[XMR] Monero Speculation

[Nxtblg]

If y'all don't mind me pulling a quasi-hijack from the current subject, allow me to present an item well worth discussing. I actually was torn between posting it here and posting it in a new "General Discussion" thread, because the emerging use case might well be too big for Monero to handle atm. Even though Monero's tech fits this use case hand-in-glove, only Bitcoin has the ready-to-go whale-sized ecosystem and financial infrastructure to exploit this (as of now potential) use case.

First, the news item that got me thinking along the above lines:

Trump proposes funding wall by cutting off remittances

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Donald Trump would force Mexico to pay for a border wall by threatening to cut off billions of dollars in remittances sent by immigrants living in the U.S., according to a memo released by his campaign Tuesday.

The memo outlines how Trump would try to compel Mexico to pay for a 1,000-mile wall if he becomes president.

In his proposal, Trump threatened to change a rule under the USA Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism law, to cut off funds sent to Mexico through money transfers known as remittances. Trump said he would withdraw the threat if Mexico makes "a one-time payment of $5-10 billion" to finance the wall."

The U.S. is home to about 12 million Mexicans, some living here illegally, according to various research organizations that monitor trends in immigration. They and other migrants use money transfer agents or banks to send money home, often with the objective of supporting their families.

The Mexican central bank reported that money sent home by Mexicans overseas hit nearly $24.8 billion last year, overtaking oil revenues for the first time as a source of foreign income. Cutting off those transfers would therefore represent a significant blow to the Mexican economy. Trump's campaign says that money "provides substantial leverage for the United States to obtain from Mexico the funds necessary to pay for a border wall."

"We have the moral high ground here, and all the leverage," the memo reads. "It is time we use it in order to Make America Great Again."

Now, it could be argued that the above item is 100% nothingburger because Trump won't win the Presidency. That's a point, but consider these two counterpoints:

1) The fear engendered by the fact that someone like Donald Trump has come close to the Presidency;
2) The related, and more rational, fear that the Establishment politicians will act to cut off or heavily tax those to-Mexico remittances anyway. If Donald Trump winds up losing, all they have to do is wait a long-enough interval to credibly claim that they're not knuckling under to The Donald and then claim that they've "answered the just demands of the [Trump supporters]".

What's intriguing about this use-case is that it has the potential to be framed as moral to a much wider group of people than hardcore libertarians. Imagine the typical Dem who hears about a Monero-powered para-remittance channel for those immigrants, justified as a way to "fight xenophobia!" He or she would actually be torn. On the one hand, it would clearly be a dark-market operation whose reason for being is to evade a new tax. But on the other hand, it would be explicitly set up to evade a highly regressive tax placed on the backs of mostly poor immigrants. The fact that it'd be a dark money pathway explicitly set up to help a group of disadvantaged and recently-maligned group of people would elicit a lot of squirmy sympathy or even hand-wringy support amongst Dems who can't stand the Trump movement. As a "moral" dark market, it's far more bankable than is Agora or the now-defunct Silk Road.

And, to shift to admittedly callous dollar-sand-cents figuring, a Big Fat Tax on fiat remittances to Mexico would open up a much larger "liquidity cushion" than Western Union's fees do. Even if the net proceeds from a Monero remittance were to knock off 50% in fiat terms, that 50% would match a 10% fee with a 40% tax piled on top of it.

But I think the best way to sell it, to undocumented-immigrant communities who already have lots of good reasons to be stuck-in-the-familiar-rut cautious, is emotional. Present a Monero para-remittance path as a way to whack the Donald Trump piñata with your money.

To be frank, I know next to nothing about those communities and I have no connections to any of them; I know no Spanish. So in this sense, I'm talking through my hat. But feel free to comment on this idea.

That's quite a use case!

I just wonder if the average remitter and remittee in this situation would be comfortable with:

USD to BTC
BTC to XMR
XMR wallet to XMR wallet
XMR to BTC
BTC to MXN

Sounds more like a service one could sell, then use the technology inside the wrapper, so to speak, as the special sauce.

So I set up a lemonade stand, or possibly even a website, where people send USD.  I offer to deliver MXN (or USD) to their remittee in Mexico.  Then I do all the proper crypto converting and charge way less than the competition.

Thanks a lot for the nice words, but it looks like the suggestion dribbled off. To be frank, it would be a large undertaking to set up the infrastructure to make it go.

[1714855958]

1714855958

[americanpegasus]

100k sell wall VS 60k buy one.

If Im not mistaken there´s a 30k short that has to cover at any moment.


Edit: Sell wall GONE
Edit2: Sell wall visible again. Flashing in and out

The whale is now in recovery mode from his rude gambit, setting up smaller walls and munching up on smaller sells in order to slowly ease out of his bet.  We can either let him gracefully withdraw (like is happening) or someone can wreck his shit and start attacking his miniwalls, putting him deeper into the hole.    I say let him back off politely, but hey - discounted Monero is discounted Monero, and its sitting right there.  Be careful out there, whale-friend.

[vuduchyld]

Thanks a lot for the nice words, but it looks like the suggestion dribbled off. To be frank, it would be a large undertaking to set up the infrastructure to make it go.

Totally agree.  It would be a pain to manage.  Maybe one could simply scale up the distribution of educational material teaching people REALLY EXACTLY how to do it.

[vuduchyld]

100k sell wall VS 60k buy one.

If Im not mistaken there´s a 30k short that has to cover at any moment.


Edit: Sell wall GONE
Edit2: Sell wall visible again. Flashing in and out

The whale is now in recovery mode from his rude gambit, setting up smaller walls and munching up on smaller sells in order to slowly ease out of his bet.  We can either let him gracefully withdraw (like is happening) or someone can wreck his shit and start attacking his miniwalls, putting him deeper into the hole.    I say let him back off politely, but hey - discounted Monero is discounted Monero, and its sitting right there.  Be careful out there, whale-friend.

34 BTC at .0036. 

Man, I KNOW that person does NOT really want to sell there.  I will laugh if that gets munched.

[bobabouey2]

If y'all don't mind me pulling a quasi-hijack from the current subject, allow me to present an item well worth discussing. I actually was torn between posting it here and posting it in a new "General Discussion" thread, because the emerging use case might well be too big for Monero to handle atm. Even though Monero's tech fits this use case hand-in-glove, only Bitcoin has the ready-to-go whale-sized ecosystem and financial infrastructure to exploit this (as of now potential) use case.

First, the news item that got me thinking along the above lines:

Trump proposes funding wall by cutting off remittances

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Donald Trump would force Mexico to pay for a border wall by threatening to cut off billions of dollars in remittances sent by immigrants living in the U.S., according to a memo released by his campaign Tuesday.

The memo outlines how Trump would try to compel Mexico to pay for a 1,000-mile wall if he becomes president.

In his proposal, Trump threatened to change a rule under the USA Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism law, to cut off funds sent to Mexico through money transfers known as remittances. Trump said he would withdraw the threat if Mexico makes "a one-time payment of $5-10 billion" to finance the wall."

The U.S. is home to about 12 million Mexicans, some living here illegally, according to various research organizations that monitor trends in immigration. They and other migrants use money transfer agents or banks to send money home, often with the objective of supporting their families.

The Mexican central bank reported that money sent home by Mexicans overseas hit nearly $24.8 billion last year, overtaking oil revenues for the first time as a source of foreign income. Cutting off those transfers would therefore represent a significant blow to the Mexican economy. Trump's campaign says that money "provides substantial leverage for the United States to obtain from Mexico the funds necessary to pay for a border wall."

"We have the moral high ground here, and all the leverage," the memo reads. "It is time we use it in order to Make America Great Again."

Now, it could be argued that the above item is 100% nothingburger because Trump won't win the Presidency. That's a point, but consider these two counterpoints:

1) The fear engendered by the fact that someone like Donald Trump has come close to the Presidency;
2) The related, and more rational, fear that the Establishment politicians will act to cut off or heavily tax those to-Mexico remittances anyway. If Donald Trump winds up losing, all they have to do is wait a long-enough interval to credibly claim that they're not knuckling under to The Donald and then claim that they've "answered the just demands of the [Trump supporters]".

What's intriguing about this use-case is that it has the potential to be framed as moral to a much wider group of people than hardcore libertarians. Imagine the typical Dem who hears about a Monero-powered para-remittance channel for those immigrants, justified as a way to "fight xenophobia!" He or she would actually be torn. On the one hand, it would clearly be a dark-market operation whose reason for being is to evade a new tax. But on the other hand, it would be explicitly set up to evade a highly regressive tax placed on the backs of mostly poor immigrants. The fact that it'd be a dark money pathway explicitly set up to help a group of disadvantaged and recently-maligned group of people would elicit a lot of squirmy sympathy or even hand-wringy support amongst Dems who can't stand the Trump movement. As a "moral" dark market, it's far more bankable than is Agora or the now-defunct Silk Road.

And, to shift to admittedly callous dollar-sand-cents figuring, a Big Fat Tax on fiat remittances to Mexico would open up a much larger "liquidity cushion" than Western Union's fees do. Even if the net proceeds from a Monero remittance were to knock off 50% in fiat terms, that 50% would match a 10% fee with a 40% tax piled on top of it.

But I think the best way to sell it, to undocumented-immigrant communities who already have lots of good reasons to be stuck-in-the-familiar-rut cautious, is emotional. Present a Monero para-remittance path as a way to whack the Donald Trump piñata with your money.

To be frank, I know next to nothing about those communities and I have no connections to any of them; I know no Spanish. So in this sense, I'm talking through my hat. But feel free to comment on this idea.

That's quite a use case!

I just wonder if the average remitter and remittee in this situation would be comfortable with:

USD to BTC
BTC to XMR
XMR wallet to XMR wallet
XMR to BTC
BTC to MXN

Sounds more like a service one could sell, then use the technology inside the wrapper, so to speak, as the special sauce.

So I set up a lemonade stand, or possibly even a website, where people send USD.  I offer to deliver MXN (or USD) to their remittee in Mexico.  Then I do all the proper crypto converting and charge way less than the competition.

Thanks a lot for the nice words, but it looks like the suggestion dribbled off. To be frank, it would be a large undertaking to set up the infrastructure to make it go.

It is a complicated business.  You have to generate trust with your clientele in the US and abroad.  They typically have an agent network owned / managed by the same ethnicity of people sending the money in the US, but then need to have a variety of service centers in the destination area.  You need to manage currency exchange risk  (you are giving a spot exchange rate at time of transmission, but then need to manage moving the US dollars in the US to pesos in Mexico.) You have all the AML / KYC issues.  Many providers also provide additional services, such as the ability to have the transferred money go directly to a debit card usable at chain stores.

I think that is why the bitcoin remittance market has not been that successful.  The ones who try and go mainstream figure out their cost advantage is not as great as they hoped.  The ones who try to fly under the radar probably face the challenge that the offering is too complex for the customers to understand, and are not trusted as much as the more expensive solutions.

Now, if something like Trump's proposal were passed, it would most likely force a larger black market, where cryptos could find a nice role.

[bobabouey2]

I came across this guy stating that Polo does not have a Money Transmission License:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/4cmzit/is_kraken_lending_out_customer_funds/

Doing a quick search I found another one which looks at the issue closer and for more exchanges:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3krum0/the_ticking_time_bomb_of_crypto_exchanges_and/

FUD? If not, what could be the possible consequences?

In the case of Poloniex it is pure FUD since they are registered as an MSB with registration number: 31000055869515.  Go to https://www.fincen.gov/financial_institutions/msb/msbstateselector.html and search for the registration number or for Poloniex under legal name.

Although according to a comment in reply to the same point made on the first reddit link:

Being registered as a MSB does not mean they have the money transmission licenses.
Those licenses are extremely expensive. Registering as an MSB is trivial.

The second reddit link makes this more clear.  The issue is not about the federal Fincen MSB registration, which appears to be fairly easy, but with all the state money transmitter licenses.  Unlike coinbase, kraken or gemini, it does not appear that poloniex has made any effort to comply with state laws.  Perhaps they are relying on the fact there has been no state enforcement against crypto only companies, but that does not mean they don't face the risk that states crack down.

Note too that Poloniex did withdrawal from servicing customers in NY due to the bitlicense, which obviously made it impossible for them to argue they didn't need to be registered in NY.

I do think companies like poloniex are at risk of this sort of crackdown.  It is what prompted me to move all my XMR out of them last year when the rumors of a crackdown started.

[smooth]

I do think companies like poloniex are at risk of this sort of crackdown.  It is what prompted me to move all my XMR out of them last year when the rumors of a crackdown started.

Blessing in disguise. Another good reason (if one is needed) to get your coins off the exchange and store them securely in your own wallet.

[ArticMine]

I came across this guy stating that Polo does not have a Money Transmission License:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/4cmzit/is_kraken_lending_out_customer_funds/

Doing a quick search I found another one which looks at the issue closer and for more exchanges:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3krum0/the_ticking_time_bomb_of_crypto_exchanges_and/

FUD? If not, what could be the possible consequences?

In the case of Poloniex it is pure FUD since they are registered as an MSB with registration number: 31000055869515.  Go to https://www.fincen.gov/financial_institutions/msb/msbstateselector.html and search for the registration number or for Poloniex under legal name.

Although according to a comment in reply to the same point made on the first reddit link:

Being registered as a MSB does not mean they have the money transmission licenses.
Those licenses are extremely expensive. Registering as an MSB is trivial.

The second reddit link makes this more clear.  The issue is not about the federal Fincen MSB registration, which appears to be fairly easy, but with all the state money transmitter licenses.  Unlike coinbase, kraken or gemini, it does not appear that poloniex has made any effort to comply with state laws.  Perhaps they are relying on the fact there has been no state enforcement against crypto only companies, but that does not mean they don't face the risk that states crack down.

Note too that Poloniex did withdrawal from servicing customers in NY due to the bitlicense, which obviously made it impossible for them to argue they didn't need to be registered in NY.

I do think companies like poloniex are at risk of this sort of crackdown.  It is what prompted me to move all my XMR out of them last year when the rumors of a crackdown started.

Yes state level compliance in the US is the issue here, which is why I edited my post. One must also keep in mind here the issue of compliance in every international jurisdiction where they do business.

Edit: Here is the 50 state survey on Money Transmission Licensing http://abnk.assembly.ca.gov/sites/abnk.assembly.ca.gov/files/50%20State%20Survey%20-%20MTL%20Licensing%20Requirements%2872986803_4%29.pdf Montana is one of two states that does not have any requirements. So Poloniex is compliant at the state and federal level. Where it gets interesting is their out of state clients.

[Dotto]

Touching resistance line. I would say 3 minor shorts have closed, but the big one of 30k stills open. If he covers now price would go to .003827. Don´t sell cheaper than that

[Monerobuyer0]

New price action is making it look a lot less like the chart from last years high.  Very nice.

[bitjedi]

New price action is making it look a lot less like the chart from last years high.  Very nice.

Margin trading makes everything completely different.  Also, it's funny because everyone is speculating on who's doing what and we have no clarity into that.  How many ppl actually short XMR?  Who knows, only ppl lending lots of coins will have visibility into that demand.  Also, it's possible that people are going long on margin too and shorting BTC; tough move right now given the expected volatility in BTC coming up soon.  If margin positions are transparent like on other exchanges that allow margin leverage, then it would be easier to see what's going on.  I would bet, the selling pressure is due to shorters trying to margin call long margin positions, coupled with the rise in BTC price recently which gives that trade extra uumphf.  It doesn't seem that ppl in this community like to actually sell their XMR even despite the recent price rises.  I wish I had enough coins to buy that 400BTC wall we saw last night.  Super hard to accumulate that much without significantly moving the market.

[americanpegasus]

The best part about buying a wall that big in one giant bite is watching the power vacuum that develops in the minutes following. 
 
If you are sufficiently intimately acquainted with the stack you can almost feel the mathematical cries of pain from a whale who just lost their stash to a new challenger.

[TrueCryptonaire]

Monero price is determined by the emotions of us, the community. It depends on how we feel about it.
Previously it depended more heavily on emission.
The most of the coins pre-tai emission is held by the community. And if we think we want to rise the price we will not sell coins cheap. If we think it is time to drop the price we unload our bags.. Simple as that.

Despite XMR might rise quite fast to quite high it doesn't make XMR a get rich quick scheme IMO. I have been waiting for getting rich with XMR soon 2 years and I think it is not getting rich quick.   You know, the past bad performance will not guarantee the future bad performance.   By bad I am refering to the fact that XMR cost the same in bitcoins on summer 2014 than today (more or less).

[wpalczynski]

Emission was a killer for the price in the past but it did facilitate a broader distribution which is fundamental for success as a currency.

TC:  I see you changed your sig, does that mean now that you are a perma bull?

[tbm]

This cup and handle pattern would push this a WAY up.


https://www.tradingview.com/chart/XMRBTC/CLtctXyv-Cup-and-Handle-in-XMR/


It looks very strong. 0.07 may be a bit optimistic but it looks like ATH.

What do you think?

[spatula]

This cup and handle pattern would push this a WAY up.


https://www.tradingview.com/chart/XMRBTC/CLtctXyv-Cup-and-Handle-in-XMR/


It looks very strong. 0.07 may be a bit optimistic but it looks like ATH.

What do you think?

Perhaps an upside down turtle? BUY BUY BUY

[Monerobuyer0]

This cup and handle pattern would push this a WAY up.


https://www.tradingview.com/chart/XMRBTC/CLtctXyv-Cup-and-Handle-in-XMR/


It looks very strong. 0.07 may be a bit optimistic but it looks like ATH.

What do you think?

IF we get above 430k, then yes, it goes crazy.

[Dotto]

This cup and handle pattern would push this a WAY up.


https://www.tradingview.com/chart/XMRBTC/CLtctXyv-Cup-and-Handle-in-XMR/


It looks very strong. 0.07 may be a bit optimistic but it looks like ATH.

What do you think?

IF we get above 430k, then yes, it goes crazy.

I would say it´s the classic upside down turtle 100% confirmed.

Just kidding, I dont see the cup, but looking at the chart with the zoom out and listening to my guts it could be that we are just in the 50% of the bull trend. To me 60-70ksat makes a lot of sense as the top of this wave and was the price I was thinking to myself before put a good chunk of my stash to sell (to buy back lower, as you think).

So yes, I would say it makes a lot of sense. I would be selling some before of this for sure, but I would call the top around this numbers.

[needmoney90]

2016-04-06 21:45:01   183182.15180800   0.00000000   0.4243% / 0%
2016-04-06 21:44:01   183527.96975400   0.00000000   0.4317% / 0%
2016-04-06 21:43:01   198855.86389800   0.00000000   0.4336% / 0%
2016-04-06 21:42:02   199549.66811200   0.00000000   0.3986% / 0%

15k got removed from lending at suspiciously the same time we had a 15k dump. Must just be coincidence, right?

[lolikop]

2016-04-06 21:45:01   183182.15180800   0.00000000   0.4243% / 0%
2016-04-06 21:44:01   183527.96975400   0.00000000   0.4317% / 0%
2016-04-06 21:43:01   198855.86389800   0.00000000   0.4336% / 0%
2016-04-06 21:42:02   199549.66811200   0.00000000   0.3986% / 0%

15k got removed from lending at suspiciously the same time we had a 15k dump. Must just be coincidence, right?

Anyone dumping XMR now are manipulators