Investing in the stock market - Discussion

[nuckin_futz]

Mike drop: There's no coming back from this for the faces of cryptocurrency

• The two Mikes: Novogratz and Saylor are dead-reputations walking

Michael Novogratz and Michael Saylor are two of the most-prominent evangelists of cryptocurrency.

 

The first made his reputation in financial markets and the second in developing technology but both pivoted hard to crypto. Novogratz made a series increasingly-insane headline-grabbing predictions about bitcoin, including price targets of $500,000. Saylor pivoted his software firm MicroStrategy into a levered bitcoin bet with an average cost above $30,000.

 

MicroStrategy's bonds are now pricing in a high chance of default as BTC has fallen below his average cost of $30,000. That could ultimately lead to a dumping of the 129,218 bitcoin that it owns -- valued recently at over $6 billion.

 

For Novogratz, there's this:

 

It's now the ultimate cringe.

 

Luna is imploding. It's down to 87-cents from $87 a week ago. It's fallen 97% in the past 24 hours after the luna-backed UST stablecoin broke. Just a week ago, Luna was a top-ten valued crypto. The retail pain is enormous and tragic.

 

In terms of credibility, Novogratz is on a bullet train from respectability to being a punchline. I have to believe Saylor and Novogratz will survive themselves or morph into something new but their pumping has left a trail of wreckage.

In the past 24 hours:

• Bitcoin -8.4%
• ETH -10.5%
• XRP -20.2%
• Cardano -17.9%
• Solana -25.9%
• Dogecoin -21.9%
• Avalanche (aptly named) -36.9%

I have to think that bitcoin is being held up by flows from alts at the moment but if $28,500 gives way, it could get very ugly.

What's also hurting crypto lately is the positive correlation with tech stocks. There was once a boisterous camp arguing that crypto was a portfolio hedge and store of value against volatility elsewhere. For months though now it's simply been a leveraged trade on the Nasdaq.

 

UBS today makes that point in a brutal one-sentence takedown, saying today that the "case for institutional adoption seems to be receding by the day, with the space affording no  safe-haven  and only negative diversification via idiosyncratic risks."

 

Despite all this, I find it strangely comforting that Warren Buffett has won again. It's a reminder that there's nothing new under the sun.

 

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

 

I love it when shameless pumpers get taken to the woodshed.

[24K PureCool]

6 minutes ago, nuckin_futz said:

Mike drop: There's no coming back from this for the faces of cryptocurrency

• The two Mikes: Novogratz and Saylor are dead-reputations walking

Michael Novogratz and Michael Saylor are two of the most-prominent evangelists of cryptocurrency.

 

The first made his reputation in financial markets and the second in developing technology but both pivoted hard to crypto. Novogratz made a series increasingly-insane headline-grabbing predictions about bitcoin, including price targets of $500,000. Saylor pivoted his software firm MicroStrategy into a levered bitcoin bet with an average cost above $30,000.

 

MicroStrategy's bonds are now pricing in a high chance of default as BTC has fallen below his average cost of $30,000. That could ultimately lead to a dumping of the 129,218 bitcoin that it owns -- valued recently at over $6 billion.

 

For Novogratz, there's this:

 

It's now the ultimate cringe.

 

Luna is imploding. It's down to 87-cents from $87 a week ago. It's fallen 97% in the past 24 hours after the luna-backed UST stablecoin broke. Just a week ago, Luna was a top-ten valued crypto. The retail pain is enormous and tragic.

 

In terms of credibility, Novogratz is on a bullet train from respectability to being a punchline. I have to believe Saylor and Novogratz will survive themselves or morph into something new but their pumping has left a trail of wreckage.

In the past 24 hours:

• Bitcoin -8.4%
• ETH -10.5%
• XRP -20.2%
• Cardano -17.9%
• Solana -25.9%
• Dogecoin -21.9%
• Avalanche (aptly named) -36.9%

I have to think that bitcoin is being held up by flows from alts at the moment but if $28,500 gives way, it could get very ugly.

What's also hurting crypto lately is the positive correlation with tech stocks. There was once a boisterous camp arguing that crypto was a portfolio hedge and store of value against volatility elsewhere. For months though now it's simply been a leveraged trade on the Nasdaq.

 

UBS today makes that point in a brutal one-sentence takedown, saying today that the "case for institutional adoption seems to be receding by the day, with the space affording no  safe-haven  and only negative diversification via idiosyncratic risks."

 

Despite all this, I find it strangely comforting that Warren Buffett has won again. It's a reminder that there's nothing new under the sun.

 

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

 

I love it when shameless pumpers get taken to the woodshed.

My dream of seeing the demise of crypto.com and coinbase and such is becoming closer to reality by the day. 

 

I have and always stand that block chain is one of the most useless hyped up invention to date not to mention the damage it has done to the environment trying to solve things that we already have more efficient solutions for. 

[nuckin_futz]

17 minutes ago, 24K PureCool said:

My dream of seeing the demise of crypto.com and coinbase and such is becoming closer to reality by the day. 

 

I have and always stand that block chain is one of the most useless hyped up invention to date not to mention the damage it has done to the environment trying to solve things that we already have more efficient solutions for. 

Might you be confusing block chain and crypto currency? There's actually a use for block chain. If it had been implemented I doubt you'd have seen the blow up in VIAC and DISCA etc over a year ago.

 

As far as Coinbase goes it appears your dream is becoming reality. It's a funny thing when the Fed finally takes away the cheap money punch bowl. You get to see who knows what they're doing and who doesn't. All the charlatans get exposed. Looks like all this crypto and NFT nonsense was just a result of the Fed's endless money creation. When the tide goes out, everyone learns that a currency with little real world utility is actually kinda useless.

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by nuckin_futz

[24K PureCool]

16 minutes ago, nuckin_futz said:

Might you be confusing block chain and crypto currency? There's actually a use for block chain. If it had been implemented I doubt you'd have seen the blow up in VIAC and DISCA etc over a year ago.

 

As far as Coinbase goes it appears your dream is becoming reality. It's a funny thing when the Fed finally takes away the cheap money punch bowl. You get to see who knows what they're doing and who doesn't. All the charlatans get exposed. Looks like all this crypto and NFT nonsense was just a result of the Fed's endless money creation. When the tide goes out, everyone learns that a currency with little real world utility is actually kinda useless.

 

Nope, no confusion from me there. I 100% meant block chain there. I just find it to be totally useless or already have established solutions for in any of the proposed applications or are applications that will never happen due to corporate greed. 

[Warhippy]

23 minutes ago, 24K PureCool said:

Nope, no confusion from me there. I 100% meant block chain there. I just find it to be totally useless or already have established solutions for in any of the proposed applications or are applications that will never happen due to corporate greed. 

I think you'd be surprised at the real world applications Blockchain networks can actually affect.  That one is going to stick around for a while.

 

These pump n dump crypto coins though.  Damn....

[Warhippy]

I gets better.  Coinbases poison pill

 

https://news.yahoo.com/coinbase-warns-users-could-lose-160832167.html

 

Coinbase, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, warned that its users might lose access to their holdings if the company ever went bankrupt.

The disclosure was included for the first time as a risk factor in the company's first-quarter earnings report, which also noted that Coinbase holds $256 billion in fiat currencies and virtual coins.

"Because custodially held crypto assets may be considered to be the property of a bankruptcy estate, in the event of a bankruptcy, the crypto assets we hold in custody on behalf of our customers could be subject to bankruptcy proceedings and such customers could be treated as our general unsecured creditors," the company said.

That means users would lose access to their balances since it would become Coinbase's property.

It's a different scenario from traditional investments. Many bank accounts, including checking and savings, are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for up to $250,000 per account if the bank goes under, while the Securities Investor Protection Corporation helps if a broker or dealer goes bankrupt.

Crypto enthusiasts have long heralded the decentralized movement as, in part, a way to give people complete control and ownership of their finances. That's only the case for those who physically store their cryptocurrency on personal wallets, as opposed to a platform like Coinbase. (Coinbase does offer a self-custody wallet called Coinbase Wallet.)

[24K PureCool]

19 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

I think you'd be surprised at the real world applications Blockchain networks can actually affect.  That one is going to stick around for a while.

 

These pump n dump crypto coins though.  Damn....

Everyone keep saying that and yet I have not seen a single practical use we don't already have solutions for or we know will not happen cause it will hurt corporate profits. 

[nuckin_futz]

6 minutes ago, 24K PureCool said:

Everyone keep saying that and yet I have not seen a single practical use we don't already have solutions for or we know will not happen cause it will hurt corporate profits. 

Bill Hwang was conducting a scam last year and was hiding his transactions through the running of a "family home office" with different reporting rules. Block chain would have sniffed him out before he ever got going. Wall St would have known it was all the same accounts building these massive positions in those stocks.

 

In the end it was Investment Banks who found themselves on the hook for billions in losses from his shady dealings. Could have been avoided with sufficient reporting which block chain provides.

Edited May 11, 2022 by nuckin_futz

[24K PureCool]

10 minutes ago, nuckin_futz said:

Bill Hwang was conducting a scam last year and was hiding his transactions through the running of a "home office" with different reporting rules. Block chain would have sniffed him out before he ever got going. Wall St would have known it was all the same accounts building these massive positions in those stocks.

 

In the end it was Investment Banks who found themselves on the hook for billions in losses from his shady dealings. Could have been avoided with sufficient reporting which block chain provides.

Sounds more like a failure of policy than technology. 

 

Nothing is gonna stop him doing that if institution's still have their own reporting policies and run multiple chains.

 

It will definitely make it harder I'll give you that.

Edited May 11, 2022 by 24K PureCool

[nuckin_futz]

Just now, 24K PureCool said:

Sounds more like a failure of policy than technology. 

 

Nothing is gonna stop him doing that if institution's still have their own reporting policies and run multiple chains.

And that is exactly why you centralize everything.

[24K PureCool]

2 minutes ago, nuckin_futz said:

And that is exactly why you centralize everything.

And there is no reason why current non block chain technology can't centralize everything. 

[nuckin_futz]

1 minute ago, 24K PureCool said:

And there is no reason why current non block chain technology can't centralize everything. 

People will cheat. Especially people on Wall Street.

[I.Am.Ironman]

It's going to be interesting. BTC has never dropped below the peak of the previous cycle top, which in this case is around 20k, I believe. BTC has also only been around for the last decade which was a massive bull run with quantitative easing. Time will tell.

[J-23]

Do Kwon was calling everyone poor and now Luna went from $119 to $0.01 in the matter of days. The market really humbled that dude.

[Boudrias]

20 hours ago, nuckin_futz said:

Might you be confusing block chain and crypto currency? There's actually a use for block chain. If it had been implemented I doubt you'd have seen the blow up in VIAC and DISCA etc over a year ago.

 

As far as Coinbase goes it appears your dream is becoming reality. It's a funny thing when the Fed finally takes away the cheap money punch bowl. You get to see who knows what they're doing and who doesn't. All the charlatans get exposed. Looks like all this crypto and NFT nonsense was just a result of the Fed's endless money creation. When the tide goes out, everyone learns that a currency with little real world utility is actually kinda useless.

 

When Charlie Munger and Jamie Diamond speak I listen. I never really understood the appeal of crypto. As a store of value independent of government money creation, maybe? At the end of the day the value of Bitcoin will depend on accessibility and usage. The 'tulip' principal comes into play. 

 

Ultimately I stock with gold. Now I wonder how many crypto holders will now migrate back to gold? Gold has moved up and down with markets as well but the volatility is lessening and more up than down.  

[Warhippy]

Why do I get this funny feeling Musk is gonna dump money in to something nice and cheap like.  Tweet like mad then dump again like Doge?

 

The guy will make his Twitter purchase back somehow and the crypto bros look gullible enough to let it happen

[nuckin_futz]

1 hour ago, Boudrias said:

When Charlie Munger and Jamie Diamond speak I listen. I never really understood the appeal of crypto. As a store of value independent of government money creation, maybe? At the end of the day the value of Bitcoin will depend on accessibility and usage. The 'tulip' principal comes into play. 

 

Ultimately I stock with gold. Now I wonder how many crypto holders will now migrate back to gold? Gold has moved up and down with markets as well but the volatility is lessening and more up than down.  

I never understood the appeal of it either. The storage of value argument never made any sense. How can you put your wealth into something that can swing +10% in a single day?

 

To this day it still has little utility. As far as how many will migrate back to gold. The old guard who decided to dabble because they didn't want to miss out probably will migrate back. The 'crypto bros' will never go to gold because to them it's personal. And that will be their ultimate failing. Never get emotional about money. If you spend anytime on Twitter (it's actually a good way to gauge sentiment) you'll see the hard core crypto people take everything personally.

 

Gold and silver have real world utility. Plus they have industrial uses. Even medical uses, ever seen anyone get a cavity in their tooth filled with bitcoin? Yeah me neither.

[nuckin_futz]

27 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

Why do I get this funny feeling Musk is gonna dump money in to something nice and cheap like.  Tweet like mad then dump again like Doge?

 

The guy will make his Twitter purchase back somehow and the crypto bros look gullible enough to let it happen

Don't quote me on these numbers (just eyeballing). Since his announcement of his intent to purchase Twitter, Tesla stock has fallen about 25%. That's a loss in market cap of about $250 billion or more than 5 times the purchase price of Twitter. Musk owns about 20% of Tesla so his personal paper loss since the announcement is about $50 billion.

 

Doesn't seem very wise to damage the value of your biggest asset for a vanity project but it does seem like a very Elon thing to do.

 

The crypto game appears to be over. #1) The Fed took away the punch bowl  #2) There are bag holders everywhere in crypto land who will keep a lid on future price movements. What was price support is now price resistance.

[Boudrias]

2 minutes ago, nuckin_futz said:

Don't quote me on these numbers (just eyeballing). Since his announcement of his intent to purchase Twitter, Tesla stock has fallen about 25%. That's a loss in market cap of about $250 billion or more than 5 times the purchase price of Twitter. Musk owns about 20% of Tesla so his personal paper loss since the announcement is about $50 billion.

 

Doesn't seem very wise to damage the value of your biggest asset for a vanity project but it does seem like a very Elon thing to do.

 

The crypto game appears to be over. #1) The Fed took away the punch bowl  #2) There are bag holders everywhere in crypto land who will keep a lid on future price movements. What was price support is now price resistance.

I've been reading that the value of SpaceX is $1 trillion. Give the Space Show a listen if you haven't already. Some interesting stuff. 

[Elias Pettersson]

2 hours ago, Boudrias said:

I've been reading that the value of SpaceX is $1 trillion. Give the Space Show a listen if you haven't already. Some interesting stuff. 

SpaceX is the real play.  Tesla is just a sideshow.  I'm surprised some haven't figured this out yet.  Elon Musk is the largest US government contractor.  SpaceX is the future.  Imagine having free Wi-Fi for the entire world...

 

Twitter is just a play toy for Elon.  There really isn't much in the terms of future potential revenue for Elon with Twitter.  It's just a toy for him...

Edited May 12, 2022 by Elias Pettersson