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AlexS
18th December 2020, 07:54 AM
Apparently you can buy houses with it

NSW property to go to auction in world first bitcoin auction (https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2019/03/19/australian-house-auction-bitcoin/)

Not from me, you can't.

rustynail
18th December 2020, 12:11 PM
I am fortunate to have a very old and very wise uncle with a wealth of expierience in finance, I asked him for his thoughts on Bitcoin. "Show me the money." was his reply.

woodPixel
18th December 2020, 12:46 PM
I'm reminded often, as a tiny and insignificant investor, why governments love their own currency.

Its annoying and parochial but there are a few vaguely interesting positives to currencies.

Here is one where, unless you have a paralysing brain tumour, reads "death to bitcoin".... Venezuela's Socialist Regime Is Mining Bitcoin In a Bunker to Generate Cash (https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7a3j3/venezuelas-socialist-regime-is-mining-bitcoin-in-a-bunker-to-generate-cash)

I can easily envisage a country/s saying "bitcoin is exclusively used for drugs, extortion payoffs, tax dodges, racketeering, child exploitation and black market activity".... "those that hold it are enabling these crimes, or involved in them"..... let that thought process percolate.

Can you count the milliseconds after it becomes criminal-illegal that the value is zero? (I'm ONLY holding crack-cocaine for its investment value!* Honest!)

Found with bitcoin? Expect to be have every agency investigate every second of your life looking for the crime..... "show me the man and I'll show you the crime" - Lavrentiy Beria


If digital currencies go anywhere, it will be the nation-states issuing them... complete with confiscation, management, taxation, termination and generation powers. A-la cash, but digital. Just like in SciFi**


* or interest value, or "investment" or coz I want to buy coffee from a trendy Barista ... or or or.... well... drugs...
** BTW, watch The Expanse (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3230854/). Soooooooo good!!!!

Apologies for my passion on the subject. I have been involved with it from Day 2.....

cava
26th December 2020, 08:50 PM
For those interested, currently at ~A$32600.

cava
1st January 2021, 08:30 AM
Apparently, Bitcoin is recognised as a legitimate alternate currency....

Currently at ~A$37,700



Australia, Bitcoin has been declared legal by the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) since December 2013.

woodPixel
1st January 2021, 01:38 PM
...

woodPixel
1st January 2021, 01:45 PM
There is also this chart to watch... Crypto Bitcoin / Dollar BTC/USD Chart Daily (https://finviz.com/crypto_charts.ashx?p=d1&t=BTCUSD)


Everyone here owns shares right? Perhaps a few dabble in cranking out a few profits. I personally LOVE companies that produce profits... good regular boring dividends.


Would I invest in this? Would you? Ask yourself, what are you chasing and what is the underlying "value". Research what Bitcoin IS (electricity and computational power) and what it is not (currency, store of value)....

I have a heatmap showing trading (I'll put it up). It is thin... so thin its almost the vacuum of outer space. Its pricing is based on a few rare small transactions. If this were a gold stock (which price this way, see any small Au Oz Gold play) and its screaming Danger Will Robinson. Be prepared to be skinned alive if you invest.

ian
3rd January 2021, 04:02 AM
There are exactly three reasons to use bitcoin: buying drugs, paying extortions and speculation.
I can think of a 4th reason -- making transactions that are not traceable by AUSTRAC. I believe that this is one of Bitcoin's major "virtues".

But given the track record of Australia's major banks, since when has reporting dodgy transactions to AUSTRAC been a necessity ??


There are almost certainly more reasons to use bitcoin



However, the underlying transaction tracking technology has considerable merit.





Want to buy some Tulips?
Where do I sign ??

woodPixel
3rd January 2021, 12:05 PM
Hi Ian, on the anonymity of Bitcoin, its a myth.

Not sure if people here are aware, but I've been an IT dude for a long time. I write some very gnarly software. One project was for tracking bitcoin transactions. It was open source and went private*... but its purpose was to tie people to transactions.

Bitcoin is not anonymous. It can be tracked. It can be ties to you. To maintain true anonymity for an individual is almost impossible...

I'd dare say there isn't a government in the world that isn't harvesting ledger and transactional data for ... future purposes.


I fully expect a digital currency to launch soon. Chinas given it a go, but its terrible.


On price... its insane. People could have bought at 10k for the last 7 months, or even 5k in April... but nope.... they buy at 32k! !!!!! Imagine Persian rugs or toilet paper priced like this. FOMO madness.

* I'm more than a bit upset about that. This is about the 5th time I've contributed heavily to something that went commercial and the vibe of the FOSS agreement screwed everyone (heres looking at you Red Hat you stinkers).

cava
3rd January 2021, 03:41 PM
Currently at ~A$42,400.

woodPixel
3rd January 2021, 03:54 PM
Might need that Bitcoin soon to cash out and buy FOOD.... look at the inflation priced into these basics....

6 months time, everything will triple in price....

q9
4th January 2021, 11:52 PM
Might need that Bitcoin soon to cash out and buy FOOD.... look at the inflation priced into these basics....

6 months time, everything will triple in price....

Charts sure can look scary when they don't start at zero.

cava
7th January 2021, 12:38 PM
Currently at circa A$47,500.

It must be related to the insecurity of the USA elections.....

cava
8th January 2021, 11:01 PM
It’s on a tear A$52,600.

D.W.
9th January 2021, 03:10 AM
I've got a small holding of bitcoin (like a half year's salary), but a friend of mine has put half of all of their assets in it (they're savers, so not a minimal amount) when it was around $10k.

As far as folks suggesting it's not real money, they're considering retiring now (they're in their early 40s).

That's way too risky for me, but I would assume it will continue to bobble up and down but have permanent significant value at some level due to government debt levels and likely currency devaluation that follows solving that.

(i constantly hear from my wife that if we'd have done the same thing, we'd be talking about retiring, too - which is true, but I'm not willing to take on the same risk ,either).

AlexS
9th January 2021, 05:33 PM
Tulips (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dutch_tulip_bulb_market_bubble.asp), anyone?

cava
17th February 2021, 01:55 PM
And so it continues, ~A$64,300.

woodPixel
17th February 2021, 04:38 PM
$120 !!!!

Stonks Silver only go up!!!!

489765

489766

Bitcoin is an environmental CATASTROPHE.... with more electrical use than Argentina (https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2021/bitcoin-uses-big-chunk-of-world-s-electricity.html)....

Thats a lot of electricity for a payment system that can only be used for child pron, embezzlement (https://fortune.com/2021/02/14/crypto-fraud-virgil-capital-convicted/), hiding assets, paying extortions, buying guns/drugs (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currency-crime-idUSKBN2AC14R) and hiring hitmen (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9241089/Wisconsin-woman-arrested-paying-dark-web-hitman-5k-bitcoin-kill-man.html).

Weigh up this one thought... what (https://news.bitcoin.com/us-resident-operated-illegal-bitcoin-exchange-business-faces-25-years-in-jail/) happens (https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2021/02/05/cbn-declares-bitcoin-other-cryptocurrencies-illegal/) when (https://www.livemint.com/market/cryptocurrency/crypto-trades-buzzing-despite-ban-fears-11613435114401.html) its (https://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-price-cryptocurrency-should-be-curtailed-terrorism-concerns-yellen-2021-1) illegal (https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/janet-yellen-suggests-curtailing-cryptocurrencies-such-as-bitcoin-saying-they-are-mainly-used-for-illegal-financing/ar-BB1cVd1R).

q9
17th February 2021, 06:59 PM
Bitcoin has a price, but does it have value?

My preferred theory is that it is manipulators driving the price. It is outside of a lot of regs and can be manipulated by those with the money to do so, for purposes that are unknown, but likely to turn out to be a classic pump'n'dump.

It's too speculative for me, and all the what ifs in the world wont change that. There's no story I can tell myself where it makes sense as an investment.

woodPixel
17th February 2021, 07:43 PM
q9, this is EXACTLY what has occurred.

With the recent 1.5B purchase by Tesla, it was known, widely, that this was done beforehand by a loose-lipped IT guy who worked there.

The SEC became involved and simply discounted it as it wasn't a regulated security, nor reportable to the market. They saw it no differently than Tesla just buying a train load of copper or ball bearings.

This of course pumped the market because "Elon" did it. Now a self-serving "Billionaire" (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/billionaire-investor-stanley-druckenmiller-says-he-owns-bitcoin-as-a-sort-of-a-plaything-and-millennials-look-at-it-the-way-he-views-gold/ar-BB1duZYw) is promoting the fact he bought these for his portfolio.

This is a 100% classic pump and dump.

Man, I saw this 1000 times over in the 90's. Up front, real time and close.

These bastards are going to wring the little guys dry. This is why PND is illegal. This is why regulation exists. Bitcoin isn't new.

Its a disaster waiting to happen.

cava
14th April 2021, 10:45 AM
Up to ~A$83,100 now.

Not sure where it will end, or for how long, but it appears to have legs!

kiwigeo
14th April 2021, 11:13 AM
Tulip mania - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania) :D



Up to ~A$83,100 now.

Not sure where it will end, or for how long, but it appears to have legs!

woodPixel
14th April 2021, 01:31 PM
Looks like I have a hat to eat! :roll:

cava
14th April 2021, 06:38 PM
Looks like I have a hat to eat! :roll:

Don't feel bad Evan, it’s an unknown quantity, and the only thing I am sure of is that the old established rules of the financial/economic sectors are crumbling.

Blockchain technology is here to stay, and along with that change is electronic currencies (cryptocurrency) which banks and governments are secretly rubbing their hands together for. The old system that we all grew up with is tottering on the edge. How we all navigate these changes is the real question. 🤔

Grumpy John
14th April 2021, 06:46 PM
Don't feel bad Evan, it’s an unknown quantity, and the only thing I am sure of is that the old established rules of the financial/economic sectors are crumbling.

Blockchain technology is here to stay, and along with that change is electronic currencies (cryptocurrency) which banks and governments are secretly rubbing their hands together for. The old system that we all grew up with is tottering on the edge. How we all navigate these changes is the real question. 🤔

I'm 69 years old and things are changing way too fast for me now. I could have another 15-20 years in me yet, and I'm not really looking forward to it. I'll leave it at that lest I start to rant.

woodPixel
18th April 2021, 10:09 PM
I thought this article written on slashdot (https://news.slashdot.org/story/21/04/17/230211/power-plants-become-bitcoin-mining-operations-are-there-alternatives), may be illuminating to those interested in the tech behind bitcoin (et al)....





The New York Focus site writes:A decade ago, the bankrupt owner of the Greenidge power plant in Dresden, New York, sold the uncompetitive coal-fired relic for scrap and surrendered its operating permits. For the next seven years, the plant sat idle on the western shore of Seneca Lake, a monument to the apparent dead end reached by the state's fossil fuel infrastructure. But today, Greenidge is back up and running as a Bitcoin mining operation (https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/04/13/new-york-bitcoin-mining-threat/). The facility hums with energy-hungry computers that confirm and record Bitcoin transactions, drawing power from the plant's 106-megawatt generator now fueled by natural gas (https://greenidgellc.com/).

The mining activity is exceptionally profitable, thanks to an 800 percent rise in Bitcoin's price since last April. Seeking to ride the boom, the plant's new owners plan to quadruple the power used to process Bitcoin transactions by late next year. Environmental advocates view Greenidge's ambitions, if left unchecked, as an air emissions nightmare. And they fear that dozens of other retired or retiring fossil-fueled power plants across New York could follow Greenidge's example (https://waterfrontonline.blog/2021/04/16/bitcoin-miners-scout-for-site-in-watkins-glen-canadian-bitcoin-miner-buys-power-plant-near-buffalo/), gaining new life by repurposing as Bitcoin miners or other types of energy-intense data centers.

The New York Times recently touted an alternative to bitcoin mining (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/climate/coinbase-cryptocurrency-energy.html): the "proof of stake" method, which "instead awards miners new blocks based on how much cryptocurrency they already own."The world's second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Ethereum, has said it is moving toward proof of stake (that switch is likely to take up to another year). Though some critics say Bitcoin will eventually need to follow, particularly if an environmental backlash grows, there are no current plans to do so and such a move is unpopular within the Bitcoin community.

"That reduces your emissions to almost nothing," said Joseph Pallant, Blockchain for Climate's founder and executive director. Cryptocurrency platforms like Tezos (https://tezos.com/) or Near Protocol (https://near.org/) already use proof of stake and have vastly lowered their energy use.

D.W.
19th April 2021, 11:50 PM
The difference between bitcoin and tulips or bitcoin and pigeon farming or whatever else is that bitcoin is an actual product, not an investment in a supposed other cash flow. Demand for the product is what's going to set its value. I have a whopping half a coin (call me a chicken).

I mentioned a friend of my wife's whose husband invested in it heavily a couple of years ago. I thought he was a bit nuts (and he already had significant capital for people our age, but not mercedes owning capital - rather kids in private school but still stuck in a job).

He quit his job last week - his wife has a moderately profitable scalable business, and they are first going to take 6 months off, travel the US in a camper and then buy a permanent location for his wife's business as it's outgrowing the model she has (which is basically physical therapy and wellness for high worth elderly who want more service than medicare provides, and they want something tailored - the wellness part is not wellness like quack medicine, just an extension of physical therapy).

My half bitcoin on the other hand has earned me enough so far to get a few pizzas in retirement. I'm still in a job that I hate and probably was only partially cut out for (which was fine when you only needed to be good at parts of your job to be valuable, but when the environment gets more competitive and only the ringers are left in it, I'm on the way out one way or another).

Kind of wish I'd have followed suit with the friends, but admit that I don't have the stomach to take the risks they do.

At any rate, bitcoin's real threat isn't pump and dump - nobody is making false statements about what it is. Its real competition in the long run is another similar medium that is far less energy intensive to run, or complete government blacklisting across the board. That wouldn't make it go away, but it would make a lot of us legal owners of the stuff leave and it would cause it to tank temporarily.

ARealBoy
20th April 2021, 09:30 AM
A couple of crypto stories.

I was in Bangkok and needed some new sunglasses. Went into an eyeglass shop and on the door it said "Bitcoin accepted here." I did a bit of a doubletake as I'd been following the crypto thing for a while but that was a first. This was in 2010 or so. When I came home I checked and BTC was worth around 10USD. I was amazed as the last time I'd checked they were worth cents. I had a bit of spare cash so bought some. REALLY glad I did as that trip to buy some raybans ended up with my 4 kids all owning mortgage free lovely homes in various capital cities.

Around the same time a mate of mine did some graphic design work for a US company. When he invoiced them they told him they were cash poor but gave him 1100 coins for his trouble. When BTC ran up to AUD2000 he cashed out a 1000 for 2 million AUD. When it went up to 20000 he sold the other 100 for another 2 million AUD. So 4 million AUD for a USD10000 job lol. If he'd hung onto them they'd be worth upwards of 70 million today.

It's a funny old world.

Mick.

LanceC
20th April 2021, 10:45 AM
The difference between bitcoin and tulips or bitcoin and pigeon farming or whatever else is that bitcoin is an actual product ...

I think the tulip analogy was fitting. You can't take your bitcoin and do something with it. Its only value lies in other people believing it has value, and being willing to exchange goods and services for it. Perhaps I don't hang out in the cool part of the neighbourhood, but have yet to come across any product or service provider who accepts bitcoin. As such, for me, it has zero value outside of a speculative investment. A speculative investment I might add in which I have no interest in participating.

I attended a briefing by the AICD's chief economist several years ago, and he made the point (as I recall it) that forensic accounting was the leading tool for countering international terrorism and domestic organised crime. Given the role national currencies play in maintaining law and order, there was a strong case that with the flick of a wrist, governments could pass legislation banning it at any point.

I note then that as of today:
- China instituted a range of policies in 2017 to discourage cryptocurrency use, resulting in Bitcoin traded with Chinese yuan dropping from over 90% of global Bitcoin trading to under 1%.
- India has legislation on the table to ban mining, trading, and even holding cryptocurrencies.

Let that sink in. For at least 36% of the world's population (China & India), cryptocurrencies are not a viable option. Considering that they account for 14% and 16% of global import and exports respectively and growing, I struggle to see non state-managed cryptocurrencies participating in much international trade in the near future, short of legislative back flips in those countries.

woodPixel
20th April 2021, 02:49 PM
Its such an interesting thread, for the ideas are now being discussed by a "non-traditional" audience.

In the IT world, I would classify it as a religious war. There are True Believers and (to the first group) Heretics.

Its very interesting, for when one boils any digital coin down, its is simply a mathematical calculation constrained by electricity (price) and computing availability (power/calcs-per-second). The prices of both of these are well known.

Therefore the price should be literally this: availability, cost-of-calc and electricity.

Th recent 15% drop in BC price is attributed to a sudden loss of power in Xinjiang. It is said this is where most of the "Ant Miners" are due to the very low cost of power and, ahem, availability of free labour ;)


So it is thus for gold, silver, palladium, copper, wheat and timber.... but Bitcoin iS dIFfErEnT..... somehow.

One other point of contention, that was obvious many years ago when I first started mining (did it for a short time when BC was effectively zero) is that one can fork the chain, or even create a new chain, at any time, and its exactly the same thing... the supply of "bitcoin" is infinite. People don't seem to realise this point. It is super important. The first fork was called Bitcoin, but anyone at any time for any reason can create bitcoin2, whateverCoin or ChinaCoin.... Bitcoin is not special, or valuable, or unique.


From Slashdot....



"The mania that drove crypto assets to records as Coinbase went public last week turned on itself on the weekend," report Bloomberg — as the price of bitcoin took a big dive:The world's biggest cryptocurrency plunged as much as 15% on Sunday (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/coinbase-hangover-rattles-crypto-assets-with-bitcoin-falling/ar-BB1fLJj4), just days after reaching a record of $64,869. It subsequently pared some of the losses and was trading at about $56,440 at around 8:25 a.m. in Tokyo Monday. Ether, the second-biggest token, dropped as much as 18% to below $2,000 before also paring losses. The volatility buffeted Binance Coin, XRP and Cardano too.

Dogecoin — the token started as a joke — bucked the trend and is up 7% over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

The weekend carnage came after a heady period for the industry that saw the value of all coins surge past $2.25 trillion amid a frenzy of demand for all things crypto in the runup to Coinbase's direct listing on Wednesday. The largest U.S. crypto exchange ended the week valued at $68 billion, more than the owner of the New York Stock Exchange... Dogecoin, which has limited use and no fundamentals, rallied last week to be worth about $50 billion (https://news.slashdot.org/story/21/04/16/2146229/dogecoin-has-risen-400-percent-in-the-last-week-because-why-not) at one point before stumbling Saturday. Demand was so brisk for the token that investors trying to trade it on Robinhood crashed the site a few times Friday, the online exchange said in a blog post (https://blog.robinhood.com/news/2021/4/16/a-new-generation-of-investors-crypto-and-robinhood).

There was also speculation Sunday in several online reports that the crypto plunge was related to concerns the U.S. Treasury may crack down on money laundering carried out through digital assets... Besides the "unsubstantiated" report of a U.S. Treasury crackdown, Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of crypto lender Nexo, said factors for the declines may have included "excess leverage, Coinbase insiders dumping equity after the direct listing and a mass outage in China's Xinjiang province hitting Bitcoin miners."


edit: Slashdot (https://slashdot.org/) is a hyper-nerd related news and discussion website. It is pretty vitriolic sometimes in the arguments, but ideas are well thrashed out. Well worth bookmarking and reading the topline articles see what worries the IT world for the day. It will give you a different perspective.

Glider
26th April 2021, 10:06 AM
I think blockchain currencies like Bitcoin were a pretty good idea designed to provide a secure currency for the world but not linked to any particular economic zone. However, its value was left to the open market rather than (somehow) fixing it to a basket of exchange rates. There's no federal reserve or any other mechanism able to intervene to moderate its value such as traditional currencies have to protect international trade, inflation, etc. So its become little more than an investment gamble in the digital medium.

It reminds me of those schemes where you would buy a seat on a virtual airplane with the the option of selling ten more seats to others at a handsome profit.

The question remains as to whether international banking will be convinced to use blockchain technology but with some mechanism for controlling its comparative value.

mick

Chris Parks
26th April 2021, 11:34 AM
And I leave this link here for your considered comment....has the world gone mad?

https://thenextweb.com/news/cryptocurrency-saves-a-110-year-old-power-plant-from-demolition

D.W.
26th April 2021, 12:11 PM
I think the tulip analogy was fitting. You can't take your bitcoin and do something with it. Its only value lies in other people believing it has value, and being willing to exchange goods and services for it. Perhaps I don't hang out in the cool part of the neighbourhood, but have yet to come across any product or service provider who accepts bitcoin. As such, for me, it has zero value outside of a speculative investment. A speculative investment I might add in which I have no interest in participating.

I attended a briefing by the AICD's chief economist several years ago, and he made the point (as I recall it) that forensic accounting was the leading tool for countering international terrorism and domestic organised crime. Given the role national currencies play in maintaining law and order, there was a strong case that with the flick of a wrist, governments could pass legislation banning it at any point.

I note then that as of today:
- China instituted a range of policies in 2017 to discourage cryptocurrency use, resulting in Bitcoin traded with Chinese yuan dropping from over 90% of global Bitcoin trading to under 1%.
- India has legislation on the table to ban mining, trading, and even holding cryptocurrencies.

Let that sink in. For at least 36% of the world's population (China & India), cryptocurrencies are not a viable option. Considering that they account for 14% and 16% of global import and exports respectively and growing, I struggle to see non state-managed cryptocurrencies participating in much international trade in the near future, short of legislative back flips in those countries.

you're missing the point with the tulips and the pigeon farmers and all of that stuff - in that case, the investors were sold the idea that the tulips or pigeon farmers, etc, would be worth a whole bunch, but the demand for the product wasn't there.

There's nothing to misunderstand about bitcoin and the objective with something that costs $50K us isn't to get a coin out of your pocket and buy a beer, it's to hold currency or make large payments or transfer it in and out of local or foreign currency - and it does that well. The point of it is that your share of it is permanently marked and that no central service can be shut down eliminating the record of your bitcoin slice while you're holding it. Whether that's worth $10k or $60k to someone, I don't know.

I don't think there's a threat of it going away because people "figure out it's not worth anything", I think it's at a threat of losing value in the future because people figure out how to make a better and more efficient version of the same.

But to suggest that you can't buy anything with it ignores how easy it is to turn into liquid assets wherever you are. It's dead simple.

As far as the Chinese not liking it, do you feel like it matters that the Chinese don't allow anyone in country to see uncensored american internet (or the version most of the rest of the world sees if you'd like to call it that?) - I don't think it matters. If a small % of the world finds it valuable on an ongoing basis, it will remain valuable. I'd also bet that people in china and india who really want to use bitcoin will just VPN and own other currency and use it to get and redeem bitcoin - that's the virtue of nobody being able to stop it. you may not be able to redeem it for yuan, but that doesn't mean you can't invest and redeem in it - just don't use yuan.