The price of gold is determined by its largest buying/selling demographic.

The largest HODLers of gold are by far central banks and holdings such as fort knox in the USA.

Gold isn't regulated by governments. It has become common for news reports of counterfeit gold bars and coins to be published. Governments do nothing to regulate or protect the integrity of gold and precious metals markets.


Steve Wozniak made a great point on this. He said that technology for detecting and extracting gold from the earth would improve over time. While technology improvements for mining bitcoin would remain steadily constant, no matter what breakthroughs in bitcoin mining occurred. This infers that the price and value of bitcoin, could retain greater stability over precious metals and gold. At least as far as the mining aspect goes.


Gold markets which determine the value of gold are centralized by the largest traders of gold. Who are central banks.

Consensus might be defined as a rigorous form of scientific peer review, which is algorithmically structured and defined by mathematical equations. In the case of bitcoin, this form of peer review is intrinsically backed by large quantities of processing power and electricity to make it improbable for the mathematically based peer review process to be sabotaged or overturned.

Financial markets and economies have the gold standard where fiat is backed by gold in an attempt to produce stability and reliability. Consensus protocols have their own attempts to intrinsically back their math based peer review process with electricity, computational power. In the case of chia coin, it would seem their consensus process is backed by their algorithm killing HDDs at an abnormally fast pace.

The key aspect to consensus could be the format used to intrinsically back it with resources. And what happens when consensus is not intrinsically backed by sufficient resources to thwart 51% attacks.

Media sources adopt a stance where they portray gambling as containing risk. While stock markets, asset trading, FOREX, business investments and similar things are portrayed to be "safe" containing no risk.

It might be more fair to educate youth as to everything in life containing various degrees of risk. Which people must learn to cope with. Rather than illustrate an inaccurate picture of risk being found only in gambling.

The 2008 economic crisis showed how risk is present in normalized jobs, financial markets and the economy which are supposed to be "safe" and "secure".

This quiet war being waged against gambling doesn't make a ton of sense to me. The poor and homeless have far bigger issues than gambling. Substance and drug abuse are rampant. It simply doesn't make sense for gambling to attacked the way it is IMO.

There being only 1 winner in the B scenario is a deterrent against selecting that option. Having been in crypto for years, I remember there being a player versus player (pvp) trivia website where players could compete for crypto winnings. Some suspect the owner of the trivia website participated in games. There was one player who knew the answer to every question who won a lot more than they probably should. Those types of potential scams, which have been around for many years, raise suspicion with the "1 winner per game" format.

That said, I think I would still prefer option B over option A. Simply due to it giving the impression that chances of winning might be more fair or balanced than competing against a house algorithm.

That is very interesting. Its been reported far and wide that HDD manufacturers consider their warranty void if HDDs are used to mine chia coin. But I had no idea the design and algorithm of chia carried an excessively high volume of read/write cycles that could destroy HDDs in 40 to 80 days.

Could their algorithm be shifted to use RAM while hardware is active. And only save to HDD when hardware is shut down.

Sometimes, the best thing you can do. Is to never look at the price. Put assets in cold storage and wait a few years. If you're lucky your holdings will have accumulated significant value gains. I think it happens to most by accident. Which is why its always important to have good record keeping and always have private keys, login strings and passwords written down somewhere they can be retrieved if needed later.

I had more than 30,000 DOGE I got from faucets years ago. I spent almost all of it for around I think $12 years ago. Today that $12 in DOGE could be worth around $15k.

The long term earning and compounding interest gains of crypto are very real.

I tried to find an attempt to back NFTs with intrinsic value. To better illustrate what it might resemble. Found this:


Here we have an attempt to back NFTs with a humanitarian cause: carbon being removed from the atmosphere, to address climate change.

Hopefully this venture will be successful, spawning a chain reaction of spin offs and similar enterprise.

One core aspect of crypto and token based assets has been their competitive nature and innovative spirit. Both of which carry potential to produce benefits to society. But of course, whether or not those potentials could ever become a reality remains to be seen.

The founder and lead developer of chia is Bram Cohen the designer and previous owner of the bittorrent network protocol, which at one time accounted for nearly 30% of total internet bandwidth. He sold bittorrent to Justin Sun and chia coin became his next big project. Bram Cohen's name and reputation are synonymous with having a solid software engineering background with good design and development skills. I think most would consider Bram Cohen to be a far superior software engineer in comparison to say Vitalik Buterin of ETH fame. Those are some of chia coins positive points.

There could be dissident factions to chia coin, if it is true that some harddisk manufacturers have released warnings that using their hardware to mine chia coin will void the warranty are true. These are some of the negatives.

Its very easy to draw cases in support of and against chia coin becoming a success. Eventually, economics and finance dictate that investors and markets will decide what the true value of chia is, if it ever goes public under an IPO.

I'm not certain chia will ever go public. Bram Cohen's previous venture bittorrent didn't follow this blueprint or path. With $4 billion in liquidity, they probably don't need the additional capital an IPO would give them. There are also benefits with not going public, mainly being that the founders would retain greater control over the development and future of chia coin. Without opening the door to influence by other parties or majority stock holders. Who could have conflicting ideas about what the future of chia could be.

Which makes the motive behind chia coin going public something of a mystery.

With the inception of bitcoin futures trading, the door could be open to bitcoin and crypto becoming more influenced by short sellers who profit from prices diminishing.

One example of this could be Elon Musk claiming short sellers tried to crash the value of tesla stock, twice. Short selling can definitely have an impact on multi billion dollar markets.

There is a reason and motive behind every large market movement which experienced and knowledgeable traders can pinpoint. Large price movements are never random events.

I would guess the most recent decline occurred as a response to el salvador adopting bitcoin. Not due to el salvador dumping coins to fund citizen airdrops, but rather due to large institutions like banks dumping coins due to them not being fans of the trend.

The biggest reason I've heard for people not supporting KYC.

Is they disagree with the united states spending taxes to wage war in afghanistan. They disagree with big stimulus spending. They do not support closing the keystone oil pipeline to make americans more dependant upon foreign oil, while significantly raising the cost of gas in some US states.

There definitely is a market and a demographic seeking to become more independent and distance themselves from many big government policies, which are unpopular among the majority of people.

That could comprise the largest demographic resisting KYC in tokens, coins and cryptocurrencies.

If Bolsanaro is associated with this move. Brazil would be the latest "right wing" state to embrace bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. After "right wing" texas and florida. It is possible el salvador's leadership is also right wing leaning which could be part of the motive behind recently passed crypto mass adoption. I don't know enough about el salvador's political climate to say exactly what is happening there.

If such is the case, we could be witnessing a pattern where left wing china and its left wing banker allies oppose bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in places like nigeria where central banks moved to ban crypto. Left wing leaning states like new york and california are also known to be very unfriendly towards crypto with new york having outright banned stablecoins like tether and imposing strict anti crypto regulation in place.

While the right wing does the opposite by supporting and embracing bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. As seen by florida, texas and now brazil. All of which are heavily attacked by left wing media for various reasons.

That could be one of the most important emerging trends as far as cryptocurrencies go in 2021.

El Salvador's bitcoin adoption. Could open the door to broader support for internet infrastructure and mobile based payment systems. Both of which would be economy and job creation boosters. It could also encourage digital nomads and crypto whales to reside in the country. Bringing with them considerable capital and investment inside of el salvador's borders.

Could be a very good win/win scenario for el salvador. But I think people might already see how circumstances are becoming strange with some demographics there pushing an anti bitcoin stance. Is it normal for people to care that much about bitcoin or crypto adoption, that they would march through the streets carrying "anti bitcoin" signs and banners? I don't think its normal at all for people to be that much against something that has so little affect or bearing on their own lives.

What happened was the demise of net neutrality, brought on by regulatory agencies. ICANN mandates and allegiances being altered and changed. Leading to all of the negative circumstances supporters of net neutrality promised would happen. But somehow no one appears to remember any of that happening.

The level of discussion on forums and social media drastically deteriorating with the introduction of bot farms spamming mass misinformation. And people increasingly feeling afraid to voice their opinions under the encroachment of state surveillance and internet censorship.

The overall level of content on the internet has suffered tremendously with people increasingly being afraid to speak the truth. Or to post views which run contrary to official narratives.

...

How is it that no one seems to remember net neutrality ever existed btw? 

Gambling is a competitive market. Over the last 10 years, some crypto gambling ventures have thrived. While others have gone bankrupt.

There were crypto based sports gambling sites I used around 5 years ago that went bankrupt and sent out emails informing account holders they had 24 hours to withdraw funds or they would be lost forever. There were others I've seen who resorted to desperation measures to stay afloat. Offering a share of their profits in exchange for funding liquidity, in an attempt to stave off a negative balance sheet.

While a lot of money can definitely be made. Its common for money to be lost as well. The gambling industry is somewhat resembling the silicon valley dot com bubble. With many looking to get in, expecting to make easy money by simply throwing more money down the rabbit hole.

Hope everyone succeeds. Hope everyone takes whatever steps they need to succeed. But there have been many who have not, which could mean the barrier to market entry could be high.

At the moment, we appear to be witnessing something resembling a race to create the most perfect and valuable NFT.

Developers and artists around the world are publishing their best effort to create an NFT worth millions.

One thing we have not yet seen are NFTs with attempts at intrinsic value (aside from the typical exclusiveness found in collectibles and art pieces).

NFTs backed by gold or commodities like oil. NFTs backed by intrinsic data or information in an attempt to increase their value.

We have seen stablecoins like tether back their token with USD reserves in an effort to back their digital asset with intrinsic value.

Could we perhaps someday see NFTs follow similar practices?

A good percentage of fiat cash based transactions cannot be tracked.

Ex: how to track men slipping cash into the thongs of strippers, tips for waiters/waitresses/pizza delivery or businesses that pay employees strictly in cash under the table.

Many cash based transactions cannot be tracked, and so some demographics seek to eliminate cash based transactions, to make it easier for them to track and regulate everything.

Digital assets also can be difficult to regulate and track in some instances. Essentially what we're seeing is an arms race between the surveillance state wanting to track and control everything and paper cash and digital assets which make that job harder for them.

"5 to 10 years" is a running joke at this point. Its what they say when they have no idea how long it will take, but want to throw a random number out there in the hope of people believing "its real" helping to make it a reality.

Communists in china are simply following the same gameplan communists have always followed over the last century. The issue has always been the general public being too afraid to educate themselves, or follow the news closely enough to know what the gameplan is. Many believe they're better off not knowing, which makes it impossible for them to learn or know anything.

I think most know the state in china has always owned and controlled everything in the country. Pretenses of "embracing capitalism" have always remained a thin veneer and pandering to those who do not know better. Capitalist CEOs in china like Jack Ma have always been forced to step down. To be replaced by communist party loyalists. Often with disastrous results as the replacements were inadequate to the task set before them. There is a question of whether failure in chinese industry are attributable to incompetence or malice.


AFAIK communism has always avoided giving credit to inventors like Mikhail Kalashnikov (inventor of the AK-47). They've typically followed the same patterns of allowing no heros or credit to be given to any aside from the ruling government/party. The government is the only party that is allowed to receive credit for success.

I think most would agree drug and substance abuse are bigger issues for those living in poverty than gambling. The homeless are usually found on the streets pumped full of drugs in a daze or thinking about their next fix.

Poverty is associated with lowest levels of education, self control and self discipline. Which makes them a persistent target for predatory practices. Years ago, for profit colleges in the USA targeted the homeless for government sponsored university scholarships. (Which is part of how the US student loan bubble grew so large) The poor are always being targeted and influenced, usually for the worse.

As things are, I would have to guess gambling is the least of their problems.

New York's heavy handed, inefficient and authoritarian policies continue to alienate residents. Forcing them to flee new york for texas or florida. It doesn't appear relief in new york will come anytime soon. Politicians are obsessed with raising taxes, increasing overregulation and redtape and otherwise taking steps to cripple their own business and finance sectors. These promises by new york politicians to "support cryptocurrencies" are likely more of the same. Desperation pleas intended to stall residents and fool them into thinking things will change.

Texas and florida are emerging as crypto friendly states. New york feels forced to do the same to remain competitive and offer attractive living conditions to residents. But these promises by new york have been common for many years and always failed to materialize.

That ad definitely looks as if it were written with bitcoin in mind rather than visa. It seems as if visa is trying to take credit for everything bitcoin currently does.

Visa should advertise more about withdrawing support from pornhub after PH included cryptocurrency support.

They're giving people the wrong idea about their business and scope of them being "friendly" to all platforms and merchants.