Cryptocurrency Hinges on People Holding their Coins - Remove this, it Tanks

[Instamined]

Essentially, the only reason Bitcoin is capable of maintaining such a high value is marketing.

I feel that if everyone were to cash out their coins at once, the market would panic and the Fiat wouldn't be there to support the supposed marketcap. I think Bitcoin isn't capable of handling a run on the bank.

Holding a coin and saying that it has a market value of $X is all well and good but it's not actually money in your pocket until you spend it... either by switching to fiat first or selling to a bitcoin accepting service that will cash it to fiat. This is a problem on Bitcoin but even more so on altcoins. Although some are traded in fiat pairiings the majority of volume is traded against btc. This makes altcoin caps a derivative of the same pool of hypothetical cash value further decreasing the actual overall net worth of the ecosystem. I think if you really took an axe to this, it would topple in a hot minute.

I think most alt-coins are designed with ill intentions or by people who are incompetent or naive in their economic beliefs.

Many of these altcoins have huge whales who hold the majority of their coins offline. Some hold for greed that they might earn huge future profits. Some others hold the majority share and can essentially play any new capital that enters the market, making it theirs. It's possible to jump in between these lines as an outsider but the insiders essentially chose a market peg, feed limited supply on the way up faking buy walls up then sell as much as possible at peak hype, then continue to sell all the way down to $.01 (if need be) because the coins were quintessentially free to them to start.


I wanted to believe in cryptocurrency, and I am a fan of the blockchain and in awe of enormous potential that these coins could have but I sincerely do not believe in the morality, sustainability, market cap, and general mentality of this whole experiment.

Coins without supporting services or products are untenable. If their utility is quick value transfer then there only need be one coin because that is only one product. Yes, I know there is utility to applications of the blockchain but these are purely digital assets which in and of themselves are not valuable.



They say history is written by the winners. Do you really want to see a world where Bitcoin is the global reserve currency? How much is actually known about the actors who released the coin? Yes, it may very well be a plot by very wealthy, influential politically relevant interests acting as some sort of Illuminati board. It might also be a rogue science experiment picked up by a group of early adapters who saw the potential to leverage it to their advantage. It may be something else entirely. Bitcoin is said to be a trustless system and from a certain perspective that is a technically true statement. But do you trust Satoshi Nakamoto? Not knowing, how could you develop a belief one way or the other? Most choose to trust because they desire profit - that's it. Point is, the moral compass of the true leaders of crypto is impossible to put a thumb on and feeding into the frenzy without critical reflection is dubious. -

People are quick to talk about the freedom cryptocurrency provides and over-glorify its benefits but that mentality risks the possibility of a tyranny orchestrated by unknown actors. Most are happy to take a profit, or dream of taking one. They buy the dribble fed to them from their coin of preference. Whether it be Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, Dash, or any other. It all boils down to the hard fact that first mover advantage in crypto is wholly arbitrary and at the discretion of the developer who is almost certainly going to abuse that privilege.

I have concluded that for me, cryptocurrency is not worth the time or energy. I believe this is little more than a rigged casino. Developers win, shorters win, sellers win, believers lose. It's based off of leaps of faith and faulty logic pushed on hopefuls by liars with an agenda.

I am not rich but I am not poor. I can live comfortably within my means. I think that working towards real, useful products, talents, and services is far worthier of time than chasing cash around the rotating doors of this ponzi scheme.


I know that most will not see things my way, but take everything you assume about crypto - even the fundamentals of bitcoin with a grain of salt.

[1713957051]

1713957051

[1713957051]

1713957051

[tigershark]

Yes if everyone tried to cash out their bitcoins, the price would drop because supply would go high and there would be no demand (because everyone is selling). Fortunately there is a lot of demand right now.

[BrewMaster]

that is true but that is also a big IF.

and also your whole subject is debatable since it is essentially true about anything else in the world. lets take Gold for example. it has its high value because a lot of people are holding it and IF they decide to dump it price tanks.

the question is will they dump Gold?

following the rest of what you said is a bit hard, you started at some subject then ended up in a very different place, at least that is my understanding

[Idrisu]

Yes if everyone tried to cash out their bitcoins, the price would drop because supply would go high and there would be no demand (because everyone is selling). Fortunately there is a lot of demand right now.

But we should not undermined the value of bitcoin and that is why many people are keeping their coin and others are buying into the idea of bitcoin daily. The values is what we should developed to the level when fiat will not have power over it like gold. And it has become impossible for everybody to cash out their bitcoin because of one thing (it values)

[Instamined]

that is true but that is also a big IF.

and also your whole subject is debatable since it is essentially true about anything else in the world. lets take Gold for example. it has its high value because a lot of people are holding it and IF they decide to dump it price tanks.

the question is will they dump Gold?

following the rest of what you said is a bit hard, you started at some subject then ended up in a very different place, at least that is my understanding

The gold market is SO different.

Nobody ever hacked 100,000 Gold bars off of an exchange in a matter of minutes. Nobody can flash crash the gold market, literally taking out the entire buy wall with one fell swoop.

Look, I want money as much as the next guy but I want even less to be beholden to some arbitrary nameless group of shadow bankers who deal in sketchy, hackable currency that has a constantly fluctuating value where if you don't make the proper trade you have lost big.

I REALLY like the blockchain tech but unfortunately government is more capable at making fair use of it (as hard as that is to believe) than a bunch of tiny petty despots running around with vaporware lying, hyping, and scamming their way to wealth.

[Instamined]

People act like government is the enemy. No, bad governance is the enemy.

It's nearly impossible to imagine a world where governments started working efficiently, morally, against the grain.

BUT it's sure as hell not impossible.

It probably helps optimism to be younger like I am because your time horizon is different than an older person.

[Instamined]

Feeling pretty vindicated now with this latest ransomware epidemic.


Do you think society at large will love crypto and rush to adopt it? Get real. The people holding the wealth of the world will not buy into a coin with an origin as shady as this.

Do you really want to further enrich people willing to hack a hospital? In perpetuity? As the new aristocracy of the planet? I don't!

[The Sceptical Chymist]

The gold market is SO different.

Except it's not; it just has a bigger market.  If Wall Street decided to crash the market, they could, through futures and derivatives.  Physical gold need not change hands at all.

I agree with you on a lot of what you wrote, however.  You made some valid points.  Altcoins in particular are shady as hell, and their developers mostly just want to enrich themselves.  I wouldn't be surprised if a good percentage of them are tied to organized crime--just like penny stocks.  I stay away from most of them, because I don't have a sunny outlook on their viability.  Bitcoin I do have some faith in, and it doesn't matter much to me if I don't know its provenance.  It works, and it works for a lot of people.  Right now I think it's acting a little TOO volatile for my taste, and you're right about the "run on the bank" scenario.  The market right now is far too small, and it could happen.  Easily.

[pooya87]

The gold market is SO different.

Nobody ever hacked 100,000 Gold bars off of an exchange in a matter of minutes.

first of all the bitcoin exchanges are new and shitty, so they can get hacked, also them not being regulated means they can pull all kinds of shit and even lie about being hacked and just steal customers money themselves.

secondly don't make assumptions like that, any online platform no matter how secure they are can get hacked.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2016/09/13/gold-bullion-trading-hack/
http://www.estudiodefrances.com/cdrom/option/forex-trade-bot-hack-trade-gold.html
not exactly the same but kind of relevant: https://www.earnforex.com/blog/forex-account-hacking-a-real-problem/

Nobody can flash crash the gold market, literally taking out the entire buy wall with one fell swoop.

how would you know? have you been around back in around 600 BC? or to be more accurate have you been around 608 BC because by that time Gold was as old as currently bitcoin is and if you want to compare, you should compare that with current bitcoin market not the current huge established for years gold market.

[Instamined]

I appreciate the responses. Most accurately you would say that Gold Cannot be crashed as easily. It holds value better. Crypto was mined and is primarily spread out among a couple thousand people who got in on the ground floor as opposed to gold which is a metal you must extract from the earth. YES gold bonds etc are not true gold but if these gold back assets were manipulated enough the underlying physical gold would shield from too catastrophic of a crash. Even still these assets are traded on publicly scrutinized exchanges. Bitcoin, no way. Nobody knows who truly holds the reigns or what their intentions are.

Bitcoin can be crashed fairly easy by a large shareholder.


Since bitcoin has been stolen via hack and extorted numerous times I think it's a bit absurd to tout it as a fair new world currency that is giving power to the people at large...


I see Bitcoin as a top down system that uses its high value to entice investors looking for a future that will never materialize. Large holders have benefited greatly at the expensive of small holders who generally get dumped on as soon as the manipulators inflate the bubble to their liking.   

[European Central Bank]

Same goes for precious metals, property, classic cars, stocks and most other things. So what?

[Instamined]

Same goes for precious metals, property, classic cars, stocks and most other things. So what?

Well if the value of your metal drops, you have the metal.

If the value of your car drops, you have the car.

Stocks, ok - similar, but they are backed up by actual businesses that have a product.

Bitcoin is backed by the belief that it has value and the market books which give the appearance of increasing investor confidence. This can be easily manipulated as it is a lower market cap than most markets you mentioned.

If your bitcoin decreases substantially in value you have an IOU for less money than you paid and no asset to back it. It could return to previous values but it is still at the mercy of miners and unknown actors.

[Pursuer]

you are making a wrong conclusion.
you say since an exchange platform was hacked, then bitcoin is not suitable to become a world currency!

it is like saying "the other day a gang came into a bank with machine guns and emptied their vault so fiat is not suitable to be a currency".

also I believe you have to clarify the subject you are talking about. is it "bitcoin functioning as a currency/world currency" or is it "bitcoin price and if/how it is manipulated".
these two are different but you are making conclusion from one argument to another.

[Iranus]

Currency is based on storage and people's confidence in it.  The only reason that fiat has value is because it is given value by a government and people agree with that value.  The difference is that Bitcoin's supply is genuinely scarce, so it doesn't make everyone lose money automatically and instead can both gain and lose money.

With fiat money you're playing a rigged game.  With Bitcoin, you're not.  If a larger amount of people started holding Bitcoin then, like gold, its dependence on fiat decreases as the amount of people that hold it stabilises.  Gold isn't given value by the existence of the metal, it's given value by the fact that the asset is scarce.  

Equally, people buy special edition gaming devices and toys for extremely high prices, not because the materials are expensive but because they were told that's the price and they followed along with it because they can't just make their own.

Bitcoin is also quite hard to hack.  I could equally break into a safe holding some gold, and that would be a "hack" in the physical world.



Most things related to Bitcoin are comparable to assets that exist in "real life".  To argue that a digital asset has no intrinsic value is meaningless - its value is kept by the tech combined with scarcity, just like how a stock's value is kept by the company.

[Instamined]

Currency is based on storage and people's confidence in it.  The only reason that fiat has value is because it is given value by a government and people agree with that value.  The difference is that Bitcoin's supply is genuinely scarce, so it doesn't make everyone lose money automatically and instead can both gain and lose money.

With fiat money you're playing a rigged game.  With Bitcoin, you're not.  If a larger amount of people started holding Bitcoin then, like gold, its dependence on fiat decreases as the amount of people that hold it stabilises.  Gold isn't given value by the existence of the metal, it's given value by the fact that the asset is scarce.  

Equally, people buy special edition gaming devices and toys for extremely high prices, not because the materials are expensive but because they were told that's the price and they followed along with it because they can't just make their own.

Bitcoin is also quite hard to hack.  I could equally break into a safe holding some gold, and that would be a "hack" in the physical world.



Most things related to Bitcoin are comparable to assets that exist in "real life".  To argue that a digital asset has no intrinsic value is meaningless - its value is kept by the tech combined with scarcity, just like how a stock's value is kept by the company.

I have heard these arguments many times.

If bitcoin maximalists had their way, Bitcoin would become increasingly more valuable until it was the world reserve currency.

I believe putting the control of the world into those who just happened to buy Bitcoin in 2009-2012 for all eternity is a dreary prospect. They espouse freedom and economic liberty to the poor yet they are setting themselves up in a nearly communist system where only those most early adopters are benefiting at the expense of the new adopters. If you take this to extremes it stops being a beneficial thing to invest in and a punishing thing to not have invested in.

You say that fiat is a rigged game whereas Bitcoin is not a rigged game. While I understand frustration with fiat currency, it is fair to the extent that it is equally unfair. Like it or not governments have worked tirelessly to establish modern society and THAT backs up their claim to be entitled to print currency. Bitcoin miners bought early, trapped out on new investors, bought asics, and believe being the first to the punch entitles them to be the eternal federal reserve of the Human Race without consensus. They talk of consensus often, but they talk only of consensus between miners.


The loss of nearly 1/16th of the current bitcoin supply to a single exchange hack is not dismiss-able. Especially if this were to grow to the desired dimensions of these maximalists. No bank robbery is moving a fraction of the total fiat supply.

I advocate for better governance which is capable of creating fair, transparent confines for a form of digital fiat payment. I know everyone is against such a "fed-coin" and I understand their apprehension. They, however, with their vested interest in the success of Bitcoin which they wish to be a one time zero day economic virus refuse to understand my distrust of their supposed utopia.

[Iranus]

Currency is based on storage and people's confidence in it.  The only reason that fiat has value is because it is given value by a government and people agree with that value.  The difference is that Bitcoin's supply is genuinely scarce, so it doesn't make everyone lose money automatically and instead can both gain and lose money.

With fiat money you're playing a rigged game.  With Bitcoin, you're not.  If a larger amount of people started holding Bitcoin then, like gold, its dependence on fiat decreases as the amount of people that hold it stabilises.  Gold isn't given value by the existence of the metal, it's given value by the fact that the asset is scarce.  

Equally, people buy special edition gaming devices and toys for extremely high prices, not because the materials are expensive but because they were told that's the price and they followed along with it because they can't just make their own.

Bitcoin is also quite hard to hack.  I could equally break into a safe holding some gold, and that would be a "hack" in the physical world.



Most things related to Bitcoin are comparable to assets that exist in "real life".  To argue that a digital asset has no intrinsic value is meaningless - its value is kept by the tech combined with scarcity, just like how a stock's value is kept by the company.

I believe putting the control of the world into those who just happened to buy Bitcoin in 2009-2012 for all eternity is a dreary prospect. They espouse freedom and economic liberty to the poor yet they are setting themselves up in a nearly communist system where only those most early adopters are benefiting at the expense of the new adopters.

I don't think you understand what communism is.

You say that fiat is a rigged game whereas Bitcoin is not a rigged game. While I understand frustration with fiat currency, it is fair to the extent that it is equally unfair. Like it or not governments have worked tirelessly to establish modern society and THAT backs up their claim to be entitled to print currency.

Governments do not solely print currency.  They give that freedom to banks, largely controlled by the private sector, which can give out loans based on money that they just made up on the spot.  Fiat money used to at least be based on something limited - gold - but now its value is zero because it's only based on previously existing fake money, and inflation spirals on and on since it's cumulative.  Furthermore, governments have not worked tirelessly to establish modern society.  Each individual government has worked to implement their own vision (loosely based on the voters' visions), all of which are separate from each other.
 
People who bought Bitcoin early will spend it over a long time when the price has settled.  It's not like there are no rich people with fiat currency, but who those rich people are changes regularly.  Money isn't just held forever.

The loss of nearly 1/16th of the current bitcoin supply to a single exchange hack is not dismiss-able. Especially if this were to grow to the desired dimensions of these maximalists. No bank robbery is moving a fraction of the total fiat supply.

The exchange was stupid and unregulated.  Regardless, in a scenario when the price stabilises, far less Bitcoin would be held in exchanges anyway, especially specific exchanges.

[European Central Bank]

Same goes for precious metals, property, classic cars, stocks and most other things. So what?

Well if the value of your metal drops, you have the metal.

If the value of your car drops, you have the car.

Stocks, ok - similar, but they are backed up by actual businesses that have a product.

Bitcoin is backed by the belief that it has value and the market books which give the appearance of increasing investor confidence. This can be easily manipulated as it is a lower market cap than most markets you mentioned.

If your bitcoin decreases substantially in value you have an IOU for less money than you paid and no asset to back it. It could return to previous values but it is still at the mercy of miners and unknown actors.

assuming bitcoin continues to work and it crashes then there will always be a price where it's an attractive buy.

and there are many classic cars that still aren't worth as much as they were 30 years ago and that's even before you take inflation into account.

[audaciousbeing]

Even cashing out bitcoin at once will not even work out as the only thing that keeps the price high is the forces of demand and supply which means if everyone should cash out, it will means the supply will be more than demand thereby forcing the price down forcefully so the issue of marketing does not comes in but something drastic will have to push that and not planning or wishful thinking.

[wuvdoll]

Until bitcoin reaches to some significant percentage of world population, there would be a risk of getting dumped regardless of how bigger the bitcoin prices achieve. In other words, bitcoin is still in its early stage so whales exists and their decisions may impact.

Over time, bitcoin will be adopted by at least 25% of world population then we can expect its market capitalization may reach some ten trillion dollars then selling by individuals or few group of people may not impact significantly.