Certain things simply can't be priced in. But I definitely understand what you mean here as exactly this argument had been prevalent on the forum before the 2016 halving. People were telling that the effects of the coming halving had already been priced in and I was telling them that you can't possibly price in future decrease in supply due to halving as it has direct impact on prices (and I was proved right in the end). In other words, to price it in, you should diminish this supply for real and then see what happens to the price

That will be your "pricing in"

That's not necessarily so

In fact, it is almost certainly not so with respect to physical gold as some investors (rather, all investors after earning a certain amount of dough) may be looking to park their wealth to avoid its depreciation. In this specific case they won't be looking for profits as their primary goal will be preserving their wealth and not multiplying it (these are different things), and gold fits into this category perfectly

Even if all these issues get sorted out, it won't make Bitcoin loans more feasible

Lending money assumes you provide collateral for the loan, i.e. you enter an agreement with the lender (for example, a bank). So if you fail to return the loan, you may legitimately lose this collateral, which means its forfeiture should be enforced somehow (read, your property can be taken by force from you without your consent). But how are you going to do this stuff with cryptocurrencies unless there is some legal entity lending you coins officially, which means full legal recognition of cryptocurrencies? We are far from that

Probably yes (as I don't know how the system you refer to actually works)

But what I suggest should be done on the protocol level. This feature will also prevent you from sending your coins to a wrong address by mistake. If you make such a mistake, whether the receiving address actually exists or not won't matter as your coins will come back to you after the grace period is over. Honestly, I don't understand why we don't have such a system already implemented


But how are other systems upgraded? If Bitcoin doesn't allow such upgrades being made in a safe and reliable way, it pretty much means that it is poorly designed, and we need to redesign it (while it is still officially in beta)

I essentially agree with you

On the flip side, though, I should note that there is not much choice anyway. I mean we may not yet be ready for cryptocurrencies to take over fiat in a big way as a means of payment. All coins (Bitcoin included) are used mostly for speculation with which the weaknesses you mention are inconsequential and mostly irrelevant. In other words, there is no real use which would work as a natural selection mechanism and weed out bad or weak coins

How come really?

We should just increase a version number (or how it is called correctly), so that you don't really need to update existing addresses at all. In this way, only newer addresses will be able to use this feature. In other words, legacy addresses should just ignore it. Basically, this is how scalable and compatible systems are built where you can add new features without affecting the existing feature set in a negative or dangerous way (like you mean it)

Mate, this question has already been asked a few times

And no, no definitive answer was given if you are curious (you may want to read the whole thread, though). What it means and what it all means everyone should decide for themselves. Herewith I'm not necessarily accusing the shop runners of anything specific, but if they really want to make a decentralized casino as they claim, i.e. where no ownership of keys is changed, they should probably look into the blockchains you mentioned

We all know that hacks and thefts are following Bitcoin (as well as other cryptocurrencies, for that matter) and its users like a plague, so I was thinking about solving this issue once and for all. Long story short, we need to implement two things described in detail below

First, we should create "frozen" or lockable addresses, i.e. addresses which will be locked for a specified amount of time on the protocol level by setting a special variable that will be our countdown timer. After it runs out the address gets unlocked and you can move your coins freely. That would essentially mean that no one including the owner of the keys will be able to move these coins anywhere until the specified amount of time runs out, thereby efficiently and effectively preventing hacks and thefts during that time. As an extension to this basic feature, it could be beneficial to create a white list of addresses where the coins can be sent to during this lock time

Second, we should make some transactions reversible, but please don't attack me before you actually listen me out. It is most certainly not what you think it is. This feature should allow a transaction to expire (i.e. be reversed) unless the payee (i.e. the person you pay to and who is to receive the money) confirms it from their side. This is how many online payment systems work (e.g. Yandex.Money). Basically, you send money to someone but they won't be able to receive it without a protection code which you send them separately (or tell in person). Thus, if no code is provided on time, the transaction gets canceled. Essentially the same thing can and should be implemented in Bitcoin

So if you find these proposals interesting or even if you find them disgusting, feel free to comment below

I don't really think it is a misnomer (sort of)

Whenever I see that word (income), it is what it is supposed to mean according to common use (or dictionary), i.e. what you receive as wages, salary, money you procure from selling, say, real estate, securities or from currency exchange operations. In other words, it is not profit, as simple as it gets. And the income tax (which is also a correct term here) is calculated on this amount specifically, even though this income is not the same as profit (i.e. it also includes your expenses which should be taken out)

And this is where things get interesting (or complicated if you please) as many tax codes in many cases allow you to reduce your taxable amount by the expenses you made to obtain this income. For example, in case of securities this will be the money you paid for them (i.e. price multiplied by quantity), so you actually end up paying what is commonly understood as profit. And if you think of it, that makes sense as it allows the tax authorities to see what your profit is actually made of (i.e. income minus expenses)

You don't take into account that money doesn't appear from nowhere

And while it is certainly possible that some market participants would trust Bitcoin Cash, there is absolutely no reason to think that all market participants started to also trust the original Bitcoin more because of the fork (which would explain the inflow of fresh money). Please note that I don't talk about Bitcoin Cash here and its price dynamic. I'm talking about Bitcoin and its price as it started or continued to grow after the Bitcoin Cash fork

Technically, Bitcoin had been growing months before the fork (with minor corrections in the summer), so you have to provide really solid and irresistible evidence or logical explanation that Bitcoin's rise that followed the fork was caused by this fork. Otherwise, we have to conclude that this fork actually took from Bitcoin rather than added to it (in terms of price figures)

Could you explain how they will be "deemed near worthless in an instant"?

The thieves could and most certainly would use mixing services, so if these coins will be deemed worthless, it will be similar to an epidemic (like it happens in zombie movies) with the whole Bitcoin blockchain instantly rendered useless and worthless. In practice, though, it would likely mean backrolling it. That would obviously undermine the value of Bitcoin on its own, and that's why we need to make some transactions reversible (at least for some time until confirmed by the payee) as then we wouldn't need to roll back the whole blockchain

It may be a right idea after all

And still more so if we haven't yet seen the real lows. The point is altcoins are falling much stronger and it is not given or set in stone that when we start to rise again (or rather, if we start to rise again), altcoins are going to follow Bitcoin's lead. Personally, I'm certain only of Litecoin's imminent success as it will likely even outperform Bitcoin, while the rest of the pack will be slowly grinding behind, if at all

I don't really think the American constitution says anything on this matter

But since I didn't read it, that remains to be seen. Perhaps, someone more familiar with it could chime in on this? With that said, we should keep in mind that when it was written, there was no Central Bank in America as we know it today (the Fed) or as it had been when it first appeared (in the first quarter of the 19th century, if I'm not mistaken). Gold was money back in the day (with the dollar representing it and backed up by it), so, ironically, with more States accepting Bitcoin as legal tender we may be back to the roots in a sense

People often confuse cause and effect

Apart from that, if the beginning of the hash war was a trigger (which seems to be a prevailing opinion here and which I personally endorse and stick to myself), it should be "too perfect" by definition. But it doesn't in the least mean that without this particular trigger the price wouldn't crash sooner or later. In such situations anything can be a trigger, and the longer the system remains in this quasi-stable state, the more sensitive it becomes to external disturbances, however small they might be (let's call it the butterfly effect)

When you are day trading a few currency pairs, you will start to notice even the slightest discrepancies in their behavior. Actually, this is not the first time I see this happening and not the first time with Litecoin specifically. Such events happen regularly and you can use them as an indicator (with a good deal of caution, of course). And as I predicted yesterday, things are now back to normal, with Litecoin lending rates returning to their normal range

And Litecoin's price retracing to where it seems to belong


Bitfinex is still the primary price driver for many cryptocurrencies

While changing accounts won't increase your chances, it can help increase your betting speeds if you are auto-betting. I mean running a few sessions in parallel. Why you would ever need that I don't know (perhaps, for more reward points or maybe something else). On the other hand, if you have access to a number of white IP addresses, you can hunt for higher tiers apart from taking what you receive from free rolls anyway. To everyone, I'm in no way and in no case endorsing such practices

They are discussed here for informational and educational purposes only

Banks were just doing their thing

Which they have always been doing. Please keep in mind that I don't try to somehow justify the banksters or anything to that tune but if we cut the crap and face the ugly truth, it is not banks or banking industry as a whole that our retaliatory wave of hate should be directed to. It is relentless and reckless consumerism of common people which is the cause of the evil and which is to blame here. Without it the damned banksters wouldn't have been able to lend so much money which people were not going to return

Gold is not good for profit making (though it is for profit protecting)

As it has been underperforming for the last 40 years. That basically means that its growth in US dollars was lower than the dollar inflation accumulated during that timeframe. In other words, you would likely have lost in inflation-adjusted dollar value of your gold if you had invested somewhere in 1980. If you want to earn profits with the smallest amount of risk, you may want to look into bonds (something like inflation-protected treasuries)

Personally, I don't see much sense in earning a few %% yearly in this way

Especially when you can easily lose over 90% of your capital with prices crashing within the same year. If anything, it is a poor man's income, i.e. when you can't earn income in any other way. Really, if you made an effort to learn about crypto, understand how it works, install a personal wallet after all, why not go further and try to earn more in an active way? Really, if the cryptocurrency of your choice rises a few times, these percentages will be dust anyway while you might lose and might have already lost a lot more due to an overall downtrend market

It is not about only corrupt governments with dictators

Actually, the majority of nation states are doing this, some less with some more. But that's not the point. If you are that citizen and don't consider yourself a criminal or terrorist, why would you agree to being monitored by the government in the first place? As I see it, it is your right to circumvent such monitoring and surveillance unless you explicitly renounce that right. Benjamin Franklin once wisely said that people willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both. I fully agree with him. Do you?