The Everything Bitcoin Thread

[drummer4now]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/06/09/el-salvador-makes-history-as-worlds-first-country-to-make-bitcoin-legal-tender/?sh=40d396a8eaa3

 

Interesting how a poor country like El Salvador is willing to take a risk with bitcoin.. 

[themcdeal]

2 minutes ago, drummer4now said:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/06/09/el-salvador-makes-history-as-worlds-first-country-to-make-bitcoin-legal-tender/?sh=40d396a8eaa3

 

Interesting how a poor country like El Salvador is willing to take a risk with bitcoin.. 

 

First of many.... It just seems obvious that this is the direction the world is going

*shrugs*

 

 

[Tortorella's Rant]

.

 

Edited June 17, 2021 by Tortorella's Rant

[Tortorella's Rant]

The lurking dangers of Tether and crypto as a whole:

 

 

[UnkNuk]

On 6/17/2021 at 9:59 AM, Tortorella's Rant said:

The lurking dangers of Tether and crypto as a whole:

 

 

That is a remarkable video. 

 

Along the same line, I've been listening to the CBC podcast series "A Death In Cryptoland":

 

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/904-a-death-in-cryptoland

 

It concerns the life and (supposed) death of Canadian Gerald Cotten, one of the founders of a bitcoin exchange called Quadriga.  When he died in 2018 on his honeymoon in India he seemingly took the code that accessed about $250 million dollars worth of bitcoin accounts with him.

 

While I'm not invested in cryptocurrency I find the subject very interesting.  But, man, there seem to be some dodgy characters involved.

 

[Tortorella's Rant]

2 hours ago, UnkNuk said:

That is a remarkable video. 

 

Along the same line, I've been listening to the CBC podcast series "A Death In Cryptoland":

 

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/904-a-death-in-cryptoland

 

It concerns the life and (supposed) death of Canadian Gerald Cotten, one of the founders of a bitcoin exchange called Quadriga.  When he died in 2018 on his honeymoon in India he seemingly took the code that accessed about $250 million dollars worth of bitcoin accounts with him.

 

While I'm not invested in cryptocurrency I find the subject very interesting.  But, man, there seem to be some dodgy characters involved.

 

Right. An exchange that was holding 32 million in Defi100 tokens went tits up in May and the owners of the exchange disappeared leaving a note on the webpage telling the scammed to go &^@# themselves. People either don't care that these exchanges aren't regulated, haven't learned, or both. You can be quite assured your coins on Coinbase or Coinsmart are safe although the safest thing you can do is put them in your own wallet. 

Then you have Kim K. promoting a $&!#coin called Ethereum Max which has absolutely nothing to do with Ethereum. 

 

Then you have Elon who sways the entire market with tweets and talk show appearances. First Telsa is accepting BTC, then it's not accepting BTC, now it's accepting BTC again.

None of this is obviously good for a practical adoption of crypto going forward. 

 

[Boudrias]

8 hours ago, Tortorella's Rant said:

Right. An exchange that was holding 32 million in Defi100 tokens went tits up in May and the owners of the exchange disappeared leaving a note on the webpage telling the scammed to go &^@# themselves. People either don't care that these exchanges aren't regulated, haven't learned, or both. You can be quite assured your coins on Coinbase or Coinsmart are safe although the safest thing you can do is put them in your own wallet. 

Then you have Kim K. promoting a $&!#coin called Ethereum Max which has absolutely nothing to do with Ethereum. 

 

Then you have Elon who sways the entire market with tweets and talk show appearances. First Telsa is accepting BTC, then it's not accepting BTC, now it's accepting BTC again.

None of this is obviously good for a practical adoption of crypto going forward. 

 

I won’t invest in crypto because of all the questions surrounding it. Block chain, yes. At the end of the day government and the big banks will take over. I own the banks. If I was younger I might think differently.

[UnkNuk]

6 hours ago, Boudrias said:

I won’t invest in crypto because of all the questions surrounding it. Block chain, yes. At the end of the day government and the big banks will take over. I own the banks. If I was younger I might think differently.

While I'm tempted to buy a satoshi or two every now and then just to see how this thing works, that's my thinking as well.  But who knows?  Crypto may turn out to be the biggest scam of all time.  Or it may represent a financial revolution that will do to the current banking system what streaming music did to the cd industry.  Or something in the less dramatic middle.

 

Right now Bitcoin is around $36,000.   For all I know it will be worth $250,000 next year and I'll be kicking myself for not buying those satoshis.

 

But it is interesting.

[Kurgom]

I wonder how bitcoin users feel about their currency being mainly used for illegal $&!# like human trafficking and drug pushing? This is why it gained so much value after all, it's a legitimate way to pay for illegal things with no strings. I feel like no one wants to touch the elephant in the room.

Edited June 20, 2021 by Kurgom

[I.Am.Ironman]

4 hours ago, Kurgom said:

I wonder how bitcoin users feel about their currency being mainly used for illegal $&!# like human trafficking and drug pushing? This is why it gained so much value after all, it's a legitimate way to pay for illegal things with no strings. I feel like no one wants to touch the elephant in the room.

This narrative is outdated. Cash has notoriously been used for criminal activity but people still seem to use it. In fact, bitcoin is actually easier to track. You may remember the colonial pipeline being held hostage to a ransomware attack. They ended up paying the criminals in bitcoin - the FBI was able to track and recover the majority of the ransom paid.

[drummer4now]

4 hours ago, I.Am.Ironman said:

This narrative is outdated. Cash has notoriously been used for criminal activity but people still seem to use it. In fact, bitcoin is actually easier to track. You may remember the colonial pipeline being held hostage to a ransomware attack. They ended up paying the criminals in bitcoin - the FBI was able to track and recover the majority of the ransom paid.

I was just going to say Cash has way more blood than crypto.... but crypto is slowly becoming like cash with its inequalities and potential uses for crime. 

[UFCanuck]

9 hours ago, Kurgom said:

I wonder how bitcoin users feel about their currency being mainly used for illegal $&!# like human trafficking and drug pushing? This is why it gained so much value after all, it's a legitimate way to pay for illegal things with no strings. I feel like no one wants to touch the elephant in the room.

Human Traffickers are the scum of the earth.

[Russ]

11 hours ago, Kurgom said:

I wonder how bitcoin users feel about their currency being mainly used for illegal $&!# like human trafficking and drug pushing? This is why it gained so much value after all, it's a legitimate way to pay for illegal things with no strings. I feel like no one wants to touch the elephant in the room.

Thats what the media always painted it as in the early days.  The evil dark web with this crypto.

 

Issue is, Bitcoin is 100% traceable, you can find every penny ever sent and track it down easily, its not nearly the big bad scary money laundering that its been made out to be.  FBI is doing it all the time.  Cash is much easier for stuff like this, hell Canada has let chinese money launder money through the banks for decades because the tracking is minimal, if it wasn't so easy then they would just be using crypto.

Edited June 21, 2021 by Russ

[CBH1926]

When this thing popped to almost 65k in April, I remember all the FOMO because it was going to 100k.

Its amazing that so many won’t buy stocks because money managers, investment funds, whales etc. are manipulating the market. But have no problem dumping tens of thousands into most manipulated thing out there.

[themcdeal]

1 hour ago, CBH1926 said:

When this thing popped to almost 65k in April, I remember all the FOMO because it was going to 100k.

Its amazing that so many won’t buy stocks because money managers, investment funds, whales etc. are manipulating the market. But have no problem dumping tens of thousands into most manipulated thing out there.

I think you're making up this false narrative in your head

 

I have no stats on this but I imagine that the the group of investors which you're referring to (refusal to invest in stocks but invest in crypto) are probably under the age of 25 and only really care about the digital space. 

[CBH1926]

12 hours ago, themcdeal said:

I think you're making up this false narrative in your head

 

I have no stats on this but I imagine that the the group of investors which you're referring to (refusal to invest in stocks but invest in crypto) are probably under the age of 25 and only really care about the digital space. 

Your second paragraph kind of contradicts the first sentence don’t you think?
Of course I was talking about young investors, I don’t  see my parents who are retired invest in this.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/gen-z-investing-in-cryptocurrency-btc-eth-and-meme-stocks-amc-gme.html

[Tortorella's Rant]

 

[UnkNuk]

Apparently another controversy in the crypto world:

 

Quote

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/28/business/dealbook/icp-cryptocurrency-crash.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20210629&instance_id=34105&nl=todaysheadlines&regi_id=56405277&segment_id=62020&user_id=dc88543b79693b0f05322365a827e237

 

The Dramatic Crash of a Buzzy Cryptocurrency Raises Eyebrows

Just last month, the ICP crypto token, tied to a project backed by prestigious venture capitalists, was worth tens of billions of dollars. Then, its value collapsed.

To be honest, with sentences from the article like this:

 

"The ICP token is designed to help operate a decentralized layer of web infrastructure being built by Dfinity that believers say will liberate users from reliance on companies like Amazon and Google."

 

I'm actually not sure just what this was all about.  But I do understand sentences like this:

 

" But by last week, ICP’s value had tanked by about 95 percent."

 

Perhaps others here will have a better understanding of just what happened and why.

 

[drummer4now]

59 minutes ago, UnkNuk said:

Apparently another controversy in the crypto world:

 

To be honest, with sentences from the article like this:

 

"The ICP token is designed to help operate a decentralized layer of web infrastructure being built by Dfinity that believers say will liberate users from reliance on companies like Amazon and Google."

 

I'm actually not sure just what this was all about.  But I do understand sentences like this:

 

" But by last week, ICP’s value had tanked by about 95 percent."

 

Perhaps others here will have a better understanding of just what happened and why.

 

Most people don't realize to be successful in crypto you need to control your FOMO and only invest in legitimate coins/hold long term.. Sell when there is a bull rush and buy when low. 

 

Time after time we see people losing their money because they made the poor choice and invest in crap coins that are essentially money making scams for the founders.

[UnkNuk]

And yet another bitcoin controversy:

 

(Note that the $3.6 billion figure may be an overestimation.  The amount may only be in the range of $100 million.)

 

******************************************************************************************************

 

https://www.reuters.com/technology/safrica-crypto-exchange-brothers-disappear-after-client-cash-vanishes-lawyers-2021-06-25/

 

JOHANNESBURG, June 25 (Reuters) - Lawyers for investors in a cryptocurrency exchange in South Africa, which told clients in April their accounts had been hacked, say $3.6 billion has disappeared from the platform and that the two brothers who ran it cannot be traced.

 

If confirmed, Africrypt's losses would rank among the biggest crypto losses yet. For the whole of 2020, losses in the crypto sector through fraud and other crime were $1.9 billion, down from a record of $4.5 billion in 2019, according to crypto intelligence company CipherTrace. 

 

Africrypt COO Ameer Cajee said in a letter to clients, dated April 13, that client accounts had all been compromised due to a recent breach in its system. The letter, reviewed by Reuters, said Africrypt had halted operations and had "begun the process of attempting to retrieve stolen funds."

 

It gave no details of how much money was missing and warned clients that trying to get their money back using lawyers would "only delay the recovery process."

 

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And for added insight: