A loan scam amounting to INR 21,000 Crores (USD 280 Mn) has been doing the round in Indian media. The report here alleges that some transactions also used digital wallets: Link1 Link 2What they found was a record of several transactions amounting to a total of 21000 Crores in form of lending and borrowing with high rates of interest. This was being run by a Chinese national using android apps ans a network of call centers in India. I wonder if any of you have come in direct contact or know someone who has interacted with these people. It seems like a network of P2P lending which turned sour due to the sheer scale and harassment of borrowers which even led to a tech worker's suicide. |
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It is too early to judge what governance tokens can do. The idea of DAO's hasn't yet been exexuted as per its real definition. The biggest hurdle in this almost always is to ensure a fair launch and fair distribution. As soon as a project gains legitimacy, big whales jump in to scoop pre-sales and load their bags to dump on the user base later.
This is why governance tokens have not been able to gain proper traction.
Still there are projects that are trying to do this by building communities as well as to ensure fair distributions. For the present, most governance tokens are just the latest fad to gain traction and liquidity.
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I think that institutions jumping on the bitcoin bandwagon is resulting in an interesting scenario. The exchanges have a ljmited supply of bitcoins. Amongst the biggest hodlers, the ideas are about bringing changes to the way the world functions, not just to sell at 100K and retire as billionaires. That may well be the goal of plenty of latecomers but those who have been here from the beginning, most probably have better plans than selling it to the traditional investors.
There are interesting days ahead. I hope those demigods have a plan and the little guys like me can just stack Satoshi by Satoshi and hope better financial condition than would have been possible otherwise.
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This is the first time that BTC is being bought in such large quantities by institutional buyers in a very public way.
The risk is still there but the upside is plenty for those who will invest as per their appetite and won't just FOMO. 2021 will see the Democrats back who love to keep a lid on things like privacy and anonymity. There could be a lot of virtue signalling coming Bitcoin's way. Then there is the uncertainty about stablecoins like Tether and how the SEC is going to treat them.
None of those things have changed for bitcoin. Only the price has changed. It was a worthy but risky buy at 4000 and is still so at 27K. People who are buying now, if they have deep enough pockets then they are not idiots.
27K is a lot for people like us stacking sats. Those who suddenly find that BTC is an opportunity not to be missed will easily throw 1-2 BTC worth into the market to get a jump over the like of us. The rich like to stay ahead. They are arriving in greater numbers than ever before. I think only those who will invest beyond their ability are the idiots. For the rest, its just an opportunity.
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Too many Maxis here. I like Maxis for they love bitcoin. DeFi is mostly being loved by shitposters here at the forum. Yet, this does not mesn that it is going away anytime soon.
DeFi certainly has a lot of traction and it is going to keep picking up. The only problem is that newbies will only lose moneh on it. Anything serious and with actual effort is being done in small groups behind closed doors. There are very few projects out in the public that can claim to actually be legitimate.
Yet, you cannot treat DeFi so off-handedly. Uniswap made money for a lot of people snd now another DEX, called as 1inch dropped some tokens which gained immediate liquidity. So, the trend is going to be with us.Just because Bitcoin, RSK and the whole sidechain paradigm not taking itself seriously doesn't mean that people will not work or invest using other platforms.
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While i do believe that LTC has a much better pedigree than XRP, how does the community make sense of Coblee dumping on the community during the ATH back in 2017-18.
I know he gave some excuse about, "I am out of it so I don't have huge founder's stake". It almost sounded like what Satoshi did. But Satoshi dint cash out his million BTC stack.
Also, since getting out at 300ish, he even let development and marketing linger. Its the community that kept it alive. What is new with LTC by the way?
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The banner is slick. Good job Mr. H, as always. BTW, i don't know what r/India would have to say about you saffronizing the Red fort..I am sure you forgot the politics while doing that..LOL.
Joined the reddit. The topics are well moderated and the discussions are good. Gave you my free Hugz too.
I think it'll be really beneficial for both the communities to be brdiged in this way.
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I hope that the really huge, mainstream institutions don't jump into the fray. Once they get in, what is the utility aspect that remains for bitcoin to continue to grow upon?? Bitcoin hasn't realized any of its potential till now. It is not yet established as a transactions alternative due to scaling issues. There hasn't been enough open source products based on bitcoin that have gained huge user bases.
The single use case that is being touted is Digital Gold. I don't think thats enough or irreplacable if institutions takeover in a big way.
The market is pricing in future utility, future adoption. Just like it's now pricing in fiat devaluation by buying up hard assets and risk assets, long before real inflation sets in. Speculators gonna speculate.  Doesn't mean Layer 2 scaling solutions (Lightning, Liquid, RSK, etc.) won't get better, or won't be adopted. It's just that investors have a way of front running high growth investments, before they fully materialize. Bitcoin is still in beta, as they say. That is a way to look at it i suppose. Nkw that you mentioned it, i guess its much like the Tesla stock where Tesla's market cap against that of other comlanies combined is becoming a meme. "Pricing in future utility". Great point. Where do they teach this stuff?? Personally I am excited about the L2 use cases and features like streaming payments becoming a norm for small artists, investors, bloggers and small businesses. RSK sounds exciting because of the prospect of smart contracting, which Simplicity was gonna do it but we never bear much about them. Plus smart contracts have really been taken up by ETH and the DeFi community in a much bigger way. |
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Introducing copper memberships was actually just the forum owners capitalizing on the forum traffic, especially from newbies who could not earn merit to rank up. While the cost wasn't really much, it may have given some dough to the forum. I was frankly surprised by this because one would hope that forum owners would be OGs with enough Bitcoin. That does not seem to be the case.
As far as scams are concerned, this forum is still the best place to get decent bitcoiners interested in your project, if you are a decent project. For scam projects, the whole crypto industry has become an easy spray and pray venture. You keep churning out scams and wsbsites snd TG groups and keep raking in the moolah. Unfortunately, there is nothing to stop you if you are good at it.
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Like @stompix pointed out, this scenario where 200$ in Bitcoin will secure your future is not coming ever. Bitcoin today is just another investment as good as real estate (before a boom) or a good stock that you believe in. We have to stop hoping for the 100X that BTC has been known for in the last decade.
The gains from here on will be modest. The important thing is that those who engage will be seen as those distant, risk-taking uncles who had a reputation for making risky bets in penny stocks but 20 years down the line, you hear them being very comfortably retired while your own family still struggles with finding right interest rates on a home loan.
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I hope that the really huge, mainstream institutions don't jump into the fray. Once they get in, what is the utility aspect that remains for bitcoin to continue to grow upon?? Bitcoin hasn't realized any of its potential till now. It is not yet established as a transactions alternative due to scaling issues. There hasn't been enough open source products based on bitcoin that have gained huge user bases.
The single use case that is being touted is Digital Gold. I don't think thats enough or irreplacable if institutions takeover in a big way.
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There is nothing that Monero provides which Bitcoin doesn't if you choose it to be so. The baggage of default privacy is starting to become too obvious for Monero.
Tbe wider crypto ecosystem is also moving towards using cryptocurrencies for financing and in financial instruments. That by default is an environment that demands trust. Monero will continue to be used but whether it can increase in value is doubtful. The people who wish privacy have options available and making the jump to Monero permanently is not a requirement.
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I haven't stacked enough. More annoyingly, I haven't stacked as much as I could have. I think those of us who were going to retire early have been decided. Time to congratulate those who flipped their Alt-coin gains at the right time.
The institutions are in on it so it is quite difficult that traditional finance will find itself challenged by bitcoin anytime soon. Which means that the rest of us will have little choice but to continue being wage slaves.
Do keep in mind though that this is not the ATH. The 12K-15K levels that you (and I) wished we stacked more at, will soon become the 25K-30K levels we wished we stacked more at when the next cycle comes.
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David Rosenberg is wrong. Many well-known economists are theoreticians. They know economic theory well, but they don't have enough imagination to understand the meaning of Bitcoin. In fairness though, Bitcoin's future economic viability is purely theoretical. We're all just hoping it works. Right now, Bitcoin is extremely inflationary, and that's why miners have such a strong interest in securing the network. In the future when the mining subsidy is no longer relevant, the mining economy may look very different, and accordingly so may the security and viability of the network. He's not wrong when he says the supply limit can't be changed. Consider things like the DAO fork in Ethereum, and then consider that lack of mining incentives could be an existential threat to Bitcoin in the future. If so, then a hard fork that further inflates the 21M coin supply is a real possibility. We're all just theorizing when you get down to it....... Yes, we are fantasizing ... However, the rise in bitcoin prices over the past 10 years is also fantastic! Let's pretend that Bitcoin is the world's reserve currency ... In this case, mining isn't just about making a profit. In this case, full nodes and control over Bitcoin mining is a precondition for governments and large corporations to issue money (If I host a full Bitcoin node, I have the option to issue my own money). At present, states are interested in controlling the Internet. In the future, it is possible that large corporations and states will seek to control the mining of bitcoins. This will be as important as having your own army and control over the oil fields. Bitcoin can become a strategic resource. This is its value. There are not so many common human values in the world. Bitcoin is one of them. I just had to continue the thread on this important discussion. As @exstasie pointed out, the arguments from the economist are not without basis. The issue of a sustainable fee-market is something that most bitcoin well wishers struggle with. I wouldn't say that things will go as far as lifting the mining cap. Though, how the future will eveolve regarding decentralized governance is a question very much up in the air. The current system of reserve banks, powerful governments and fixed borders may well be challenged by Decentralized systems like Bitcoin in the coming century. The struggle can be as revolutionary as the ones between for Democracy and free markets. One thing is for sure that in the long run, Bitcoin's future will not simply be decided by "code". There is always the human governance element and nothing is off the table. |
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What changes are you looking for exactly? Bitcoin core as available in the phblic repository is more like the base protocol or "Standard" like the ones that IEC, IEEE make for systems. The development has to be on top of this protocol. Development within the protocol itself needs wide consultations between all stakeholders. If you look at this link, you would find a lot of stuff you can call devevlopment. https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2020/12/23/. I think there is enough development but not enough discussion amongst the wider community (non-dev community). |
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2. When using desktop wallet, I use @bitcoin_fees on Twitter to check for a Sat/B that suits me. I don't generally need instant confirmation when buying stuff with BTC.
You should never trust someone else to tell you how much fee you should pay because you never know their intentions or their accuracy. For instance one of the most popular fee sites (bitcoinfees.earn.com) has been maliciously reporting extremely high fees for years. You should always do it yourself, meaning use an open source wallet that is capable of analyzing the mempool and give the best suggestion. Thanks to you and @stompix for the suggestions. Frankly, I never really earned much to spend. Thanks to the current Signature campaign, I've started to spend and buyback..  When i did that the first few times with Electrum, I saw that the fees estimated was quite higher compared to one on the twitter handle. Maybe a one time thing because I did not try the other options later. Will try the suggestions posted here. |
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When it comes to cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin, I think even the western media behaves this way. They are equally ill informed. Just see how they shilled XRP alongside Bitcoin all along. There were even reports that suggested that one could buy XRP as it is not as costly to own.
A lot of Indians too have invested in XRP and the XRP shill army or for that matter any Alt-coin shill army will have more than its fair share of Indians. This other abomination TRON also seems so have a lot of Indians. There are no issues as long as people are in it for the quick bucks. But i am seeing a worrying trend of paid manual labor and referral groups which are propped up by those who are more experienced.
Media has its role cutout for such times where they can hopefully call out scams. Yet, what can you expect when even "The Hindu", aplarently the golden measure of Indian journalism published a full, front page advertisement fom that Amit Bhardwaj guy, the scammer of 2017-18 bull run.
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Some quick points that come to mind on this:
1. Bitcoin fees on exchanges is simply stupid as it does not scale for lower valued transactions.
2. When using desktop wallet, I use @bitcoin_fees on Twitter to check for a Sat/B that suits me. I don't generally need instant confirmation when buying stuff with BTC.
3. It is best to consolidate multiple inputs into a single address when the fees are very low, which they mostly are. (1Sat/B for hourly confirmation). Consolidating means that you don't have to pay for the batching of multiple small UTXOs which can increase your transaction size and can make a transaction constlier at times of congestion.
4. LN and its adoption is the need of the hour if we are to continue seeing innovations on BTC.
5. We really need an updated discussion thread about LN for normies. Last i read, it had watchtowers, factories and a lot of other concepts added. CT doesn't seem to be picking up on LN right now.
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--
Yes, "nuoveau riche" is a great concept, but I didn’t refer to those ones. Those are typically already rich somehow, and are from lower social classes. Whom I referred to by “fake rich” are the ones who want to be "nuoveau riche", but are actually not, thus copy their attributes, without possessing the same wealth. As for the Tesla - First Tesla Roadster was nearly same with Lotus Elise in design, but 2 times more expensive, was ˝ seconds faster from 0 to 100 Km/h than Lotus. At the same time people could purchase Ferrari F430 Scuderia @ $187k, with 3.6s from 0 to 100 and way better design; could purchase Aston Martin DB9 @ $155k with 3.5s from 0 to 100, had great design, and had all the tech features for showing off; there were also same priced Porshe 911 Turbo, Audi R8 Quattro FSI, and in 2010 there appeared Chevrolet Camaro Callaway, Chevrolet Camaro SLP ZL575, Chevrolet Camaro Hennessey HPE700, Ford Mustang Shelby GT GeigerCars, and some others – all priced cheaper than Tesla Roadster, with way better design, mostly better interior, nearly all faster, and some of them with all the fancy tech. Thus from the actual end-user perspective (average Joe who doesn’t care about the “green trend”) Tesla was significantly inferior car from unknown manufacturer. But it’s not the car-discussion topic, thus let’s not take community’s attention toward cards, but happy to discuss in DM if you wish, or on dedicated thread if there’s any. I would have loved to continue the discussion on Tesla if you weren't comparing apples with oranges. You gave a list of ICE cars comparing them with Tesla. "Green" is not a trend but a necessity for a sustainable future and for the future generations to not face climate disasters. We are just doing our part. And you are absolutely correct about Bitcoin – for the ones who truly understand what it is what it is, it’s really revolutionary. However, I think there are very few of those. Majority in it are for gains only, as you could see even from the comments above. Therefore, I think you are actually correct, but for very small group of people, while the majority, unfortunately are not like that.
The time when Bitcoin was revolutionary on an individual basis has long gone. Now is the time for slow and steady adoption and establishment of products on top of Bitcoin. Unfortunately, most of the work and focus is on financial derivative products on top of Bitcoin. Bitcoin itself has become a trader's darling for those who wish to day-trade crypto. This doesn't really feel anything like the revolution it was supposed to be. Yet, hope is alive that it will still make a difference. |
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You cannot compare Ripple to neither BTC or not even ETH.
As of today, BTC is still being mined by people willing to put their own time and investment into maintaining a mining setup. There is no centralized party that asks you to buy bitcoin or invest in mining it.
Even ethereum has a mining system but they are now dreading dangerous waters with the PoS model. Otherwise, the emissions are fair enough, although unlimited, which can again be a point of contention.
Ripple on the other hand is a classic premine. What else do you need as proof except the fact that the founders have made over 600 Million dollars by selling billions of the tokens that they simply gave to themselves? Ripple is basically the biggest fish. The next target i believe are going to be the stablecoins, exchange coins like BNB and any of the other tokens issued by major, well-known entities in the space.
Ethereum conducted their ico in 2014 same xripple: the investors are given tokens in return for their investments. Ethereum is minable. Only a portion of the supply was given in the form of ICO. Ripple was a 100 billion premine out of which the so called Ripple foundation still holds 55 billion. Oh, and apparently, Garlinghouse and buddies made 600 million dollars from selling it. Where do you think all that money went or will continue to go with retail buyers buying up this shit? All this while they do unreal marketing about how banks will adopt their platform. By the way, they portray themselves as promoters of Ripple platform. XRP itself is just a side note on the main website. They even pretend to having it open for developers. Like any sane developer would touch them with so many other easier and cheaper options available. Its just too bad that so many people fell for their scam. The SEC should hopefully force them to compensate the retail buyers who fell for this elaborate, slick scam. What will be interesting to see is which of the non-minable premine Alts are going to be questioned next? Those who have a lot of exposure to Alts must carefully weigh their options. BTC is and will always be the safest bet. Its fair to produce and does not promote itself except through users and the community itself. None of us have "stake" in it. We just use it because it is interesting and enables trustless exchange. |
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