Ask Any Crypto-Based Question

[TBboys]

One thing i'm pretty certain of, is bear markets in crypto won't last forever, there are forces that will always try to manipulate the markets into bulls, causing FOMO panick like 2017. And trust me, big whales seen this fomo and will utilize it again. And yeah it is scary, a nice sum of your money is invested.

Can you explain in detail what you mean by "there are forces that will always try to manipulate the markets into bulls"? Does this mean that the rise or fall in Crypto is artificial?

[congresowoman]

This is an interesting topic started. Finally, a member concerned to other members as well. I have a question that I have been dying to ask, why are altcoins have this pattern of a spike when it comes to launching, and then downhill from there. Cause usually, when i browse in altcoins, I usually see red few days or to a week after public launch, quite frustrating for potential investors. Thank you for your response.

[tk808]

What is your opinion on governance? Do you believe that it is possible to have governance using only the tools of the protocol? I mean, solutions that do not involve forks, whose differences are resolved only by voting.
 
Do you believe that projects using PoS can function without a central authority and in a totally distributed way?

DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) aka coin governance is a very tricky subject, and i believe is in its infancy. The overall idea of a DAO is a peak into the future and perception of a utopian society.

Due to the nature of this subject, i'm going to remain somewhat limited in my answer, because there are many implications that can be drawn from DAO and how ultimately it will impact the world. I'll strictly answer in terms of crypto.


In a short answer yes, i believe it's possible, because we already see examples of this occurred, namely with the most successful DAO, Dash. But even then, it becomes somewhat vague into the extent this has, and how actions from the blockchain votes are interpreted and acted apon by the humans who are physically working and hiring new indviduals.

The idea of DAO stems from the POW and POS debate, in which who ultimately has power over the network. Consolidation of the network's power in POW is determined by miners, and how large their server warehouse is for Bitcoin mining, and thus, 51% (if you control 51% of the network power, you basically make Bitcoin invalid and unstable, which is a highly talked about subject, but i don't hear about it much anymore.)

Within POS, your power is determined by the strength of your wallet, how many coins you hold. This system favors the 80/20% rule, where 20% of indviduals control 80% of the network (or 20% of the indviduals in POS chains, hold roughly 80% of the coins), which is a natural occurrence within the world. POS is basically the re-incarnation of this economic principal/theory, into the blockchain. Even though, it wasn't initially intended like this (i think), i don't know how Sunny King interperted POS initially (he was the founder of POS with peercoin), i believe he created this system to secure a network without the mass power consumption needed. That was a key feature.

There are 2 major examples of governance i'll look at, DASH and DAO. Basically, within DASH the system is not perfectly democratic, as you still need invested power (ghashes) or collateral for master nodes for the ability to vote. The network is controled by whales, and not your common man, again obeying the 80/20% rule, which is a common occurrence in the world (again not going to say if this is good or bad, because that's a whole different topic). Just know, this system works as the evolutionary traits of human, are always drawn to leadership and this rule.

Now with this system if functions based on the participation of the community and users to propose ideas, if there's no proposal of ideas, then there is no function of the DAO. You can see the failure with DAO in Bitshares, i believe for a while there were no proposals, thus the coin died/failed in that instant for all intensive purposes, because companies just don't ever "cease" when it's working as intended, companies consistently improve and better themselves.

So in essence, if there is no community, there is no proposals, there is no DAO. And if that were to ever occur with DASH (unlikey), it would die utterly. My point being is the function of governance in crypto is as good as the community, and with proposed ideas the system continues to better itself. It still requires human input, and a real-physical work to be done by indviduals. This leads to the dash organization, and how they implement their ideas and how they express the decisions of the community.

Dash is currently undergoing a lot of internal issues, namely with their 10% Expenditure (10% of the supply held by the devs/executives) to execute ideas, and continue to fund the project, but they are going bankrupt essentially, and how DASH will operate with this real company structure years from now, remains unknown. DASH will ultimately fail entirely, if they can't fund their own workforce, then who will enforce the proposals propsed? Who knows. In this sense, DAO is a failed system. But, DASH is inherently a crypto, so don't take what i'm saying as DASH is eventually going to 0 or the market is going to crash, that's not the case at all.

In the sense that DAO is an input from investors/holders of a coin to have voting power to determine the direction of a coin, essentially "shareholders of blockchains" then yes it succeeded. But, this overly complicates matters, and as seen time and time again, power is abused.




In regards to Airdrops, and POS. There are very rudimentary systems in place to completely neglect centralization of power when distributing the coin, but all are flawed (because of manipulation and accountability). The only way a pure POS coin will ever work, is if an AI (high (self-sufficient), not the propaganda marketed of Software AI) itself conducted one (as far-out this idea sounds), without bias and without flaws in the distribution, without any human intervention. This is impossible now, so the entire system for POS in this respect has failed.

There will never be a perfectly distributed coin and never be a perfectly governed coin, because we are human. For reasons i listed above with DAO, POS suffers the same faults.

Do these systems work? Yeah, to a degree. But blockchain is in its infancy. We didn't have much innovation in 2018, and this problem of DAO, POS and distribution is still a long way off to being solved. Solutions to these fundamental problems, will create new billion-dollar blockchains.





There's a lot more to say about DAO, POS and Distribution coins, and in no way is this a complete answer, this is just a brief-touch-up. My ideas/thoughts are fragmented here because this topic is so large, and there's a lot to discuss for each paragraph i've written. If you have one specific questions, then please let me know, it'll be much easier for me to discuss 1 specific topic, instead of a huge one. My answer is not perfect, was a bit reluctant to answer this questions because of that.

[tk808]

What's your opinion about regulation, will it be good or bad for the entire Cryptocurrency industry?

First, there will always be a bigger threat to cryptos than regulation, and that's quantum computing.


I can't get into major details in regards to this, so i'm only going to address regulation in the sense for coin launches.

There are 3 things to consider when ICO's get regulated: innovation, capital/investments/monetary gain for the country and competition. Competition in the sense of owning an industry (U.S. and silicon valley, China and manufacturing... etc). How many trillions of dollars has silicon valley brought to the U.S.? Could blockchain one day be on this scale, who knows. But regulation will ultimately dictate these factors.

Crypto will eventually be entirely regulated, but not in the common sense, because innovation is always occurring and there will be coins that launch that double down on the fundamentals of decentralization, anonymity and etc. In the truest sense, cryptos will never be regulated by their nature. And if people want to use crypto anonymous, there will be nothing governments can do. They can't ever control a blockchain and all that. It will require a whole special oversight and branches of government to oversee cryptos, so it's essentially a futile effort in that regard. Transactions can't be controlled, the system can't be controlled and the user's sending (anonymous coins) can't be idenitifed. These are major problems that will never be solved within the next decade.

The only way a government can fully control a "threat" or blockchain in general, is to ban it all-together or allocate enough resources to track down individuals through blockchain, which is very difficult/impossible, especially if someone intentionally hid their tracks or used anonymous coins, aka Monero.

On the flip side with ICOs

Governments have to be very very careful not to stifle this industry, because blockchain technology will create thousands of jobs and bring in significant capital, along with the prestige of being at the edge of technology (for the country). This is why i actually appreciate with how the U.S. is approaching this, small steps at a time, figuring out small ways to implement rules before they go big dick and issue big executive decisions. I don't agree with all their decisions though, and i think there will always be ignorance and resentment towards blockchain tech, this is another problem for another day though.

In regards to regulation for ICO's and coin launches, regulation will be good and bad. Again, it will stifle innovation and may chase the entire industry out of a country, so regulations have to accommodate competition among governments and "be friendly" to these operators, or else they'll completely lose the entire industry from their country. You can already see this occuring, how come ICO's don't get launched in the U.S. and how many innovators did they stifle by introducing the SEC into ICO's, regulating that. A fatal mistake for the U.S. and same goes with China.

Now ICO's are mainly getting launched from European/South American countries and Russia. Soon that will not be the case either. So, what i predict what will occur is the volume of ICO's will all be consolidated into a few countries who are ICO friendly, and thus the volume of coins launching will eventually be dramatically reduced. Now, there will always be coin launches and people who won't abide by these rules, but i'm disregarding them for this post.



This topic is very broad, and this is just a glimpse of what will occur and circumstances that could arise with coin launches only (obviously there are regulations for exchanges, traders, investors, illegal activity, taxes... list goes on). The entire debate will occur for a long time, and in the meantime, Blockchain tech and some crypto's will outlive governments and generations of people. This is the reality.

[tk808]

One thing i'm pretty certain of, is bear markets in crypto won't last forever, there are forces that will always try to manipulate the markets into bulls, causing FOMO panick like 2017. And trust me, big whales seen this fomo and will utilize it again. And yeah it is scary, a nice sum of your money is invested.

Can you explain in detail what you mean by "there are forces that will always try to manipulate the markets into bulls"? Does this mean that the rise or fall in Crypto is artificial?

It's artificial and not artificial at the same time. Crypto markets are governed by one MAJOR force only, sentiment, how people feel emotionally. To a lesser degree, crypto is governed by supply and demand; but, we are not quite here yet to discuss this topic.

The biggest definition i can give crypto, and the underlining tone to this space, is profits and making money... greed. This is the underlining tone, the devil in the details very few discuss and want to avoid completely. And it's very obvious, there are very few people who actually see blockchain as academic.

When there is money to be made, there will be maniuplation, corruption and greed. And that's why ALL markets are manipulated, and every crypto has corruptions or fundamental flaws, simply because you can't control the markets. This is all because the openness and ability for anyone to enter crypto at any point. Now the reason for all this, is because of regulation and anonymity within crypto, which is why i won't go too much further into this topic.

Some people enter crypto to invest for the future, and put money on tokens/coins they have faith in. That's totally fine, and that's ultimately what the majority of people are doing. But, these are not the 20% of individuals who own 80% of the total crypto-mcap.


So again, yes crypto markets are artificial, but at the same time, it obeys natural behaviors for becoming adopted (in a very broad sense). It's all supply, demand and sentiment. These are ultimately the 3 forces that crypto markets are governed by.


On a side note: I'm sure all of you have seen messages for pump and dump groups, heard of whales and all that. That's all manipulation of the markets. The guys with the most capital will always govern the markets, just like the real-world.

[tk808]

Which coin / token in your crypto portfolio you hold the longest because you think that the price does not match the prospects of the project. Tell us how you heard about bitcoin and how you bought it (p2p or stock exchange).
You have created a very interesting topic and I will look after the questions. I hope people will not ask the same questions and will read the topic from the very beginning!
Be the wise choice

Thank you for the compliment, but i will not discuss anything about investing in particular coins or my portfolio.

The longest coin i've held is NXT which in turn is ARDOR now. But, that's not a project i would invest in today; because, it's a coin i already have and also because i would not chose to (it's 50/50 for me and a very personal answer fyi). This answer is not intended to be specific in anyway.


But, i did basically answer your entire question. Please view here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4930584.msg44427470#msg44427470

[tk808]

This is an interesting topic started. Finally, a member concerned to other members as well. I have a question that I have been dying to ask, why are altcoins have this pattern of a spike when it comes to launching, and then downhill from there. Cause usually, when i browse in altcoins, I usually see red few days or to a week after public launch, quite frustrating for potential investors. Thank you for your response.

This is due to the quality of coin launches, and nothing to determine quality other than your average investor (whom are less educated about crypto, trading, investing and having knowledge about businesses in general).

There is movement in a positive direction, investors and traders are getting smarter overall, but crypto is still new (relatively speaking). There are few rules & regulations for the average person to enter crypto and invest their savings, unlike, the real-world where traders/investors need to be qualified/licensed and have oversight. Now crypto will eventually have this (it's inevitable), but it will stifle innovation and the decentralized fundamentals of the blockchain, set before us by Satoshi, so this is a very tricky question in that sense at this current time. There will eventually be regulation, but there will never be true regulation in the common sense we know of Wall-street and etc, especially with anonymous coins.


In regards to the markets, as i discussed previously (2 posts above), there's a lot of manipulation and consolidation of power/wealth among the "whales" or individuals with large amounts of capital. Along with that, 100s of coins get launched on a monthly basis, and there's only so much wealth to go around (liquidity) in the markets. So when a coin is launched, it's at maximum hype and potential, people in crypto always determine that "this is the next big thing" "this will overthrow XX coin, This coin will be listed in the top 100" essentially, expectations for the coin to perform outweigh what has been really created, what the true reality is (again due to education and knowledge). I'm very outspoken in this regard, and you can immediately determine that 90% of coins launching are shitcoins, coins that have no fundamental insight or purpose other than being vehicles of profit for the creators and big whales.

This in turn creates a climate, where coins get listed to an exchange, the market is un-tapped/fresh and unknown (no-one knows the ceiling or potential ((energy)) behind the coin who has invested in it and etc), so the expectation that the coin will rise because of hype and positive sentiment from investors/community members. Then, because the markets are governed by 1 major force, sentiment, any decline whatsoever, or dump by maniuplative forces, creates a wave of negative sentiment, fear, doubt and uncertainty... causing a panic among invested income, then eventually a collapse of the market. When a decline occurs, there are many ready to profit from it, but it can create a cataclysmic spiral for the market, and it may never recover.

Also note, that all markets are pegged to Bitcoin or Ethereum, and almost all valuations are predicated on their performance. So when we are in a bear/bull-market (because of Bitcoin mainly) markets may behave in a different fashion.

This cycle has been completed so many times, that it has been ingrained in the fabric of crypto's (right now 2018), essentially individuals now are more prone to dumping than before (years ago, because of significantly less liquidity) because of how commonplace this effect is, creating a feedback wave and expectation that the coin is eventually going to decrease and that they will eventually lose on the markets if they don't sell.


To a lesser degree, this is also because of market liquidity, volume, and the particular exchange listing. There are more qualities and some left out details, that get attributed to this, but, this a generic overview of what occurs.


Of course there are nuances and exceptions, but the majority of coins behave in this fashion.

 


 

[coin8coin8]

How do you think that Winklevoss twins' application for the Bitcoin ETF on September 30, 2018，will it be approved or not?

If this time fails, then do you think there is a possibility of success next year?

The SEC has always believed that there is currently insufficient evidence to show that Bitcoin derivatives have sufficient market size, and that bitcoin still has doubts about fraud and price manipulation. So what do you think should be done to make the Bitcoin ETF approved?

[tk808]

How do you think that Winklevoss twins' application for the Bitcoin ETF on September 30, 2018，will it be approved or not?

If this time fails, then do you think there is a possibility of success next year?

The SEC has always believed that there is currently insufficient evidence to show that Bitcoin derivatives have sufficient market size, and that bitcoin still has doubts about fraud and price manipulation. So what do you think should be done to make the Bitcoin ETF approved?

In regards to the first two questions, i could speculate on it, but that woulden't help anyone. It's all speculation currently, and there's more to Bitcoin ETF's that the public realizes or understands. One is, no one knows anything about the SEC views Bitcoin ETF's and all that.


There's nothing that can be done, that hasn't already occurred. It's all about how the outside world views Bitcoin and it's capabilities, and if the facts prevail. If they feel "fraud, price manipulation and market size" are factors that lead to a decline, then so be it. Inherently, the world has to come to accept Bitcoin and blockchain for what it is, the capabilities are and what's ultimately going to come of it. There's nothing that will be done to Bitcoin Core, or the mining process, or cryptocurrency in general that will change. The only thing that will change, is which """cryptocurrencies (but it's not at all a crypto btw)""" are allowed, such as Ripple's centralized XRP.

It's still pretty funny to me that the SEC claims "price manipulation" behind Bitcoin, AKA "no one can't control the supply, so it's manipulated." Where as the most legitimate argument they have is sufficient market size for a legitimate ETF, which could also say price manipulation. Regardless, they have to maintain volatility ranges and govern how markets operate. It's very curious to see Bitcoin become an ETF, because it actually can't be controlled by the SEC or anyone.  

Again, it's all speculation and only time will tell how long from now Bitcoin ETF's will come in to play, and how they will impact the markets in a very fundamental fashion, from creation of ICO's, legitimization, total market cap and etc. ETF is another gateway or hurdle that Bitcoin is getting tested with, and so far, Bitcoin has passed every test and hurdle in the past 8-9 years. It will happen, but, when is the question? Like you said Sep 30th, 1-2-5-10 years from now? Who knows.


All i can say with this, is there are big hands at play in the financial industry who want to see this occur, and big hands that will do everything in their power to disrupt and DE-legitmize Bitcoin, due to the threat to their business practices. It's not a matter of if at this point, it's a matter of when.

[ionman93]

how do you think now on market already many of erc-20 tech 's coin.it will effect crypto 's value?

[sinkfish]

Are blockchain the future of governance and large cooperation and organisation?

[tk808]

Are blockchain the future of governance and large cooperation and organisation?

Already answered this, see: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4930584.msg45592514#msg45592514

If you're looking for a specific answer, let me know.

[coin8coin8]

Thank you for your previous answer, I will continue to ask questions.   

Why are many blockchain projects now, and their ideas are very good, but it is difficult to practical use?
Let's take a look at the myriad of ANN threads, about using blockchain technology in the construction industry, about using blockchain technology in the logistics industry, and about using blockchain technology in the retail industry.
But the unfortunate truth is, is any project really successful now? This is also a point that I and my friends are confused.
When will the blockchain era really come?

[tk808]

Thank you for your previous answer, I will continue to ask questions.  

Why are many blockchain projects now, and their ideas are very good, but it is difficult to practical use?
Let's take a look at the myriad of ANN threads, about using blockchain technology in the construction industry, about using blockchain technology in the logistics industry, and about using blockchain technology in the retail industry.
But the unfortunate truth is, is any project really successful now? This is also a point that I and my friends are confused.
When will the blockchain era really come?

how do you think now on market already many of erc-20 tech 's coin.it will effect crypto 's value?

Note: There may be some unclear ideas, bad grammar, and bad sentence structures for this post, i don't really have the time to go through and edit this to perfection. I really hope this serves as a basic introduction, this is by no means fully-fledged out, i briefly covered a few topics here relating to ERC-20. Hope it helps you guys.




@coin8coin8 No problem, it's my pleasure.

In regards to ERC-20 tech coins, industry related coins and etc, i do not find any favorable at all, and personally, i immediately filter them (in my mind). This is due to a variety of reasons, and i understand many of my arguements here can be countered.

When looking at ERC-20 tokens, it's very obvious that many are trying to acquire a certain niche and exploit these areas that have not been incorporated in a real-world. I often think, that many of these types of industry-related tokens, health, construction, based on "diamonds or etc," transactions, rewards and the list goes on and on, are setting themselves up for acquisition by a real-world industry.

Lets face it, in order to compete in the real-world, there needs to be a clear innovation that has acquired a massive amount of users. If that idea or business has enough support, then acquisition by a large company, that pertains to that industry, would be likely to buy-out the entire idea/platform. It's all about cost and R&D. In the broader perspective though, no crypto has achieved any mass-adoption, or has (my guess) about even 10k concurrent real-users (who are not investors) using their platform. It's just not something that's being done at this current time, or has been accomplished.

For those reasons, all these ERC-20 token niches are bullshit. Along with that, the amount of capital to compete with real world industries such as: Steam games, health insurance companies and etc will require 10s of millions, if not 100s of millions of USD to actually be on the radar of these existing companies. If one of these companies saw blockchain a threat to their core business model, they will actively R&D it themselves, and launch/incorporate these ideas on their own terms, unless they are skeptical about blockchain, in which they will acquire some of these ideas many many years down the line (it won't be any token being used today btw, for reasons that 90% will die).

There's a lot more that goes into this, and that's how customers trust businesses with their personal information, quality of the business products (which is the biggest issue), customer-acquisition costs, feasibility of the idea, and a core business model for profits. The business that are successful today, that were funded through ICOs (thus given out erc20 tokens) pertain to a CRYPTO SPECIFIC industry only, such as: mining, pools, services and etc.

While, blockchain security is flawless, it's still the security in who you're dealing with, with an unproven concept, that is coming out of the middle of nowhere in various parts of the world. Coupled with that, is the idea of legality issues that arise, every industry is heavily regulated when it comes to dealing with customers and many of these businesses revolving around these token creations are neglecting any of this. Most coin teams neglect: how customers are acquired, neglecting the reality of blockchain which is not known by the avg person, adoption or even use on a daily basis.


Those are briefly some problems/issues, but for the length of this post going to avoid going into specific detail in those various of areas. There's ultimately A LOT to say, too much so that i can't give you a really good explanation, just a tease.


These tokens ultimately effectively acquire some market share, and increase the entire mcap/user-base around crypto, there's not denying that these tokens are helping crypto's adoption on a fundamental level. But, i'm still amazed on how insignificant their impact on crypto is, because Bitcoin is so dominate over all cryptos that it puts everything else to shame. There's a lot more i can go into about these tokens and their impact on the broader market, but just understand, the markets are saturated, and because of saturation, i suspect 90% of these ERC-20 tokens will die in the next 1-3 years. Just like how, 80-90% of POW/POS coins from 2014 are dead now, history repeats itself.


In short form, no, most of these coins are not successful, or will ever see success. If you ever research deeply into these types of tokens, you'll come out with viewing about 5-20 other ERC-20 coins who've attempted the same thing, for the same industry, with the same ideas. Thus, leading me back to the original point of this topic, ERC-20 coins are a failure, because they are getting utilized for greed and monetary profit.

Will investors make profits on these coins, yeah sometimes, more often than not, investors actually lose money on ICO's and they quit crypto forever, calling this entire industry a scam, a fraud and fake. That's because, people do not understand that crypto/blockchain is only 1 small part of industries they are investing in, they have no acquired knowledge or sufficient background in understand WHAT REALLY makes up the "gaming industry (dominated by steam, nintendo.. etc)" or what really makes up industries in healthcare logging... etc.

This is why, 80-90% of the top coins on CMC, that are erc-20, are concept-driven, technically advanced coins. Because almost every industry related crypto, is a failure. There are very few coins that are showing any success or ideas that have been prooven somewhat successful, and the tokens/coins that are successful, you and I will never know what it is until you hear in the news "XXX erc-20 token has made a partnership with Steam games." because of the mass flooding of shitcoins, scams, and money hungry teams.



When will the blockchain era truly become adopted? Most say that blockchain and crypto has been mass adopted, but they are incorrect on so many levels. Yes, there are big companies accepting crypto, there are companies "Looking into blockchain tech." but how many of these companies incorporated blockchain tech into a core part of their business? NONE, only a few banks are starting to experiment with transactions.

Blockchain tech is still many many years away from becoming part of our daily lives, thus, becoming adopted on a global scale. My words of advice, invest in the technology, not the business.

[coin8coin8]

Hi，friend, Thank you for answered me so many questions, I am here to say goodbye to you today, I have invested too much time in crypto, but the bear market has made my life difficult, and my friends around me finally have a chance to laugh at me, I used have been promoting Bitcoin to them all the time, but now they think it is a joke. I have to sell most of my coins to repay the bank's loan, even my company has closed down, I am sad, but I have no choice.
Maybe  I will come back when the market gets better, but who knows if the bull will return?
Have a good day！

[tk808]

Hi，friend, Thank you for answered me so many questions, I am here to say goodbye to you today, I have invested too much time in crypto, but the bear market has made my life difficult, and my friends around me finally have a chance to laugh at me, I used have been promoting Bitcoin to them all the time, but now they think it is a joke. I have to sell most of my coins to repay the bank's loan, even my company has closed down, I am sad, but I have no choice.
Maybe  I will come back when the market gets better, but who knows if the bull will return?
Have a good day！

Hey, no problem it was quite fun for me!

I'm very sorry to hear that, i truly hope everything goes well for you and at least you come out with understanding of what this field entails, so when the time is right again, and if you decide to return, you'll return without having to spend hours and hours trying to understand this environment.

Best of luck, and i hope everything works out well for you in the end.

If you ever want to have a brief chat in the future, feel free to pm me anytime

[Classica35]

I admire your wealth of knowledge, how you have been taken your time to answer every bit of question asked on this thread and you sincerity in answering some questions that appear tricky.
I have taken some to be my mentors on this forum, seeing and reading through your posts today, has made me not to have a choice, but to also have you as one of my top mentors in he crypto space.
As regards the longevity of cryptocurrency, some people are afraid it might end soon. Then, what s your opinion, do you think it is likely to last long than expected?
Can government regulations also kill it, perhaps they eventually have their ways?

[tk808]

I admire your wealth of knowledge, how you have been taken your time to answer every bit of question asked on this thread and you sincerity in answering some questions that appear tricky.
I have taken some to be my mentors on this forum, seeing and reading through your posts today, has made me not to have a choice, but to also have you as one of my top mentors in he crypto space.
As regards the longevity of cryptocurrency, some people are afraid it might end soon. Then, what s your opinion, do you think it is likely to last long than expected?
Can government regulations also kill it, perhaps they eventually have their ways?

Hey Classica,

Thank you for your very kind remarks, actually made my morning.


In a short answer, cryptocurrency will never cease to exist.

We have to break up the longevity of crypto (and blockchain) this up into 3 fundamental parts: Applications for technology, the crypto markets themselves, and can a crypto be actually killed by anything?


To start, it's very easy to have negative sentiments, in a negative market.

Contrary to what we've heard, and the explosion of crypto in 2017-early 2018, massive gains. One would immediately come to an initial conclusion, big gains, a lot of people made a lot of money! Not necessarily, i would argue that the majority of people who invested in 2017-2018 lost big, lost very big, and countless stories here on Bitcointalk and elsewhere can somewhat prove this claim. Of course some people made money, but a lot more lost. I would go on to loosely correlate and cite the 80-20% rule here, where 80% of anything is controlled or gained by 20% of individuals, and the remaining 80% of individuals control just 20% of something. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say, those big holders from 2014-2017, those 20% of individuals, most likely made out with 80% of all the wealth in that last bull-run.

Cryptocurrency by its very nature is decentralized. (In the most ideal condition) As long as there are 2 parties supporting a network (via pow, pos or any other algo to support consensus of blockchain), then that network is 100% safe (again discounting any other manipulative outside sources for a moment). So 2 people is all it takes 50-50 split of ownership of a network, then that blockchain would be consider alive, real and functioning. That's all it takes. It's not entirely reasonable to conclude that most cryptocurrencies, specifically the most well known coins, will ever cease to exist, ever. Bitcoin, Ethereum, BCash, EOS... etc, this networks will function as long as there are a handful of people willing to support the network, and by supporting the network, they are also securing it. Thus, if someone is willing to spend energy and time into securing something, then it must have value.

Some may argue that we are in a period of the trough of disillusionment, the cycle of all technology, and that crypto is dying, dead or etc. I would argue this is just the beginning, could anyone honestly stand here and say, in 1-5-10-50-100-1000 years from now blockchain was just a dead end then? Pretty ridiculous sentiment, especially if you understand human nature and technology itself. Again, it's easy to be negative where negativity is the dominate force, but to be optimistic and look beyond the next few days, weeks, months and years of your life, and understand what could happen in that time-frame requires dedication, along with a deep understanding of yourself. Are people in crypto to get rich quick, of course, but there are others that are here out of passion and again, understanding of what this field represents; they understand this is a maturing process, adoption and use don't happen overnight, it can take years and decades. Just like the Internet wasn't adopted overnight (created in 83', it took nearly 2-decades (about 15-20years).

As for regulations, now i'm a bit of proponent against and for regulations, why both? Because, if we take a look at what's being accomplished in the regulation space, we basically are witnessing (at least from the U.S, mainly the SEC - security exchange commission) a lack of understanding, and biased reactions towards crypto. There are those who are for blockchains, because they recognize a boom of capital income for that particular state, making it friendly enough for new startups. If we look across the world, no major government has outright banned the use of any crypto, simply because it'd be completely useless to do so, and that's not only because they have no control of the network, neither can they truly understand which of their citizens are holding or using crypto, it comes down to the simple argument of the advancement of technology. Now we are getting into the true meat here.

Blockchain and the whole of crypto represent a glimpse of a utopia that almost every liberally-minded person is essentially striving for. In essence (from my interpretation), technology (which is applications of mathematics and physics) is the gateway to a better world, a future world, a world made more efficient and interconnected. The stuff you hear late night on BBC's Click. If you come to a deep understanding on how fast new and upcoming tech is being utlized, you will shortly come to an understanding of what the potential for blockchain's incorporation into the real-world represents. And guess what, people did take notice of blockchain, hence the explosion of ICOs, Utlitiy tokens, Security tokens, etc. people are wanting to capture these parts of the future, incorporating their blockchains or coins into niche environments (health, gaming, etc list goes on). In almost every industry, blockchain or a cryptocurrency integration has major advantages, it could streamline processes, reduce costs, add transparency and the list goes on and on. This is why you see so many trying to capture these niches, this space, funding start-ups through ICOs, in hopes of building a successful business, getting rich, and potentially even being at the forefront of technology, revolutionizing industries!

That all sounds fantastic, and yes governments and people in government (the non-retarded ones) understand this to an extent. You can't simple kill a piece of technology, because guess what, those business that are creating new cryptos and ICOs are going to be moving elsewhere, and up-and-coming industry where millions...billions are being poured into, suddenly vanishes from your country. Not only that, it's more effective for opening a new stream of revenue through taxation, then it is to outright legalize something, if enough people are willing to use it, then there is nothing a government can do to stop it, and this couldn't be more truer for a crypto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States) Now many lawmakers and some individuals do not have the capacity to peer into the future, and nature an up and coming field, and this is where you get negative sentiments from, where you get individuals criticizing crypto and calling it useless and etc.

Why would crypto be called useless, or that it has no value? It's quite simple, because while all crypto's utilize blockchain, the currency, commodity or whatever definition you want to attach to Bitcoin and other alts, remains speculative, simple because it's not adopted (widely used for practical purposes). Now i understand whoever is reading this far, that there are countless arguments, situations, scenarios where this is absolutely false, especially with other cryptos. I also know that we are currently in this adoption phase, where businesses are trying to figure out what exactly they can do with blockchain and crypto, how it's applicable to their (or other businesses), and how they can draw a profit from. But, at the end of the day, some individuals take an alternative path and view crypto from a purely transaction standpoint, being a store-of-value, or a means to transact a transaction quickly, cheaply and anonymously. Hence all the discussions about the dark web, illegal, laundering and etc. Being negative about anything is quite easy, humans are quite good at pointing out faults, it's easy to label Bitcoin as speculative, or worthless and etc, but ask yourself deeply, why are they saying that? Do they truly understand the capabilities that Bitcoin represents and influences?

Einstein once said something like this "i stand on the shoulders of James Clark Maxwell." who is the father of electromagnetism, which is the very essence of what ALL technology is built off of today, it applications in EVERY place and is used everywhere (imo the most important discovery in the 19th century outside of theory of evolution). Maxwell never got the recognition during his time, simply because no one could comprehend a non-physical reality, one governed by a new force, a new theory of fields. Bitcoin's reputation as a crypto, will continue to influence many. That's why we are seeing advancements of Blockchain and crypto, Bitcoin laid the foundation and future devs will build on those core ideas. While it's not the shinning gem on the block, or has great functionalities like Ethereum, it still represents this idea, this sole vision of what can be done with what Bitcoin was built on for the future. Thus what Bitcoin has done, and what Satoshi created was not a means-to-an-end, but a new beginning.

Regulation will never kill crypto, nor would any lawmaker or government sensible enough would want to ban crypto. Will they try to regulate it, tax it, of course they will. Will people abide by these rules, of course. So to an extent, regulations will win in the end, but will only legitimize crypto/blockchain further for the masses. But, you can't regulate the world, and somewhere on this earth, there will be a place that will be idyllic for crypto's and ICOs to be created from, free from big-brothers hands, creating any crypto you can dream of, without any authority telling you otherwise. We are already seeing the flower beginning to bloom on these topics, and we can get much deeper into this conversation (for another day). Cryptocurrency and blockchain will be around till the end of time, or evolve accordingly to survive. Only a futuristic quantum computer or a completely revolutionary vision/redesign of blockchain completely may put the current understand of blockchain on its heels. But, there's essentially nothing you can really do (unless a total blackout occurs) to kill any crypto or blockchain. Even some ICOs that are being shutdown, guess what, those crypto's are not going anywhere, for example: Paragon and Credits, just because they can kill the business, doesn't mean they killed the crypto. Are those cryptos crippled, yeah they are, mostly because they served one niche purpose and those weren't fully realized. Will these crypto's become speculative investments, profit mechanisms, or see someone willing to build from their ideas or continue operations, you can count on it. But, those cryptos are still alive in to their very core.

Value is only derived from someone else wanting something (outside of essentials that life needs to survive), and as long as there's one person in this world that sees value in crypto, then crypto itself will never cease to exist.

[paddyfield]

Great process.

As you mentioned above for quantum computing, does this mean the end of the cryptocurrency?
But I think quantum computing can also be used for encryption, which can make the cryptocurrency really impossible to crack.

[tk808]

Great process.

As you mentioned above for quantum computing, does this mean the end of the cryptocurrency?
But I think quantum computing can also be used for encryption, which can make the cryptocurrency really impossible to crack.

Short answer, no.

It's perceived (from what i've known and read) that we are about anywhere from 20-100 years away from a usable, everyday, quantum computer. The essence of it, no one knows when this will occur, or if it can even be achieved in our lifetimes. This subject is pretty in-depth overall, and I'll briefly go over what exactly a quantum computer is and how crypto will ultimately benefit and (fail) due to this enormous milestone for humanity.

To begin with, a bit represents a 1 or a 0, the most fundamental way to interpret the very fabric of reality into machine (or digital language). Essentially, a 1 means on, and a 0 means off. Computers behave by interpreting data in this fashion, reading bits, or a string of 8 bits (a byte), in order to process information. 0 essentially means no information, or a gap, a 1 means some sort of information is present. Thus, stringing these values, will ultimately denote a character, or any piece of information desired.

A Qbit is a quantum entangled pair of particles. Entanglement is inherent in quantum mechanics, a phenomenon whereby 2 particles, no matter the distance, will react instantaneously inversely to the particle entangled with (spin, polarization..etc). A Bit is binary it can only occupy one state, a 1 or a 0, with a Qbit, it can occupy both a 1 and a 0, called superposition. As you can imagine, this has drastic implications on the amount of information that can be processed.

The problem is, the current quantum computers are very unreliable, unstable and require a temperature near absolute 0 to even function (superconductor). Coinciding with that, you need enough Qbits to compute anything reasonable (100-150 is the latest), therefore the power of a quantum computer right now, is virtually useless. To create a near-absolute 0 environment requires an enormous amount of energy, to remove energy from the system, it's impractical for all intensive purposes. The colder the temp, the less resistance, and you need virtually no resistance (superconductor) to handle a Qubit operation. (i encourage you to read further, I'm not expert on material sciences)


Leading into cryptography -

The implications of the amount of information that can be processed due to the Qbit will directly affect all forms of encryption as we know it. Bitcoin utilizes SHA-256 encryption, and to crack a Bitcoin key: "it takes on the order of 2^128 basic operations to get the Bitcoin private key associated with a Bitcoin public key." - Wiki. I should note, there can be 2^256 different variations of private keys, and it would take roughly 0.5-0.6 billion years to compute all the variations with a modern supercomputer. That's very roughly 1/28 or 2% the age of the observable universe. Not practical or feasible to even think about or attempt. But, a quantum computer theoretically crack SHA-256, obtain private keys, rendering Bitcoin's blockchain useless. I should note, that transacting Bitcoin and announcing your public key happens in seconds, so what is perceived if you have 1 address, it's still somewhat impractical to cracking your public key, to obtain the private-key, even with a quantum computer.

Now, there are a lot of cryptos that have mitigation against quantum computing already created. IOTA, NEO and Qtum, there are various of others. Each one of these blockchains handles quantum resistance differently from what i understand, IOTA with DLT, Neo with ECC and Qtum with QRL. Not going to go into the specifics.

Essentially, with our current understanding it's very feasible to create quantum resistant blockchains, and all cryptos already have some sort of resistance already built into them. As we move forward in the decades, cryptos will fork off into newer algos or will already have mechanisms in place to defend against these types of attacks. Bitcoin has essentially done this, first mined with CPU, GPU and now ASICs. The various of forks were to prevent a 51% attack, first from the threat of GPUs and then ASICs, ASICs representing the epitome of power for computing hashes p/s, today. The second is brute-forcing (as expressed above) is obtaining private keys from the public key. As you stated, quantum computing can be used not only as an attacking mechanism, but also be used to encrypt information itself. Thus, somewhat nullifying this entire discussion.

The problem is that everything is mostly theory (not quantum mechanics) in terms of prevention against quantum computing.  I don't and very few actually know the mathematics behind all this stuff. And because of that, this answer is going to remain somewhat incomplete, unless someone else wants to weigh in on this topic that's more well-versed in computer science and quantum mechanics.

I will ultimately say, the biggest issue will reside with a quantum computing machine from an unknown party. Governments are no doubt working on these things, and the biggest issue for cryptos is not if, but when a quantum attack will occur. The prevention against these machines will quickly follow. But, it will have a significant impact on the entire market, you will see (no matter what occurs) an enormous sell-off, because of the fear, uncertainty (negative sentiment) and threat they pose. I believe, once a quantum computer is stable enough to operate, the first target is cryptography and all forms of encryption held over the internet. I really do not believe public companies like Intel and etc. will be the first to build a practical, stable quantum computer; simply because there is too much at stake for a government not to be investing in this technology for cybersecurity purposes. You can see glimpses of what computing power is doing to nations, just look at how the U.S. is reacting and telling it's allies not to use China/Huawei's 5g network capabilities/infrastructure. What would a quantum computer mean for governments across the world? Power, whatever it means to have a nuclear capabilities, by multiply that by some large arbitrary large number for how much significance a quantum computer has. The world is not disconnecting from the net anytime soon, in fact we are in the beginning. The IOT is real, somewhere in the future (if humanity hasn't annihilated itself), i image our consciousness will be uploaded to achieve near*-immortality.  


If this topic interests you or anyone, i highly recommended just researching these field. There is so much information out there, and what was presented in the post above is really basic. Begin with the basics of Quantum Mechanics, then research further into the specifics of quantum-entanglement and superposition; Lastly, cryptography and encryption in general.