you purchase is already with a government regulated cryptocurrency, it just isn't on a blackchain.

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

Also, if anyone wants $35 free, I signed up on Coinbase and watched their 1 minute informational videos to gain different amounts of a few cryptocurrencies. I have $10 in Stellar Lumens, some NuCypher, some Ample Forth, Graph and others. It's at about $38 now and I paid nothing for it. It was also very helpful watching a video about how each coin worked and what it was for.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

1 hour ago, Code Monkey said:

Not true. In 2008, CAD was worth more than USD because the USD as a currency tanked in value and became pretty volatile against CAD, JPY and even more so, against gold.

My initial point that I wrote on the previous page was this:

"Fiat is also extremely volatile if you express it as a function of something else but if you view it as its own standalone currency, then it isn't volatile at all. Its purchasing power doesn't change."

You're arguing FOR my point because I'm saying that right now it might be volatile against USD but that will change if we stop comparing it to USD and make it its own currency. If a car dealership sells a car for 0.5 Bitcoin instead of $30,000 USD worth of Bitcoin, then it will lose all volatility. That was my initial point, we need to stop comparing it to a fiat currency that has been spiralling into the toilet for 88 years. Of course a currency with a finite supply will never match up with a currency that literally is bring printed 24 hours a day and borrowed with interest.

And that's why Bearcat wrote that 1 BTC = 1 BTC because he recognized my point that we just need to compare BTC to itself and that's it.

We need to replace fiat currency with something else and we needed to do it 50 years ago. We already have digital currency because only about 3% of the US money supply is physical anyway so just about everything you purchase is already with a government regulated cryptocurrency, it just isn't on a blackchain.

 

If you want to toss around memes about "1 BTC = 1 BTC" then you could say the same thing about ANY currency, in nominal values.

But 1 "real" BTC does NOT equate to 1 "real" BTC on a day-to-day basis.  There is genuine and serious volatility in the day-to-day purchasing power of "1 BTC" of any useful good or service in the world.

While major fiat currencies avoid that day-to-day volatility and accept a long-term drag of gradual inflation (where ideally in any given year, your currency is only devaluing by 1 - 2%, so over the course of a year your wages are not "volatile" relative to their purchasing power, and you can reasonably invest in real assets that beat inflation over the longer term)

 

The case for BTC shouldn't need to be that it is better than long-term holding of a large amount of USD, because nobody should be long-term holding an un-invested hoard of fiat currency in the first place.  They should generally be invested in real assets of some kind, with relatively small (< 10%) amounts of their net worth in "cash" at any given time.

The volatility is a serious issue, though, along with deflation making it fail to function as a currency.

 

Anyway -- I think you have your causes and effects backwards on some of this stuff, and I also think you are too fixated on inflation (by bringing up your Venezuela example, which is not the kind of situation faced by major developed countries).

By and large, deflation is "worse" than inflation, if you're talking about ensuring that a currency actually circulates in the economy.

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by arch_8ngel

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

2 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

Also, if anyone wants $35 free, I signed up on Coinbase and watched their 1 minute informational videos to gain different amounts of a few cryptocurrencies. I have $10 in Stellar Lumens, some NuCypher, some Ample Forth, Graph and others. It's at about $38 now and I paid nothing for it. It was also very helpful watching a video about how each coin worked and what it was for.

I did that too. It probably took me 10 minutes and they let you sell/trade the free stuff right away if you want.

[Gloves | 11,789]

I'm up $37 now let's gooooooo!

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

13 hours ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

ETH is up to $3150 this morning. I really shouldn't have sold the 5 ETH I had 6 months ago when it hit $600.

I bought 10 ETH over a couple month period when it was holding around 2k. I think it has a ridiculous amount of upside as it transitions to version 2.0. Over the next two years it should switch fully to proof of stake and introduce scarcity through burning.

I'd like to see it hit 20k in the next ten years, but who knows. Either way, it's the only crypto I plan on investing into steadily. So far it's done very well for me.

Edited May 4, 2021 by DoctorEncore

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

17 minutes ago, DoctorEncore said:

I bought 10 ETH over a couple month period when it was holding around 2k. I think it has a ridiculous amount of upside as it transitions to version 2.0. Over the next two years it should switch fully to proof of stake and introduce scarcity through burning.

I'd like to see it hit 20k in the next ten years, but who knows. Either way, it's the only crypto I plan on investing into steadily. So far it's done very well for me.

I thought about doing that, but I just stuck with bitcoin. I'm not sure whats going on with it lately. It got just short of $59k today and it dropped to $54,700 about 10 minutes ago. This seems to be a regular thing the past few weeks.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

1 hour ago, Gloves said:

I'm up $37 now let's gooooooo!

If bitcoin goes down anymore I might need a loan!

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

18 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I thought about doing that, but I just stuck with bitcoin. I'm not sure whats going on with it lately. It got just short of $59k today and it dropped to $54,700 about 10 minutes ago. This seems to be a regular thing the past few weeks.

I think it's just money moving in and out as Ethereum goes up. Long holds on Bitcoin were actually up on the last analysis I saw. That implies more institutional backers are buying and holding. I think it will remain somewhat volatile years to come, but the floor has clearly come up a lot over the past few months. I feel comfortable it won't fully crash again.

[Gloves | 11,789]

8 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

If bitcoin goes down anymore I might need a loan!

I got you fam. We Dougs gotta stick together. 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

Just now, Gloves said:

I got you fam. We Dougs gotta stick together. 

This is the way.

[DefaultGen | 5,407]

On 4/23/2021 at 10:12 AM, ThePhleo said:

Don’t look at me...I just doubled down on Doge...

As your financial advisor I am advising you to sell. Up 10,000% YTD, $83B market cap, here I am wondering how the video game market could have been manipulated to the point of $7,000 players choice N64 games, but Dogecoin is just sitting there as an $83,000,000,000 joke.

[Hammerfestus | 3,852]

5 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

As your financial advisor I am advising you to sell. Up 10,000% YTD, $83B market cap, here I am wondering how the video game market could have been manipulated to the point of $7,000 players choice N64 games, but Dogecoin is just sitting there as an $83,000,000,000 joke.

Sure am glad I sold at .06  

 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

1 hour ago, Hammerfestus said:

Sure am glad I sold at .06  

 

I remember when it was under 1 cent and not buying a hundred dollars worth or so just for the heck if it. $100 then would be worth $7000 now. Ouch.

[Hammerfestus | 3,852]

8 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I remember when it was under 1 cent and not buying a hundred dollars worth or so just for the heck if it. $100 then would be worth $7000 now. Ouch.

My wife and I picked some up right as the GME insanity was crashing down.  Like $30 a piece because well it’s a joke but she got in at .02 something and I did at .03 something.  She’s still hodling.  
I thought I was pretty slick when ETC shot up to like 50.  Then she showed me her returns.  Oofah.

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

52 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I remember when it was under 1 cent and not buying a hundred dollars worth or so just for the heck if it. $100 then would be worth $7000 now. Ouch.

If it makes anyone feel better, my girlfriend asked me to look into Bitcoin when it was about 10 cents, she was going to put about $1000 into it. I put it off and she asked me to look into it again when it was at $10. I put it off again.

There's about $100,000,000 down the toilet.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Code Monkey

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

41 minutes ago, Hammerfestus said:

My wife and I picked some up right as the GME insanity was crashing down.  Like $30 a piece because well it’s a joke but she got in at .02 something and I did at .03 something.  She’s still hodling.  
I thought I was pretty slick when ETC shot up to like 50.  Then she showed me her returns.  Oofah.

DOGE will eventually crash, but ETC might ride ETH's coattails for a while. That was a very smart pickup.

[Hammerfestus | 3,852]

7 minutes ago, DoctorEncore said:

DOGE will eventually crash, but ETC might ride ETH's coattails for a while. That was a very smart pickup.

Oh don’t worry I fucked that up too.  I sold it when it started moving back after it first hit 50.  I’m pretty cowardly.  I made a nice little profit on it at least.  Got in initially at 13 I think.
I’ve been really just pumping everything into ETH.