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Merged Bitcoin - Part 3

psionl0 said:
Can you prove that a ban on bitcoin would be more successful than a ban on drugs?
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No, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be considering it given how bad for the environment it is.

I find it informative that you keep trying to claim that cryptocurrency is similar to poisonous addictive substances that bad for our health and socially destructive.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
All I know is I've been retired since turning 49 a few years back, almost four years to the day after I began day trading crypto. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were the vehicle that made it possible. My investments went from $300 each to over $60K each at one point. Stock doesn't do that.
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The question is where did that $59,700 come from? The answer is it comes from other people buying in. You could only take that $59,700 out because somebody else put it in. These other people will only make money if even more people put money in.

This is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
 
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That is the interesting thing about prices.

It only takes enough people to buy enough of the product in the market for every one to agree that N amount of a product that was once worth X is now worth X+Y.

However, NxY value wasn't put into that price rise.
 
psionl0 said:
Can you prove that a ban on bitcoin would be more successful than a ban on drugs?
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Internet poker. That's the comp. A huge largely unregulated industry that was effectively decimated worldwide and destroyed in the US by Congress. Not by being directly banned, but by aggressive enforcement of laws banning financial institutions involving same.

I mean, at one point internet poker was so huge that I could buy a significant number of goods and services with a pokerstars balance transfer, so in a way it goes deeper than just the surface comparisons.

So yeah, a similar ban and aggressive KYC enforcement would be if anything more effective because trading in bitcoin isn't exactly recreational much less potentially an obsessive addictive process...
 
jeremyp said:
The question is where did that $59,700 come from? The answer is it comes from other people buying in. You could only take that $59,700 out because somebody else put it in. These other people will only make money if even more people put money in.

This is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
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Not exactly. Ponzi scheme is different in many aspects. This is simply trade. You get the money by selling something to people who want it, for price which is common at the time.
It's not all that different from commodities. Sure, they have intrinsic value. But only to some extent.
For example gold. It's certainly used as a material in electronics and elsewhere .. but its price is dictated by its scarcity. Gold is also hard to fake, anyone around the world can test if it's genuine, which gives it appeal as a commodity, for storing value or mean of exchange.
If someone came up with cheap way how to make gold though, the price would collapse.
Bitcoin just goes step further, by removing any need for real life use. It still needs the other aspects of commodity though .. it has to be scarce, difficult to fake, easy to test, with global reach.
 
jeremyp said:
No, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be considering it given how bad for the environment it is.
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Won't somebody please think of the lawyers! :rolleyes:

jeremyp said:
I find it informative that you keep trying to claim that cryptocurrency is similar to poisonous addictive substances that bad for our health and socially destructive.
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Only a soft headed idiot would think that the war on drugs does anything good.

jeremyp said:
This is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
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The entire financial derivatives market is more of a ponzi scheme than bitcoin will ever be.
 
jeremyp said:
The question is where did that $59,700 come from? The answer is it comes from other people buying in. You could only take that $59,700 out because somebody else put it in. These other people will only make money if even more people put money in.

This is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
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Just like Gold
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
I suppose I could also send $100 in chickens, but I'd still prefer the USDC transaction.
carlitos said:
Now do UST, TITAN, OUSD, Basis Cash, Digital Dollar, SafeCoin or USDN … or wait 3 months and do USDT.
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The coins I listed are all “stable” coins that lost their dollar peg and crashed, because in reality they weren’t worth $1. USDFlex is in a death spiral today. Tether is the next big one that will fail. USDC is allegedly the most stable of stablecoins, so rather like the tallest midget.
 
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Suddenly said:
Internet poker. That's the comp. A huge largely unregulated industry that was effectively decimated worldwide and destroyed in the US by Congress. Not by being directly banned, but by aggressive enforcement of laws banning financial institutions involving same.

I mean, at one point internet poker was so huge that I could buy a significant number of goods and services with a pokerstars balance transfer, so in a way it goes deeper than just the surface comparisons.

So yeah, a similar ban and aggressive KYC enforcement would be if anything more effective because trading in bitcoin isn't exactly recreational much less potentially an obsessive addictive process...
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Cryptos pull many of the same offshore shenanigans as poker sites did. Key example would be Tether moving from bank to bank to bank before settling at Deltec in the Bahamas. Enforcement and KYC would devastate the industry. It’s not a coincidence that many of the crypto lawyers, Caribbean banks and even financial officers came from online poker.
 
carlitos said:
The coins I listed are all “stable” coins that lost their dollar peg and crashed, because in reality they weren’t worth $1. USDFlex is in a death spiral today. Tether is the next big one that will fail. USDC is allegedly the most stable of stablecoins, so rather like the tallest midget.
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All of the cryptos are in decline ATM. It appears that whatever mechanism is used for "stable" coins doesn't work if the crypto market falls too fast.
 
Dr.Sid said:
Not exactly. Ponzi scheme is different in many aspects.
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What aspects?

This is simply trade. You get the money by selling something to people who want it, for price which is common at the time.
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So is a Ponzi scheme. Bernie Madoff got money by selling something to people who wanted to be in his "fund". When people wanted to withdraw money from the fund, he paid them off by using money from people buying into the fund. That's exactly how Bitcoin works. OK, the trades are a bit more direct but that's it.

It's not all that different from commodities. Sure, they have intrinsic value. But only to some extent.
For example gold. It's certainly used as a material in electronics and elsewhere .. but its price is dictated by its scarcity. Gold is also hard to fake, anyone around the world can test if it's genuine, which gives it appeal as a commodity, for storing value or mean of exchange.
Click to expand...

The purpose of a commodity is not to store value or be a means of exchange. If you can use it for that purpose, that is coincidental.

If someone came up with cheap way how to make gold though, the price would collapse.
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So what?

Bitcoin just goes step further, by removing any need for real life use. It still needs the other aspects of commodity though .. it has to be scarce, difficult to fake, easy to test, with global reach.
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So it's not a commodity. It's not a commodity. It's not a currency. What is it? Why the **** do we need it?
 
psionl0 said:
Won't somebody please think of the lawyers! :rolleyes:
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Maybe nobody's told you, but there is currently a lot of concern about how much carbon dioxide humans are putting into the atmosphere. The fact that Bitcoin is using as much electricity as the Netherlands is therefore of prime importance.


Only a soft headed idiot would think that the war on drugs does anything good.
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You are the one saying cryptocurrency is like drugs, not me.

The entire financial derivatives market is more of a ponzi scheme than bitcoin will ever be.
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What about, what about, what about, what about......
 
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