r0ach's Cryptomarkets Watch & Scamcoin Observer

[r0ach]

It is possible that Bitcoin has U bottomed at $150 and will meander up to $1200 over the next several months.

The thing I've always hated about your insistence on trying to push this Armstrong character is that you basically imply we live in a deterministic universe.  Even if his models were right (probably not), there are too many wildcards.  Some random oil sheikh can wander along and say, "What is this Bitcoin?  I think I will buy this...all of this", and up it goes.  Maybe all Bitcoin needs to do is hit $1200 and that causes a butterfly effect where governments in the Cayman Islands start buying it.  Anything can happen.  There's always thresholds variables that cause domino effects.

The other fact is that the economy is going to collapse in a black swan event, not an orderly walk to the exits.  There is no sitting around waiting to "buy the dip".

[iamnotback]

Some random oil sheikh can wander along and say, "What is this Bitcoin?  I think I will buy this...all of this", and up it goes.

Who is going to be stupid enough to repeat the mistake of the Hunt Brothers and end up bankrupt. High networth individuals understand that liquidity is everything. If you become 99% of the liquidity by buying too much, then you can never liquidate your holdings. Pumps are always about the whales dumping on the greater fools.

What makes a market is the averaging out effect of many holders of the asset.

The risk with a smaller cap, is that just one whale gets a margin call and has to dump at a loss. No whale makes that same mistake on buying. That margin call effect can only occur to the downside, unless you have a whale holding a whale size short position.

I grow weary of talking to people who don't have good reasoning skills.

I could similarly crush your illogic about the existence of cycles. Hey scientists recently discovered the sunspots have predictable complex cycle that has been back tested throughout all recorded history. Facts are something that seem to bother you. Oh well.

[r0ach]

You keep insisting the market is going to have some type of orderly collapse without a black swan event that's going to allow Anonymint to sit around in his underwear and buy everything at carpet bagger prices because he held cash.  This is not going to happen.  The only way the world economy doesn't implode in a black swan event is if every nation does a coordinated devaluation of fiat toiletry.

You will either have a black swan event and gold + Bitcoin both became much more valuable, or coordinated fiat devaluation that sends them higher.  Either way, things that exist outside of the debt based fiat system will win.  You're going to sit around waiting to "buy the dip" while holding cash, then they make an announcement to devalue all cash to nothingness, or a black swan happens before they can even make the announcement.

I'm making the long term play.  I win no matter what.  You're making the short term play for something that probably won't even be a viable move.

[iamnotback]

...that's going to allow Anonymint to sit around in his underwear and buy everything at carpet bagger prices because he held cash...

While r0ach has been locked and loaded in his basement with his stash of BTC gaining 2 - 3X fiat value, while others have pocketed 10 and 100 fiat baggers outside on altcoins. Poor r0ach getting relatively poorer daily and making himself feel better by writing about how all those scams are too profitable and how jealous he is.

The tinfoil hats have been saying the sky would fall down since at least 2007. So much profit outside, while they've been locked and loaded in their basements.

I suspect AnonyMint would prefer the latter.

And when the sky does fall, there is no guarantee that Bitcoin will be any more reliable than an altcoin. Bitcoin might be more controllable with capital controls due to the centralized control of mining in China, and TrojanHorsecoin is surely more traceable.

These CCs are not heirlooms. They are not get-out-crisis-free cards. They are speculative gambles. There is not a certain asset to get you through the coming crisis. The strongest asset is probably one's health and mental acuity. All the "holier than thou" crap is butthurt ointment.

Yes the altcoin arena is loaded with delusional designs that won't end up being adopted for anything. But that is irrelevant. People are here to speculate, gamble, and potentially turn a small amount of lunch money into a fortune.

Now imagine what happens when AnonyMint releases a coin that is actually widely adopted. Fortunes will be made. And r0ach will miss the entire opportunity in his basement locked and loaded sweating in camouflage underpants and an aluminium foil helmet.

[r0ach]

People are here to gamble

This is entirely Smooth propaganda.  I've never looked at it that way at all.  The way I've looked at it is, you use your judgement to find the thing with the best fundamentals and you will be rewarded for it.  The problem is that none of these altcoins have actually improved upon Bitcoin, so you wind up full circle.  The "altcoins as a gamble" is just something Smooth tells himself to rationalize that he's "gambling" instead of being a willing participant of a pump and dump scam by purchasing most things on Poloniex in hopes of flipping it.

[illodin]

Now imagine what happens when AnonyMint releases a coin that is actually widely adopted. Fortunes will be made. And r0ach will miss the entire opportunity in his basement locked and loaded sweating in camouflage underpants and an aluminium foil helmet.

If AnonyMint ever releases a coin Roach will be buying with both hands, both feet, and her vagina. Because that's the coin the whole forum has been waiting for the last years.

[r0ach]

If AnonyMint ever releases a coin Roach will be buying with both hands, both feet, and her vagina. Because that's the coin the whole forum has been waiting for the last years.

No, because I do not believe his unprofitable PoW solution is viable.  I think he also knows it's likely not viable as well.  This is why you see all the angry Anonymint posts lately.  He spent a lot of time trying to develop a valid system and probably realized he's not found a way to improve on Bitcoin yet, while watching all these IPO scams fly by making millions that are fundamentally worse than Bitcoin.  Now he's trying to figure out where he fits in the equation since he can release something better than the IPO scams going around, but not something fundamentally better than the Bitcoin that already exists.

[smooth]

The way I've looked at it is, you use your judgement to find the thing with the best fundamentals and you will be rewarded for it.

Yes, that explains the altcoin scene exceptionally well. Not!

In the end that will likely work, and yes there is a very good chance that turns out to be Bitcoin, but the level of activity you see in altcoin trading isn't consistent with other people pursuing that approach at all.

BTW, I have rarely if ever bought a coin for the purpose of flipping it. It may have happened (if I happen to see someone trying to give me money I will often allow them to do so), but I don't remember it. No doubt plenty do do that, which is exactly the gambling game you say is is 'smooth propaganda', but actually explains the observed behavior a lot better than your theory.

And as I've said before, I own more Bitcoin than alts and more fiat-based and hard assets than Bitcoin, which more or less reflects my assessment of their relative probabilities of being worth anything in the future.

[r0ach]

but the level of activity you see in altcoin trading isn't consistent with other people pursuing that approach at all.

It sort of is.  The Poloniex trollbox is absolutely clueless nowadays.  There are people who believe "CasinoCoin" is a coin that will be adopted by casinos (lol).  People exist who believe the propaganda spread by paid shills that claimed Ethereum is not only legit and not a scam, but better than Bitcoin itself (it's a pump and dump scam like all premines and fundamentally broken to boot).  Individuals like Max Keiser wander in and pump Factcom to the moon as just a long shot gamble even though he has no idea if it's a viable system or not, which then attracts random noobs into thinking it might have value.  Then day traders create charts off those movements, which creates volume and more traders who think, "well, this here potatocoin has millions in market cap, it must be legit!"

[iamnotback]

No, because I do not believe his unprofitable PoW solution is viable.

The doubt was removed. Perfect decentralization is possible. The key discovery was how to make validation go to ~0 cost, which causes a homoeostasis (Nash equilibrium) to form on the game theory of centralization.

And the other discovery was how to remove computation from proof-of-work. Both are recent discoveries.

Max Keiser wander in and pump Factcom to the moon as just a long shot gamble even though he has no idea if it's a viable system or not, which then attracts random noobs into thinking it might have value.

AnonyMint critiqued the ludicrous tech of Factom.

But that is irrelevant. Max brings awareness to crypto, brings more lunch money to the table.

From this cesspool can rise a BitcoinTrojanHorse killer. Processes aren't noise free because there can't exist omniscience on which is the noise and which is the signal a priori (it can only be known in retrospect and even then perspectives will differ on the account of history).

It isn't usually possible to throw the bath water out independently of the baby when the baby is a decentralized market. You say you want decentralized markets, yet you are unwilling to accept their imperfection. Imperfection is required to have any dynamic system. Otherwise you have top-down control, which is the antithesis of existence, because the speed-of-light is necessarily finite (otherwise past and future would collapse into an infinitesimal nothingness) and thus a top-down observer can't anneal distributed processes in real-time.

Nature is simultaneously ugly and fabulously diverse and interesting. I wouldn't prefer the disinfected nirvana of absolutely no possibilities.

Yeah HODL some Bitcoin. It is the most stable CC so far. HODL your nose and realize the altcoin cesspool is necessary.

[freshman777]

I give up watching how the bottom is dropping out of the alts. Forgive me, r0ach, you were right.

[smooth]

It sort of is.  The Poloniex trollbox is absolutely clueless nowadays.  There are people who believe "CasinoCoin" is a coin that will be adopted by casinos (lol).  People exist who believe the propaganda spread by paid shills that claimed Ethereum is not only legit and not a scam, but better than Bitcoin itself (it's a pump and dump scam like all premines and fundamentally broken to boot).  Individuals like Max Keiser wander in and pump Factcom to the moon as just a long shot gamble even though he has no idea if it's a viable system or not, which then attracts random noobs into thinking it might have value.  Then day traders create charts off those movements, which creates volume and more traders who think, "well, this here potatocoin has millions in market cap, it must be legit!"

Sounds just like gambling to me. Whether people have a better chance to make money in this game or the lottery is unclear.

[iamnotback]

Sounds just like gambling to me. Whether people have a better chance to make money in this game or the lottery is unclear.

Why did nature make the thrill of crush, so that we cheat on our wives. Yet then your new crush demands you call her 5X per day and make babies. Was it any better than where you started?

The introduction of chance is absolutely essential to existence of possibilities.

It isn't our decision to make whether or not gamblers would be better off in some other way. There is nothing that top-down control can't destroy.

[iamnotback]

As expected, there is a lot of bullishness amongst those heavily invested in Bitcoin:

https://foundersgrid.com/bitcoin-price/

Yet even amongst them are some level headed expectations of $1200 within next 12 months and $5000 within 5 years, which is about what I see. I also consider the chance of a contagion pullback along the way, either now pulling us back down to the $150 or below level, or probably more likely later  a Fibonacci level pullback after meandering up near $1200.

Perhaps more interesting (well at least very interesting to me and my prospective work) and less arguable is the agreement that adoption is what is needed to drive Bitcoin to the moonshot:

http://foundersgrid.com/bitcoin-adoption/

Adoption is going to be arduous for Bitcoin, because it wasn't designed to scale decentralized; and without at least an illusion of decentration it loses its raison d'être. The duck tape bandaids such as Lightning Networks are fraught with complexity that will take time to work through.

Recently I wrote about how we need to handle security with physical credit card sized NFC hardware wallets to make crypto-currency mainstream.

[Divinespark]

What do you folks think of Zcash as things stand? What would it need to be like in terms of design for you to invest? Curious what the community thinks

[sanadas]

For some altcoins, the bottom has been found. The Ethereum price has found a bottom around the $13 .

[Divinespark]

I don't think $13 is the bottom for ethereum. It hasn't been around long enough for that to be clear. My guess is a temporary fall-back to below $10 is quite possible especially if the DAO stalls short-term

[hermanhs09]

At any second between now and August there's going to be a nuclear explosion of alts cratering:

Yep,  bitcoin prices will finally be closer to where it should be at the moment.

The halving I believe in going to make the bitcoin price go even higher. The current price is by no means the highest point bitcoin will reach this year. The best is yet to come, guys. But altcoins may not last long.

[iamnotback]

Thought this was a pretty decent post by M.A. explaining his theory (the dollar strengthening first over the next while) vs what a lot of others think (dollar steadily weakening from this point).

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/foreign-exchange/usd/dollar-reality-end-of-petro-dollars/

That post is gold to me.  It nicely summarizes his view of the current situation.  And his scenario does seem to make sense.

That MA blog post well summarized what had been explained in this thread by those who understood well MA's theme. Heck I first read about the dollar short phenomenon in MA's 2013 blog post. He wrote about it again in 2014.

...[discussion about gold and BTC price projections]...

Follow ups:

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/future-forecasts/oil-have-we-reached-the-next-turning-point/

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/europes-current-economy/brexit-v-yellen/

[r0ach]

That Armstrong oil forecast was honestly the equivalent of reading a Chinese fortune cookie.  Saying something like "Man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day" would have been more enlightening.

As for the Brexit link:

To the contrary, BREXIT is a huge deal for if the “real” vote prevails if we do see an exit that the establishment cannot prevent. Sure, the pound will get hit at first, but thereafter, a contagion of separation movements will appear and contribute to the demise of the euro. That will have a broader long-term influence on capital flows pouring into the USA.

Brexit would be bullish for USD, Bitcoin, and gold.