Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[iCEBREAKER]

im not sure what it means, and I don't have a nice chart, but I think this belongs in here!

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30829917

edit: I made a handy infographic, for simple folks like me.

The Swiss Franc is a proxy for gold.  Unpegging it from the Euro unleashes chaos.  Not quite a black swan, but still a perturbation in the currency wars.

[justusranvier]

I wish too, but maybe MP will get some support in the community, he already has a decent numbers of loyal followers. I don't think this issue should be underestimate.

The bottom line is that MP and his followers are not an economic majority in Bitcoin, and he doesn't have any good arguments to bring people over to his side - his influence is limited to his ability to extend his cult of personality.

It would be nice to see him using what influence he has for good, but oh well.

[sgbett]

im not sure what it means, and I don't have a nice chart, but I think this belongs in here!

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30829917

edit: I made a handy infographic, for simple folks like me.

The Swiss Franc is a proxy for gold.  Unpegging it from the Euro unleashes chaos.  Not quite a black swan, but still a perturbation in the currency wars.

Does that make me a stacker by proxy? I have the mighty sum of 35.30CHF! Who knows what it will be worth tomorrow

[sidhujag]

Wow I knew it was coming... the average joe's are not allowed to win and this proves the theory of rigged markets again and again. After seeing USDJPY take off because BOJ said 80 was the floor... SNB said 1.2 was the floor so every little joe with a forex account had long positions... ofcourse hedged against market manipulators which are interested in squeezing these longs and making money. Add them all up and there was alot of profit to make if the floor broke... and the longer it took the more profit there was. I bet alot of oversized bets and people averaging in as it went lower trying to break even but 1.2 -> 0.75 thats what 5000 pips? I dont think retail forex accounts even off low enough leverage to not have that margin your account even with the smallest lot trade. Ofcourse it was going to break... the market was against SNB... they needed to devalue like BOJ did and now JPY is on its way to becoming worthless instead of too strong.

This is another nail in the coffin for currencies from central banks. Might trigger a massive influx of capital to crypto..

Doc this is why my views of the market turn out right most of the time.. its simply doing the opposite, i've seen this movie too many times... in other words.. if you're long so are others and that means im short.

Plus another thing about this is that most of these moves have hidden agenda's...the guy in control of the policy "knows" about the huge payoff if he put in a massive short position right before calling out the peg has failed... in fact when he set the peg the guys wife had a huge long position and made hundreds of millions of $ in profit from naked shorts who lost their shirts! I'm sure him and his family/friends made money as well as any other big whale who was playing contrarian. Policies which change the value of a currency shouldn't be allowed to happen like this, should be based on a vote and consensus so EVERYONE KNOWS ITS COMING, and not just the select few ofcourse which won't even be investigated.

Just the fact that pegs are put in place and not part of a consensus is what brought me here... and makes me think that long term centrally backed and controlled currencies are prehistoric and a thing that our grandkids will read about in history books about how stupid people were back in the day.

[cypherdoc]

DRR double short Euro:

[cypherdoc]

ouch!

[cypherdoc]

my favorite, EUR/CHF:

[HeliKopterBen]

So the world's safe haven currency (CHF) just had a 30% move in minutes.  The volatility argument against bitcoin just flew out the window.

[smoothie]

So the world's safe haven currency (CHF) just had a 30% move in minutes.  The volatility argument against bitcoin just flew out the window.

As of today it did.

[Wekkel]

So the world's safe haven currency (CHF) just had a 30% move in minutes.  The volatility argument against bitcoin just flew out the window.

If the 'manipulator' stops, that's what you get.

[79b79aa8d5047da6d3XX]

Arguments are pointless, minion. So are laws. Shut up and conform.

[tvbcof]

True, but don't underestimate Gavin either despite punks like tvbcof criticizing him all the time. He has tremendous political power and many people including myself feel he's been the perfect guy to lead us to where we are now. No one's perfect but he's been great.

Plus, I'll take Sarotoubi anyday if that is what it takes to get us to the next level which it clearly might be: micro tx's.

Quoted for posterity.  Gems like this only come along so often, and are the kinds of things that a deeply self-concious guy like cypherdoc is prone to delete.  He assumes that everyone is as confused and mentally overloaded as he is won't notice such an action.

[rocks]

So the world's safe haven currency (CHF) just had a 30% move in minutes.  The volatility argument against bitcoin just flew out the window.

If the 'manipulator' stops, that's what you get.

The real problem for the SNB now is that in order to create the peg in the first place and hold the CNF at an artificially depressed value (compared to market conditions) the SNB had to purchase significant EUR holdings in order to fight market demand.

Now the SNB has to unwind these EUR holdings, but to do so will exacerbate the original condition they were trying to hold back, i.e. they now have to unwind and sell those EUR holdings which will cause further upward pressure on the CNF.

This is how all of what I'd call "artificial pegs" end. Not only do they fail, but after they fail all the manipulation now goes in the opposite direction. Same is true for other current currency manipulations (i.e. China).

The only method a peg can work is if there is a "fixed" quantity controlled on both sides of the peg and the market can trade back and forth across that freely. A good example was the US gold standard that lasted for a period of time. In it the US fixed an amount of gold per dollar, to do so it had to maintain the gold:dollar reserve ratio by only issuing dollars in relation to the gold it held. i.e. to release a new dollar required acquiring the same amount of gold.

Inevitably governments fail at this (such as FDR's massive default), but it is only because governments always end up releasing more dollars than they have reserves for because it is free and easy, but market reality always catches up. The other way pegs fail is when an entity does not control the supply on both sides.

A peg where both sides are fixed in quantity or only go up/down in fixed relation to each other can work.

[tvbcof]

to the SC proponents who insist that the 2wp will equalize fiat exchange prices across SC's thru arbitrage.

just look at the $16ish spread btwn Bitfinex and the Chinese exchanges.  and this is with open, relatively equally liquid exchanges that DON'T have a 2 day lock up.  just imagine how volatile and disparate an illiquid, insecure SC can get with manipulation.

Sidechains are pegged you fucking imbecile.  Ignoring minor and optional implementation details, there is and can be no 'spread'.

You simply have no coherent structural overview of...well...anything that I can see and very little ability to formulate or even learn one.  You managed to at least imagine that grok a couple of things and try to map them on to every new thing you see.  No wonder you lost 75% of your money last year...unless you are telling people to do one thing (dump everything and run to Bitcoin) and doing another which is possible.

Sidechains are not some 10,000th get-rich-quick platform for you to try to trade straight across for USD.  Use native Bitcoin for that.

[Adrian-x]

to the SC proponents who insist that the 2wp will equalize fiat exchange prices across SC's thru arbitrage.

just look at the $16ish spread btwn Bitfinex and the Chinese exchanges.  and this is with open, relatively equally liquid exchanges that DON'T have a 2 day lock up.  just imagine how volatile and disparate an illiquid, insecure SC can get with manipulation.

Sidechains are pegged you fucking imbecile.  Ignoring minor and optional implementation details, there is and can be no 'spread'.

You simply have no coherent structural overview of...well...anything that I can see and very little ability to formulate or even learn one.  You managed to at least imagine that grok a couple of things and try to map them on to every new thing you see.  No wonder you lost 75% of your money last year...unless you are telling people to do one thing (dump everything and run to Bitcoin) and doing another which is possible.

Sidechains are not some 10,000th get-rich-quick platform for you to try to trade straight across for USD.  Use native Bitcoin for that.

You missing the point the Bitcoin on those two exchanges are all backed by the one blockchain. The asset is Bitcoin and the spread is significant. Bitcoin is liquid in that you don't have to wait days before you can arb. Just wait untill the market gets panicky and that 2 day confirm is elongated by hostile miners.

[sgbett]

So the world's safe haven currency (CHF) just had a 30% move in minutes.  The volatility argument against bitcoin just flew out the window.

This is a minor thing, but I think CHF is the one that kept its price. It was all the others that lost 30% to it

(Also thanks for the charts cypher, the pictures say it far better)

[lebing]

Cypher (or someone who feels like they can properly explain it): can you please ELI5 why sidechains will break the incentive mechanism? I haven't been able to follow this thread as well as I used to.

[sgbett]

Cypher (or someone who feels like they can properly explain it): can you please ELI5 why sidechains will break the incentive mechanism? I haven't been able to follow this thread as well as I used to.

I think (cypher can correct me) its because taking transactions off (main)chain reduces fee-based income for miners. When the block reward dwindles after several halving that is their only incentive to mine. If they have no incentive, then they will not mine, the network will become more vulnerable.

[lebing]

Cypher (or someone who feels like they can properly explain it): can you please ELI5 why sidechains will break the incentive mechanism? I haven't been able to follow this thread as well as I used to.

I think (cypher can correct me) its because taking transactions off (main)chain reduces fee-based income for miners. When the block reward dwindles after several halving that is their only incentive to mine. If they have no incentive, then they will not mine, the network will become more vulnerable.

eh ok, there must be some way to count off chain transactions and then credit the miners appropriately. I'm not saying this would be a trivial change, but this scenario is probably 10 years away minimum and I find it fairly difficult to believe that there is no way to get around this between now and then.

[solex]

Cypher (or someone who feels like they can properly explain it): can you please ELI5 why sidechains will break the incentive mechanism? I haven't been able to follow this thread as well as I used to.

I think (cypher can correct me) its because taking transactions off (main)chain reduces fee-based income for miners. When the block reward dwindles after several halving that is their only incentive to mine. If they have no incentive, then they will not mine, the network will become more vulnerable.

eh ok, there must be some way to count off chain transactions and then credit the miners appropriately. I'm not saying this would be a trivial change, but this scenario is probably 10 years away minimum and I find it fairly difficult to believe that there is no way to get around this between now and then.

How does it work with merge-mining? If a main-chain has 90 petahash, then 2 sidechains are started, both merge-mined with the MC, do they all get 90PH security or 30PH each?