An interview with one of the people from Grayscale (the people with the bitcoin investment trust) about why an SEC product is needed and the impact of the halving next year.

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/11/20/why-bitcoin-funds-sec-filing-may-be-a-big-crypto-breakthrough.html

Exactly.  There were people claiming it wouldn't ever get above a US dollar.  Then that it wouldn't hold dollar parity etc.

The answer is: no one knows and it was (and to a certain extent is) a binary proposition in that it will be worth a whole lot or very little. 

That said, the longevity so far and the long term fiat price of bitcoin changes augur well for the future price.  In short, the fact that bitcoin has done so well over the past decade makes it more likely that the long term bullish hypothesis for bitcoin comes true.

The halving reduces the new supply of bitcoin by half.  A decrease in new supply could result in an increase in price if demand remains the same since there are fewer new coins available to satisfy that demand.  

Will it result in an increase in fiat price?  No one knows for sure, however after the previous halvings the fiat price of bitcoin has increased significantly.  Not immediately, of course, but that is probably because people are aware of the impact on supply and plan for it, then when it doesn't happen immediately they worry and sell.

So in short, no one knows the future and while it has happened in the past, there are no guarantees it will do so going forward.  If you do believe in the benefits of a decentralized, censorship resistant, non-state actor control currency, payment system, and asset then whether or not the fiat price immediately rises is less important that what has happened over the last 10+ years. 

The simple result of the halving is that if new supply decreases and demand stays flat (or increases), then the price will rise.

Not necessarily crypto related math on the surface, but a nice paper and awe inspired on a purely mathematical level:

http://scienzamedia.uniroma2.it/~eal/Wiles-Fermat.pdf

This is a fine time for Argentinians to protect their assets, but a better time would be been since either early August when the writing on the wall became clear or, even more so, any time over the last few years.

When someone has no other argument based on logic or facts, they throw out "racism".  It is an old canard that is used by those with few intellectual arguments left.

Bitcoin won't help people who won't help themselves. Instead of complaining about someone - "the rich" - take action and do something. Given how divisible bitcoin is, anyone can use it.

However, trying to use bitcoin after you are already enmeshed in a crisis is kind of like trying to buy fire insurance when your home is already on fire.  This isn't bitcoin's fault, it is the fault of the person who didn't plan ahead.

There isn't a country in the world where the politicians aren't willing to sell everyone's liberty down the river for their own power.  They push envy in the promise of "free" stuff to sell their agenda so everyone with any sense should prepare now, instead of when the house is on fire.

 Look at Chile, they are on the road to Venezuela. Smart people there should be moving money offshore and buying bitcoin if they don't have the ability to move other things out of the country.

The whole concept of valuing "stable" crypto as a function of fiat is just stunningly naive.  Fiat is anything but stable, it continues to lose value every year, from several percentage points to thousands (or more).   Not to mention it ends up creating a central point of failure, whomever is custodian of the assets backing the so-called stable coin. 

One hopes that Alcor works and Hal doesn't Rest In Peace.

I agree. I think most people want to be free while most in government want to control and they try to mislead people with promises of "free" stuff.  FDR's gold confiscation was reprehensible in a free society.

From the article: "[The United States] is the country that has the largest number of cryptocurrencies hodlers"

Interesting.

So while the article seems to say that the US *government* isn't crypto friendly, the individuals are.

If it was 2009, 2010, or 2011 and I was getting 1-10 cents worth of bitcoin, then yes.  Just as it wasn't "wasting time" to learn about bitcoin and mine then for only a dollar worth of bitcoin per day.

You sound like the people in July 2010 who were saying it was worthless and would never hit $1, and then 6 months later saying it would drop under $1 and never come back.  The FUD was wrong then and is now.

Will it go that high?  No one knows, but placing bets against it has been a losing proposition for more than a decade. 

Halvings have led to orders of magnitude growth in fiat price each time so far. Much decreased new supply (halved), increased demand follows the supply-demand curve.

Thank you for the TLDR, I wonder if they'll publish a story every time someone does something stupid.

e.g.  Person using the euro fiat network loses 40,000 euros after they burn the money while trying to start a campfire.

"Need"? No.  Something beneficial to the entire ecosystem, yes. 

Will it be approved?  Something will eventually, sometime soon?  That is anyone's guess. 

The good thing is that there are a fair number of groups who have attempted this and each time more of the (supposed) issues are dealt with.  Some of those issues won't be dealt with until the market is more mature.  The somewhat ironic thing is that adding an ETF to the mix would tend to stabilize the global bitcoin market and make it less prone to manipulation on some of the sketchy exchanges because it would add a lot of volume and a lot of ballast in the form of people buying for protection which is something that would be beneficial to everyone. 

Not to mention an ETF would allow more people to take part safely in future appreciation.  While it certainly is doable to purchase it on your own, if people can purchase an ETF from their brokerage account, it makes things much simpler.

They aren't NOW, but responding to the article and the potential designs discussed, they will be, which was the point.

An advantage of sidechains adding features is that it is then secured by the full value of bitcoin, thus it is distributed and has a lot of value securing it as compared to a new alt coin that has very low value and therefore lower security.

I agree right now it isn't really useful or practical, but IF (and that is a big if, admittedly) they continue to update it in 5 or 10 years, it might be practical and they will have experience dealing with it. 

As far as the data plan, maybe it is smart enough to avoid the full node being active while on cellular and only activate it while on wifi?  I don't know, and agree it isn't practical, but it is nice to see people pushing things out that may not be useful now, but will be later.

At some point in the future - perhaps another 1 or 2 orders of magnitude in fiat price - bitcoin will stabilize and it will become much more prudent to use in commerce.  Personally, if someone wants to pay me in bitcoin today, I am fine with holding it and using it.  Never transferring to to fiat is the goal.

The people using it as a store of value today will in all likelihood be well rewarded while we get to the point of stability in fiat terms.  Or it will implode and be worthless, however, that likelihood decreases by the day.

The 'real bitcoin' is not meaningless.  I agree there have been some changes to "what satoshi implemented himself" - certainly the overflow bug was a change in the implementation (that was about a month after I first read about bitcoin on slashdot and started mining), but there have NOT been meaningful changes to what Satoshi *designed* himself.  Implementations may have bugs, designs may have poor design choices, but the root design precepts have not.  Even if all the miners pass it, that alone is insufficient to make that the 'real' bitcoin, see the UAHF and UASF previously.