"Generally, this has been a precursor of price going up. Tether gets printed when people deposit USD and get USDT back. This USDT will then be used to buy crypto. This is similar to someone depositing $250MM to exchanges. Of course, that doesn't mean they will buy right away. DYOR"
Exactly. Wiring funds to Tether is no different from wiring funds to Bitfinex. The latter treats them as interchangeable. Why would you wire large sums to Tether if not to buy large sums of BTC? (Ok, I suppose you could use it as collateral to short the market as well.) The only thing that bothers me is that $250MM is quite a lot of counterparty risk, and too much liquidity to immediately buy and withdraw. It's not impossible, but that certainly seems reckless on the part of the depositor, if all is legitimate. |
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I'm surprised it's not more prevalent, and it probably actually is.
It combines a multitude of things people are already addicted to in isolation - internet, gambling, social media. Put them together and it's an extremely potent combo.
It absolutely is. When I started trading cryptocurrency in 2013, it hit all those same spots that online poker did -- except it was more powerful. I had alarms blaring at all hours of the night (my girlfriend hated me for it), and it was an emotional roller coaster almost 24/7. Fortunately, that subsided after a year or two, and I take everything in stride now. Only occasional trading now. Most people can probably shake it off, but we're in a whole new world combining immediate gratification with volatile finance. Some people are gonna get their wires crossed from it. |
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I don't think even double spending is fraud. I mean it is obviously fraudulent activity, but im not sure if any government at all has made laws regarding the double spend case since crypto is such a new phenomena. I think that's a really fascinating area, legally. Miners are expected to act honestly because they are incentivized to -- attacks have costs and honest mining is profitable. But does a tort actually occur if, say, they use chain reorgs to allow double spending? After all, I don't think there's any law that would require miners to accept any and all transactions. Ethics aside, why can't they legally publish a new branch that drops certain confirmed transactions from the best chain (and therefore allows double spending by those they are colluding with)? |
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CNBC saying Bitcoin is dead? Don't be surprised if the market turns bullish now.  I remember how CNBC was super bullish on crypto during the last rally, but now they are just as bearish. I won't be surprised if they are just working for market manipulators and help them fooling noobs with coordinated FUD/FOMO. I remember how Fast Money ran a segment called "How to Buy Ripple" in early January and then boom, the top was in one day later and it crashed like 75%. I think it happened with BCH too, and probably others. I think we should use them as an indicator.  |
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that is exactly why the second layer solution was introduced.
with second layer such as Lightning Network you don't have to worry about things such as scaling and size of the blockchain and the limitations that entails. Not entirely true, since it takes on-chain transactions to open, close and fund Lightning channels. LN should certainly make the overall transaction load more scalable, but it doesn't eliminate on-chain volume at all. It adds to it. I'm personally more excited about sidechains, if they're ever deemed secure enough. I prefer to keep my funds offline, which doesn't really work for LN. |
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It seems to me that many rich people are afraid of the unpredictability of cryptocurrencies. This market can only attract speculative capital. Perhaps last year we saw a massive entrance of speculators. In December, they began to leave bitcoin and now we have returned to the real price of bitcoin which does not meet our expectations.
The market is heavily driven by speculation and hype about future adoption. That's why we have these bubble cycles. It's a nascent market and early adopters are exposed to relatively high risk. Clearly though, it's becoming increasingly established -- major institutional involvement and CME/Cboe futures markets reflect that. They know which way the wind is blowing. Even JPMorgan realizes now that BTC might stand alongside gold as a hedge asset. It'll definitely become mainstream to own some BTC in any diversified portfolio. It's just a matter of time. |
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Where does your information on South Korea come from? The World Bank data lists no outstanding loans in 1960, 1970, 2014, or 2016. But, poor countries? I see $52 billion in outstanding loans from Sub-Saharan Africa alone. This and this explains how that contributes to wealth extraction from poor countries: Of course there are no outstanding loans, because SK has paid them all back. Even the 3 billion they've received in 1997 during the Asian crisis they've repaid it in less than 3 months!!!! http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/754261483515257926/Korea-Timeline.pdfHow does that address what I said? One member country being able to repay their loans says nothing about my point, that the lending infrastructure is used to extract wealth: In 2012, the last year of recorded data, developing countries received a total of $1.3tn, including all aid, investment, and income from abroad. But that same year some $3.3tn flowed out of them. In other words, developing countries sent $2tn more to the rest of the world than they received. If we look at all years since 1980, these net outflows add up to an eye-popping total of $16.3tn – that’s how much money has been drained out of the global south over the past few decades. To get a sense for the scale of this, $16.3tn is roughly the GDP of the United States. Note the difference between "poor countries" and "poor governments." Governments come to power with varying levels of popular participation and mandate, but coercion and violence are always involved. Anyway, that's not relevant here.
Oh, but it is!!!! It's like a guy takes a loan, buys a tractor, starts a farm and is doing great while 10 others use their money for hookers and booze and the fault lies with the bank lending them money. Legit!!!! How did SK manage to build all its infrastructure with the WB and the Sub-Saharian states not? Probably the problem is not with the one lending money but with the ones getting those loans? Seriously? Your answer is that "Koreans buy tractors and start farms but Africans use their money for hookers and booze"? What possible evidence do you have for these comparisons? Next, are you going to say that Africans have smaller brains, too? I gave you two well-sourced links that give much more compelling explanations than that. And just to be clear, I only mentioned the World Bank because they issue loans in USD. The IMF, WTO and dishonest multinationals are also important parts of the wealth extraction infrastructure. |
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In a sea of shit sandwiches, you're eating shit no matter what. The exchange situation is completely atrocious. I don't see Coinbase as an outlier here. Virtually every exchange has its own litany of unsolved complaints and countless users threatening legal action. I'm really not blown away by these numbers at all: In 134 pages of complaints filed to the SEC and the California Department of Business Oversight
the SEC provided Mashable with 115 complaints made against Coinbase Honestly, I expected an order of magnitude larger than that. Sucks to have dozens of coins or 5 figures cash in limbo, but I also come from a time and place where getting your account wiped in a hack/exit scam is just another day in the life. but the next run will be even harder to handle.
Maybe Square, Robinhood, Circle and others will take some of that traffic off their hands. There's a lot of room for competition here -- and big players positioning themselves. |
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Take the World Bank, for example. It makes high-interest USD-denominated loans to poor governments. That USD is necessarily used to buy US exports, fueling US growth while saddling developing countries with usurious debt. Bitcoin as a global reserve could help alleviate the current debt bondage relationship between rich and poor countries.
Those "poor" governments, how did they come in power? Not with the help of their own people? You know what country took one of the biggest loans from the WB? It was South Korea!!! How are they doing? Poor? Flooded by US exports? Note the difference between "poor countries" and "poor governments." Governments come to power with varying levels of popular participation and mandate, but coercion and violence are always involved. Anyway, that's not relevant here. Where does your information on South Korea come from? The World Bank data lists no outstanding loans in 1960, 1970, 2014, or 2016. But, poor countries? I see $52 billion in outstanding loans from Sub-Saharan Africa alone. This and this explains how that contributes to wealth extraction from poor countries: In 2012, the last year of recorded data, developing countries received a total of $1.3tn, including all aid, investment, and income from abroad. But that same year some $3.3tn flowed out of them. In other words, developing countries sent $2tn more to the rest of the world than they received. If we look at all years since 1980, these net outflows add up to an eye-popping total of $16.3tn – that’s how much money has been drained out of the global south over the past few decades.
[...]
What do these large outflows consist of? Well, some of it is payments on debt. Developing countries have forked out over $4.2tn in interest payments alone since 1980 – a direct cash transfer to big banks in New York and London, on a scale that dwarfs the aid that they received during the same period.
To understand what’s going on, we have to begin with the international debt system. Ravaged by colonialism and in desperate need of capital, particularly after the oil crisis of 1973, countries in the global South had to seek out loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But there was a catch: these loans gave the donor agencies the power to determine economic policy in the recipient countries, overriding the will of local elected leaders.
By leveraging debt, the World Bank and the IMF – which are controlled by rich countries – force developing countries to liberalise their markets, sell off their public assets, and open their doors to multinational corporations. Western economists once assured us that these policies, known as “structural adjustment programs,” would stimulate development. But in reality they have done exactly the opposite, cutting income growth rates in half[3] and causing mass poverty. |
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hypothetically, it is possible. But the main point of a blockchain is its decentralization, that makes a blockchain invulnerable to the threats of break downs.
blockchain is decentralized and no one has control over it so it cannot be destroy,i think its only possible if internet permanently shut down
This only applies to blockchains based on proof-of-work (where nodes follow the valid chain with most cumulative work). Blockchains based on proof-of-stake can always be destroyed if 51% of validators agree to wipe out all ledger history. POS protocols can include centralized checkpoints as a protection from this constant threat, but that thwarts the very idea of decentralized consensus... |
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firstly: mining Bitcoin is happening mostly in developd countries and in developing countries where there are already electricity shortages the mining of bitcoin makes it even worse, leading to higher expenses for electricity which is needed there for educating children, or building schools.
secondly:
Bitcoin increases costs for electricity in the developed world which then makes prices higher for the industrial production of investment goods like machines for farming and many moore, which the people in the developing countries need to develop their country. The primary benefit developing countries may realize from Bitcoin adoption regards USD hegemony -- the dollar's use as a tool to extract resources and wealth from poor countries. If BTC were to become a global reserve currency -- supplanting the USD -- it could certainly improve the position of developing/exporting countries vis-a-vis the USA. Take the World Bank, for example. It makes high-interest USD-denominated loans to poor governments. That USD is necessarily used to buy US exports, fueling US growth while saddling developing countries with usurious debt. Bitcoin as a global reserve could help alleviate the current debt bondage relationship between rich and poor countries. There's also US sanctions to consider. thirdly:
Bitcoin changes what the youth in the developed world is doing where bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are more likely to be created mined and earned towards not developing poor countries but now towards fullfilling the greed of those that are running the mining and crypto infrastructure. I think the point of Bitcoin was to channel rational greed into sound money. Why do you assume this greed is fundamentally bad? What net negatives will Bitcoin bring to society, in your view? |
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all the companies in the world are beginning to use the blockchain technology but none of those companies have bought bitcoin, and other companies create their own blockchain, this would affect the price of bitcoin in the near future?
A lot of these companies may find out, in time, that blockchains aren't suited to their purposes. I could see private blockchains being useful in finance for settlement, where federated consensus (among the involved parties) is sufficient. There are probably other similar uses where such trust models may work, where a private blockchain could cut middlemen/intermediaries out of the process and therefore lower costs. But I think a lot of the hype around private blockchains is overblown. Federated consensus may also allow attacks that are not yet well understood from a game theory perspective. At the end of the day, it's important to recognize that public and private blockchains serve very different purposes, and the use cases served by the latter are not clear. Public blockchains are highly inefficient and only necessary where trustless validation is required -- sound money, censorship resistance. And private blockchains are not trustless because there is no mining incentive to encourage honesty. |
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I'm glad Garzik has things like this to distract him from creating drama in the Bitcoin community. Unlike most initial coin offerings (ICOs), metronome is being distributed through a descending price auction, meaning that the crowdsale price decreases over time until no more tokens are remaining. Developers argue that this will reduce FOMO-driven buying and help with price discovery. How would that help with price discovery? People are incentivized to wait as long as possible and buy at the latest possible time, like sniping in an auction. Not sure I see any benefit in this. |
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Bitcoin is a vote of "no confidence" in the current financial/banking system.
It will continue to devour bad money, and as it accelerates, will be the catalyst for changing finance as it exists today -- and entire nations, too.
I sympathize with this, though I'd emphasize that it isn't black-and-white. I'm a realist. I don't think BTC will necessarily displace sovereign currencies or revolutionize/replace nation-states. I'm not sure that it will become a global reserve asset. But I do see it as a wealth transfer from unsound money to sound money (and I'm glad to be a part of that). I understand the economic implications of Bitcoin's supply with regard to Metcalfe's Law, so regardless of what happens with governments and legacy finance, I'm confident that the size and importance of the Bitcoin counter-economy will continue to grow. And therefore, so will the price. |
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I think it's by far the most likely eventual use case. I just don't see it ever becoming a daily currency. Too volatile, too hoardy. At some point, if the adoption S-curve stays true to form, we will reach somewhat of an equilibrium and BTC will no longer be "too volatile" for anything. Other hedge assets (like gold) are considered moderately volatile, and I think Bitcoin will stand alongside them. The only thing they have going for them is their fancy bunker storage for the super rich.
Custody for the mega-rich (and eventually governments) will be big business. Maybe that's all they need going for them. |
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Centralization
PoW – High risk of centralization mainly due to the reason mining being a expensive process and therefore reserved predominantly for large scale operations. This is contrary to the main principle advocated by blockchain technology which is the concept of decentralization
PoS – A fairer concept in which the amount of network control granted is directly proportional to the the amount invested in the token/coin.
A couple notes on this point. The degree of centralization is more complex than this. In POW, you can have mining concentration, centralization of mining chip manufacturing (see Bitmain), node centralization (lack of full nodes). In POS, you can have node centralization and staking centralization. Regarding the latter, the closer to a majority of network validators that any one group has control of, the easier it is to mount an attack on the network. "Fairness" has nothing to do with centralization -- that is a separate concept regarding supply distribution itself. POS systems often have highly concentrated supplies, which is inherently unsafe for investors. |
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Can a blockchain system be destroyed?
A proof-of-work blockchain cannot be destroyed. Nodes follow the best (valid most-work) chain. They won't follow a weaker chain (e.g. one that erases the ledger). And their copies of the blockchain are globally distributed so they can't be "deleted." You can hard fork to a new empty ledger, but that will still leave the old fork intact -- anyone can run a node and pick up where it left off. In contrast, a proof-of-stake blockchain can be destroyed. All it takes is for 51% of staking validators to collude in destroying the ledger. This can be remedied with centralization by hard-coding checkpoints into future versions, but there are two problems: 1) that requires a high level of centralization and thwarts the purpose of decentralized consensus, and 2) all ledger history past the last hard-coded checkpoint is always at risk of deletion. This is one of the reasons why POS is fundamentally less secure -- or more centralized, or both -- than POW. |
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Thanks for sharing. I hadn't dug into the paper yet, and I generally approach these kinds of claims with skepticism. A couple more highlights from the article that I think are worth noting: The four basis-point increase in Bitcoin prices explains less than 1 percent of the variance. While it technically meets normal standards of statistical significance, given the guesswork the authors had to do to collect data and the complexity of the analysis, I consider it more likely to be noise than signal. There's a big difference between "statistical significance" and actually meaningful claims like "Tether manipulation is responsible for the price reaching $20,000." It looks like Tether manipulation may have had a very, very small -- but technically noticeable -- effect. From skimming the previous articles, it also seems like there's a tendency for naysayers to conflate "not random" with "manipulation" and I'm not sure there is basis for that. This ties in to correlation vs. causation. Sure, perhaps there are statistical irregularities, but have the researchers conclusively explained them? It sounds like their methods don't account for all possible variables involved: That is indeed strong evidence that the 87 hours following the hours with the largest Bitcoin and tether flows are not random. But we already knew they weren't random, they were times of high transaction volume, which would be expected to have more volatile prices than average, and trading volume was much higher on the upswings than the downswings. |
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For those who do make conversions from crypto to fiat then its normal they would really be monitored out just like on my country. They are already fully aware for those bank accounts that do being credited by big transactions to be involved on cryptocurrency.Just like happens to my case, im just an ordinary citizen but when crypto is booming up on our country they are making surveillance for users who are involved or connected to crypto transactions. Not a surprising news though. It's much more severe than most countries. The emphasis goes beyond typical AML/KYC and deterrence of tax evasion via identification. Here's a quote from the article: Accounts found to contain crypto transactions at prices which the government considers to be “undermining the national currency” will be “severely punished,” Vice President Tareck El Aissami said. The government is lumping cryptocurrencies in with other store-of-value assets in a war against capital flight. These are the signs of a weak government and a dying sovereign currency: Following the launch of “Operation Paper Hands,” as news.Bitcoin.com previously reported, the Venezuelan government has initiated the next phase of its plan to reduce capital flight, calling it “Operation Metal Hands.”
[...]
The operation further targets capital flight via cryptocurrencies. El Aissami explained that the government will start monitoring bank accounts for crypto-related transactions and will prosecute those trading them “at speculative prices.” |
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In 2013, we had the Willy Bot. In 2017, we had the Tether Printer. Next bubble, I'm sure "researchers" and the media will make similar renewed claims of manipulation. And I bet it won't matter, either. The long-term price trend will continue, and the establishment will continue to get all salty over it. |
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