Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[Amateur_]

As for there being a "limited supply", is this not simply a variable, able to be changed at the discretion of the largest and most powerful network contributors?

No. It would require a consensus among 51% of the miners to change the protocol or a successful 51% attack, neither of which is likely to happen.

Isn't "consensus among the majority of miners" effectively identical to "the discretion of the largest and most powerful network contributors"?

It is hard to overstate just how incredibly improbable that would be.

Why would it be "incredibly improbable"?
Bitcoin Cash exists, doesn't it? Bitcoin Satoshi's Vision exists, doesn't it? Although these projects have not yet changed the total supply or distribution, they have changed other variables in the protocol.

What about litecoin? The Scrypt mining algorithm utilised in litecoin is as secure as the SHA256 mining algorithm utilised buy bitcoin, albeit slightly different in design. Confirmation times are faster with litecoin, and there is a higher total supply.

What makes bitcoin better than litecoin?
Is vanilla objectively better than chocolate?

[HairyMaclairy]

It doesn’t matter what miners think or choose.  They can always fork away and good luck to them.  

Economic holders have enormous financial incentives to keep the 21 million cap. They will reject any hard fork by miners to lift the cap.  That miner will just be making a shit coin like Bcash, but worse because the cap is broken

[jojo69]

No...incredibly improbable...no longer be bitcoin.

I would dump the holy living fuck out of that shitfork.

[bkbirge]

As for there being a "limited supply", is this not simply a variable, able to be changed at the discretion of the largest and most powerful network contributors?

No. It would require a consensus among 51% of the miners to change the protocol or a successful 51% attack, neither of which is likely to happen.

Isn't "consensus among the majority of miners" effectively identical to "the discretion of the largest and most powerful network contributors"?

They would have to work in cooperation which is not what I assumed you meant from your statement. And then they'd have to convince everyone else to use it, otherwise they'd just be mining their own fork to the sound of tumbleweeds from the rest of the world.
https://www.blockchain.com/en/pools

It is hard to overstate just how incredibly improbable that would be.

Why would it be "incredibly improbable"?
Bitcoin Cash exists, doesn't it? Bitcoin Satoshi's Vision exists, doesn't it? Although these projects have not yet changed the total supply or distribution, they have changed other variables in the protocol.

What about litecoin? The Scrypt mining algorithm utilised in litecoin is as secure as the SHA256 mining algorithm utilised buy bitcoin, albeit slightly different in design. Confirmation times are faster with litecoin, and there is a higher total supply.

What makes bitcoin better than litecoin?
Is vanilla objectively better than chocolate?

Chocolate is ALWAYS better. Those coins you mention are not bitcoin. That's the point. They are something else. None of them can change the total supply of bitcoin. Maybe one of them eventually beats bitcoin in adoption but so far that looks very unlikely, I wouldn't hold my breath for that. To survive, all those coins listed will have to overcome the first mover advantage of bitcoin and/or carve out their own niche. Those are tall orders. And that is still magnitudes more probable than bitcoin changing its supply limit. For that to happen, it's not just a consensus to change the code, it's also convincing all the people that are using bitcoin now to adopt it to the point it kills off 'old' bitcoin.

[bkbirge]

No...incredibly improbable...no longer be bitcoin.

I would dump the holy living fuck out of that shitfork.

You, me, and everyone else in the world most likely.

[HairyMaclairy]

No...incredibly improbable...no longer be bitcoin.

I would dump the holy living fuck out of that shitfork.

You, me, and everyone else in the world most likely.

Yup. Market sell in a single order.  Hopefully do some damage in the process.  

[Biodom]

One ... may ask more questions than seven wise men can answer.

[Amateur_]

This really isn't the place for these post but Bitcoin sv and Bitcoin cash aren't Bitcoin, just forks and they could never be "Bitcoin".

I'm not suggesting that other projects or hard-forks "are bitcoin", nor am I suggesting that they have a direct effect on the fundamentals of the bitcoin protocol, I'm simply asking why the arbitrary variables set in the bitcoin protocol are "better" than the variables set in the protocols of other projects.

Now about litecoin and other altcoins, you'll find plenty screaming how coina or coinb is better and the future but the truth is these (all other projects) are all faulted in one way or another.

That's a huge claim and you've provided no evidence that this is in fact true.

I've heard the "first mover advantage" mentioned, along with terms like "the network effect", but I'm yet to hear a convincing argument for the superiority of the bitcoin protocol, when compared with others in the space.

My concern can easily be written off if the argument for the superiority of bitcoin is its current price action, but this highlights again the underlying majority view that bitcoin is simply a tool for gambling, doesn't it?

Litecoin is the "silver to bitcoins gold" but most have instamine, ico's, masternode scams, ease of 51% attacks, Led by a leader and more.

It's true that we can't write off all non-bitcoin projects as scams; it's also true that a large number of other projects are in fact scams.

So, what makes bitcoin better than those other projects which are not scams, and which are effectively clones of bitcoin with minor differences?

Bitcoin is where it's at due to a few factors, strong history, strong DISTRIBUTED hashrate, quality or devs, launch history, use and development.

Bitcoin is where WHAT'S at?
The totally massive and radical financial gains potential?

[jojo69]

Bitcoin is where WHAT'S at?

the future of money

[HairyMaclairy]

I don’t think you are here to learn. I think you are here to argue.  Which is fine but let’s call it for what it is. 

[Amateur_]

I don’t think you are here to learn. I think you are here to argue.  Which is fine but let’s call it for what it is.  

You do realise that argumentation and thoughtful discussion is a valid way of learning, right?
A reasonably effective way at arriving at the truth, no?

You're also aware, obviously, that indoctrination is the practice of "listen and believe", right?

[Syke]

I've heard the "first mover advantage" mentioned, along with terms like "the network effect", but I'm yet to hear a convincing argument for the superiority of the bitcoin protocol, when compared with others in the space.

Because bitcoin isn't just a protocol. It is the whole ecosystem: users, apps, miners, history, devs, merchants, exchanges, etc.

[JayJuanGee]

My question to those who predict 100K within less than two years or so.
Why the discounting mechanism is not working?

Either the model is wrong/irrelevant OR the market is incapable of correctly pricing future expectations now.

The latter.

We've seen this time and time again. The world at large has not yet awakened to the fact that they need a form of money that is not inflationary, and is free from intervening middlemen who can conspire to thwart or devalue their transactions.

You are so funny.
The world is going on the other direction. Boris, trump, marie le pen and all the others.

It could be helpful if even a troll/shill like you were sufficiently competent to at least attempt to follow the topic.. Instead, it is very difficult to understand whether you are making any meaningful point at all, whether connected to the topic of the posts or otherwise.

[JayJuanGee]

Btw I thing my friend told me at 350-ish = he Said imagine this thing could rise crazy high with only a 10% chance of succeeding.... Then you must invest, and for him the % of success where much higher but nontheless imo you already should invest with thinking this.... might be b00ze talking now, and F*** mindrust go all-in bro, be more happy with your wealth in BTC as in crypto especially when there are no unexpected costs looking around the corner.... 

Personally, it seems to me that mindrust has a pretty decent approach, even though sometimes i do not really agree with him, and also he seems to go through a quite a lot of emotional turmoil regarding what to do exactly, yet I believe that he maintains most of his sanity by keeping some funds in fiat rather than "going all in."   

I do recognize that a decent number of people do kick themselves on a regular basis asserting that they should have gone all in at time x or time y or time z, and they had the money to do so, but they did not have the balls.  Seems like those people would be easily shaken too, so even though each of us may have tendencies to second guess ourselves in this regard, we have to balance an investment strategy and approach for the present, and not regretting about the past, and our present assessment has to prepare ourselves at each present time for either UP or DOWN, so in that regard, it comes off as way too foolish in the gambling direction to be going "all in" or anywhere close to "all in" when a guy (or gal) is hardly even close to confident regarding bitcoin's price direction - short term, medium term or even trepidations about long term.

[realr0ach]

My question to those who predict 100K within less than two years or so.
Why the discounting mechanism is not working?

If it is highly likely that 100K would be there by 2021, we should have mad buying of btc and its options right now.
That's my biggest beef with the S/F models.
Either the model is wrong/irrelevant OR the market is incapable of correctly pricing future expectations now.

'Stock to flow' only works on real, physical commodity resources humans actually need, not Bitcoins which are imaginary, valueless timestamps and not a commodity or resource.  If stock to flow worked on digital shitcoins, there would not be numerous dead, PoW, digital craptocurrencies out there already - they would still be alive.  

Things like "KanyeWestCoin", "TrumpCoin", and "CryptoShekel" would just steadily increase in price forever due to halvings - an artificial scarcity Ponzi scam - reducing supply.  But that is not what happens because nobody on the face of the planet actually needs any imaginary digital scamcoin because they aren't resources.  If you hoard all 21 million digital shitcoins, you have zero power because it's not a real commodity resource and you can't force anyone to buy them from you.  If you hoard a real form of commodity money like silver, the world actually needs it so you get to charge whatever the market can bear and 'stock to flow' actually works.  This is why Aristotle says money is required to be a physical commodity.

[JayJuanGee]

It is physically painful to be slowly drip feeding, dollar cost averaging, into a very large, multi-year leveraged long right now on super low leverage.  It hurts to buy and every day see you have lost a little bit more.

The greatest long term trades are always incredibly painful to enter.  This helps me to keep going.  

Sounds painful.   Maybe should convert your system to the mindless one?  similar to the mindless system that i had heard of somewhere, can't remember exactly, where.  From what I do recall that the "mindless system" tends to have less pain, except perhaps during the very extreme moments, and surely we are not in one of those, currently.

Wished I could remember exactly where I had heard about that "mindless system", because I would surely share it with you hairymcberry, in order that you would not have to suffer so muchie.

And the companionship of this board and your brilliant jokes !  And my dollar cost average keeps falling.  So carry on.

I identify this as the lovey dovey part of your post.   

[realr0ach]

Incoming stupid JayJuanGee post pretending he's wiser than Aristotle and not a simple fly by night, digital scamcoin grifter.

[actmyname]

But that is not what happens because nobody on the face of the planet actually needs any imaginary digital scamcoin because they aren't resources.

You mean I can't sell my YeCoin?

[realr0ach]

It doesn’t matter what miners think or choose.

Another day of noobs and scammers that don't know how bitcoin is *supposed* to work and think it's some sort of proof of stake system.  The entire point of PoW is that miners are supposed to be the only thing that matters.  You're not supposed to be forced to buy coins from a middleman exchange and face price gouge extortion by cartels if you want to use Bitcoin.  YOU - meaning everyone that uses the system - are supposed to BE the miner and mine your own coins, and that's where decentralization is supposed to originate from.

It requires some form of permanent, commodified, off the shelf, non-cornered, mining hardware, which has been shown to be impossible with things like ASICs, so Bitcoin's death really occurred the day the first ASIC was created and it's all just pump and dump scam ever since.  The simple act of claiming "what miners do doesn't matter" is just admitting the fact that Bitcoin is a failure, that mining turns into a completely centralized cartel with absolutely nothing resembling a Nash equilibrium at all.  Instead of admitting Bitcoin is a designed to centralize failure, they just make up some random bullshit claiming miners don't matter to try and keep the Ponzi going.

[JayJuanGee]

[edited out]

I only partially understand your reasoning, I understand that you'll need sanity too when it reaches 100k but I think it would be more just the emotional toll of the price and everything resting on it as it swings. I had this issue personally, I used sold bitcoins as a downpayment on my house.... in November 2018 (yup) luckily I sold at high 6000s but when I had everything in riding on Bitcoin that market was such an emotional beating.

Probably part of your mistake that you seem to acknowledge was that you had too much invested into BTC, and I suppose if you cashed out profitable, you were still better off for the gamble of too much into BTC that you had taken...

If you cashed out your BTC at a loss, then that's another story.

I consider that I had made a pretty decent -sized mistake in November 2018, too. 

In early 2018, I had begun the planning of a construction project that had some uncertainties regarding how long it was going to take and when exactly the bills would come due and if they would trickle in over an extended period of time or all come in at once.

So, by late October early November, many of the bills were coming in and they were looking like they would be due between November and January - depending on various stages that the work was getting done.   I think that there were some cost overruns, too, so fuck, by the time I figured out my cashflow in light of the overruns, I saw that the only reasonable thing was going to cash out about 3.5% of additional bitcoin as a kind of cashflow cushion.. and a kind of insurance to have the cash on hand through at least January.

So, yeah, I was kind of kicking myself for having to sell 3.5% of my bitcoin, and I ended up making such sale around $4k on average. Over subsequent months and until about April 1 (before the BTC price boom), I was able to repurchase about 25% of those sold coins for at or below the sale price, but I still had kind of kicking myself for taking a gamble that did not really pay off and forced me to sell a portion of my stash at a time that was somewhat inconvenient for me, also based on the dip in BTC price, too.

Now it's just an investment, im not putting everything into it, I don't give a fuck about the market moves. When it 3100 I remember being so much more relaxed and buying some coin. I don't think I could have my retirement or kids college funds in crypto, id be a fucking nervous wreck.

Probably, you would not feel as anxious about having some of those longer term plans in bitcoin, if you are much more in profits.  I am not sure.  Each of us is different.  I went from 65% in the red in early 2015, to nearly 28x in profits in late 2017 and even with the dip down to $3,122 in late 2018, I was still well over 4x in profits and at current prices my holdings are in the ballpark of 14x profits.  So it is a bit more difficult to be stressful about whether I am putting anything long term at risk. 

Currently, I have a tentative plan that involves employing a BTC liquidation plan that I believe to be a kind of passive way to have an income from BTC that involves in the coming years, to start to cash out 1% of my BTC stash every quarter, so long as the BTC price is not below $5k.  If the price is below $5k, then I will wait to cash out and likely buy instead of sell any BTC. 

Of course, my cashing out plan has not started yet, it is tentatively not even going to start for a few years, but still, I feel a certain level of confidence about the plan in regards to feeling that the condition of not cashing out any BTC because BTC prices are below $5k are not very likely to be met... so in that regard, once I start cashing out, I pretty much have a passive income flowing for life... so really hard to feel nervous or stressed about being in that kind of a situation, no?