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1  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Help me: I'm losing faith in crypto! on: March 08, 2018, 07:37:44 PM
Among my peers, I have been the most optimistic about blockchain and its future, but lately this bear market is taking its toll on me.  I am beginning to be filled with a constant pall of FUD.

Here are my reasons:

1. What if I'm wrong?  Nobody invests in something they don't believe in, but we have all had bad investments - therefore not everything we believed in was good.  What if I'm wrong about public blockchains?  Blockchain has a future, but maybe it's in private blockchain like HyperLedger?

2. What decentralization?  Part of what is feeding this FUD I have is that I have an extremely diversified crypto portfolio, and yet despite this everything is down right now, and it pisses me off.  The entire crypto market value is centralized around bitcoin.  I really like bitcoin, but I don't want everything to revolve around it.  That doesn't make sense in an ideal decentralized world.

3. Value proposition?.  I once had a heated argument with someone who insisted the value of crypto was purely speculative.  I argued that it was high value because it's following the S-curve of adoption, and therefore we expect it to be hyperbolic and absorb everything.  That was back in Dec.  Now in March I see that he was right.  S-curve of adoption doesn't look like this.  The market looks exactly like the early and speculative days of an emerging asset class.

4. If we build it, will they come? A lot of critics of blockchain say that blockchain has no use, even after 10 years.  My counter-argument would be that after 10 years, we're still developing infrastructure.  It would be like the Internet in the 80s - we didn't really see e-commerce appear until the late 90s.

Ethereum is an example of infrastuture building that's still in a beta phase.  It's not scalable yet.  Buterin said that Ethereum's scaling plan will roll out over the next 5 years (!).

But what if we build all this infrastructure and the world doesn't care?  I told my friends that what blockchain gives us is not necessarily BETTER services, but decentralized services.  We can all become our own "mini-Google" or "mini-youtube" - not just users of Google or youtube but actually create our own Google or Youtube without spending hundreds of millions of dollars.  Blockchain allows us the promise of decentralizing everything - from banks to services that would normally require giant corporations.  But what if this is just a pipe dream?

Power Ledger is a good example of this.  Rather than depending on the services of a centralized power generating corporation, we can all be our own mini-power-generator, serviced using the Power Ledger network.  Power Ledger is a really good example of a real-life decentralized service that is attractive, relatable and sensible.  I think people WILL use it.  People are interested in buying the hardware required to generate their own clean energy, so connecting to a micro-grid and Power Ledger's service makes sense.  But does a decentralized ebay make sense?  Or a decentralized youtube?  Many services are served better when they are centralized, because people come to expect a consistency in experience and service.

----------------
Can anyone counter-argue these?  I'm starting to lose faith.  I was up over 200% in January, now today I have just dropped below break-even.  I HODLed, and I feel like an irresponsible fool.  It's hard to be optimistic when an entire diversified crypto portfolio is in the red.

I appreciate your comfort right now.
2  Economy / Speculation / I'm officially sick of the bitcoin price right now... on: January 16, 2018, 12:38:55 AM
.. so I've been watching and reading about btc technical analysis almost daily now, and I'm kind of sick of being in this current triangle.  I've only been in btc since September so I really don't have that much history, but for those who have been in btc much longer - how much longer do you think it will take before btc goes back on the upward trend again?  It just seems like a really long sideways movement.

On Dec 17th, it reached its high of $20k, and it has taken almost a month and we're still below those numbers.  What is your estimate for when we can be above $20k again and onward to what people predict for this year ($50k-$100k)?  Another month?  March?

I know nobody knows for sure, but just looking to hear about what people's gut feel is (and only from those who have btc experience over a year please).

Thanks.
3  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Poll - Do you plan to take part in bitcoin trading futures? on: December 08, 2017, 09:50:29 PM
Hi guys - please participate in this poll.  Just want to get an idea of whether people are going to side with the central banks, or side with the common folk on this.

I think that you could make a lot of money siding with the banks by trading futures, but you are already making a lot of money buying bitcoin.  Hopefully people don't sell their soul for the US$.  The dream is to be free from central banks, not to go in bed with them, IMO.  You might disagree and are doing this just to get more US$.

Thanks for your participation and honesty.
4  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Why bitcoin isn't a bubble like tulips and dot-com on: December 08, 2017, 05:13:12 PM
Today I want to talk about tulips and the dot com bust. A lot of "smart" economists have been claiming that they are the same bubble as bitcoin. I'll tell you why it's not the same.

In order to understand effects, you need to look at root causes. What is the root cause of the dot com rising, and what is the root cause of the dot com bubble bursting? The root cause of the dot com boom is euphoria over the implications of internet businesses. It reached the mania stage where everybody wanted to get in on the action. The root cause of the dot com bust are Venture Capitalists who ran out of funding money and went to the dot coms and demanded results. Most of the dot coms could not produce results or profits and so went bust, pretty much all at the same time because it was the same group of VCs that were coming to claim debts. The root cause of the boom and the root cause of the bust are not related at all.

Regarding cryptocurrencies, the root cause of the meteoric rise of bitcoin is that it everybody wants it. But there is a distinction here. There are the faithful, who believe in the dream of a decentralized world free from the control of evil central banks. This is the majority of bitcoin owners: at least 80%. Then there are the "tourists" still stuck in the centralized banking world, who are in the "mania" stage - they want in on the action; they only care about bitcoin because it gets them more US$. That's why when you see corrections, you see wild price swings but there is a hard wall - because the 80% faithful NEVER WANT TO EVER SELL BITCOIN for US$. The 80% have learned their lesson - never sell out of bitcoin (for US$) because you will regret it. Selling an appreciating asset for a depreciating asset (US$) is the worst decision EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THIS 80% HAS MADE - I'm in these forums, and that's what they believe.

To understand the 80%, you have to understand this: there are over 1000 different cryptos, but people don't buy those cryptos because they like them more than bitcoin - they buy them because they think it can rise faster than the price of bitcoin SO THEY CAN BUY MORE BITCOIN. In the stock market, nobody sells stocks so they can get more of "the one stock". No - people buy and sell stocks to get more US$ - because the US$ is the reserve currency of the centralized world. In the decentralized world, people buy and sell all those various cryptos to get more bitcoin - the 80% are NOT interested in getting more US$ - we all want bitcoin.

Now let's talk about the 20% - the tourists from the centralized world. The smart-ass investors who think they understand bitcoin because they think it's a "company" or a "commodity". They don't understand that bitcoin is neither of those - it is a paradigm shift - it is an ideal - freedom for the plebs from the evils of central banking. Bitcoin was born out of the horrors of the Great Recession brought on by evil banks who bankrupted the middle class and got bailouts from the government. All thanks to the f'n US$ that is completely out of our control. The middle class was manipulated PERIOD. If you're in the middle class and you're shouting from the roof tops that bitcoin will crash because you believe the old bankers who say this - shame on you. Bitcoin was made for us - the middle class - to free ourselves from central banks, if you side with the central bankers instead of us plebs - shame on you, because they stole your money and recognize the threat of bitcoin to their control, and you agree with them. These tourists will now be entering the market on Dec 10th, Dec 18th and more of them next year as NASDAQ just approved futures too next year. They will come in and try to manipulate the 20% of bitcoin that isn't held by the believers.

The root cause of a collapse of bitcoin are these 20% of tourists getting spooked and exiting all at once. Now does this sound like the dot com bust? No - completely different root causes. Bitcoin would be caused by all the tourists getting spooked all at the same time, dot-com was caused by dot-coms not being able to produce profits for VCs. Totally different. The only similarity is that both had parabolic valuation growth - but correlations are not the same as causations. As for 20% getting spooked - you tell me whether you think that will crash the bitcoin price to zero. The 80% of people that hold bitcoin are rich middle class believers - you think we're not waiting to buy more when the price drops? You think we haven't been round the block before and seen these wild swings? The centralized world isn't used to seeing massive drops of 20% - the decentralized world is used to seeing it, so we're not spooked because bitcoin just recovers again after a few days.

Now, let's talk about tulips. First, the comparison is stupid. Tulips die and can be produced to infinity - just like the US$. Bitcoin can only EVER go to 21M, and in fact people predict that about 4M bitcoin have been lost forever because people lost their private keys and wallets when bitcoin was only worth a few cents and dollars. Currently there are 16.6M in circulation and we will only reach 21M in the year 2140, and if we factor in the 4M coins that have been lost and the 1M held by Satoshi Nakamoto who doesn't plan to ever release them, then the real circulating supply is 11.6M. That's a far cry from the US$ and tulips which have an infinite supply. Price is dictated by the simple economics of supply and demand. If you have more supply than demand - the price goes down. There are 36M millionaires in the world and only 11.6M bitcoin available today. There isn't enough bitcoin to go around - that's why bitcoin WILL go to $1M valuation and beyond. You can't argue against math.

Bitcoin was made for you. Celebrate it and buy it.
5  Alternate cryptocurrencies / Altcoin Discussion / Einsteinium pumping makes us all look stupid IMO. on: December 06, 2017, 06:57:05 PM
So EMC2, most of us KNOW is a shitcoin, and yet it is pumping to the moon.  Their use case is for financing science projects.  Now in the real-world, and in any world for that matter, financing science projects is a fools errand.  Science projects don't make anybody money: products do.  And for every 100 science projects, maybe 1 lands a patent which might have some value: certainly not the amount of money that warrants the price of EMC2 token.

No, the SENSIBLE thing to do is to invest in crypto projects that have real value and make real money in the real world.  The decentralized crypto world is replacing the centralized world, that's why the price of bitcoin will continue to rise to $1M and beyond.  The total market cap of crypto will eventually equal and then surpass the total market cap of fiat currency.  That's why bitcoin is not a bubble - it is a hostile takeover of the centralized world and will continue to grow until it completely absorbs it.

HOWEVER - that doesn't mean that anything crypto is gold.  Money making projects are still money making projects, and money-losing projects that require donations are still money-losing projects that require donations.  Most science projects are funded by universities - not private money because they are money-losing, therefore Einsteinium has no use case for people to make money - it's use case is to donate money because you ain't gonna get anything back.

Which brings me to my subject heading: Einsteinium pumping makes me feel stupid because I am a crypto investor who is making great investing decisions, but I didn't gain the massive pump of Einsteinium because it is a shit coin, but evidently there are plenty of fellow crypto investors who bought it any way.

What can I learn from this?  Just buy some stupid project because a bunch of people are eventually going to pump it for no reason?  EMC2 got pumped because they lied about having an Apple partnership, but even after they admitted it it was a lie, it still pumped which emphasizes more the "stupid" part.

The reason this bugs me, is because I'd like to think most of us who bought into bitcoin are highly intelligent.  We don't think inside the box - the current centralized world that we live in - we recognize that we are changing to the decentralized world.  We are in the top 1%.  But shitcoins pumping flies in the face of my belief.  That bugs me.

 Grin
6  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Sorry - still don't understand BIP39 (etc) - how does a static phrase generate? on: November 22, 2017, 08:57:57 PM
Sorry - still don't understand BIP39 (etc) - how does a static phrase generate dynamic addresses?  I noticed while using my Ledger Nano S, that every time I make a bitcoin deposit into the Ledger, it generates a new deposit address.  The entire Ledger is represented by a 24 word phrase - how does a static phrase generate addresses dynamically?

The only thing that makes sense to me (and I am 20 years in the IT industry) is that the 24 word phrase represents a "pointer" in the distributed network and the distributed network is generating the addresses that it stores against the 24 word phrase key pointer?

For example, when you create some of these alt-coin wallets, you are asked to enter an 80 character seed.  From that seed an address is created.  You deposit your coins, and can create a new wallet from that same 80 character seed.  So a static 80 characters is used to generate a seed that stores dynamic information (your coin deposits), but the management of that dynamic information is by the NETWORK.  Is this how BIP39 (etc.) works?  The 24 word phrase is used by the network as a pointer to a database of wallets?

Thanks!!
7  Alternate cryptocurrencies / Altcoin Discussion / Is it too late to collect Bitcoin Cash? on: October 30, 2017, 09:11:11 PM
I know how people before Aug 1 were supposed to collect Bitcoin Cash, but if I bought a bitcoin after that date, and had it sitting in an exchange - it might not be too late to collect Bitcoin Cash, correct?  It would only be invalid, if someone already claimed the bitcoin cash at that address?

thanks.
8  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / How does BIP39 work? Is all the information in the seed? on: October 26, 2017, 11:40:29 PM
So a Jaxx wallet (for example) can have multiple wallets for different currencies (eg. BTC, ETH, BCC).  However the backup phrase is 12 words (for Ledger hardware wallet, it's 24 words).  Is all the information on all those wallets contained in those 12 words, or are those 12 words merely a password to retrieve that information from some server?

Thanks for your patience!

(I did google this before I came here, but all I could find is that BIP39 is 24 words from a 2048 word dictionary - but that doesn't explain to me where the information on the wallet is actually stored - inside the seed, or on a server, because it doesn't make sense to me that all the information of public and private keys associated with just a single address can somehow be stored in a 24 or 12 word phrase)
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