Merged Bitcoin - Part 3

[Chanakya]

Yes interesting, The great Greeks like Plato and Aristotle would be followed by villagers "foraging" for scraps of wisdom. Imagine being challenged to prove what they just proved.

I hasten to add you are the most open minded poster since Marplots.

Like I said, your call entirely. I only elaborated on that part because you'd yourself said you'd chart out your data points. If you don't wish to, that's your business.

You know, in these forums it's common practice to say to people "Your claim, you prove it." That position strikes me as somewhat less black and white than (some) people assume. I think the burden of proof vests not so much with the person making a claim as with the claim itself: that is, it is reasonable to accept only such claims as are evidenced; but when it comes to actual people, I guess the matter is less clear. If, for instance, someone makes a claim, but is content to have others reject that claim, then I don't see that they, at a personal level, carry any burden of proof. At some level, then, that burden probably rests with the person who cares enough about some claim or question, irrespective of whether he's the one who's made that claim himself.

 

[Chanakya]

It seems to me that these "truly exceptional fund managers" all seem to eventually have feet of clay and their performance eventually reverts to the mean. The most recent that springs to mind is the "genius" UK fund manager whose run of luck ran out a couple of months ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50052945

Warren Buffet may be the one exception, but his stock (both literal and metaphorical) is so high that he may actively influence the market with his actions.

An exception could be if a fund manager had access to information so his transactions could anticipate news being released to the public. In most markets, this kind of "insider trading" would however be illegal.

Both fair points.

Some of the hedge fund managers' reputation owes to some degree of smoke and mirrors; and some to some form of insider info, which is increasingly difficult to come by. That said, sound investments can be consistently made only by good fund managers -- irrespective of whether that "manager" manages a large fund or simply his own portfolio. There's no alternative to old-fashioned roll-up-your-sleeves fundamentals, is something I strongly believe.

Thing is, your (perfectly valid) argument is often used to make a case for index investinging, which POV I find not just spurious but actually alarming at a large-picture level, because if index investing becomes mainstream -- and it has, kind of, at this time -- then basically the market's chasing its own tail, and 'value', becomes a largely second-hand and therefore spurious idea. The whole efficient fund allocation thing then goes for a toss.

I'm sorry, this is getting kind of off-topic. My point, as far as that, was this: You'd argued that TA, if embraced en masse, upsets the underlying patterns. While true, that's equally true of index investing. (As well as price opportunities thrown up by old-fashioned fundamental analysis, on account of the market efficiency argument that you yourself imply.) I guess this particular argument applies to all arbitrage/investment opportunities, and so isn't particularly/especially applicable to TA per se.

But of course, index investing does work, and makes economic sense as well, at least for niche numbers; while TA -- in my opinion, and clearly in yours as well -- simply doesn't work at all, not even for investments that are too small to affect market trends, other than in the clock-showing-the-right-hour-twice-a-day sense. (Unless someone, Samson perhaps, can show us otherwise? But then it seems he's scorning the idea of having to prove his "scraps of wisdom". Which is fair enough I guess, it's his call after all, but then it means we have no reason to rethink our skepticism as far as TA.)

 

[Samson]

Both fair points.

Some of the hedge fund managers' reputation owes to some degree of smoke and mirrors; and some to some form of insider info, which is increasingly difficult to come by. That said, sound investments can be consistently made only by good fund managers -- irrespective of whether that "manager" manages a large fund or simply his own portfolio. There's no alternative to old-fashioned roll-up-your-sleeves fundamentals, is something I strongly believe.

Thing is, your (perfectly valid) argument is often used to make a case for index investinging, which POV I find not just spurious but actually alarming at a large-picture level, because if index investing becomes mainstream -- and it has, kind of, at this time -- then basically the market's chasing its own tail, and 'value', becomes a largely second-hand and therefore spurious idea. The whole efficient fund allocation thing then goes for a toss.

I'm sorry, this is getting kind of off-topic. My point, as far as that, was this: You'd argued that TA, if embraced en masse, upsets the underlying patterns. While true, that's equally true of index investing. (As well as price opportunities thrown up by old-fashioned fundamental analysis, on account of the market efficiency argument that you yourself imply.) I guess this particular argument applies to all arbitrage/investment opportunities, and so isn't particularly/especially applicable to TA per se.

But of course, index investing does work, and makes economic sense as well, at least for niche numbers; while TA -- in my opinion, and clearly in yours as well -- simply doesn't work at all, not even for investments that are too small to affect market trends, other than in the clock-showing-the-right-hour-twice-a-day sense. (Unless someone, Samson perhaps, can show us otherwise? But then it seems he's scorning the idea of having to prove his "scraps of wisdom". Which is fair enough I guess, it's his call after all, but then it means we have no reason to rethink our skepticism as far as TA.)

The problem with posters on TA is they have serially ignored what I claimed would happen, and the follow up.
I am familiar with this cognitive dissonance in the true crime arena. People ignore facts and will not change their minds. They will even hold incompatible beliefs, God and the big bang. Paul Davies is an example. But above all they rest their case on the thought experiment of if its too good to be true it isn't true.
I said I would collate my predictions, so I will, but as you point out, anyone could if they were truly interested.

 

[Samson]

ftfy

Ladder against the wrong wall there, no one relies on TA to predict everything, that is never the aim. Nor is it the aim to predict the extent of a move, direction is everything.

 

[Samson]

Bitcoin is staging a good volume rally, this is very festive.
I expect it to fail, but if ever I was to buy it would be now. Not an algo trade though.
Maybe 25,000, 250,000 is on its way. I hope not, it is a phony, environmentally destructive greed fueled game.

 

[Dr.Sid]

Maybe X is on its way, where X = anything.

 

[Mycroft]

Bitcoin is staging a good volume rally, this is very festive.
I expect it to fail, but if ever I was to buy it would be now. Not an algo trade though.
Maybe 25,000, 250,000 is on its way. I hope not, it is a phony, environmentally destructive greed fueled game.

The problem with your predictions is I can't tell what you're predicting. I wonder if you're not just making fun and deliberately making nonsensical predictions.

 

[Samson]

The problem with your predictions is I can't tell what you're predicting. I wonder if you're not just making fun and deliberately making nonsensical predictions.

I tend to read up on bitcoin and cryptos, because they are interesting and the future is uncharted. It is easy to find excellent arguments for bitcoin 1k and bitkcoin 250k, bot convincing in isolation. It would be hard to find an abstract argument to predict the big bang or origin of life because the preconditions are a profound mystery. The preconditions for bitcoin are analagous, and what will transpire is a mystery indeed.

 

[Orphia Nay]

@jack on Twitter posted this link yesterday (CEO of Twitter endorsing bitcoin):

https://www.500headlinesaboutbitcoin.com/

 

[Orphia Nay]

The problem with your predictions is I can't tell what you're predicting. I wonder if you're not just making fun and deliberately making nonsensical predictions.

It seems a bit odd that the skeptics' criticisms in here are not about any qualities about bitcoin per se, but about Sampson not being psychic enough for their liking.

(I do not own any bitcoin. I thought I'd check out this thread for knowledge. I'll look elsewhere.)

 

[Orphia Nay]

Digital currencies and blockchain are all involved in learning how to create a safe secure, connected biosphere.

Unfortunately, that bit is not true (at least currently).

It is a competitive dog eat dog race to see who gets the next block of coins first and the winner is the person who chews up the most electricity.

Renewable energy?

The printing of cash, the volatile, inflationary "growth" model, the success of the "1%" based on overproduction, over-consumption, exploitation of workers, and depletion of renewable resources aren't anything to start crowdfunding for your startup these days.


Random factiod:

A bitcoin millionaire, Pine, donated US$5 million to GiveDirectly, which is giving money for free to villagers in Africa to do Universal Basic Income feasibility studies.

 

[psionl0]

Renewable energy?

The printing of cash, the volatile, inflationary "growth" model, the success of the "1%" based on overproduction, over-consumption, exploitation of workers, and depletion of renewable resources aren't anything to start crowdfunding for your startup these days.

I think you are missing the point. Unbelievable amounts of energy are being used by computers globally to mine bitcoins. And what are these computers doing? Basically just useless calculations (essentially guessing numbers).

Suggesting that this pure energy burning is doing something useful is the perfect illustration of the broken window fallacy.

BITCOIN has been alarming people for years because of the amount of electricity needed to mint new virtual coinage. Alex de Vries, a bitcoin specialist at PwC, estimates that the current global power consumption for the servers that run bitcoin’s software is a minimum of 2.55 gigawatts (GW), which amounts to energy consumption of 22 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year—almost the same as Ireland. Google, by comparison, used 5.7 TWh worldwide in 2015. What’s more, bitcoin “miners” consume about five times more power than they did last year, and orders of magnitude more than just a few years ago—and there are no signs of a slowdown.

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/07/09/why-bitcoin-uses-so-much-energy

 

[psionl0]

It seems a bit odd that the skeptics' criticisms in here are not about any qualities about bitcoin per se, but about Sampson not being psychic enough for their liking.

The qualities of bitcoin have been discussed at length for a long time and a lot of useful information can be found (along with a lot of useless information) in this forum. Don't forget that we are up to the third bitcoin thread now.

The problem is that in recent years, this thread has been dominated by Samson's "TA" predictions. Due to his lack of success, he has had to obfuscate his more recent posts so that nothing he posts can be falsified.

It is little wonder that as the dominant poster, most of the other posts are replies that address his nonsense. There is little else left to talk about re bitcoin any more.

 

[Orphia Nay]

I think you are missing the point. Unbelievable amounts of energy are being used by computers globally to mine bitcoins. And what are these computers doing? Basically just useless calculations (essentially guessing numbers).

Suggesting that this pure energy burning is doing something useful is the perfect illustration of the broken window fallacy.


https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/07/09/why-bitcoin-uses-so-much-energy

That's a pretty old article.

Bitcoin and blockchain are being used by major and mega companies now.

Blockchain is all part of this discussion, as you should know.

https://eng.ambcrypto.com/geneva-blockchain-congress-2020-to-address-sustainability-in-business/

Geneva Blockchain Congress 2020 to address sustainability in business

The 2020 Geneva Blockchain Congress will focus on eight separate themes:

Public administration
Regulation and legal frameworks
Supply chains and logistics
Illicit trade and counterfeiting
Banking and finance
Deep-tech evolution
Health and well-being
Social and humanitarian applications.

Blockchain is changing lives and communities in "emerging countries". It allows villagers access to money when cash and inflation is unaccessible.

The qualities of bitcoin have been discussed at length for a long time and a lot of useful information can be found (along with a lot of useless information) in this forum. Don't forget that we are up to the third bitcoin thread now.

The problem is that in recent years, this thread has been dominated by Samson's "TA" predictions. Due to his lack of success, he has had to obfuscate his more recent posts so that nothing he posts can be falsified.

It is little wonder that as the dominant poster, most of the other posts are replies that address his nonsense. There is little else left to talk about re bitcoin any more.

What is TA in this context?

The fossil fuel use mining bitcoin is related to the energy supply of the building/supplier/city/country.

Blaming bitcoin for being unsustainable is disingenuous and/or assumes fault without evidence.

Perhaps you're from somewhere which still is entrenched in fossil fuels, and does not have a plan to offload/transition out of those stranded assets.

Nothing to talk about?

You can't be looking very hard for news.

 

[Dr.Sid]

TA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_analysis

 

[Mycroft]

It seems a bit odd that the skeptics' criticisms in here are not about any qualities about bitcoin per se, but about Sampson not being psychic enough for their liking.

It's a bit odd for you to interpret a criticism of Sampson as a criticism of Bitcoin instead. I'm trying to encourage him to either give more information or to admit he's just pulling our leg.

 

[psionl0]

What is TA in this context?

The fossil fuel use mining bitcoin is related to the energy supply of the building/supplier/city/country.

Blaming bitcoin for being unsustainable is disingenuous and/or assumes fault without evidence.

Perhaps you're from somewhere which still is entrenched in fossil fuels, and does not have a plan to offload/transition out of those stranded assets.

Nothing to talk about?

You can't be looking very hard for news.

You seem to misunderstand my position. I think that blockchain is a terrific concept. It has applications not only in decentralized currencies (which could be a boon in countries with unstable currencies or banking systems) but also other public record systems such as "smart" contracts or even voting systems.

The problem is that bitcoin's "proof of work" algorithm is not the way to do it. No matter how much computing power is thrown at it, bitcoin blocks can only be mined at a rate of 1 every 10 minutes. The more individuals that mine it, the more power each individual needs to do so. No matter how you slice it, that adds up to a huge amount of energy (renewable or otherwise) that can't be used for other purposes (hospitals etc).

Another limitation of bitcoin is that it doesn't scale. Only a limited number of transactions can be stored in each block and that limit is fixed. So bitcoin can't become a global currency. It's only remaining purpose is speculation. (Incidentally, TA stands for "Technical Analysis" - the belief that by analyzing past prices alone, one can predict future prices. It is essentially woo but that doesn't stop some people saying that they have "cracked" it).

Other blockchain based systems hold more promise. Ripple (which is being used by major banks) and Stellar are showing the way with a "consensus" (instead of competitive) approach to recording transactions that eliminates the huge power required for what is essentially just digital data.

 

[Samson]

Here is another opportunity for ostriches. The 4 hour chart has posted a sell signal, with a stop loss at 7700 (current price 7280)
I would expect it to get to at least 6860 to register a winning trade, I will remind when this happens.

 

[Dr.Sid]

Here is another opportunity for ostriches. The 4 hour chart has posted a sell signal, with a stop loss at 7700 (current price 7280)
I would expect it to get to at least 6860 to register a winning trade, I will remind when this happens.

Wait, I thought it was supposed to be 1000 soon ? I'm not buying above that.

 

[psionl0]

Wait, I thought it was supposed to be 1000 soon ? I'm not buying above that.

Samson recommended that you sell at 7280 and buy back at 6860. As usual, no time frame is given.