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

[DaRude]

I'm totally fine with sitting at this range until bcash or BSv go bankrupt. They're more exposed to miner profits in order to support their shitchains, whoever is providing sell pressure is a hero.

[JayJuanGee]

Can't read the article but banks might have no choice than buying negative yelding bonds to follow rules on holdings. Basically to lend money to "risky" companies and people, they have to hold some "non risky" debt.

Funny that the ECB doesn't offer the same deal to actual people.

Yes. My niece took a loan to buy an apartment about a year ago. I was very surprises how high interest bank still take fro lending out money while they get money for no interest them self. I guess in the future bank loans to actual people will have to get to zero

I called my bank for a quick personal 10k loan (I haven't taken a loan since the mid 80's) and they wanted 18%, I was shocked and laughed in the guys face.

Yes, I'd rather take a loan than sell anything right now.

I have found the same kind of gouging... It seems quite outrageous, and maybe it is just a sign of the days being numbered for these traditional institutions and the way they are calculating what is in their interest (as a lender) and/or public duties that they probably have but would rather just gouge or otherwise fuck around with investing in equities (or whatever other free money, gambling or forclosing activities they are doing with their time and money), instead of loaning to regular peeps and/or trying to responsibly build community.

[xhomerx10]

....
...  I'm pretty certain that the world didn't need a twat scented candle.

 edit: added a link in case the world really does need that twat scented candle.

"geranium, citrusy bergamot, and cedar absolutes juxtaposed with Damask rose and ambrette seed"

jeezus christ! wtf is that crazy gooper lady shoving up her stinky pink anyway?

 I'm pretty sure that's set to launch this year - fancy scented dildo (preferably in bright green)

[jojo69]

plot twist; unbeknownst to Lightfoot, all P100 cartridges are now pre-innoculated with Covid 19 as part of a NWO initiative to weed out those dangerous careful ones...

[Ibian]

Sure, why not. In any case, our best bet is our own immune system. This is not the plague, it does not kill every two out of three, get back to a normal fucking life.

[Toxic2040]

....
...  I'm pretty certain that the world didn't need a twat scented candle.

 edit: added a link in case the world really does need that twat scented candle.

"geranium, citrusy bergamot, and cedar absolutes juxtaposed with Damask rose and ambrette seed"

jeezus christ! wtf is that crazy gooper lady shoving up her stinky pink anyway?

 I'm pretty sure that's set to launch this year - fancy scented dildo (preferably in bright green)

+1 WOsMerit


someone say launch?  dildo?   me like!

#stronggreenhands

[JimboToronto]

Thats what the smart gambler does.

Isn't that an oxymoron?

Nope. Gambling is all about probability. So pick the probabilities you like.

If the odds are in your favor it really isn't gambling. I don't gamble but I used to earn a little money playing pool.

Afaik, smart gambling is counting cards and it's the only way to beat the house odds (besides cheating), and Vegas knows every one of 'em. (card counters)
The casino kicks 'em out as soon as the facial recognition app warns they are on the premises.

That's why what the casinos do isn't gambling. They're running a business. The odds stacked are in their favor.

They don't need to compete with card counters who are basically other businesses.

[sirazimuth]

......a normal fucking life.

Back in the days of when I was frequently fucking, my life was was anything but normal....

[aesma]

Can't read the article but banks might have no choice than buying negative yelding bonds to follow rules on holdings. Basically to lend money to "risky" companies and people, they have to hold some "non risky" debt.

Funny that the ECB doesn't offer the same deal to actual people.

Yes. My niece took a loan to buy an apartment about a year ago. I was very surprises how high interest bank still take fro lending out money while they get money for no interest them self. I guess in the future bank loans to actual people will have to get to zero

It depends on the country. In Denmark I think you already have 0% loans.

In France it has been ruled illegal, somehow. However rates are pretty low, some people get below 1% rates for a 15 year loan. Usually HNI with a big mortgage.

Personally I'm looking at buying a house and should get around 1,5% for 25 years which isn't too bad.

[Ibian]

It depends on the country. In Denmark I think you already have 0% loans.

Opposite. We get 0% interest. In fact, negative interest has already been introduced. There is no such thing as a free loan from a Bank.

[aesma]

It depends on the country. In Denmark I think you already have 0% loans.

Opposite. We get 0% interest. In fact, negative interest has already been introduced. There is no such thing as a free loan from a Bank.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/12/danish-bank-is-offering-10-year-mortgages-with-negative-interest-rates.html

[Ibian]

It depends on the country. In Denmark I think you already have 0% loans.

Opposite. We get 0% interest. In fact, negative interest has already been introduced. There is no such thing as a free loan from a Bank.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/12/danish-bank-is-offering-10-year-mortgages-with-negative-interest-rates.html

Can't be arsed to investigate anything less than a full percent, but I know for a fact that the bank my parents use now have negative interest. They sent a letter and everything. No damn way do banks give out negative interest loans. maybe link a danish site and I'll look into it.

[JayJuanGee]

Calling yourself a wage slave for too long means you really need to change something in your life. Not all people can achieve getting enjoyment from work. Some are incapable, others lazy, others just unlucky, although I don't really believe luck can fully define someone. One can make his/her own luck in life, or he/she falls into the "incapable" category. But at least you've got to try. If you fail, try again, and if you fail again, maybe you're not able to do it, or you need to re-evaluate your goals, and Bitcoin can help in such cases, but not everyone is in this situation. Not everyone is a wage slave.

True. But the actual work of one's career can also change drastically over time, to become much less meaningful.

For example, when I first got into IT programming in the mid 90's, the work was actually very meaningful and fun. We were building business software applications from complete scratch, and there was a sense of passion, creativity and analysis in what I was doing day to day. Programmers could use their brains to bang out code to build custom use cases and custom UIs, were respected and revered, and got paid accordingly for their creative analysis and technical knowledge.

By the time I got out of that career in the 2010's, IT programmers were reduced to simply integrating off-the-shelf, expensive closed-source software into existing business environments. They essentially became glorified software "babysitters", having to spend their days trying to integrate and debug software that was poorly-written by someone else, often with poor performance, poor configuration, archaic APIs, missing or incomplete documentation, lack of expertise, etc. And these software integrations were often initiated under ridiculous time schedules and low/inadequate budgets, with use-case and performance expectations that could not be met in the time allotted. Or ever. It became soul-crushing work, and I started having bouts of anxiety and depression that I never had in the beginning of my IT career.

What the IT career became in the end, was not something had I signed up for in the beginning. So I got out.

No wonder you tend to be so jaded...

 

[aesma]

It depends on the country. In Denmark I think you already have 0% loans.

Opposite. We get 0% interest. In fact, negative interest has already been introduced. There is no such thing as a free loan from a Bank.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/12/danish-bank-is-offering-10-year-mortgages-with-negative-interest-rates.html

Can't be arsed to investigate anything less than a full percent, but I know for a fact that the bank my parents use now have negative interest. They sent a letter and everything. No damn way do banks give out negative interest loans. maybe link a danish site and I'll look into it.

I have no link to that country so I'd rather believe you. Here in France normal accounts never accrued interest so banks can't really now ask us to pay them interest to keep our money.

People with six or seven digits in the bank might get the same kind of letter though.

[JayJuanGee]

Good discussion...
When you feel burned out, it most definitely means that something has to change.
I am only 9 years into my second career cycle. So far so good, but who knows how long that feeling would last.
Having bitcoin as a 'hobby' certainly helped as it makes things interesting, especially when I had to learn a thing or two about it.

One point regarding drawn-downs: I cannot imagine myself stopping accumulation and starting a strict draw-down. I think this would make me feeling empty and/or exposed.
Spending from IRA just does not feel right and I am not even talking about selling btc for spending. It would be difficult to overcome the hodling philosophy.

Of course, there are three main phases that any long term investment should attempt to follow, and even though those phases might not be pure in their form, they do tend to dominate at certain stages that coincide with beginning, middle and end.

The three stages are accumulating, maintaining and liquidating, and so sure, you are correct Biodom that it would likely NOT make too much sense if you would bounce between accumulating and liquidating because then you would no longer be engaging in any kind of long term investment but instead either trading or gambling with that portion of your BTC holdings.

You certainly have to judge where you are at with your own investment, including comfort levels to transition from one stage to the next or how much of a mixture you might deem reasonable to employ based on your own assessment of your investment in BTC based on your personal circumstances that would of course include all of the basic considerations of cashflow, other investments, view of bitcoin as compared with other investments, risk tolerance, timeline and time, skills and abilities to research, plan or strategize in terms of your investment whether that involves reallocating or trading or tweaking your approach.

@jbreher and @JJG were discussion spending $92K from a $2.3mil account as an exercise, 4% yearly and all...
That's all peachy, unless either $ value significantly declines or, alternatively, market would not appreciate for, say, 20-30 years.
Then, all money is gone in 25 years, someone is a 90 year old man (if you start at 65) in relative poverty (if social programs collapse or become highly insufficient).

The 4% is a traditional base amount that presumes that the value of your investment will average at least that level of appreciation on an annual basis, so that when you are withdrawing the presumption is that the principle value is largely unchanged based on that level of withdrawal.  Of course, if you are not able to achieve an average of a 4% return, then sure you could reduce the amount or reconsider what you are investing in.. but the 4% is widely accepted as being a principle preserving amount, so in that case, if you were to stick with 4%, then your principle would never be depleted, and you could continue to withdraw at that rate in perpetuity... if you are not able to achieve the in-perpetuity withdrawal rate, then sure, you might either need to tweak it down or to reconfigure your investments.

I tend to believe that 4% is hogwash and recent events show that we don't know what to expect down the pike.
It is probably wise to have some residence paid out by 65; at least take this part of the equation out.

Regarding yearly withdraws: 3% sounds much more realistic, at least I use this number for calculations.

Fair enough... You can use whatever number you like, and if you under withdraw, then you are just left with more principle, and sure that might work, but it also might cause you to delay pulling the fuck you lever because you are too conservative in your expectations... and in the end, it is totally up to you to pick your comfort level and hopefully understand the tradeoffs in your tweaking the assumptions.

You can use your BTC stash as collateral for a 5% interest rate personal loan - borrow $10,000 with $40,000 of BTC
Celsius.network

I've earned interest with them for a year now, a good business.

Interestingly, blockchain.com (the one that used to be blockchain.info) says that it would pay YOU 4.5% on btc in their custody account.
Not sure whether it is in btc or in fiat. Seems to be a better deal, not sure what conditions are, though.

The conditions might be that you are fucked by leaving your keys with a third party when it is not necessary to risk leaving your shit with a third party in order to feel comfortable with the likelihood that your underlying asset (namely BTC in this case) is likely to appreciate in value at least 4% per year on average while you keep complete control over the keys.

[Torque]

Calling yourself a wage slave for too long means you really need to change something in your life. Not all people can achieve getting enjoyment from work. Some are incapable, others lazy, others just unlucky, although I don't really believe luck can fully define someone. One can make his/her own luck in life, or he/she falls into the "incapable" category. But at least you've got to try. If you fail, try again, and if you fail again, maybe you're not able to do it, or you need to re-evaluate your goals, and Bitcoin can help in such cases, but not everyone is in this situation. Not everyone is a wage slave.

True. But the actual work of one's career can also change drastically over time, to become much less meaningful.

For example, when I first got into IT programming in the mid 90's, the work was actually very meaningful and fun. We were building business software applications from complete scratch, and there was a sense of passion, creativity and analysis in what I was doing day to day. Programmers could use their brains to bang out code to build custom use cases and custom UIs, were respected and revered, and got paid accordingly for their creative analysis and technical knowledge.

By the time I got out of that career in the 2010's, IT programmers were reduced to simply integrating off-the-shelf, expensive closed-source software into existing business environments. They essentially became glorified software "babysitters", having to spend their days trying to integrate and debug software that was poorly-written by someone else, often with poor performance, poor configuration, archaic APIs, missing or incomplete documentation, lack of expertise, etc. And these software integrations were often initiated under ridiculous time schedules and low/inadequate budgets, with use-case and performance expectations that could not be met in the time allotted. Or ever. It became soul-crushing work, and I started having bouts of anxiety and depression that I never had in the beginning of my IT career.

What the IT career became in the end, was not something I had signed up for in the beginning. So I got out.

No wonder you tend to be so jaded...

 

Yeah I'll admit I'm pretty jaded against the IT profession.

In addition to the work quality going into the toilet, you know what else has sucked? Here's a hint:

Average salary for IT Senior Architect (10 yrs+ experience) in the U.S. in 2007: ~$120K/year.

Average salary for IT Senior Architect (10 yrs+ experience) in the U.S. in 2020: ~$110K/year.

Yep you read that right. The average salary not only hasn't increased in 13 years to keep up with inflation, it has actually gone backwards, while asset price inflation has skyrocketed in the same amount of time.

People are getting absolutely screwed by the existing financial system, and they don't even realize it.

[degxtra1]

Thinking about changing to linux soon. -ish. Before the next windows version, at the latest. Long time e-friend nerd recommended linux mint. Looks user friendly. Anyone using it? Can recommend/not recommend?

Actually any distro you choose will be much better than using windows/mac solutions in terms of controlling privacy.  But choosing more popular gives you advantage of having more frequently actualized packages/ software.
Personally I'm using distro based on Debian packages - if you go for stable (debian has three branches- stable, unstable and experimental) you should be good for everyday working task.
I'ts not that easy with like windows that can found for you some drivers for new HW or software but it's worth to invest bit of a time and get it working. Some Hw won't work - especially  this with closed sources - very rare this days but still worth to consider.
Obviously the main question is for what you need. Bellow you have comparison between Red Hat origin Centos and Debian. Its favoring CentOS but it its up to you. There is OpenBSD too which is really different to two above mentioned.

Btw: I was really surprised last time to see working games with Steam and their beta software. CS:Go is working flawlessly


edited 30 mins later
I forgot to add that most of distros has their Live versions - download it, burn to USB pendrive and restart computer with boot option pointed to Live stick - usually you can get very realistic impression how each system works without changing anything on your harddrive.


https://www.educba.com/centos-vs-debian/

[jbreher]

You can use your BTC stash as collateral for a 5% interest rate personal loan - borrow $10,000 with $40,000 of BTC
Celsius.network

I've earned interest with them for a year now, a good business.

I suppose. Unless the entire scheme goes pear-shaped. Used to be that wirecard was viewed as a safe thing. Even last week. Then they came up as 'missing' $2B USD.

[jbreher]

@jbreher and @JJG were discussion spending $92K from a $2.3mil account as an exercise, 4% yearly and all...
That's all peachy, unless either $ value significantly declines or, alternatively, market would not appreciate for, say, 20-30 years.
Then, all money is gone in 25 years, someone is a 90 year old man (if you start at 65) in relative poverty (if social programs collapse or become highly insufficient).
I tend to believe that 4% is hogwash and recent events show that we don't know what to expect down the pike.
It is probably wise to have some residence paid out by 65; at least take this part of the equation out.

Regarding yearly withdraws: 3% sounds much more realistic, at least I use this number for calculations.

I'm certainly not is disagreement with you here. I just parroted 4%, as this has been a rule of thumb (at least from my understanding) employed by CFPs, based upon decades of data. Of course, with the recent orgy of money printer go brr, with all that purchasing power getting locked up in zero-velocity asset purchases (for how long?), I think we may soon be entering a new monetary era where all bets are off.

[jbreher]

a $92K annual drawdown on $2.3M. Not shabby, but neither is it anywhere near what I was making when I was a wage slave. And I ain't typical retirement age yet, so allowances need be made to extend the principal that many more years.

[edited out]

Spot on!

Steve Jobs once said: "For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

Calling yourself a wage slave for too long means you really need to change something in your life. Not all people can achieve getting enjoyment from work.

There should be some choice in the kinds of work that we do,

Probably fuck you status continues to be somewhat about having the option to do stuff that others may or may not agree with because it is your choice to engage in such activity(ies), and not strictly something(s) that you are doing because you have to in order to feel monetarily comfortable.

Well, yah. My last job, most of my time was spent in various industry consortia and standards bodies, developing the specifications and standards to which the entire industry adheres to. I really did enjoy the work. But my wages being paid by one of the corporations developing products that adhere to those standards and specifications, my daily priorities were set by that employing corporation.

So once my future economic condition seemed certain, I tendered my resignation. And continued participating -- on a personal basis -- in the various consortia and standards bodies. Did that for another year on my own dime. Just buttoning up the architectures of the standards in which I had a vested interest.

Now I'm done with that too. I follow the developments from afar, but no longer drive them. And spend significant time upon avocation and hobbies.